Whenever someone in my industry (occasionally even myself) takes something a bit too personally, they get told the exact same thing:

“It’s just business.”

Simple as that.

It might seem silly to many, but for what I potentially was looking to do with monetizing my blog, or for future startup plans, junk stats that can be gamed actually make a difference, even though I don’t actually game them.

I am effectively “Between A Rock And A Hard Place” as far as my decision.

Dammed by Google if I don’t remove or nofollow links on 9 posts, and losing faith in my conviction if not with my audience if I do.

Trusting your own judgement is actually quite important for everything in life.

Although you make an interesting statement about branding. When I read Michael banging on about Calacanis I see it as pantomime, (for Americans that would be vaudeville, roughly) I read it in the same way I would watch WWF. That’s in no way a negative, WWF makes a lot of money.

When Andy does his thing I know I am going to get an indepth look at the situation, even though I may not agree or even be interested, the way he taps into a certain mindset in the industry and recruits them as fans and followers is impressive.

As to branding, if you look at Andy’s monetisation strategy it’s more based on affiliate marketing, the sector responds to a certain level of “I can’t believe they did that”, marketing.

What I do is offer specific services for web owners, seo and marketers. So I totally want clients and potential clients to know my opinion. I cannot write linkbait for this blog that does not reflect what I think and how I do business.

Which is why I it’s wrong to call this purely linkbait, sure people may link to it and I would like that, but that is not it’s primary function.

I don?t know why describing Google as a business and not a wet nurse to seo?s is so controversial.

Come on now… of course you do.

There are some people out there who just want to vent. I tend to take that as a sign of weakness, but I also can relate to having an urge to vent now and then.

There are also people out there looking to capitalize on the topic. Andy Beard pulled it off “brilliantly” this go around. He used Sphinn to promote virtually every article that talked about the TBPR update, sustaining the buzz momentum for days – to a point where the name Andy Beard became synonymous with the TBPR update penalty, as Michael Gray became synonymous with “Google is not the government” philosophy. Anytime some writes about this update in the future, they will link to Andy Beard.

On one hand, that’s effective marketing. On the other, its a case where a marketer jeopardized his credibility by promoting propaganda. If measure of success boils down to subscribers, links, and traffic, Andy Beard succeeded. He has gained authority links from SEOmoz, SEJ, Linkspiel, SER, and countless other high-profile sites. But has his marketing strengthened his brand?

it is more like inconsistent and risky to me.

Tad Chef might be right, I think you used the word for linkbait and probably have doubts about its accuracy. nice title though, it probably pulled in thousands of readers.

Kim Jung Google lost focus a long time ago, dropped the ball several times and are feeling the pressure of maintaining their monarchy.
Knowing that at any given moment they could be overthrown.

they waved their big stick at us, cause we are one of the very few groups they can do that to

i thought it was a lame show of force. who are they threatening?

one hacker can take down their entire infrastructure

Great perspective on Google, BTW. It’s just business, indeed. :)

Google is the best search engine, and probably the best internet business … they know what they are doing

Of course, that goes two ways ;)

Cheers!
Mani

If this impacts the bedroom webmasters, or even the corporate webmasters, it doesn’t matter. It’s their bottom line that matters.

Saying all that, I still shake my fists wildly at my monitors when things impact upon my company!