The software that I use to blog with is WordPress - a very popular tool. It has become known that the founder/lead developer has used the official WordPress site to “game” Google search results:
Wordpress Banned by Google for Spamming
Matt, WordPress, and Search Engine Gaming
Wordpress Website’s Search Engine Spam
Spam, Matt, Wordpress.org — and I am exhausted. Bad mix :)
Wordpress is using its high Page Rank to game Google AdWords
WordPress and ’spam’
(and probably a thousand other places as well…)

The basic point is that because WordPress is such a popular blogging application, the WordPress web site has (had) a very high PageRank. Using some trickery, articles were hidden from user view, but visible to search engines, off the main page of WordPress. Therefore, the high PageRank of the main WordPress site increased the position of these hidden articles in Google search results.

Lest you think we’re talking about nothing here, understand that some types of results from Google are rumored to pay up to $40 a click - not the same type of links we are talking about, but making the point that money — real money — is involved here.

Just to make things more interesting, the main guy here is on vacation in Europe right now, so most of the discussion a bit lopsided - he hasn’t had a chance to defend himself. (Personally, I think it’s indefensible and the best thing is an unconditional apology and then moving on, but I doubt that will happen.)

It presents a bit of an ethical problem. I like WordPress, it’s good software. It’s very popular, so support is readily available. I’m lazy, and it’s easy to use. However, gaming search engines is in the same circle of hell as spamming (even if they are technically different) and I can’t support that type of situation. (Which I am implicity doing by using the software and providing links back to the main WordPress site.)

So, I’m going to wait and see what Matt (the main guy) does. It’s not a matter of giving the “benefit of the doubt” - there’s simply no doubt that what WordPress has done here was wrong. It’s more a matter of giving the guy a change to apologize for his mistakes and learn from them.

Update: Matt’s response is up.