Fast Company | Schmoozing with the Enemy: "Some search-engine optimizers, or SEOs, earn a living by tricking Google's search engine into ranking a Web page higher than it otherwise would appear. In other words, they try to game Google. So the idea of Google throwing them a bash seems akin to Nixon inviting Communist spies for brunch in the Rose Garden.
But no, Google insists. 'This is all good. We want to work with SEO's . . . the ethical SEOs,' says spokesperson Nathan Tyler. 'This is like us extending an olive branch.'
Ah, of course. Ethical SEOs comply with guidelines laid out by Google on its Web site--and many encourage clients to buy sponsored ads, a big money maker for Google. They avoid such tricks as 'cloaking,' building one Web site to be seen and ranked by Google, then a second actually viewed by consumers. Every time such manipulation succeeds, it corrodes the integrity of Google's search engine and thus the Google brand. Google doesn't like that! Typically, offending sites are purged from Google's index.
The trouble is, such crimes occur in cyberspace. In the real world, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad. So Google invites all SES registrants, ethical or not, and tells staffers to 'smile real nice.' But many attendees guess there's more going on. 'I think this might be a marketing stunt,' says Micah Baldwin, a Web marketer from Denver. 'I think [the] Google [code] is broken, and they know it. They just don't want any of us to know it, so they throw this huge party to make you think everything is fine.'
Or Google may be mining for information. Under a tent, guests get brief tutorials on how to improve a site's rank following the real Google Dance. Lots of people appear to be participating. But what are they really getting? 'No one is learning anything inside that tent"