Revisiting the No Linking - No Reviews Policy

[Brett_Tabke]

All of you who wanted us to lighten up the linking policy - look hard at this thread:

[webmasterworld.com...]

That thread lead to a major Wall Street Journal story (no we were not quoted) about how Google penalized Overstock.com. That thread instigated it.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 1:14 pm (utc) on Feb 24, 2011]

[topr8]

i've always been in total agreement with the policy myself.

... for any number of reasons

[creative craig]

Brett, do you know 100% that the Google penalty was brought on by the thread?

The way the news article reads the ban happened first and then the news article - so if anything some one from Google read the thread put the penalty in place and then WSJ picked it all up.

[koan]

We were quoted or we were not quoted?

Yes, we weren't not quoted. Or maybe not.

[pageoneresults]

Wait, that thread started on Jan 11, 2011. There were clear indicators that it was an outing. The OP was a new user and it smelled from the first moment it got posted. Maybe that one should have been nipped in the bud before it got to the point where it did?

[wheel]

It's a learning curve for the forum. I personally would've voted yes to allowing this type of thread (not that anyone asked me)....until after this thread. As tedster noted, this thread lead to Overstock getting slapped by Google, but not slapped for their methods. Instead, they were slapped for public relations reasons. Google decided to make s*** up for this one.

So while some of us might have a case where reviewing specific methods in the daylight is good, and let the chips fall where they may, when companies get penalized for PR instead of bad tactics by Google, then I agree, not something to be a part of. Keep it to pubcon and leave the hysteria for the traditional press.

[Brett_Tabke]

PG1, if you remember during our member commentary period last spring, there was a strong and vocal desire by a group of members to have less editing in the forums on all accounts. We have been doing that and implemented a quiet policy of no editing except for pure link drop spam. Editing is almost a rarity in most forums these days. That included taking a much more hands off approach to the Google forum. We discussed the thread the second it popped up and clearly decided to let it go.

We additionally know who the OP is and his domain(s). We have kept that information private.

[kidder]

The OS thread was educational and interesting, I for one think Tedster did the right thing by letting it run.

[alt131]

I don't think this is an issue of whether tedster did the right/wrong thing. I think it is an issue of the implications of relaxing the "no links" policy.

I don't like links and said so during the member commentary.

What is interesting about this is that the advocates of links haven't turned out in force to explain how to allow links while preventing WebmasterWorld being used in this way - or explain why this is an acceptable price to pay in order to reap the alleged benefits of allowing links.

I also wonder about WebmasterWorld's standing after a few more incidents like this.

Brett/anyone - did anyone check to see if the poster made similar posts in other places - or just here?

[edit]Grammar![/edit]