Over the years I’ve seen many businesses affected dramatically by changes in the Google algorithms but very rarely does the company respond to requests for assistance much less actually do anything to resolve or assist in the issue. But when it comes to porn, more specifically Tony Comstock’s porn, it seems that Google is partial to helping out. Matt Cutts one of the Google search experts got in touch with Tony the day that Tony’s site started having problems. It seems that Google was trying to better filter out junk/spam porn sites and in doing so filtered Tony’s site too. I find it strange that this sort of special treatment is awarded to a porn site.
In Matt’s defense Google and he himself probably get hundreds of emails every day dealing with the same issue and I imagine that its difficult to decided who if anyone to really help. I do however find it interesting that this was a same day response. I don’t know if Comstock’s site uses AdWords or not but if he is using them his company may be spending a lot of money with Google thus implying that he got through to them because of the financial component. Perhaps they took the time to work on it since it was something that happened that day. I have a feeling we may never know but I would be interested.
What does this say about our dependence on Google? I have seen several stories, blog posts and forum posts lately talking about businesses that made their business model too dependent on organic results from Google and when they lost search ranking their business went down the toilet. To quote the NY Post:
Customers couldn’t find him anymore, Comstock realized. “The Internet is the last place where adults can discuss sex freely,” he says. “It is our distribution channel.”
Comstock operates a blog The Art & Business of Making Erotic Films, this link is not safe for work. You can read the article that this post is based on, “GOOGLE STROKES PORN GUY” at the NY Post.
