My point is people like to bitch about the big brands throwing their weight around in the serps but I honestly don’t think these big clunky organisations have any idea what’s going on with their rankings, much less how to manipulate them.

Google forgives them for their sins as they see it’s rather ignorance than malice. That and they see brands as a way to keep the SERPs cleen.

"the answer won’t come by keeping brands from the space; instead, the web needs them to help clean up the net."
Eric Schmidt, Google, CEO.

Let’s face it, we all expect to see the big brands in the SERPs and Google knows that’s what people are looking for. That’s why they forgive them for having archaic monoliths of sites, creaking their way forward from 1995 on custom built appalling CMS systems of SEO death. I’ve seen URLs longer than the address bar, so many pages with no readable content, massive internal duplicate content (67 repeated domains is the record so far!) and many other pieces of ridiculousness. When multiple teams of people work on one site all driving it in slightly different directions this is what happens.

I’m with you on the “good debate” aspects. My reference points weren’t head to head in their details – it was “we feel we have a legitimate complaint about unfair business practices” comparison. So maybe it was apples to oranges.

Doug,

Here’s one I’ll go with – Google takes money for adwords for “free page counter” sites that give away tens, hundreds of those little suckers that sit on the bottom of trashy little web sites all over the world and where there’s a link wrapper around the counter that points to law sites, insurance sites, etc.

Two years ago I validated that these DO get the most successful free page counter “sponsors” higher in Google and Yahoo. Bitched to Google. Griped. Complained. Used the Webmaster “report spam” system. Several times. Never got nothin in reponse. Sites never degraded. AdWords campaigns flourish to this day.

Personally I throw that right in there with Google allowing sites that don’t have SEO as being allowed to get away with what we are slapped for.

As far as I am concerned, if a site is doing something we should be slapped for, the person / people doing it KNOW it works and thus that is using SEO as well. Highly crafty marketers sure as heck know what they’re doing these days. That’s where Google’s using the “intent” card is a crock of dung.

I don’t get all hung up in page sculpting on the few sites of that scale because I’ve always felt it was such a minor value gain in comparison to doing more of the other “traditional” best practices things.

I’ve never lured people to give me or any clients links through “questionable” tactics. Yet any savvy marketing maven today knows full well that a well crafted marketing initiative should involve building buzz. And they know that buzz includes links. Intent is a sham excuse. You think Google targets BBDO, Porter Novelli, Hill & Knowlton? They sure don’t. Because those are “marketing” companies. Even though they have in-house SEO teams.

My point being is that search engines have fought SEO’s it seems like forever now. The very idea that search engines worth a damn might not do some profiling would be shocking to me. They have done so since day one or day two.

This same type of whining doesn’t stop. It’s the same stuff over and over again; just disguised in different clothes. Sometimes new outfits. Sometimes just a belt change, or a new style of shoes, but looking closer; it’s the same damn arguments. It always is.

Some of us are just getting tired of it all. Matt Cutts says anything at all and immediately SEO blogs around the world put their spin on what he said. Most times it’s WRONG. Most times what they write is NOT what he said at all. Not even close. Like the pagerank sculpting thang. I’ve read some far out stuff out there that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s ridiculous to read. It’s mind boggling to know we have some real gems in this industry who just will never get it. Never. This sculpting business was NEVER going to work from day one anyway. How many sites did I try it on? NONE. Why? Because I knew what Google was saying about it since day one. That’s why.

Yeah Matt; you go. I’m with ya. Stop crying you silly industry. LOL

BTW: If you want something to rant about I’ll give you one. It’s one I’ve hated for a long time. How about the fact Google Adwords still insists on selling advertising to known people who try to trick them? Now that’s something to whine about and something I’d get behind. I’m sick of people in this industry who preach about being clean and whitehat, but turn around and sell ad space to blackhats. It’s pathetic. You all know exactly who I’m talking about. If the shoe fits, etc.