Well, first, hasn’t that mistake been made before? Franchising was thought to be a scam in its early days, rather than a legitimate business practice. Google didn’t use to like search engine optimization firms, and at one point, it seemed they were at war with them, and anyone who looked like them. Now there’s a relationship between Google and the search industry, to the point that Google representatives will come to speak at events.
When I first came online, I thought internet marketing was all about scamming me out of my money too. Then I encountered the kindness of Allen Says, without whom I would not have made my first affiliate sale. He was very supportive and kind to me in my early days, way back in 98 when people would look at you blankly if you told them what the World Wide Web was.
Then there’s Marlon Sanders, who rescued me from having to retire due to health problems. And Mark Joyner, who I had the pleasure of working with for three months, who has taught me so much over the years.
Now, I don’t consider myself an internet marketer, and never really have. It’s not that the industry has a bad name, or that I don’t want to be associated with it. It’s that internet marketers aren’t my target market, though I get a wonderfully supportive fan base from there. I’ve always targeted other audiences. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love my IM audience.
Still, I’m lumped together with internet marketing as a C-list guru, one of the “underground” players, and I’m okay with that. But here’s what should scare you in this case – it’s possible that so are people who work in social media, as far as Google is concerned.
Because in observing the pattern of what’s happening with accounts that are getting locked or suspended, it looks as if they’re going after a subset of keywords across the entire YouTube site, and shutting down anyone in that family of words, then going back through and manually reinstating people whose content isn’t of the typical fare that’s associated with that area. One site got a note that a mention of YouTube in the title was why their account was shut down.
Darren from Problogger, who later was reinstated, was shut down because one of his videos had a title that included “making money online”. And he’s a YouTube partner.
Some of the visible people got their accounts back but what about people who are as legitimate but aren’t as popular, or don’t have any influence or leverage? What if they come after you?
While I like to think how great it would be to see less spam on YouTube and in Google results, if my theory of how they are deciding is right, it seems like the execution is majorly flawed.
People take what Google says as fact, not opinion. So using the same violation message they use for accounts they’re reviewing and accounts that are legitimately posting “how to scam YouTube views” or “how to make a living online” type of video content is damaging to the reputation of people who may not deserve it.
Where this gets scary is that Google decides, ultimately, who they think is an internet marketer and who isn’t. I’m not an internet marketer, but I have lots of fans from that industry, party due to some advertising and partnerships with some of the more recognizable names.
And yeah, YouTube is a free service, and we should play by their rules to use their service – but that’s not the issue. Go take a look at some of those blog posts. Many of them were not in violation, and I don’t mean that in the sense of “well, technically” or “legally speaking”. If they’re getting booted for bogus reasons, and no one really cares, or automatically sides with Google because “well, they’re Google, they must be right,” then what happens when they come after you?
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