Google accused of paying bloggers to promote Chrome

SEARCH giant Google has been accused of breaching its own guidelines on how to promote products by paying bloggers to endorse and link to its web browser Google Chrome. As a result, it could even be forced to ban its own product.
 
The allegations of hypocrisy came to light earlier this week on a blog called SEO Book, which covers the murky arts of 'search engine optimisation', the process of ensuring that websites and products appear high up in search listings.
 
Blogger Aaron Wall noted that there were more than 400 web pages that claimed "this post is sponsored by Google" and which appeared to be part of a marketing campaign.
 
He said that not only did they breach Google's own rules about buying links, something that other brands have been punished for, he claimed they also "spread misinformation".
 
Google responded by blaming various ad agencies that worked for it. It told another SEO website, Search Engine Land: "Google never agreed to anything more than online ads... We're now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again."
 
However, the campaign apparently violated Google's rules on links from "thin", often computer generated, content and those against buying links. The more links a product has from other websites the higher it appears in search results.
 
Although companies such as JC Penney have been penalised for their marketing strategies it's unlikely that the search engine will punish itself, although Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land mischievously notes: "Potentially, all this means that Google will have to ban the Google Chrome download page." ·