Google Taking a Long Look at Linking

I just got back from picking up my daughter from school, and it's been three years now that I've been upset why no one does anything around the school to better control the traffic - the speeding through the school zone.

Most people don't care, is what it boils down to. Certainly most parents as they drop off or pick up their kids, they speed away at up to 40 MPH in a 20 MPH zone. And they smile at me as they speed by.

Yes, they're late for whatever. Didn't properly plan, so the kids suffer - those who have to watch out for them - to avoid being killed next to the school they're trying to get to, or go from.

On that same road, we have a school bus that picks up for the middle school close by. The bus stops, puts on the flashing lights, but time after time cars simply keep going and break the law - both speeding and passing a stopped school bus.

I guess I'm the only one that cares, because I tell other parents and they just look at me funny. I even told the principal of this Naples, Florida elementary school and he told "me" to go do something about it. Guess he carries absolutely no clout with the city or county.

But I have found something that may work.

I don't complain much about our fine city. Especially here. But the city department of roads, or whichever department is responsible for road works, has the bad habit of leaving those orange cones and portable traffic signs laying on the roadside long after the job has been finished.

One such cone has been laying on its side next to the school for over a month. They are putting in new traffic signals (not school zone signals) and maybe that's why the cone is there. I figured they won't miss it for a couple more weeks (until school ends and they can speed all they want). So late today I'm going to pick it up... or try to... and run it over to a friends home who lives right next to the 20 MPH school zone sign.

On my way to and from the school, I will place and pick up the cone and put it right in the middle of the road near the school zone sign. Sounds like a plan to me. What do you think? I'd certainly slow down near a cone.

I'll keep you updated.

With that off my chest let me tell you about Google's look into paid links. Now I've preached that you should develop a good linking network, and I've even discussed using Three Way Links for your content sites. And many of you have asked about Google's new look at this - and will they ban or delist your site if they figure you have links from Three Way Links.

Matt Cutts talks about spam in the form of web pages, and I've been preaching for years that any work with spammy pages will reap the wrath of Google. They will delist you faster than you can say Jack Flash, as Mom would say.

So my experience has been that the main reason these sites are gone from Google is that they are a spam site. It's pretty cut and dry. But some still argue that the Three Way Linking constitutes paid links that are used for the purpose of skewing Page Rank or search engine results.

I believe that if your content is original, linking from other sites is a way to get noticed by the search engine bots (see my lesson on search engines at Net Dominate). At that point the search engine can disregard the link and consider the content. And that's all. It's not necessary to penalize unless the site is spamming or irrelevant.

What are your thoughts on this?