The google toolbar and how bad it could be
In one foul swoop google could prevent every webmaster in the world from making money through their websites.
Sounds an impressive claim but it could happen
How?
Simply. Their google toolbar which offers lots of great features has some new and (scary ones for webmasters)
There is of course the simple worry that google changes your IE browser. (You agree to this -as part of your use of the auto-updating product functionality) - unless of course you have microsofts anti-spyware block software on. Click here for an image of the messages this software throws up when you install the google toolbar (70k image I'm afraid of toolbar installation)
Then see how the new toolbar reacts to addresses on a page
and with it turned off
See the underlines on the top graphic? They're links that the webmaster
didn't intend on being there!
So far they're doing map links and amazon links
From the google toolbar page
| New! AutoLink The online review of a great new restaurant has the place's address but no map. You could type the restaurant's street, city, and ZIP code into the search box, but why bother, when clicking the Toolbar's AutoLink button will automatically create a link to an online map (US addresses only)? AutoLink can also link package tracking numbers to delivery status, VIN numbers (US) to vehicle history, and publication ISBN numbers to Amazon.com listings. visit this page to see it for real |
So they're only doing these links at the moment but there is nothing to stop them adding more links as time goes on until they cover every possible money making option webmasters have.
What you can do to stop this horrid toolbar feature getting worse?
You can uninstal the toolbar
You can tell them why you're uninstalling. It gives you this option.
You can email google and tell them what you think of their link scheme. You can contact google on this page. It lists an address to write too plus a fax number
You can boycott google and use another search engine.
You can remove all advertising from google, remove any google search boxes or links from your site.
You can tell your friends to not use google anymore.
Why is this toolbar change so bad for webmasters?
Currently webmasters have a choice. They can chose not to have ads of any sort on their site and just have plain content. Google takes away this choice. You have ads on your site because google puts them there. Google will be profiting from your content.
You might, as a webmaster, chose to put ads on your pages to pay server costs, or because you run a business promoting companies, or through affiliate marketing. Once google can add its own links to your content then you will find people not using your links and your income will drop. You may end up having excessive bandwidth costs to cover with no income.
If you don't make websites but visit lots and enjoy using the internet then you might find that if google is allowed to continue adding links to sites in this way that you may find your favourite sites disappearing.
We hope you feel spurred into action. Every little helps. Even if you email google to let them know you think its a bad idea then that is a start.
See our workround page for methods of stopping this
Articles about the autolink google toolbar feature
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1032364,00.html