WordPress Squeezes Its PageRank for Cash*

Posted by Travis Smith on 04/01 at 02:42 AM • Blogging News -- Law and Ethics

Waxy posted yesterday about the Wordpress Web site being used to spam Google.  As always, Waxy does a great, in-depth post about the whole issue, so let me sum up and then you can go read the whole thing yourself.

WordPress is an open source blogging software package.

Its Web site is run by Matt Mullenweg.

Matt placed “hidden” links on the WordPress front page to articles about high-value keyword subjects like asbestos and mortgages, and got paid for this, thus cashing in on his site’s high page rank. Waxy and Kottke and Virtuelvis blogged about it.

The supporters of Word Press got upset because they feel like their links to WordPress were being used to support something they didn’t like: search engine spam (and it is spam, or at the very least search engine result pollution).

The lessons here? I can think of a few:

1) The site you link to today may not be a site you want to link to tomorrow. This is a fact of the Web.

2) Good software doesn’t justify bad behavior, by its users or its creators.

3) Nothing you put on the Web should be done sneakily.  It will be noticed.  It won’t be rewarded, even if it would have been tolerated if done openly.  Be honest and open.

4) In a case of unfortunate timing, Matt’s on vacation in Italy.  When you go out of town, have someone checking your Web site every day just like you have someone water your plants.  Because when he gets back, whoo, boy, is his inbox going to be stuffed!

Updates: Photo Matt » A Response to the Noise and Waxy.org: Wordpress Followup

 
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