Dear Google: It’s not all about you

Dear Google,

Something has happened to you.

Since you released Panda into the wild, you have become a clingy high school girlfriend. You know, the one whose world view has yet to develop to the point where they understand that most of the things you do and say have nothing at all to do with them.

With recent updates, you have demonstrated a belief that everything we do is an attempt to manipulate you. At worst, this is the type of deep-seated paranoia that usually precedes imminent self destruction (see Nixon, Richard and Stalin, Joseph). At best, it’s childish, manipulative, and egomaniacal.

See, somewhere along the line, you forgot something really important:

We can add value to our sites without adding value to the internet.

I’m going to say that one more time:

We can add value to our sites without adding value to the internet.

Sometimes, when we’re trying to make our sites better for our users, we add value to our sites without adding value to the internet. There *should* be nothing wrong with that.

As an example, let’s say I’m a cat expert and I have an informational site about breeds and cat care. In addition to my regular expert content, maybe I like to post a funny cat picture each day, and each picture is a new post. My users love the cat pictures, and they keep coming back each day to see them. I’m happy, because the pictures increase my site’s engagement. My users are happy because the pictures are hilarious. Everyone is happy.

Except you.

You’re not happy, because a year from now, half of the pages on my site have nothing on them except a photograph. You interpret this to mean that my content is not adding value to the internet.

From your newfound perspective, if content doesn’t add value to the internet,  it’s thin. And if it’s thin, it’s spam. And if it’s spam, the entire site must burn.

Here’s the thing, Google. And you have to understand this: As site owners,  just because we create a piece of content doesn’t mean we’re expecting you to send us traffic for it. 

Some things, we do just for us. Some things, we do just for our users. Not everything is about you. In fact, most things aren’t.

You used to know this.

You used to be good at identifying sections of a site that aren’t adding value to the internet, while highlighting the sections that are.

You used realize that everything we do isn’t an attempt to get traffic from you.

But not now.

Now, you assume that every page that we create is an attempt to squeeze out one extra visit from the Google machine.

Now, you see every word, every photo, every comment as yet another attempt to manipulate your results.

This paranoia has got to stop.

It isn’t all about you, Google. And it never was.