Last week the news spread about Google Snubs Tech News Outlet CNET. Basically, Google was fed up with the style of C|Net's reporters, specifically, the article named Google balances privacy, reach was the straw that broke the camel's back.
In her story, Mills included a link to Schmidt's home address, his net worth of $1.5 billion and noted that he has attended the Burning Man art festival and is an amateur pilot. Mills said she spent 30 minutes on Google to obtain the information.
But it was repeated issues that lead Google to make this decision. Over the week, I have met with many many PR people in the industry. Most of them feel this is a bold move by Google, some in fact wish they have the courage to do the same. Bottom-line is that the PR folks at the other search engines have all felt that C|Net has gone way too far, over and over again. But I am told by others that C|Net specifically has a statement that they will not hold to embargoes. Meaning, if a company gives them a pre-news release with the intent they hold it until a specific date, C|Net will not hold by it. But from my understanding, most of the PR people at the search engines are unaware of that - or neglected to mention it.
In my opinion, no one really agrees with me, this whole snub tactic on Google's part is a clever PR stunt. It is bold, it is courageous and it says that Google doesn't need them. To me, that makes a statement.
Of course the forums are chatting about this, both WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums have some Webmaster related discussion going on.
Does this strike anyone else as strangely ironic? It looks like the Google folks are applying a similar algorithm to media relations, as they do to developing search indexes.Expect a patent application to follow soon ;)
Don't you love how SEO's think?
