Bob Massa and Danny Sullivan discuss Webposition and SearchKing penalties

There are some interesting comments on the Webposition and Searchking penalties discussed on the Search Engine Watch forums in this thread: Webposition.com de-indexed.

For a start, the issue of Free Speech with regards to Google comes up. Of course, the general reasoning is that Google cannot be forced to air other people’s views and opinions via its results - so Google’s index is for itself to index.

However, Bob Massa of SearckKing then turns the discussion towards an interesting new direction.

The point I was trying to make was the INTENT was wrong. My posiiton was, (and is now in regards to the topic at hand), that when a company has the intent of causing harm to another company by using it’s power and influence as a weapon, that is not their right to run their own business. That is restraint of trade and that is illegal in the US. I believe that the lack of understanding the legal system has in regards to technology and the internet is being used as a cloak to cloud the real issue.

Then arius adds the following very interesting comment:

Google is arguably the doorway to the internet for many. Deindexing a site’s page seems similar to the antitrust anti-competition measures that M$oft was accused of in the past.

There’s no doubting that Google is the dominant portal for search on the internet - what is so amazing is that Yahoo! and MSN have allowed the company to race so far ahead. But I suppose that’s one of the key advantages of running a company that is effectively vertical marketing search and all its possibilities, while Yahoo! and MSN have a far wider remit of internet content to develop and monetise.

However, the interesting point raised is as to whether Google has a commercial right to exclude companies, or a public responsibility to keep them listed even when penalised.

Danny Sullivan’s fairly excellent post on the matter sums it up nicely:

Ban WebPosition, and you’ve done nothing but downgrade relevancy for your own searchers. They’ll still find the product — heck, even though your own partner Amazon, which has one of the top listings. What they won’t find is the official company web site. That’s your job as a search engine, to help peopel navigate correctly.