By Luis Galarza, Knol How to.
Yes, the new content publishing by Google called Knol is now open for the public, and is generating a lot of buzz, good and bad.
Here are some of the things news sites and bloggers are saying about Knol:
Mashable.com.- I was skeptical originally about Google’s Knol project. I was under the impression from its initial press materials and blog posts that it was to be unmonetized. That turned out to be slightly incorrect, to say the least, and the issues folks have with this project extend far beyond compensating for UGC, with folks questioning the ethics of the search giant and their waning commitment to “do no evil.”
There is an ethical issue here that’s very important. Certainly, a lot of my original ethical concerns stand, but given that the search results for topics that now have Knols written about them are displaying them prominently, I have to wonder exactly what Google is thinking here. Like it or not, search engine optimization (SEO) is an industry with its fair share of folks that can charitably be described as lacking in scruples, and to offer them the ability to effortlessly create content that ranks very highly in Google’s search results not only devalues the service Google offers, but cuts significantly into their bottom line. Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo (a company very directly affected by the launch of Knol) addressed this in his latest not-blog post today: I’m a “Google man.”
I want to believe Google… I love the Google. The Google has been, very, very good to me.
[...] For a period I thought the video companies were being cry babies when they said Google was coming after them with YouTube. At the time I said “just put your content on YouTube and partner with them…. it’s not like they’re signing Hollywood talent to make content for them… grow up!” Then “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane–the most successful television creator today–signed a huge 50-episode deal with YouTube. Still, Google says they’re not in the content business. When the book companies complained about Google taking their content without permission I said “come on, it’s not going to replace folks buying books.” Then I started using book search to find specific pieces of information in books instead of buying them.
You get the idea, it’s not an issue until it’s your issue. About.com, HowStuffWorks.com, digg.com, and Mahalo.com now going to feel the Google “we’re not competing with you” burn–to what degree only time will tell.
The issue here isn’t whether or not Google can operate in the content space as well as the discovery space - we know that they can do that without interfering with search quality. Their integration of YouTube, Picasa Albums, Blogger and BlogSpot hasn’t worked to the noticeable detriment of search quality. In the case of hosted images, very often Yahoo’s Flickr will rate higher in search results, and during video searches, it is very common to see Metacafe or DailyMotion videos pop up in the list with YouTube and Google Video results. Forget about BlogSpot and Blogger results; Google’s blog search and Web content search results seem to be completely agnostic as to what blogging platform is being used.
So why is Google making this colossal blunder? Not only are they shaking to the core the whole Internet industry’s confidence in them as a reliable search engine, they’re severely risking their own revenues. If I, as an Internet marketer, can land-grab enough Google Knol keywords that subtly and decidedly shape the “unit of knowledge” around said topic around a product I’m marketing, what’s the point for me to use AdSense? More pointedly, what reason is there for my competitors to use AdSense? Those who use the service to promote products and services are going to know that search results are far more trusted than the ads on the side of the page. You think this is a giant conspiracy theory? As Duncan Riley pointed out today: think again.
This is all going to end in a disaster for Google or a disaster for the Knol service, one way or the other. Search results will be less useful, their ad revenues will go down, and it will open up a large vulnerability for Google in their bread and butter, search.
My Opinion: It's true, many of the other Google services didn't get much search engine ranking momentum, but Knol is getting it, and this is a big problem for content providers and web publishers. Plus, Google should give top positons only if the article have a lot of links back to it, don't make it an automatic feature, that's is search spam by the one it should be stopping it.
Inquisitr.com.- Google launched its Wikipedia competitor Google Knol last week, but one week later it is starting to look more like Blogger meets Ezine Articles, rather than the resource rich destination Google was hoping for. Knol contributors have split into distinct groups. Where as some people are contributing their knowledge for the greater good, others are exploring ways of exploiting the service, for profit, search engine position, or simply self promotion.
Spam isn’t the right word to describe all of the content being added, and the use of link=nofollow seems to have kept the spammers who frequent Blogger away so far. Instead, much of the content is trying to hide self promotion and links by using informative articles…well informative to some, in a similar way commonly found on Ezine Article sites.
Others seem to be adding pages of rubbish (for example this entry on WordPress) in an attempt to gain authority on Knol through their volume of contributions.
Then there are those targeting content in high paying keywords, for example adding Knol entries on terms such as Insurance, their goal being not to provide the best knowledge on the service, but to get high paying clicks via the ads Google show on each page. There’s even a blog dedicated to doing just that.
There aren’t millions of rubbish pages yet, but as more people notice that Knol articles are ranking well in Google search results, the landrush to profit from Knol will accelerate.
Google may say it cares about spam on Knol, but it has said that repeatedly about Blogger as well, and we all know how much spam you can find there.
My Opinion: I was expecting this from many of newbies and small online entrepreneurs who are looking for a quick buck. They are going to use some of that information they learn about keyword research and try to make Knol's pages about those topics that they clearly know nothing about. Instead they should focus on building authority and creditability with quality original content, which is going to help them build a long term online business.
Problogger.- What I think irks me the most about Knol is Google’s insistence that they’re not a media company. They host content, they pay those who write it income when that content makes money, they keep part of the money for themselves, they distribute the content…. If it looks like a media company and acts like a media company - I got the feeling that they are one.
Of course this is Google’s right to do - they can set their own business plan - but I guess they need to be willing to be up front about it and name what they are doing for what it is.
They also need to be willing for other publishers (many of them who are their partners in many ways) to react against them. I’ve been hearing murmurings from a few fairly large independent bloggers and web publishers today of talk of a move away from using AdSense out of protest.
I’m not sure what impact this would have unless a lot of large publishers did it - but it seems like there’s growing discontent around the online publishing community around this issue.
My Opinion: This is true, Google is going to compete against it's own Adsense publisher, maybe they thought that marketers will be happy to know that know they have another way to monetize their content and knowledge. They didn't think that many top marketers will be really angry to the fact that they are building a long term business and not just another site optimize for Adsense. And even so, when you do those readers still yours, but with Google controlling the content with top search engine spots for themselves they are taking a big share of niche money and market share from all size of web publishers. I think Knol is a great Squidoo or Hubpages type of service, but needs to be use more as wikipedia or articles to really make it work. Not as a income generating machine, because it's not. Squidoo is.
Remember I created this blog to help you use it in an ethical way as an Internet marketing tool to gain authority, brand awareness, web traffic, and PR for you and your business. I'm not going to teach you how to make money with Knol, but if you follow my instructions the money will come... Just focus in providing quality unique content to your Knol readers.
Luis Galarza.
Internet Marketing For The Poor.
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