jadedtic – also good points and I think this “self editing” is getting to be a major challenge for everybody, stifling creativity in the interest of … cash.

I think Google best serves it’s OWN long term interests by making sure it helps the community, especially the mom and pop sites that suffer from mistaken ideas about search rules and regulations.

Glad to hear your rabbits are still doing OK, though I’m a little worried about … Jeremy Z’s pets.. especially the Lemurs.

I’ve found this to be true of even my own writing, my own sites. I keep thinking, is this good SEO, is this site different? But the problem with them saying (unique content) is that competition is better with two similar content providers than forcing the one that does better SEO to the top. Let the users decide Coke or Pepsi, not the Google. Sounds like Google’s foreseeing a way to get Coke to put money in their pockets in the future by ensuring Coke gets great SERPs organically.

I’m thinking Google is turning evil — Google is the Anakin Skywalker of Episode 3, and has one last chance to redeem itself, will it heed Obi Wan’s call “But you were the chosen one?”

Or will Google enable Bill Gates to push MSN Search to the forefront in a very squeaky clean manner?

I’ve praised Google a lot on my own blog, but I’ve also written some extremely harsh commentary about Google on my blog, on Googlers’ blogs, and even directly to some Googlers.

In each case, my criticisms have been acknowledged and thanked or — at worst — ignored. I continue to rank decently in Google, and continue to earn AdSense cash and I haven’t found my pet rabbits stewed or anything like that, either

* * *

With that said, your comments about Google needing to be responsive to the online community (Webmaster and otherwise) in a broader and deeper way are well-founded. They need to clone Matt and/or find (and EMPOWER!) others with a similar combination of amiability, patience, humor, and general communication skills. In particular, I think enabling comments on some of their blogs (like Microsoft and Yahoo do, for instance!) would be a good start… but without a company-wide commitment to monitor and participate in *conversations*… the open commenting would be more of a detriment than an asset.

No easy answers. I also feel for Google on this. Given Google’s status as the ‘big kahuna’ I know that any attempts to open a broader dialog will also be met by really loud shouts, off-topic rants, and screaming demands for personal assistance (ah, human nature!)

But the alternative — remaining largely secretive and closed — is not a valid long-term option. It’s not evil… it just doesn’t do justice to the kind of culture and trust that Google wants to foster externally.