Are MommyBlogger Sponsored Posts “Low Grade Content”?

According to CNET, and a bunch of tech/SEO blogs who’ve picked up the story, yes.

Recently, Google Chrome reached out to mommybloggers for a sponsored post campaign.  The bloggers wrote up a post on how Chrome helps small businesses.

The posts were fully disclosed- which is how SEOBook found them.

SEOBook was searching (http://www NULL.seobook NULL.com/post-sponsored-google) for the term “This Post is Sponsored By Google” and they found scores of mommyblog posts.  Indignant, they attacked the mommyblogs as “low grade content”, the exact kind of “thin content” that Google’s infamous Panda update was supposed to cull from the internet.  Megasite CNET grabbed the story (http://news NULL.cnet NULL.com/8301-30685_3-57351145-264/awwwk-ward-google-chrome-pay-for-post-promo-misfires/), vaulting it to prominence in the tech blogger world.

The real crux of the matter seems to be glossed over- are sponsored posts, indeed, something Google was using Panda to battle?  Are sponsored posts necessarily low grade content, simply because they are sponsored messages?  Did Google violate its own guidelines (http://support NULL.google NULL.com/webmasters/bin/answer NULL.py?hl=en&answer=66736) by “buying” links via sponsored posts?

These are important questions requiring thoughtful treatment.  Unfortunately, the sites covering this story haven’t answered those questions, instead choosing to insult sites that accept sponsored posts.

I’ll go ahead and answer that question for you here.  Sponsored posts do not violate Google’s guidelines.  In fact, Google readily admits that “buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web”, and simply ask that such links are tagged as nofollow.  So the real violation in this “controversy for clicks” belongs to the site who did not tag links with nofollow.

Unruly, who seems to have managed this campaign, did not require bloggers to link to Google, but in every sponsored post campaign I’ve ever seen, the blogger has editorial control and freedom- including the freedom to link, if she feels her audience will benefit.  Bloggers were supposed to nofollow links, and it appears a very few of the blogs involved did not use the nofollow tag on their links, which is causing most of the ire.

Was this a purposeful violation by Google of their own guidelines, or was this an honest mistake?  Only the bloggers could honestly answer that question, but since I know many of the bloggers involved, my money is on “honest mistake”.  So how does forgetting to tag a nofollow turn into an attack on mommybloggers?

I think I know.

Watch for this “controversy” to explode, driven by the righteous indignation of a slew of SEO websites have tried to jump on the traffic bandwagon.  After all, what drives traffic online faster than a Google controversy?  A controversy involving Google and mommybloggers!

Pot, meet kettle.  It is ironic that the most attacking of the sites are themselves affiliate marketing engines, writing articles, embedding affiliate links and optimizing Adsense for the sole purpose of making money.  Most have grabbed the story, without actually adding anything useful, simply because it’s in the news and, I speculate, might drive traffic to their site.

Tech blogs (which admittedly are not all affiliate marketing engines) are notoriously aloof and it’s no secret that many feel mommyblogs are a waste of space online.  Mommybloggers know we don’t get no respect in certain internet circles.

But you know what?  That’s okay.  The audience and purpose of of SEOBook is completely different from the audience and purpose of, say, Tree Root and Twig. (http://treerootandtwig NULL.com/)  For the to call out bloggers for writing an article about a sponsor is like the guy who writes the Chilton’s car manual calling out the editors of Woman’s Day beauty page for promoting a Rimmel eyeshadow palette as “thin content”, simply because Rimmel has a two page spread in the back of the magazine.  Is an article on lip gloss “low grade content” to an auto mechanic?  Yes.  Does that mean it is completly useless, for everyone?  No.

My opinion:  Google cares about how useful a website is for search terms.  If a site contains useful information, then Google shouldn’t ding its ranking or ban it.  And Google judges the quality of the content based on many things, not on whether the writer accepted a gift card in exchange for writing it.

Google’s guidelines readily admit that “buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web”, and simply ask that such links are tagged as nofollow.

Blogging with Integrity: I didn’t get paid squat for this post, even though I am a Chrome fan and I use it daily in my small business.