I think this is all nonsense. Google's work should be to separate good content from bad content. Now, they are inverting the relationship and saying that web masters should be responsible to handle that information to them.
This is wrong in several levels. First, Google starts to dictate what is acceptable or not in their index, using tools like webmaster central and all the "semantic web" talk -- Why should I care?
Second, it creates the incentives and the opportunity for bad guys to do well. If you need to do all this overhaul of a web site, the only people willing to do the work will be the very same ones that created content farms in the first place. After all, they are the ones that make big buckets from Google, not the after hours hobbyist that maintains a single web site.
Google is in a tough position. If they keep their algorithms secret, they are accused of not being transparent. If they reveal their algorithms, they get gamed by spammers. If they reveal only vague hints and guidelines, they are accused of manipulating content. And if they don't use ever more elaborate algorithms, they get overrun with spam.
By becoming defacto ruler of the internet, Google has put themselves in a position of outrageous power and responsibility. They are fighting a vicious war with spammers and content farms and the rest of the web is caught in the crossfire.
Personally, I agree with you that Google should not be telling people how to run their sites. They should never have said a word about how their algorithm works, or even what it's named, when it's updated, etc. They should tell people "just make great web sites, searching them is our problem".
I agree with that. But Google is weakening its position by creating these extra semantic levels that only benefit people that are making a lot of money in this game.
You probably didn't read what came before this sentence... The point is exactly that, with a good web search engine, content writers shouldn't have to do anything other than writing content in order to appear on the search results. Google is the one that should be actively looking for content and ranking it accordingly, instead of myself doing any work other than writing.
>You probably didn't read what came before this sentence
I did. I guess what I'm saying is: why does it matter to you if google's search algorithms aren't perfect and could operate better with a bit of metadata from the site? After all, you're free to opt out from playing along. If, like you suspect, it means that their algorithm is optimized for web spam, they'll sort it out eventually.
It just sound like your bitching that the cost of doing buisness has gone up in the meantime, and if only google could be perfect you wouldn't have to worry about it. But this is what you get for relying on the behavior of someone that owes you nothing.
This is wrong in several levels. First, Google starts to dictate what is acceptable or not in their index, using tools like webmaster central and all the "semantic web" talk -- Why should I care?
Second, it creates the incentives and the opportunity for bad guys to do well. If you need to do all this overhaul of a web site, the only people willing to do the work will be the very same ones that created content farms in the first place. After all, they are the ones that make big buckets from Google, not the after hours hobbyist that maintains a single web site.