14 DAY TRIAL // Google has cleared up the whole Google Chrome paid links situation in the only way it could and still save face, it demoted the Google Chrome page and also lowered its PageRank.
The penalty will last for at least 60 days after which those responsible for the Google Chrome page can submit a request for reconsideration to the Google webspam team.
The immediate result is that google.com/chrome is nowhere to be found in the search results for things like "chrome," "google chrome" or even "browser."
This means that you cannot get to the Google Chrome download page easily even if you search for it. In practice, the first page that now ranks for "google chrome" is the help page explaining how to install the browser.
What's more, among the sitelinks of that first result, you'll find direct links to google.com/chrome. Besides that, Google has also bought the top ad for the query which, of course, links to google.com/chrome.
Still, it's not just a symbolic decision, the move will likely impact Chrome downloads, especially for queries not directly related to the browser.
But it was a decision Google had to make. As has been revealed, Google hired a video ad network to promote a Chrome ad. That network hired a marketing company for the campaign which in turn paid bloggers to write about the browser.
The posts were disclosed as being part of paid campaign, but at least one of them included a link to the Chrome download page without the "no follow" attribute, which goes against Google's policies relating to paid links.
"In response, the webspam team has taken manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days. After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration request documenting their clean-up just like any other company would," Matt Cutts, Google's webspam guru and public face for any related issues, wrote.
"During the 60 days, the PageRank of www.google.com/chrome will also be lowered to reflect the fact that we also won’t trust outgoing links from that page," he explained.
In the end, the details of why this happened are not as important as the result. Google said that it would look into the matter to ensure that it wouldn't happen again.
The company using other ad networks to promote its products doesn't put it in the best possible light. But it did take action and demoted Chrome and that's what matters, even though there are those that aren't completely satisfied.