http://www.sitepronews.com By Scott Buresh 2007
"Chinese Wall - The ethical (not physical) barrier between different divisions of a financial (or other) institution to avoid conflict of interest..."
Investopedia.com
"While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results."
Google's Webmaster Help Center FAQ
"NO pay for inclusion, and a complete separation of the search index part from the money part."
Google Chief Engineer Craig Neville-Manning, Search Engine Strategies 2004
The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results – that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory. But do they live up to this ideal in practice?
You don't hear Google talking much about Chinese Walls these days. This is certainly in part because they have had great difficulty gaining traction in the literal and very competitive Chinese market (headlines such as "Google Hits Chinese Wall" or even "Google Advance Halted at Great Wall of China" were commonplace). But might there be other, more nefarious reasons? Is there a reason why we hear less and less from Google about the virtual wall that separates paid search results from organic search engine placement?
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