Quiddity! - the SEO Blog

One could never accuse Google of being the annoying office or factory joker. You know, the type whose only achievement is to annoy every man and his uncle on a perpetual basis until the only feasible course of action that remains is to hang them upside down by their ankles from the nearest third floor window, promising an unscheduled stop with the ground below, should they endeavour with said ‘wacky’ japery.

No, you’d certainly never place Google in that bracket. In fact, they bring a new definition to meaning ‘po-faced misery’, but of course, that’s another story.

Nevertheless, I would like to think that this faceless conglomerate at least has a bit of a sense of humour, and this dream was kept alive after reading Northern lad and all round capital chap Wayne Smallman’s post over at Blah Blah! Technology, The Strange Case of the 3 Google Sitelinks.

Read the post - go on, give it a bash - and you’ll see that said gent was awarded some much coveted sitelinks for his natty little blog, only to discover that one such link had been called Paula. Absolutely priceless.

Well the whole sitelink thing is an automated process, generated by Google from a website's content, but it got me thinking that maybe this is what Google lacks - a sense of humour.

Maybe it would make their grasping power and financial clout that little bit more palatable to us lowly webmasters. Wouldn’t it be great to think that Google sometimes intervened to play a little bit of harmless mischief on us, instead of banning websites from their indexes for no concrete reason, or penalising those that they only suspect of not playing by their sometimes ambiguous guidelines.

I can almost see it now. Google Gags Incorporated. A quirky brand of search-related foolery. Delivered with a deliciously wicked look in their digital eye and a rum grin across their binary face. I’d vote for that!

They say, “The business of business, is business”, and I suppose that leaves no room for a sense of humour. Shame really, because it’s fair to say that Google gets its share of bad press from the SEO/ webmaster community. And a great deal of the time it’s not without good reason. Before now this very blog has jumped on the bandwagon - see one, leap on it - and took a swipe at what you might call an easy target, with a barbed comment or maybe even a full paranoid post decrying Google as a force intent on world domination. But if that stony façade cracked once in a while to reveal the still beating human heart at its core, all but smothered by the tangle of twisted steel and cold machinery, well that would certainly be a start on the road to humanitarian reputation management - or something like that.

After all, do they not litter their headquarters with helter skelter slides, fireman poles, beanbags in meeting rooms, and an array of other unconventional workplace paraphernalia? Aren’t they cited as being “just dandy” to work for?

It goes without saying that Google revolutionised the way that search engines work, a key factor in their phenomenal success. The founder’s Sergey and Larry developed a system that returned results with more relevance at a time when search engine indexes were weighed down with spam. They should rightly be hailed for that achievement and likewise to this day their efforts in keeping their indexes free of said spam.

The sometimes puritanical nature that has been known to punish the innocent on occasion, or the predilection for changing the goalposts mid-season to suit their own agenda (the definition of “no follow” anyone?) can all be forgiven if it means a better user experience. Right?

But before I wander too far down the road of another veiled dig at the big G, allow me to return to the original notion. That of Google, the unheralded japester. I don’t expect them to relinquish their crusade to own the whole of the internet, nor compromise their ruthless efficiency as a business in favour of becoming an online jester.

But I wouldn’t mind a smile every now and then.

So let me congratulate Google on their major achievements. The ton of sweaty cash they’ve acquired off of other people’s content (hard work). The unassailable position they enjoy as the kings of global search. The fact they’re just about set become the largest advertising network in the UK. The fact they are the internet as far as the vast majority of the UK is concerned.

You, good sirs, are clearly years ahead of any other search engine for relevance. And in my mind, I now have you marked as surreptitious gagmeisters, even if it’s not true.

In naming a sitelink ‘Paula’, and inspiring Wayne Smallman’s witty post, you’ve achieved the nigh on impossible and brought a smile back to the jaded façade of this old man.

Google, my dear fellows, I tip my hat to you.