Google Sued In PageRank Dispute by KinderStart Search Engine

by Mike Banks Valentine Copyright © Mike Banks Valentine

Google Sued Over Page Ranking according to this Reuters story:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1939953,00.asp

This will be an interesting one to watch for what it means to
the search industry and especially for whether Google, or any
search engines for that matter, owe anything at all to
companies indexed by those search engines. KinderStartª  is
demanding that their ranking be restored to previous levels.

There is a longstanding debate among business owners about
whether Google must include a business web site in their
index and whether, once a high ranking has been achieved for
a particular keyword phrase by any company, Google owes them
some method of protecting that ranking or some explanation
(and/or solution) for drops in their search positions.

The plaintiff claims 10 million page views monthly prior to
some alleged Google penalization in rankings (causing an 80%
drop in revenue and 70% decline in audience). The site in
question is itself a search engine called KinderStartª with
an interesting trademarked tag line, "Because kids don't come
with instructionsª."

Currently the Google query "site:kinderstart.com" shows
44,800 pages indexed, but the results appear to be almost
entirely "supplemental" results. The site claims to have been
banned from Google, when in fact they are still in the Google
index - although one would expect even a small vertical
search site to have quite a bit more pages indexed than they
do.

In the best commentary I've seen - in RedHerring.com
yesterday - Kevin Lee, the chair of the SEMPO (Search Engine
Marketing Professional Organization), is quoted as saying,
ÒItÕs as if a movie producer or director sued a reviewer for
a bad review,Ó he said. ÒIf they decide your site is not
worthy of high rankÑit doesnÕt matter whyÑthe third party
service decides the rank of the site. If they stop being
relevant, their business model is dead. If Roger Ebert
started saying that mediocre movies are good [in his
reviews], no oneÕs going to read them.Ó

The idea that Google owes any site anything is absurd and
should be dismissed without comment by the judge hearing the
case. If the case qualifies as a class action, the resulting
lather will be nothing if not interesting. Ongoing argument
could expose Google to reduced popularity and require
exposing at least pieces of their ranking algorithm. I hope
the judge gets some good advice and drops the case as he
should.

Search engines don't owe anyone ranking, indexing, PageRank
or traffic.

Mike Banks Valentine blogs on Search Engine developments from
http://RealitySEO.com and can be contacted for ethical SEO
work at: http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm  He runs
web content distribution site at: http://Publish101.com