By Chris Sherman Executive Editor, January 13, 2003
Google has responded to SearchKing's lawsuit alleging that Google improperly reduced SearchKing's PageRank scores, asking the U.S. Dictrict Court to throw out the case.
Last August, SearchKing owner Bob Massa launched a "PR Ad Network" designed to broker paid link exchanges between web sites, both to help participants attract quality traffic and to potentially boost their PageRank scores, which are assigned to every page in Google's index.
PageRank is just one of more than 100 techniques Google uses to calculate the relevance of a web page for a particular query. But it's also just about the only public indicator Google makes available about its inner workings, and so PageRank has become the focus of obsessive attention by the webmaster community.
Google displays an approximation of a web page's PageRank (not the exact value) through a small graph on the Google Toolbar. Webmaster lore says that pages that get links from other pages with a PageRank of 8 or higher will see a concurrent boost in their own PageRank.
Massa's PR Ad Network sought to capitalize on that, even at the same time admitting that Google would likely penalize such a scheme as an attempt at manipulating Google search results. Sure enough, SearchKing's PageRank scores soon plummeted -- provoking Massa to file what many astute observers considered to be a Quixotic lawsuit against Google.
On December 30, Google formally responded to the lawsuit, and went a step further, seeking to have the suit thrown out of court altogether.
The two documents, despite being legal filings, are remarkably readable, and offer some intriguing insights into how Google works, and how it views its position as "gatekeeper" to the web. They're well worth reading, for both searcher and webmaster alike.
Yale's LawMeme weblog has also published extensive commentary on the suit and the legal maneuvering by the two companies. The commentary, written by James Grimmelmann, offers some fascinating observations:
"Google is telling the court that even if SearchKing proves everything it alleges, it still won't have shown that Google acted illegally."
"...there's no need to wait to resolve the basic question: not what Google did, but whether it was wrong.
"Google has one very powerful argument here. Google claims that PageRank is commercial speech, protected by the First Amendment."
Online law, especially as it relates to search engines, is relatively uncodified. This case is one that all SearchDay readers should pay close attention to.
Google's Response SearchKing's Complaint (PDF)
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=4
Google's response, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
Google's Motion to Dismiss and Supporting Brief (PDF)
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/files/Google_SearchKing_Motion_to_Dismiss.pdf
Google's motion to dismiss and supporting brief, also filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
Google Replies to SearchKing Lawsuit
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=807
Comments on the Google/SearchKing controversy, from LawMeme, a collaboration between Yale University's Information Society Project, the Yale Law and Technology Society and the Yale Journal of Law and Technology.
Google Sued Over PageRank Decrease
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/11-searchking.html
Danny Sullivan examines the issues surrounding the Search King/Google lawsuit.
Google responds to SearchKing complaint
Webmaster World Forum
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/8247.htm
"LawMeme has published the Google response to the SearchKing complaint. The bottom line is that Google says to the effect, that they did it to protect the integrity of the algo, and moreover it was there first amendment right to do it."
Title Tags: A badly written title will sink your site
Webmaster World Forum
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum34/429.htm
"How to sabotage your web site without even knowing it."
Outbound links?
Webmaster World Forum
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/8323.htm
"If Google starts measuring out-going links, can we tap off (into?) that knowledge? If yes, how?"
Can a one man band challenge the "Google"
Webmaster World Forum
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum34/431.htm
"Is it possible for a project like Gigablast to sneak up on Google..."
Dynamic urls, ?'s, Google and htaccess
ihelpyou Forums
http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/t6383/
"The answer to your question lies in robots.txt!"
Google gets sinister!
Cre8asite Forums
http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=682
"I don't think we need to go around looking for things for which there is no evidence that they exist at all. I do think we need to look closely at what does happen though, e.g. SearchKing, to try to determine what's right and wrong."
Search Engine Forums Spotlight courtesy Search Engine Guide.
NOTE: Article links often change. In case of a bad link, use the publication's search facility, which most have, and search for the headline.
