Google demotes Chrome on its PageRank after PR goof-up

Internet giant Google has demoted its Chrome browser on its PageRank for 60 days, following a goof-up in a PR exercise that saw bloggers being paid for promoting the browser, violating Google's ban on paid links.

Google discourages the practice of websites paying for links to ensure their site figures among the top few pages of a search. Google bought online video ads from Essence Digital, a digital media agency, which later hired Unruly, another firm, to carry out the video campaign for Chrome.

Unruly paid bloggers to link to the video extolling the virtues of Chrome to small businesses, urging them to download the page, without informing them of the sponsored link. Google claims it was not aware that the agencies were violating its own ban on paid links; when it came to know of it, the internet giant decided to punish its browser unit, Chrome, by demoting it on it PageRanks.

The Google Chrome team can appeal the demotion after 60 days.

''We've investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site's PageRank for a period of at least 60 days,'' Google said in a statement. ''We strive to enforce Google's webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users. While Google did not authorise this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site.''

Google claimed it had not approached Essence Digital to approach bloggers and to place sponsored links. The digital media agency also confirmed that Google had not approved a sponsored-post campaign. ''They only agreed to buy online video ads, said Essence Digital. ''We apologise to Google who clearly didn't authorise this."

Google had in the past demoted many sites for buying links or manipulating the ratings with 'thin content.'

Interestingly, Google Chrome performed well in 2011, raising its market share from 15.6 per cent in January to 27 per cent in December. Microsoft's IE saw a fall in market share from 46 per cent to 38.6 per cent during the same period, according to StatCounter, a research firm. Firefox's share also fell from 30.6 per cent to 25.7 per cent.