Next: Optimization Filters
Previous: Analysis of Florida Update

Money Words

Theories abound for what was causing these strange results. One idea, related to the fact that commercial sites had been most affected, was that Google was pre-filtering searches for so called 'money words' using a poisoned word list. Speculation was that these words were compiled by analyzing popular phrases from its Adwords system. This would then force commercial sites that had previously been free loading from Google's search engine to pay for Adwords. The pre-Christmas timing, so the conspiracy theorists reckoned, would leave commercial sites with little choice. Although Google undoubtedly hit established eCommerce sites there seemed to be as many winners as losers after the change, and a good many sites that were unaffected. Furthermore Google claims that there are Chinese walls between the Adwords and search parts of the organizations. Still with an IPO (Initial Public Offering) imminent there was much innuendo, especially from the people most concerned by the changes.

Money Words

See Also