Google is encouraging people to be snitches and report paid links, so a good friend of mine who shall remain nameless on one of their last visits to an old gmail account took a moment to report some links. They took a screenshot, which they shared with me.

If Google wants to be the link police, shouldn’t they begin with their own backyard?

Apologies for all the Google Stuff –

I hope ya’all will bear with me during this time. The bottom line is I am angry with how Google are treating people. I don’t want to shut up and disappear into the night. My blog is my place to speak out and I intend to keep doing it as long as Google intend to keep acting like bullies. But I will try to keep some “normal” content coming your way, and only post more links when I have enough to make a post worthwhile.

Google may have once thought they were immune to bad press, that nobody would ever say anything bad about them.

There Will Be More Bad Press –

The reason there will be more? When a company of 13,000 or so employees takes on individual bloggers and shamelessly bullies them into behaving the way they demand they behave or else, that is big news. I was bullied when I was a kid at school. I’m damned if I will let them bully me now that I’m an adult. I’m not the only one who feels that way. It isn’t really about page rank to me – it is about bullying. They could give my page rank back and I would still feel this way. I would still be taking my power back.

I Feel Good, I Knew That I Would-

I have not visited a Google page in almost 24 hours now. Wow, it feels good! How can my decision not to visit Google sites any more hurt them, you wonder? Let’s look at an example.

Visits Count – So Stop Visiting –

I used to visit Google Search 10+ times a day. That’s over 70 visits in a week Google will no longer be getting. If 10 bloggers who visited Google 10+ times a day stop visiting – that’s 100 visits a day right there. That’s 700 visits in a week. You see how the numbers start to add up? What if 100 bloggers who used to visit Google 10+ times a day stop visiting? 1000 bloggers? Every visit counts. Every visit increases their alexa rank, every visit is logged and adds to their traffic. So if you stop visiting, that counts too.

Refuse To Be Bullied –

If you had a kid in school who was being bullied, would you do something about it? Would you speak to the school? And if the school did nothing and let your kid be bullied regularly, would you remove your kid from the school? If you hate bullies, stop visiting Google today.

Your Thoughts?

What do you think about the Big Google Bully? Do you think it is ok for a search engine to bully people and tell them who they can link to and who they can’t? How would you feel if they did it to you?

There’s a lot of people very unhappy with Google right now, and rightly so. We gave them too much power, and it is time to take it back. This post gives you everything you need to STOP using Google today, completely.

Why Say Goodbye?

So this morning I wake up to the refreshing news (thanks to email from a fellow blogger who went to a 0) that I now have a page rank of 0. ZERO. I can’t see what I’ve done wrong, or why I deserve such treatment. But what I can tell you is, I’m finished using Google. Here’s a list of the things I am using instead. If you feel angry at them for how they have treated me and other bloggers, you can feel free to do the same. In my opinion many of the following are actually BETTER than Google’s services anyway.

Goodbye Google Search, Hello Dogpile –

Don’t worry, you don’t have to completely stop using Google. What I suggest is that you use a search engine called Dogpile. It is a neat little search engine that combines results from Google, Ask.com, Yahoo and others. This way Google does not get a “hit” to their site when you search – Dogpile gets the hit and the traffic.

Goodbye Google Search – Hello Scroogle –

Goodbye Google Reader, Hello Bloglines –

In the past I have been a vocal supporter and user of Google Reader. I have suggested it to many fellow bloggers. I know plenty of people who have used it based on my recommendation. I thought “Oh no, I don’t want to switch, I love my Google Reader, it will be difficult to import all my blogs etc”. It turns out that isn’t true. Sephy wrote a post – How To Move From Google Reader To Bloglines. He did it for me and it took him about 2 minutes. I have to say I like the look of Bloglines a lot better than Google Reader. Time will tell if it works as well but I know a lot of people do use it.

Goodbye Google Calendar, Hello Sunbird –

I was a recent lover of Google Calendar but there were a few things about it which drove me nuts – the inability to print off more than 10 days in advance on your agenda was one of them. Sunbird can do this, so I’m all set. You can use Sunbird which is a stand alone program, or if you use Mozilla Thunderbird, you can use Lightning which integrates with Thunderbird.

Goodbye Gmail – Hello Many Options –

I personally am using my own mail server these days but if you don’t have the ability to do that there are plenty of options for free email which don’t have the annoying spam server that Gmail uses. That spam filter often sends legitimate email to the spam bin! Here’s a few of my favourites –

Fastmail.fm

The only thing missing at Fastmail is storage space. You get 10mb with a free email account. If you can keep on top of your mail and ruthlessly delete, this is the best free email on the web. I’ve had many dealings with customer service over there (fastmail supports scambaiters and has been excellent to us over the years) and they are fast, responsive, helpful and brilliant. Unlike Gmail who closed *10* of my email accounts and have not bothered to get back to me re retrieving my lost emails.

Don’t Forget Yahoo –

Yahoo now offers unlimited storage. You can sometimes find it difficult to get the email ID you want, but I was starting to find that with Gmail these days too. If you want POP3 email for free, Yahoo is the best way to get it – just remember that you do not get free POP3 on yahoo.com, it has to be one of the country endings like yahoo.com.au or yahoo.co.uk.

Goodbye Blogger, Hello WordPress –

I personally made the change to a self-hosted WordPress blog a little while ago.

However there are other free blogs out there OTHER than blogger. This article from Mashable – 40+ Free Blog Hosts contains many of the options.

Other Things You Could Do –

• If you have Adsense, remove it from your site.
• Make a decision never to click on an Adsense ad.
• Contact bloggers you know who use Adsense and tell them you object to the use of Adsense.
• Contact advertisers you see using Adsense and ask them to use different methods of advertising
• If you are in Australia and your blog has been affected, contact the ACCC – they are already taking Google to court re sponsored links
• Support your fellow bloggers by saying Goodbye To Google as mentioned above – because who knows who Google will target next? It could be you.
• Spread the word – link to this post, blog about saying Goodbye to Google.

Watch Google Stock Nose Dive

Some of the people being penalised may have owned Google Stock – or perhaps their calls to sell Google stock is working, because Google Stock is dropping – and I for one am applauding that. You can watch it drop yourself at Yahoo! Finance. I hope that is sending a message!