I may be a minority squeak in the thunderous outcry from the search engine marketing industry towards Google and their sudden, unexplained mass drop in “PR score” applied to web sites. I never bought into the hype over PR scores. Regardless of all the reasons to jump on the scoring bandwagon as a way to determine web site value, I refused on the grounds that I wanted genuine worth, not forced.

There’s many easy ways to take advantage of Google’s methods for deciding which web sites are the most valuable. When they created algorithms based on link popularity, they devised the means to manipulate and play upon our “human-ness”, such as self esteem and personal attachment.

Nobody likes metric values placed on something that may be an extension of who they are.

Business owners will do whatever it takes to get their web properties on top of search engine results. Search engines know there’s nothing worse than that feeling of being “ugly”, “unworthy”, “unimportant”, and “not worth linking to”. Several rank solutions are offered such as paying for inclusion. This is advertising and it’s not free. An inexpensive alternative, especially for startup sites, is networking via links. When done with integrity and logic by skilled experts such as Debra Mastler and Eric Ward, reciprocal linking produces positive results.

When the linking process became automated and later evolved into paying for links based on a site’s “PR score”, Google apparently woke up. Why did it take them so long? Why is Google suddenly waging war on web site owners who “wheeled and dealed” to promote their web sites? It’s not as though paying for search engine exposure is something new. Search engines have been taking money from corporate sites for high SERP placement, behind the scenes, since search engines were first invented.

Small and medium web sites have been forced to resort to all sorts of tactics, creating the search engine marketing industry as a result. It’s hard to believe any search engine would punish SEO’s, when it’s they who bring in tons of revenue by connecting their clients to Internet search.

Not every web site owner chooses the search marketing “fast track” to rank. Some remain organic because it suits them. I’m one of them, which is why I never did link exchanges or cared about PR scores. It takes longer to be noticed when you take your time and “do good”, one on one, day by day, heart to heart, soul to soul.

Much, much longer…and I’m not saying it’s the right choice for a business. If I was just starting out now, as opposed to 1996 when I came online, I’d be making different marketing choices.

Wanting to Hold On to the Genuine

I feel that my web sites and business services are an extension of myself. I can’t be something I’m not. I’m unable to use other web sites to make me look better by paying to be on them.

Search engines have a unique way of judging and analyzing web sites. I don’t happen to believe they do this well or accurately.

Take Cre8asiteforums, for example. It was slapped by Google too. For some reason, our PR score went down. We’ve never purchased links, paid for ad space or paid for inclusion. We host ads from two places - Google and Text Link Ads. We don”t earn much money from Google or TLA, but what revenue we have earned, we turned around and gave it away to educational facilities to help fund internships or those who needed financial aid to study with.

How can an algorithm understand intent?

How can any search engine gauge and measure truth, honesty, and those moments when people interact, site to site, link to link, with good intent? Can search engines monitor comments and place value on sites this way? I wouldn’t want this. Everyone knows it’s far easier to complain on the web. Site owners know web site feedback is largely negative, rather than “Hey, great work!”. Should algorithms put more weight on user generated content in determining site or page value? How would we control that?

I’ve come to think I have this idealist view on Internet technology and “bots” that decide the worth of web site properties. I stubbornly believe they can put me into this tiny box and give me any label they wish, but, search marketing or no search marketing, I’m not going to let them change who I am.

If I’m a “PR 0″, I’m not any less of a human being worth getting to know, link to or do business with.

Sure, I’m not an “A-List blogger”. I’m not one of those top usability companies. I’m not a famous conference speaker. I have a terrible habit of volunteering my time, rather than being paid for it. My sites rank well because of years of being out there, being who I am, and not pretending to be something else. I can be shy at first. Definitely klutzy. I’m terrible at remembering names. But when I do my work?

I’m worth every penny.

A tool bar will never know this about me.

The highlight of my experience at this year’s Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose was a personally guided tour of the Googleplex. This, and the Google Dance, helped me break past earlier assumptions to see what all the fuss is about.

Avinash Kaushik led myself, Li Evans and Bill Slawski on a tour Wednesday afternoon. While there, we were permitted to eat lunch with Google employees and ask Avinash lots of questions. He’s an extraordinary host and open minded, with a sense of humor, frankness and warmth that put me instantly at ease. We weren’t allowed to take pictures but we were welcomed everywhere we went.

Food

There are over a dozen cafeterias. A few are focused on a food type by country or preference, such as vegetarian. Ingredients used in food preparation are of the highest possible quality and must meet strict health standards. Therefore, you’ll find organic, low calorie, whole foods and other food in their most natural, original state (such as sprouts), no trans fat, and sugar-free choices throughout the entire campus.

In addition to cafeterias, there are sections of food closer to working areas stuffed with fruit, water, juices, and healthy snacks and even some fun stuff of every conceivable kind. I felt like I was with Willie Wonka in the candy factory. Avinash turned us on to the best toffee candy I’ve ever had in my life.

All food is free. There are no cash registers. When we went to lunch in one of the cafeterias, I went down the vegetarian line with Avinash. There were salads and creations I’d never seen before, with mixtures of ingredients I never imagined you could put together. Every bite was heaven. Bill found some cookies he loved and shared with me. Avinash found more. Every liquid, from water to coffee, is of the best quality.

As we sat there, surrounded by employees, I never once felt out of place or like a visitor. They never stared at us, or gave me the impression we weren’t welcome. I’ve never worked anywhere that welcomed visitors with open hearts like this.

Li had spotted ice cream with the name “Google” on it. Avinash told us that Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had come across ice cream sandwiches that they really liked and wished to offer them to Google employees. However, when they looked at the ingredients, they went back to the ice cream maker and asked if they would make a version with no trans fat for Google employees. The ice cream maker agreed and packages them up with “Google” on the label so they know where to ship them.

Work

Everyone knows that getting into Google can be harsh. The interview process is long and intense. Essentially, only college educated, top of class people are sought after. I was interested in Avinash’s thoughts on this. We discussed how many talented people exist who are self taught or whose passion and expertise came later in life, long after their formal education years. Someone like me would never be hired by Google because I don’t have a degree. And yet I’ve accomplished so much without one.

Managing employees is vastly different than how companies are traditionally run. With Google, you’re there because they recognize something in you that they know will grow, take root and likely blossom into something that will enhance the greater product. To do this means not managing or even scheduling you.

If your creativity comes out late at night, Google is open. Bring your laundry and do it while you’re there. Bring your pet. Run out to play volleyball to clear your head. Ride any of the bikes that are free for transportation between buildings or just to get your heart rate going. There’s no clock. Nobody is controlling your time. Grab a massage chair and chill.

Every tech company I ever worked for had an IT help department that forgot the meaning of the word “help”. Not Google. If you need a part, plug, cable, or piece of equipment you simply go to the area in the building where they keep the stuff and get what you need, instantly.

There are no “cube farms”, but rather dorm-like areas where several people work together in a shared space. They can make this space their own, in any way they wish to. We saw a lot of creativity and humor everywhere we walked.

Google is so big on education that speakers are brought in on a frequent basis. Topics are all over the place, including religion and politics. There’s a wall with pictures of famous actors and actresses, politicians, sports people and others who have visited. I asked why their interest and Avinash said that people hear so much about Google life that they ask to see it for themselves.

Usability

It’s there. The funniest part of the tour, for me, was when I joked that I wanted to breathe the same air as the usability folks at Google. And so Avinash let me do that. Before he covered my eyes so I wouldn’t see anything long enough to remember it, I had a brief moment to learn enough to be satisfied that Google cares as deeply as I do about the human experience. It’s something I’ll keep in mind now, whenever I get angry at Google for something I think is unfair, invasive or too close for comfort.

Walk The Talk

In addition to caring what goes into the bodies of Google employees, Google also strives to exist on this planet in peace, in a non-invasive way. Solar panels are going up everywhere with the intent on generating 30% of their own power. Shuttles transport employees home and elsewhere so they can save on cars and gas. Hybrid and electric cars are encouraged, with the parking lots being converted so that employees can plug in their electric car. Bikes are used to travel between buildings. This year they’ve started an herb and veggie garden. In the early morning the chef’s can be seen picking what they need for the day.

Loyalty

Turnover is low at Google. News leaks are nearly unheard of because of the extremely close-knit camaraderie that exits. Yes, nearly everyone I saw was younger than me but I doubt age is a physical thing there. The spirit of the place was youthful, robust, friendly and joyful. I can’t recall ever working anywhere where employees were happy.

It can’t last forever. There’s a sense of utopia at Google. It’s hard to imagine ever leaving an employer like Google. We don’t get to hear the bad stuff on a tour of course, but after seeing heated toilets and someone swimming laps in one of the lap pools, I didn’t want to. The fairy tale felt so good to believe in.

I realized that at Google, if you want to create something big, beautiful, perfect and long lasting, you must begin at the source of the creative energies. This energy must be fortified, nurtured and supported at every turn. It must be acknowledged and valued. It must know it is honored and will be rewarded with even more comforts.

Google does this by starting with the humans who build its gigantic search brain. By taking care of their people, the Google product is defended, protected, grown and nourished.

It’s an exercise in spoiling your employees that will be fun to watch unfold.

Part of me would like to get hysterical over the news that a new search engine wants to index the names of every single person on the planet. The idea that anyone can locate and learn about me at the push of a button freaks me out.

Wait a minute. If you’re reading this, you just did.

What is the reasoning for making every person on the planet with a name available for search on the Internet? Who cares?

With 7 million dollars in startup cash, it would appear there are a lot of people with money to blow on something this illogical. Search engine revs up to look for billions of names describes how Spock.com wants to “track down the names of the world’s six billion people”.

If you visit their site, which is still in BETA, it asks if you’re over 13. What the heck for? The article says,

The founders of Spock.com, which has been under development since 2006 in Redwood City, California, hope the website will eventually provide a search result for everyone in the world.

So. If your children are in the search engine, only those over 13 can find them?

That can’t be right.

It doesn’t say anything about minors, or laws in all the countries, or parental rights over information. It says, “everyone in the world”. Is that your baby they want? What about people who are employed as secret agents? In Witness Protection programs? In jail? Are monks? Who are terrorists? What happens when someone dies?

This can’t be right.

It says “everyone in the world.”

Of course, the information can be removed on your request. I laughed out loud when the article said the search engine could filter out information that would possibly injure the web site’s credibility.

The web site’s credibility.

The article continues …

To index individuals, Spock.com scours through social networking websites such as MySpace, Friendster and Bebo.

But it also allows web surfers to add information about individuals to help Spock.com compile full profiles.

Has someone lost their mind? Sure, for those who WANT to be found, in a community they CHOSE to belong to, they put up their own web site they could control. When did this automatically mean they wanted to be added to search engines?

This is what drives me bananas. Somewhere along the line we seem to have made an unspoken agreement that we want our privacy or basic right of choices for ourselves thrown out the window and it’s perfectly fine for any Internet web site to do whatever they want because they found us.

Bits and pieces of us are leaking all over the Internet. Identities are stolen, and the problem is getting worse. Enormous numbers of people post naked pictures of themselves. I mean, have you LOOKED lately at what’s out there? (Oh stop!) And it’s not just adult oriented sites. Try Flicker and YouTube.

Hey, I’d even do it if my relatives were all blind, I had no friends who would laugh at me, I never planned to run for office and decided to never have any kids. Oh yeah, for those who want to work for the Government or teach in schools, a criminal background check and quick search for you on the Internet will certainly kill your chances if you strut your stuff in all your glory (yes, I know you’re absolutely gorgeous) or, your profile has never been tampered with and you’re perfect.

The thing is, you gave permission (we hope) to show it off.

Did you know there are no laws in the US that say third party sites can’t use the information you put up about yourself? So, have at it.

Spock.com claims to have tons of money for this venture and all I can think of are the millions of people who they plan on indexing who are starving, homeless, jobless, living in refugee camps, abused…there’s so much more to those names and why, oh why, does this not matter?

Like I said, so much of me wants to get wound up and tight fisted-like furious at the people who somehow think it’s okay to put the names of every human being in a search engine. Not only will it index names, but you can add pictures and create profiles.

As if nobody else thought of doing that yet on the Internet. This isn’t even an original idea. There are already names search engines on the Internet. This one, however, claims to look under every rock to find “everyone in the world”.

Where is the sense of all this?

I own several web sites, a forums and a blog. I’ve been online since 1995, blabbing away. My high school classmates have no idea. My best friend emails me all the time, asking how I am, and I keep telling her that if she misses me or worries, I’M ON THE INTERNET. My neighbors could care less who I am or what I do online. My parents, who are both very good with computers, are too busy to care what I’m doing online. They also believe in not interfering.

In other words, I’ve been here for awhile and really, nobody gives a damn.

I wish the money tossed to these search engines was going to FEED, PROTECT and CARE for people, not search for their names.

This morning, Rebecca Lieb announced the newly redesigned Clickz site. This rollout honors ten years of loyal service to the web design community. The look is clean and organized better. Avoid mousing around the header, however, unless you want to view a show or be pounced on with unannounced PDF files.

I found the new site while following a feed that led to a scraped version of Mike Grehan’s latest Clickz article. Since the splog didn’t bother to link back and simply lifted the entire article with no class or gratitude, I went to the Clickz site itself, knowing this is where Mike’s articles are usually found.

This was the typical roller coaster, ride-the-wave-of-nonsense-links way to finding something I wanted to read. Who has time for that?

Mike’s fascination with Universal Search continues in a new article today called The New Rules of Marketing and PR (and SEO). He’s been analyzing the long and short term effects of search results that no longer simply present pages listing title tag and meta descriptions. Today, your optimized content is directly in competition with images and video, as well as advertisements and paid positioning.

It’s not hard to imagine the Sci-Fi version of search, where SERPS present holograms that pop out and, in MsDewey fashion, ask you to define your search better, spell keywords properly and offer to take you for a tour of the latest gizmos and gadgets, based on data collected from your search history. (If you can design your own hologram, all the better!)

Why Mike gets himself into trouble for warning people to wake up and smell the coffee makes little sense. He first introduced me to local search about four years ago, while today, most people are just now figuring out the importance of local marketing.

Why would Universal Search matter?

Grehan’s perspective is strongly concerned with your marketing and search optimization practices, and how they may be forced to change or adapt to new search models. My interest falls into the user side and how we react to changes in how search engines deliver content to us. Obviously, we’re not satisfied with the present state of search, and search engines like Google are responding. We want instant gratification. We want accuracy. We also want privacy and security.

Marketing folks want our money.

In my mind, a really good SEO/M understands how to target and satisfy both and to do that means taking your hands off your ears. Even if some of the new information seems to rock your boat, there’s usually something in there that hints at truth or a piece of the puzzle you can use.

I recently read a story on relationships that came to mind today as a possible way to understand why search engines are desperately spending Millions and Billions in Acquisitions.

The story was about a man who met a woman on a plane and they got to talking about relationships. He asked if she was in a relationship and she said no, that she hadn’t found the “right man” yet. He asked what she was looking for and she replied she wanted someone “smart, good looking, funny and who has a lot of money”. She went on to list about 23 qualities in all. She complained that she could never find one person with all of them.

The man then asked whom, among the men she knew now, was “smart”. She thought for a moment and replied, “My boss.” Then he asked her who in her life was “funny”. She had a co-worker who was funny. When asked who had a “lot of money”, that she might know now, she again replied, “My boss.” As for the good looking requirement, it turns out her ex-boyfriend was hot, but stupid. She admitted she paraded him around but advised him to never say anything.

The man on the plane explained that somewhere along the way she had become afraid of being with just one man. She sub-consciously defended her fear of commitment by surrounding herself with many men who met her idea of the perfect mate. Even though she was getting what she wanted, it wasn’t good enough because of how it was packaged, so she kept on searching for the perfect combination and pushing it away at the same time.

If you’ve been keeping up with Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!, you know each mammoth company is trying to find the perfect relationship that will sustain it for the future. Instead of creating each one’s heart’s desire in-house, they’re spending billions of dollars buying up “smart”, “good looking”, “makes lots of money” and “funny”.

We no longer recognize them anymore. We may even get fed up with trying to keep up with their latest dramatic acquisition, firing, hire, or merger.

One thing may be the most telling of all.

Their fear of commitment may one day mark their demise because someone else may come along who is the perfect choice for search.