The G v P Experiment

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About a month ago, Google rated this site a PR 4, on the main pages, and internal pages ranked around PR 2. I was pretty well stoked. Then, just two days later, it dropped to PR 2, all around.

In that short time span and just a few days thereafter, I wrote several posts, on several sites, about how I’m examining which of my monetization experiments are actually making money, and which are just cluttering my page. I also theorized about Google specifically targeting folks who run PPP, LW, and TLA, and any other advertising company that directly competed with Adsense.

Within a short time of that theory – Center of Muse was back down to PR 0. And while overall, it doesn’t make THAT much difference, as I make my money on other things besides the advertising experiments that I run, here, it has left me with a bad feeling about Google, a company that I have formerly heralded as a fantastic and fair company.

The tactics they are currently using to edge out the competition by penalizing sites that use them smells like monopolization agendas of big corporations that have been tried and convicted of such. I don’t like it.

And furthermore – I really don’t make enough money from Adsense for me to pay a lot of credence to the “wrist slap.” Guess what ads I do make money from? My hosting company & occasional sponsored posts. Guess who isn’t getting “airtime” on most of my other sites? Big G doesn’t pay in a year, what the other sponsors do in a month.

Yes, I know – I’m only a drop in the bucket for Google. But to be treated like we’ve got nothing to offer, when we examine the benefits of Google’s competitors is not why we smaller blogs exist. We’ve got something to say, and people to help – and if we can make a bit of cash while doing it – a little piece of green on a toolbar isn’t enough to make us go away.