Matt Cutts recently announced on his blog that Google would like people to report sites that buy and sell links.  He’s getting a lot of negative comments on his blog and I agree with most of them, this is a bad idea.  A few people do, however, think that it’s a good idea, saying that it will make the search results more authentic.  From what I’ve seen as a lowly search newb/local donkey/faithful man-servant, it seems to me that Google, ideally, would like for the rankings to represent the sites with the highest quality and most relevant content. 

SEO seems to be a business of gaming the system.  Yeah, everyone knows content is king, but I knew that before I came anywhere close to this industry.  SEO is about taking the next step to ensure your site gets the traffic it deserves/needs to survive.  We’re doing something that the rest of the world doesn’t have the time, energy, or money to do.  That doesn’t seem very fair to me, but who cares, the money’s good (kind of) and I enjoy it.  SEO goes entirely against the utopian world wide web Google strives to create.  So, tell me Mr. Cutts, why are there conferences left and right for SEOs to attend, including one in San Jose at Google headquarters?

Buying and selling links is exactly like magazines or TV shows selling ad space and time.  Say I have a high quality website, and people like to visit it.  Why does selling some space on my site for an ad to another relevant site automatically lower the quality of my product?  Say I have a high quality website, but it’s new and the word isn’t out there on it yet.  I don’t have the traffic I need.  Why does buying a link from other relevant sites demand punishment?  Google itself has made itself a middle man and sells AdWords, demanding a cut of the action.  Oh Google, I want your love…but I’m not willing to take you out to dinner for it.

I recently read the Google just acquired DoubleClick and with it one of the “largest SEO companies in the world,” Performics.  I’ve been told this will turn out to be nothing, but I’m not sure I’m convinced yet.  On the heels of what seems to be a quite poorly thought out plan to thwart a common SEO practice, this news seems particularly ominous.