I read an interesting post at Slightly Shady Seo entitled “Understanding Your Relationship With Google: Why Google Hates You.” and enjoyed it quite a bit. But I think the reason Google hates SEO enhanced selling on the internet is quite a bit simpler than he thinks, but go read his article and come on back.

Ok, here is my simple reason: Google can only make money through a channel they can’t control. And that scares them witless. And scared people do stupid stuff.

(Matt Cutts isn’t scared - that is why you can see him hanging out over on SEOmoz (here, here, and especially here) but I think he’s an exception. Nice to see someone enjoying money and fame!.)

But I think the channel must drive google nuts internally. Not to name names but the CEO of google has had some past unpleasant experience with a stuffed channel. That has probably left some good psychic scars.

I think SSS has some good analysis of how google’s cult-of-content makes them leery of SEO’s who move traffic around like a Hong Kong traffic cop at rush hour. But I think if the guys at google could sell ads at a more deterministic rate they’d be more relaxed about the whole thing.

Can you imagine looking at the predicted click velocity versus the actual and see it *never* matching up? In the longer run, at a high level of abstraction I’m sure it gets pretty close. But people focus on the short runs, and they will never match up.

Who makes it move around? SEO guys who do search keyword manipulation.

What happens when the Google guys figure out the latest trick and adjust for it? Yep, the ad click consumption changes. Again. Driving the revenue guys nuts. Again. Revenue guys got no sense of humor.

As I’ve said before, we’re not an SEO company, we just use the stuff. So when we modify our web behavior to capture more relevant traffic to our site we’re hoping to:

1> Get it from a direct competitor. If we sell “VHS to DVD Wedding Tapes” and Joey Crosstown sells that service too, we want his traffic. We get stronger, he weaker. I’m with Conan - “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women!”.

2> Get it from a substitute competitor. If we sell “Organic Nuts and Fruits” and someone is searching for Whole Foods “Organic Ingredients” then I want that traffic too.

Google may not like what we do to achieve <1> and <2> because they want to control that consumer behavior without our input. And I don’t blame them.