Google Sidewiki – Good, Bad Or Indifferent

Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 6:23 am

There has been a lot written very quickly on a wide variety of forums about Google Sidewiki most of it bad and making this quite likely to be a great tool for spam.

One of the best articles on it is from Paul Myers. Paul is someone you should follow and I recommend that you read his article and sign up for his email list. It is one of the few that I ALWAYS read because of the quality of his information. His post is at Google Steals The Web.

The basics of SideWiki is that Google is allowing people that use the Google tool bar to add their comments that are displayed along side of your content and looks like it is part of your site.

That would not be bad if you had any control over the content like you do with blog comments but you have absolutely no control. To date Google has no way for you to opt out of this service and it allows people to add their links to steal your traffic or to trash you on your own site.

Not a good thing despite the idea having some merit if their were an ability to opt out of some sort.

I like the idea of user created content but the spam possibilities for this and the lack of control are worrisome to say the least.

Not surprisingly there is already a product available to stop people from having the side wiki show on your site. It is at Sidewiki Comment Blocker.

Not sure if this will be useful long term because hopefully Google will eliminate this with all the uproar but it is something I am considering.

Either way this new item from Google deserves your attention.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.

After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.

If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.