Yesterday Joe Hall became annoyed. Otherwise soft spoken outspoken Joe had some choice words for an SEO company which had come up with what can be described as a creative way to get +1's:
The site's pages contained an inline popup layover thingie. You know, the page gets dimmed, the inline popup appears and then you have to click somewhere?
No biggie - popups work, after all - but this popup was different. This popup pretended to be a "spam" blocker. What? You're not a spammer?!?! Well, click the +1 and get immediate access to the site! It's that simple!
A kerfuffle broke out with the offending company claiming to be not only fully above the board with this but also that Google is A-OK with it.
Which seems too silly to be true - and Joe Hall quickly pointed it out:
Yet the weird truth of the matter is that as long as no money or prizes exchange hands, publishers may exchange content for clicks:
Publishers may not direct users to click a Google+ Button for purposes of misleading users. Publishers may not promote prizes, monies, or monetary equivalents in exchange for Google+ Button clicks. For the avoidance of doubt, Publishers may direct users to a Google+ Button to enable content and functionality. When a Publisher directs users to a Google+ Button, the button action must be related to the Publisher or the Publishers content.
-- Google button policy (Ed.:yes, they have a button policy)*
Not long after Alan Bleiweiss - not a stranger to uncovering even criminal activities during an SEO audit - became involved the company decided to take the popup down.
I think they did the right thing there. I also wouldn't be surprised if the company actually did receive confirmation that this " having to click +1 to get access to content " from Google. I'm pretty sure you're as surprised as I am to read that, yes, Google's policies are OK with this.
What do you think about this line in Google's policy? Surprised?
* button policy archived here.