Matt Cutts is a blackhat

…Oh and so is Google. Oh and so are thousands of other people who don’t spam. Actually you, yes you - you’re probably a blackhat now.

Say What?

Oh you haven’t heard? Telling fibs on the interwebs is no longer allowed. Matt Cutts came out with this lovely quote, consisting of hypocrisy and general vagueness. Matt Cutts? Oh, the Ubuntu Guy? Well it’s a little known fact, but sometimes he actually does talk about Google; and when he does, this is the FUD he comes up with:

My quick take is that Google’s webmaster guidelines allow for cases such as this:

“Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It’s not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn’t included on this page, Google approves of it.”

There’s not much more deceptive or misleading than a fake story without any disclosure that the story is hoax.

So why are all these people blackhats?

Ever heard of April Fool’s day? Well Google took part in April Fool’s day with their ‘Virgle’ spoof and Cutts had a go. I’m sure Google will try to defend themselves by saying that people aren’t mislead on April Fool’s day because it is generally accepted that people are going to try and fool you. Uh, yeah. I wish that was the case, I really do.

I just can’t see where Google is going with this. What next? The rel=”nottrue” tag and the rel=”opinion” tag.

</rant> (Just in case Google penalises me for not classifying this as a rant)

Filed under: FUD Discussion, I disagree by Ryan