Google (Off) Base: Google Analytics Webmaster Guidelines
Google Analytics: Should Google be minding YOUR Web business? I underscored last week upon Google's release of Google Analytics V2 amidst much hype and hoopla.
Google has long laid down the Google SERP ranking law in its Webmaster Quality Guidelines, saying it aims to wipe out "deceptive or manipulative behavior."
A core Webmaster Quality Guideline is: "Don't create multiple pages with substantially duplicate content."
Why then is Google encouraging just such duplicate page creation to promote uptake of Google Analytics and Google Base?
The Google Analytics team on disregarding Google Webmaster Guidelines, for the sake of building demand for Google Analytics and Google Base:
Do you know how much traffic you're getting from Google Base? Google Analytics is a free and easy way to monitor all traffic coming to your site, including traffic from your Google Base listings. At first glance, it would seem tracking listings from Google Base would be simple. However, since Base listings often appear within the regular search results on Google, it can be tricky to differentiate traffic from the two sources. One way to differentiate traffic is to create unique landing pages on your website specifically for Base listings. You can do this by simply creating two versions of the same page on your website, but giving one a slightly different name. Here's an example:
Regular landing page: http://example.com/page1.html
Unique Base landing page: http://example.com/page2.html
By creating two versions of the same page on your website and submitting the unique landing page URLs to Base, Google Analytics can show you exactly how much traffic is being sent to your website from Base.
Zoran, at the Google Base Group, on Google's new message:
Just trying to translate Google base post to normal English: Google
base guys are telling us you can make tons of duplicated content but
yeeea you can track users better with Google Analytics.
The pre-Google Analytics Google on duplicate content:
Our users typically want to see a diverse cross-section of unique content when they do searches. In contrast, they're understandably annoyed when they see substantially the same content within a set of search results.
WHY THEN IS GOOGLE RISKING ANNOYING "ITS USERS" IN THE NAME OF "SELLING" MORE GOOGLE ANALYTICS AND GOOGLE BASE USAGE?
Google dimissing duplicate content pages as "unique" landing pages further muddies the murky Google SERP world which sparks fear and intimidation throughout the Web's Webmaster world.
In Google dependency is risky business I discuss the proprietary risk Web properties run by succumbing to Google's demand to patrol their sites with the goal of casting judgement on Google worthiness, or not, via a not-so-innocent "Quality Score" determination.
All is fair in love and war, AND, apparently, in Google's Web world.