An informal chat with Google
David Airey: We’ve had our ups and downs, haven’t we, Google?
Google: We have, David.
David Airey: Do you remember that time I tried to trick my way to the top of your search results?
Google: Oh yes. I taught you a thing or two by slapping that search rank penalty on your domain.
David Airey: You did. Who’d have thought a simple prize giveaway would’ve created so much hassle?
Google: Don’t forget about those paid links. Not a good idea to go against my terms of service.
David Airey: Ah, of course. It was an experience, although I might still be in trouble if it wasn’t for those who offered their help. Hamlet Batista in particular was one of the good guys.
Google: Fair play for reversing the penalty so fast. Even the big John Chow still hasn’t managed it, but me and him haven’t seen eye-to-eye for some time. I don’t think he likes me very much.
David Airey: You can’t please everyone. Blogging has taught me that more than most things. At least being back in your good books is helping attract some new clients. A shout out to Matt Cutts for understanding my predicament.
Google: Matt’s a goodun’. What do you think of his blog design?
David Airey: Customising his design would futher set him apart from other blogs, but it’s what he has to say that people subscribe for.
Google: Some good news for you. I’ve added sitelinks to your website, so when someone searches me for David Airey, there’s extra navigation below your name.
David Airey: Oh, nice. My buddy, Shaun, got those recently for his Scottish SEO company. That’s great news, but how do you decide who gets them?
Google: There are several factors involved, so they’re not on all sites. You’ve been working on your content consistently for around 18 months now, and have received a lot of backlinks, so I thought it was about time. If you’re not happy with the links appearing, go to your Webmaster Tools panel and give me some feedback on your Google sitelinks.
David Airey: Why would I not be happy?
Google: You might want to block specific sitelinks from appearing if the content highlighted is out-of-date, or if there’s certain information you don’t want to publicize.
David Airey: That’s good to know, thanks. On another topic, did you ever draw your own conclusions as to how my GMail account was hacked?
Google: The attack you described (XSRF GMail filter rule insertion) has been very worrisome, especially the risk of it being exploited in a systematic fashion. I closed that particular loophole several months before your incident took place, and have yet to find any sign of an exploit based on it.
David Airey: Wasn’t what happened to me a sign of an XSRF exploit?
Google: One of my engineers in the security team did a careful analysis of my logs from a security perspective, and an extended follow-up on the attacker network. As a result, I can state with authority that you were not victim of an XSRF attack. On a side note, I can assure you that the attacker has not had any successful interaction with your GMail account since December 17th, when you changed the password, secondary email, and security question.
David Airey: At least it’s good to know my account hasn’t been accessed by anyone since the password change. Did you ever think to inform GMail users about the security exploit? There could still be some people with unknown filters applied to their accounts.
Google: Communications can be a tricky thing. I investigated this option both when the original filter insertion bug was fixed, and after the investigation into your incident. Ultimately, PR chose not to pursue this. At the same time, I’ve carefully examined filter creation patterns, and could not find any trace of systematic XSRF filter insertion attacks.
David Airey: I think it would be better to keep users informed of such ‘loopholes’, but what do I know about multi-national public relations?
Regardless, thanks for taking the time-out for a chat. It’s much appreciated.
Disclaimer: Google isn’t really a person I had a chat with. Some of the information above was taken from an email conversation with a Google employee. The rest was written from a personal perspective.
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27 appreciated comments on “An informal chat with Google”
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Hi David,
Thanks for the shout out! Are you still having problems with Google? You guys have a love-hate relationship lately :-)
Really inventive for a blog…..a fake interview. I like it a lot.
Hope you don’t mind if I use it myself.
The Masked Millionaire
I can’t decide whether this post is clever linkbaiting or kind of kitsch (for lack of a better description). Perhaps useful for newer readers who haven’t heard about your Google experiences. Since I like ya, I’ll go with the first description for now. :P
The sitelinks thing is cool… I’ve only recently come to see the value in them. I think having a decent sitemap helps Google to define a good structure for those links. Do you have one?
What an ingenious way to relay information to your readers David.
I have to admit I didn’t click on the post because I thought it was going to be another interview, but what I received was a delightful conversation.
Congrats on the sitelinks David.
Nice one my friend.
Ah, those Google folk aren’t all bad. At least, not all the time!
You and google have definitely got a love and hate relationship going as Hamlet said. I have also got it, but not on such a level. I used to be a pr 4 but then it went down to 0 for about 3 days and then went back up to 2 which is where it is currently. Not so sure on what is causing it but probably the advertising.
Congrats on the site links too :)
David, this is a creative and amusing way to update us on the Google rollercoaster experience you had! I found it informative to see all the pieces in sequence and to learn a couple of new items.
It’s interesting to me that Google may have decided not to notify Gmail users about the hole …because of PR consequences? That seems bass ackwards to me. Aren’t Gmail users its best PR?
Hamlet, you’re very welcome. Thanks again for your sterling advice. I’m not having any issues at present, which is great. Long may it continue.
Masked Millionaire, feel free. Hope it works out.
Kristarella, this was always meant as a kind of ‘tongue-in-cheek’ post. A quick update on my Google situation as a few people had been asking. For my sitemap, I use the XML sitemap generator plugin for WordPress. Seems to do the trick. Do you use it too, or something different?
Ronald, thanks for the kind words.
Niyaz, Armen, I appreciate it, and Armen, great to watch your recent video podcast. Good stuff.
Jacob, thanks. Everything with me and Google is great. Most of my traffic comes from their search engine, so I can’t complain. Strange about your drop. As the ads you show are images, I’d be surprised if they were the cause. Did you ever run text link ads?
Tammy, good to know. I agree with you about the Gmail PR. Transparency is the best policy.
I hope everyone had a great weekend.
Actually on my advertise page I WAS offering text link ads. I have removed that now. We will see what happens. Thanks.
Yes Google is 5th on my traffic sources list after the social media sites so I can’t complain either. After my post ’30 fonts all designers must own’ making the front page of digg I saw a huge boost in organic search engine traffic so was pleased about that – along with 400 new subscribers.
“David Airey: We’ve had our ups and downs, haven’t we, Google?” lol – Bit of an understatement there! Thankfully things have ended (I hope!) on an up, with the site links.
It’s a little ironic though that one of the links is to the prize draw post! xD
Well, this is something different. As usual, it is great! Thanks David.
For me, I’m still expecting a call from Google about their Ads service. They had called me a week before my exams started and even promised to get back to me after I finish my exam. Till today, no sign~ And I’m giving up. (Case closed)
Slowly, I have doubt in Google. Don’t ask me what and why, but I can feel it. They provide free and good service to all but I’m still actually waiting for them to define what “Don’t be evil” means. I used to speak out loud about Google to my friends, invite to use GMail and etc, but not anymore.
Something is missing… (I wonder what is it)
Jacob, according to Google I think it’s fine to sell text links, so long as the ‘nofollow’ tag is used. Congrats on the subscriber boost and increased organic traffic. Glad to know things are going well for you.
Michael, yep, quite funny how one of my search engine site links leads to the prize draw.
Rafie, it’ll be interesting to see in five years time. The company’s already so influential it’s scary.
I found your blog through Bumpzee, nice idea for a post here! Everyone loves to read about our favorite search engine, looks like you’ve had your fair share of issues. Google can be both a rewarding and scary piece of technology when you rely on it as part of your income, as many out there do.
Keep up the good work man.
I really like the way you published and i gotta bunch of useful information.
I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. Thank you very much for sharing.
Well, if people have been asking about your Google sitch then this was a gret way to respond. ;)
Yeah, I use the sitemap plugin. It might be helping a bit – if you search for “kristarella” it comes up with my homepage and then indented its got my 24 brushes for GIMP and PS post (obviously my most linked to post). So they’re sort of trying to identify a heirarchy and help people find what they’re looking for. I guess I need more incoming links on other pages before I get any sitelinks goodness. :)
I was wondering if I should manually create a sitemap and robots.txt when I launch a redesign, but I don’t know that much about it. I’ll have to look into it further. I suppose if I did it would need to be dynamic to include new posts.
Also, you have your whole logo design category showing up in the sitelinks. Are you letting Google trawl your category pages or lots of people link to that category or you’ve got control through Webmaster Tools?
Congratulations for the sitelinks… and now you might be ranking well for those strings too trying for which you felt into Google Penalty… All’s well that continues (it’s not end) well.
I enjoyed how you made the situations into a dialog. If it helps, I know that the security and Gmail folks did take the attack on your account very seriously and looked into multiple ways to keep such things from happening in the future, as well as thinking about issues like account recovery and how to make that better going forward.
As for my blog template, I figure that as long as I serve a full feed, most people will read me in a feed reader anyway. :)
Brent, interesting that you found my blog through Bumpzee. I’ve not visited in some time, perhaps half a year. I’ve had my fair share of issues with Google, and with the Gmail service in particular, but it’s been a great learning experience.
sandie, always a pleasure to hear from first-time commentators. Thanks for taking the time.
Kristarella, I think you’re right about needing a few more back-links. Prior to site links through my name, I had the indented search result just like you.
As for manually creating a sitemap, the dynamic aspect is something I’d not have a clue about, hence why I’m reliant on the plugin. Sadly I can’t offer any advice there. When’s the re-design due? Something to look forward to.
Good question about whether I let Google’s spiders crawl my categories. I use the ‘all in one SEO’ plugin, but don’t have the checkboxes ticked to prevent crawling of my archives and categories. Perhaps I should? I know there’s a duplicate content issue, but it seems apparent that the robots are clever enough to know that blogs produce such duplications. Doesn’t seem to be harming me anyhow.
Jalaj, the water’s calm, so it’s all good.
Matt, cheers for paying a visit. One Google employee in particular was recently very helpful, and spent some time looking into my situation. He taught me certain aspects about what happened, and for that I’m grateful.
As for blog templates, what I find most important is the legibility — you’ve got that one sorted.
I guess category pages aren’t that big a deal because your posts are probably going to stay in those categories. It’s annoying when you get the front page of a blog and the thing you’re looking for is long gone from there. I’m sure it’s not a problem here since you have so many links coming in, Google has your site well sorted.
Good read but like kristarella some of my first reactions was that this post would surely be a good chance and excuse for some linkbaiting.
Although i’m not complaining as its just smart blogging :D
I always wondered what site links were and how to get them… now I know. I also enjoyed the creativity in this post,
thanks,
AL
So Google didn’t like your giveaway… I didn’t know about that little peculiarity. And I’m off to look at the Webmaster tools now…thanks!
Kristarella, I agree that it’s not great when you know a post exists, but it’s near impossible to find on a certain blog. That’s one reason why I use Google’s custom search. I find the results to be accurate.
I was wondering if you still use gmail for your business email. I was looking into it, and of course found your story. It really stinks that this happened to you, but the good side is that it should bring you a good amount of traffic. (And hopefully more business. You definitely deserve it.)
I love your work.
Hello Nick, I do use Gmail, but not for vital communications. Previously, I had many accounts all directed to Gmail, but now I’m more selective.
This was very creative and it made me smile, nice post David :)