For an ultimate crusader against sponsored links, Google neglected its own piece of gospel this time.

Having programmed its algorithm against paid links and “thin” content for years now, a simple search query of posts sponsored by Google unfolds a whole set of results that belie Google’s assertion that it has refined its search program to flag down paid links.

In a sponsored post campaign for Google Chrome, it has surfaced that the search engine giant roped in a third party marketer (Unruly) to get bloggers to write content about its browser and its benefit to small businesses, based on their own personal discretional views that is. Not that there was anything wrong in promoting the product, but what pickled the idea was that these posts seemed to carry links to the Google Chrome download page, including a promotional video that redirected to the download page.  Also, the posts were visibly scripted and low on quality information. There was inclusion of straight links to the Google Chrome page which ideally should have been blocked as per Google’s Webmaster Tools mandate for speculative paid links.

But even though the campaign was carried out by a third party associate, the problem is that Google is guilty of using the same “illegal” linking tactics it penalizes other websites for, and introducing more of the low quality web spam that updates like Panda are designed to eradicate.  According to Google, to avoid manipulation of search results, paid links should be indicated by the inclusion of  a “no follow” link attribute.

Although it would appear that links from the Chrome video could influence search rankings for Google Chrome, as could the text links for this campaign (because although encoded in Javascript, Google’s spider has been able to understand and follow these for a couple of years now), according to Google’s Matt Cutts this is not the case and only one link from the campaign passed PR.

However, as a result of poor campaign execution, brand Google has been caught in a frenzy of accusations over low quality content and sponsored links. The same things that JC penny, Forbes, Overstock and even Google’s very own BeatThatQuote websites were penalized for has been Google Chrome’s undoing.  Google has manually demoted www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days together with its PageRank.

Google had little option but to levy the same charges on Google Chrome as it does on other violating sites and punish it accordingly. More painfully it comes at a time when Google is spending on promoting the browser. There’s a lesson to be learnt here: when assigning sponsored post or pay per click campaign management roles to some third party, be sure to review pages periodically.

All Google did was pay Unruly to deliver video views on the Chrome campaign and not for delivering posts, tweets, links, or any other form of editorial content that would suggest violation of its paid links policy. Even so, all being said and done, it seems to be an yet another mistake that further tarnishes Google’s image after similar episodes with Google Japan and cloaking Adwords help pages. The lasting impact is something only time will tell, but for now, Google will feel the pinch of an overlooked action on its part.

Pay Per Click Advertising Services is one of the best performing verticals of Convonix, a research-oriented internet marketing services provider based in Mumbai, India.  Most of its PPC management team are qualified Google Adwords certified professionals