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• twURLed World Description: Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit (Google Weblog) .
• bloggergooglekm: aaron , blog , blogger , google , it , link , pagerank , site .
• When's the dance? | Main | Blogger Heads to Google » January 10, 2003: Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit For those. ... SearchKing sold links on high-PageRank sites, Google lowered their PageRank, SearchKing sued.
• Google Weblog « When's the dance? | Main | Blogger Heads to Google » January 10, 2003: Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit For those of you who don't remember the SearchKing flap, here's a quick summary: SearchKing sold links on high-PageRank sites, Google lowered their PageRank, SearchKing sued. ...

• freedom and technology Google responds to SearchKing ranking lawsuit.
• 10:34 AM +1000, Jan 11 2003 Google has responded to SearchKing's lawsuit, which claims they illegally manipulated search results. Search King had claimed that Google devalued its PageRank score, bumping it and its ad network out of listings. ... According to Google's filing, "Search King's sole complaint is that Google lowered its PageRank for pages on Search King's site. ... " - CNet, Google counters search-fix lawsuit. ... Their argument is solid: pagerank values are subjective opinions, and can't be proved true or false; therefore SearchKing's claim that they are incorrect cannot be tested. ... As Google states in a beautiful footnote: The PageRank values assigned by Google are not susceptible to being proved true or false by objective evidence. How could SearchKing ever "prove" that its ranking should "truly" be a 4 or a 6 or a 8? Certainly, Search King is not suggesting that each one of the billions of web pages ranked by Google are subject to another "truer" evaluation? If it believes so, it is certainly free to develop its own search services using the criteria it deems most appropriate. ... It notes that SearchKing's first "cause of action," its request for an injunction, isn't actually a cause of action at all (it's a proposed remedy, which SearchKing could earn only by having some other good cause of action). And it points out that SearchKing's description of the tortious interference claim is highly vague, alleging very few specific facts. The implication is that Google could respond equally strongly to other necessary elements of SearchKing's legal claim, if only it knew what that claim was. - LawMeme, Google replies to SearchKing lawsuit.

• E news company goes head to head with Google over PageRank.
• Bob Massa, president of SearchKing and PR Ad Network, filed a lawsuit this week against Google, claiming the organization arbitrarily and purposefully devalued his companies' and his customers' web sites, causing his business to suffer financially. ... PR Ad Network was involved in placing text ads for businesses on web sites with a high PageRank from Google. According to the Massa, once Google became aware of this, it lowered SearchKing's PageRank and the ranking of the web sites it hosts. "From February of 2001 to last month, SearchKing's PageRank was seven" Massa said. "Within 30 days of launching PR Ad Network's services, our PageRank dropped to four" Due to the high value associated with PR, Massa claims in his lawsuit that the purposeful reduction of SearchKing and its related web sites' rankings has damaged the company's reputation and diminished its value. ...

• Searchking's Google rank restored, .
• but not the Pagerank.
• The search rank of the the Oklahoma based firm, SearchKing, has beed restored yesterday by Google. ...
• After Google penalized Searchking for selling text ads based on the PR value of a site, a search for the keyword "searchking" did not bring up the web site of searchking until the third page. Now, after two months, when Google users type "searchking" in the Google search window, the company's web site is again displayed as the first result of the search. ...
• But the pagerank of Searchking is still penalized to be 4. The pr value of Searchking was 7 before Google penalized the site.
• The lawsuit, filed against Google last month by Massa, asks that the court grant preliminary and permanent injunctions against Google, alleging that Google arbitrarily and purposefully devalued his and his customers' web sites, causing their business to suffer financially. ...
• PageRank is a Google-developed system of determining the value of a particular website. The value of PageRank of a site ranges from one to 10. ...
• Google being the most popular and commonly used search engine these days and the pagerank of a site has become a commonly used way by the net surfers to determine the quality, or search status of a web site. ...
• Searchking claims that its diminished Google ranking and pr value has damaged its reputation. ...
• Massa, the president of Searchking said he will carry on with its lawsuit against Google, despite the fact that its search rank appears to have been restoredin order to limit Google’s ability to arbitrarily reduce the PR or search status of any web site. ...

• SearchKing vs Google Lawsuit Dismissed.
• An Oklahoma court has granted Google's Motion to Dismiss the case brought against them by disgruntled owner of SearchKing, Bob Massa.
• Last August, Mr Massa's PR Ad Network allegedly used Google's proprietory PageRank™ system to sell ad space on his network of portals, which led to Google manually applying a low PageRank™ score to his network of sites. Mr Massa responded with a lawsuit, claiming his ability to do business had been infringed by Google's manual adjustment. ...
• Google responded with a Motion to Dismiss the case, asserting they were immune from Tort Liability arising from the manual devaluation, because PageRank™ constitutes protected speech. ...

• Google counters SearchKing's lawsuit.
• Searchking's Google rank restored, but not the Pagerank.
• Google counters the Searchking lawsuit and claims that it has done nothing wrong and asks the court not to grant an injunction. ...
• According to Google's filing, "Search King's sole complaint is that Google lowered its PageRank for pages on Search King's site. ...
• Google incorporates (mostly by reference to the Motion to Dismiss) its First Amendment defenses, but also makes one interesting extra points, that Google is under no obligation to index SearchKing's pages at all; once it does, SearchKing has no right to complain about the PageRank it gets. ...
• Searchking's Google rank restored, but not the Pagerank .

• SearchKing Google Rank Restored November 13, 2002 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Internet company SearchKing said on Wednesday that it will carry on with its lawsuit against search engine Google, despite the fact that its search rank appears to have been restored. When users type “SearchKing” into Google’s search window, says SearchKing, the company’s Web address is now the first result in the search. At the time the suit was filed, SearchKing’s site did not appear in the first 20 results of the same search. SearchKing says it is continuing forward with the law suit in an effort to limit Google’s ability to arbitrarily reduce the PageRank or search status of any particular Web site. “This suit has never been about the priority we were given in a search or even our PageRank," said Bob Massa, president of SearchKing Inc. ... "The case is about Google’s attempt to squelch competition by targeting businesses and arbitrarily reducing their PageRank or search status. ... Next month, what’s to stop them from reducing my ranking again?" The lawsuit, filed against Google last month by Massa, asks that the court grant preliminary and permanent injunctions against Google, alleging that Google arbitrarily and purposefully devalued his company’s and his customers’ Web sites, causing his business to suffer financially. ...

• News: Google sued over search rankings Web Services  -  Posted @ 05:09 am: PermLink News: Google sued over search rankings SearchKing, an Oklahoma City-based Web site network and advertising seller, filed a lawsuit Friday against Mountain View, Calif. ... SearchKing set up a web of high-PageRanked pages to manipulate Google's search results and then sold links from its pages to others as a way to boost PageRank. When Google found out, they reset the SearchKing pageranks to 0 which in turn meant that all those sold sites' PR's dropped as well. For SearchKing to sue Google based on its actions, there would have to be an implicit or explicit contract between Google and SearchKing. Since there was no such contract agreed to, the only responsibility that Google has is to its users which prefer results which are cleaner and free of the type of manipulations that SearchKing and others like them are trying to do. ...

• stargeek home    PHP scripts    articles    seo tools    links    search    contact    shop Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit.
• Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit.
• Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit 01/10/2003 10:52.
• For those of you who don't remember the SearchKing flap, here's a quick summary: SearchKing sold links on high-PageRank sites, Google lowered their PageRank, SearchKing sued. ...
• com: Title: Comments: Similar Items Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit.
• A Google Win in SearchKing Case.
• A Google Win in SearchKing Case 01/26/2003 12:11.
• In SearchKing v. Google the judge has denied SearchKing's request for preliminary injuction. In other words, SearchKing asked for their PageRank to be put back to where it was while the trial was being held, and the judge said no. ... " Would this scenario change your point of view? Maybe not, but I suspect that there are many people who support Google whole-heartedly in this lawsuit, but who wouldn't be so willing to support Badgle's actions. So this decision could have much farther-reaching effects than whether search engines can demote the PageRank of "spam kings". ...
• Google Responds to SearchKing Complaint.
• Google Responds to SearchKing Complaint 01/09/2003 10:40.
• LawMem has published the Google response to the SearchKing complaint. ...
• Google response to search - fixing lawsuit attacked.

• District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange on Tuesday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction brought by SearchKing, an Oklahoma City-based Web hosting and advertising network that claimed Google unfairly removed links to its site and those of its partners from the index, causing financial losses. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that Google's formula for calculating the popularity of a Web page, or "PageRank," constitutes opinions protected by the First Amendment. ...
• SearchKing, which operates an advertising network, originally filed a grievance in October 2002. Its complaint centered on Google's PageRank algorithm and charged that Google devalued SearchKing's PageRank score, bumping it and its ad network out of listings. ...
• SearchKing sought a preliminary injunction against Google, asking to be restored to its previous PageRank and to be awarded $75,000 in damages. Late last year, SearchKing's top listing was restored on Google.
• The judge denied SearchKing's request for damages, saying it "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. ...
• SearchKing CEO Bob Massa expressed disappointment over the ruling, but he didn't see it as a complete loss. ...
• "SearchKing never broke a law, yet was accused, judged and executed without so much as a notice of intent. ...
• Google counters search-fix lawsuit January 10, 2003 .

• He also displays a very human portrait of Sergey Brin, co-creator of PageRank (along with Larry Page) and current moral compass for Google. ...
• In a separate article on the Google lawsuit, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick cuts to the heart of what concerns us most: "Sure, they Google are entitled to pick and choose which Web sites they rank and how they do it, but is it healthy for a single company to control what the rest of the world may actually read and not read? Once everyone agrees that Google rankings stand for some universal benchmark, can Google go in and tweak those benchmarks just to punish its competitors?" Well, it's not really competitors but those who are seen to be manipulating Google's system in a way that adversely affects Google's ability to return relevant results. ...
• SearchEthos is tickled by Chris Ridings' question to GoogleAnswers "Is Google's PageRank (TM) an opinion or an objective measurement?". ...
• Preliminary injunction denied in SearchKing-Google case. ...
• "The Court further notes that the integrity of the PageRank system has already been compromised by virtue of the manual decrease to SearchKing's PageRank. Google's decision to intentionally decrease sic PageRanks for reasons unrelated to the factors ordinarily taken into account by the mathematical algorithm that produces the PageRank has distorted the objectivity of the PageRank system. ...
• "While Google's decision to intentionally deviate sic from its mathematical algorithm in decreasing SearchKing's PageRank may raise questions about the 'truth' of the PageRank system, there is no conceivable way to prove that the relative significance assigned to a given web site is false. A statement of relative significance, as represented by the PageRank, is inherently subjective in nature. ...
• One further note: in the Comments section of the above column, someone purporting to be the SearchKing Lawyer has posted that they've filed a "Rule 59 Motion to Alter Judgment", arguing that Google's patent on PageRank alleges objectivity the very same objectivity Google is now moving away from in its efforts to have PageRank legally classified as opinion protected under the First Amendment .
• Google's Response to the SearchKing Lawsuit.
• These changes were prompted by SearchKing's attempts to increase the PageRank (Google's proprietary system for ranking pages) of certain pages artificially by linking to them from other high-scoring PageRank pages. SearchKing made these links from sites within its network- commercially available to paying customers.
• - Google's claim that PageRank is "commercial speech, protected by the First Amendment" and that rankings are simply "professional opinion".
• Just so we're clear, SearchEthos neither condemns nor advocates the policy of purchasing or obtaining links from high-scoring PageRank pages in itself. ...

• stargeek home    PHP scripts    articles    seo tools    links    search    contact    shop Google PageRank - Democracy or Corporate Muscle?.
• Google PageRank - Democracy or Corporate Muscle?.
• Google PageRank - Democracy or Corporate Muscle? 01/15/2003 06:57.
• PageRank is Google's big drawcard. ...
• com: Title: Comments: Similar Items Google PageRank - Democracy or Corporate Muscle?.
• I agree with his contention that PageRank isn't a "democracy" but I don't think we'd want it to be either. PageRank is a meritocracy, where you get the best page, not the most popular. ...
• Doc Searls reponds to criticism of Googles unique PageRank system, which calculates a webpage's ranking in the Google database. Responding to a comment about PageRank 'favoring' websites with heavy traffic, Doc writes, "Why is this bad? Because PageRank doesn't give a fair shake to stuff nobody points to? What user.
• CGI Redirected URLs and PageRank.
• CGI Redirected URLs and PageRank 06/19/2002 08:56.
• " Cool! What would be really great, is if they let anyone submit an idea and used PageRank or a similar system to select the best. PageRank is already designed to search for the best web pages, why not let it search out the best ideas too. ...
• PageRank: Google's Original Sin.
• PageRank: Google's Original Sin 09/17/2002 05:02.
• In the first place, Google's claim that "PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web" must be seen for what it is, which is pure hype. ... In PageRank, rich people get more votes than poor people, or, in web terms, pages with higher PageRank have their votes weighted more than the votes from lower pages. ...

• Google wins search-fixing lawsuit.
• US District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange has denied a motion for a preliminary injunction brought by SearchKing, a web hosting and advertising network that claimed Google unfairly removed links to its site and those of its partners from the index, causing financial losses. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that Google's formula for calculating the popularity of a web page, or "PageRank", constitutes opinions protected by the First Amendment. ...
• SearchKing, which operates an advertising network, originally filed a grievance in October 2002. Its complaint centred on Google's PageRank algorithm and charged that Google devalued SearchKing's PageRank score, bumping it and its ad network out of listings. ...
• SearchKing sought a preliminary injunction against Google, asking to be restored to its previous PageRank and to be awarded $75,000 in damages. Late last year, SearchKing's top listing was restored on Google.
• The judge denied SearchKing's request for damages, saying it "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. ...
• SearchKing CEO Bob Massa expressed disappointment over the ruling, but he didn't see it as a complete loss. ...
• "SearchKing never broke a law, yet was accused, judged and executed without so much as a notice of intent. ...

• The strange Google lawsuit over its page-ranking monopoly.
• Practically everybody but the Oklahoma-based online advertising network SearchKing, which filed suit last fall decrying the way Google ranks the Web sites it searches. ...
• PageRank is Google's page ranking system: the nerd equivalent of a Victorian dance card. ... PageRank is a free feature on the Google toolbar, and it's based on a top-secret algorithm that can evaluate over 3 billion Web pages for relevance and quality in under a second, enabling Google to instantly put the most useful sites at the very top of its results page. ...
• In a rather shameless piece of Internet chutzpah, last summer SearchKing created the "PR Ad Network," which took advantage of the way Google works to boost their customer's PageRanks. SearchKing did this by linking its clients to other partner sites already deemed "high quality" by Google. Since one of the things PageRank expressly measures is the numbers of links with other quality sites, SearchKing in effect has its clients collude to trick Google into boosting everyone's ratings. ... So, it naturally resented SearchKing's efforts to manipulate that value and resented even more its ability to profit from it.
• As SearchKing found its own Google ranking plummeting, and the rankings of many of the Web sites it hosted tanking, too, CEO Robert Massa sued Google last October for dropping its rank from an 8 (out of 10) to a 4. Practically speaking, this means you'd have had to scroll past 20 other sites in a Google search of the word "SearchKing" before reaching a link to his homepage. In December, Google restored SearchKing's ranking, but Massa refused to drop the suit, arguing that the legal principle remains inviolate: Google has too much arbitrary power to make or destroy a business. ...
• Massa's complaint claims that when Google lowered his company's ranking, Web searchers had a tougher time finding his company, which resulted in a drop in the value of SearchKing. ...
• A reply brief recently filed by Google concedes that it manipulated SearchKing's ranking. ...  Tenth Circuit decisions cover the federal district court hearing the SearchKing suit, so the court will be hard pressed to disagree.
• Google's brief also insists that the company "has no obligation to even include SearchKing in its search engine services, let alone include it with an importance level desired by SearchKing. " And finally, Google argues pretty persuasively that since it owns the algorithm, a court injunction forcing it to rank SearchKing based on SearchKing's arbitrary preferences will irreparably harm Google's ability to "maintain the integrity of its service. ...

• Google Replies to SearchKing Lawsuit Thursday January 09, 2003 - 10:38 PM GMT       Topics: Privacy , Migration Ernest_Miller writes "Back in October, LawMeme reported that SearchKing had sued Google for reducing SearchKing's pagerank. ... LawMeme has the document (which SearchKing is charging $20 in order to access) as well as analysis. ...
• Comments:  Google Replies to SearchKing Lawsuit Top  |  Search Discussion  |   .

• In what's believed to be the first lawsuit of its kind, an ad network and search marketer is taking Google to court over changes the popular search engine made to its page-ranking system. ...
• Oklahoma City-based SearchKing, which represents text-based ad inventory on sites with a high Google Page Rank, filed suit in federal court that charges the search engine with unfair competition and interference with SearchKing's contractual relationships with affiliates. ...
• According to SearchKing Chief Executive Bob Massa, sites in the company's three-month-old Page Rank Ad Network were "downgraded" in Mountain View, Calif. -based Google's system after the search engine caught wind of the fact that SearchKing was basing ad sales on sites' Page Rank. ...
• The downgrade, which SearchKing said reduced the affected sites' ranking in search results, also hurt traffic to his network, which in turn damaged ad sales, the complaint charges. It also affected SearchKing's own Page Rank, Massa said. ...
• "From February of 2001 to last month, SearchKing's PageRank was seven," Massa said. "Within 30 days of launching PR Ad Network's services, our PageRank dropped to four. ...
• As a result, the lawsuit asks for an injunction and damages in excess of $75,000. ...
• "Due to the high value associated with Web page rank, the purposeful reduction of SearchKing and its related Web sites' page rankings has damaged SearchKing's reputation and diminished its value," the complaint reads. ...
• SearchKing itself has been viewed by some search engines as one of the firms attempting to create "link farms. ...
• However, Massa charges that the Page Rank Ad Network, and SearchKing's hosted sites -- dubbed "Portal Network" -- aren't, in fact, link farms, and shouldn't be banned as such by Google. ...
• "It is so important for all of us to accept that few link farmers would go to the trouble and expense of a federal lawsuit if it was just about getting caught doing something wrong," he wrote in a letter to affiliates. "SearchKing's Portal Network is not a link farm. ...

• The underlying premise of what Google now calls PageRank — said to be a play on Mr. ...
• Sites doing the linking are also judged by PageRank for their level of importance, creating in the end a sort of majority rule among sites.
• But as the basics of PageRank became widely known, the search engine became open to manipulation. ...
• The company will say only that it employs more than 100 additional ranking methods beyond PageRank, such as analyzing the actual contents of a Web page.
• One trick programmers have used is link farms, which are Web sites set up to do nothing but provide links to other sites, or link feedback, where one site agrees to link with another and the other reciprocates, and then both pages try to become more important in PageRank's eyes.
• SearchKing Inc. ...
• ), an advertiser can buy a five-word ad with a link on the site with a high level of importance of eight out of 10 in PageRank's eyes. Most important, the ad can help to boost the advertiser's site by establishing a link back to it from the PageRank of eight site — so the advertiser not only gets a widely seen ad, but also a higher Google search ranking. An ad on a site with a PageRank of five goes for only $29.
• "Maybe the Net needs to be told what and how to link and maybe the people that should do the telling are Google, but that isn't how the Net was built and that isn't freedom," Bob Massa, who runs SearchKing, says in a statement on his Web site.
• In October, his company filed a lawsuit against Google. The suit contends Google deliberately lowered SearchKing's rank of importance after it launched its ad service, and this also hurt other sites connecting to SearchKing, the company said.
• A spokesman for Google would not comment on the lawsuit but said the company sometimes changes its programs to improve overall search quality "and, in some cases, the modifications do result in changes to the site rankings. ...
• Another criticism is that PageRank has a bias toward established, popular sites to the disadvantage, some believe, of newer sites.

• Bob Massa, president of SearchKing, Inc. ...
• SearchKing began business as an Internet search engine and web hosting company in 1997, about a year before Google. In August 2002, PR Ad Network began placing text ads for businesses on web sites with a high PageRank from Google. According to the lawsuit, once Google became aware of this, it lowered SearchKing's PageRank and the ranking of the web sites it hosts. PageRank is a Google-developed system of determining the value of a particular web site. ...
• "From February of 2001 to last month, SearchKing's PageRank was seven," Massa said. "Within 30 days of launching PR Ad Network's services, our PageRank dropped to four. " Due to the high value associated with PageRank, Massa claims in his lawsuit that the purposeful reduction of SearchKing and its related web sites' rankings has damaged the company's reputation and diminished its value. ...
• "If using the PageRank were a threat to Google, why would they release it to the public? In many ways, our use of PageRank serves only to validate the system. ...

• On SearchKing and the Google PageRank.
• The SearchKing Google controversy revisited.
• (November 18 2002) As reported in October Google recently reduced the PageRank (a measure of Web page popularity) of the SearchKing home page. The SearchKing owned PR Ad Network had started selling text ads on the Searchking network of sites based on Google PageRank. ... Google has now restored SearchKing's ranking in search engine results (it is again No. 1 if you do a search for "searchking"). However, the PageRank remain the same: 4 out of 10. SearchKing is not amused, and will not withdraw its lawsuit against Google. "This suit has never been about the priority we were given in a search or even our PageRank," says Bob Massa, president of SearchKing. ... "The case is about Googleís attempt to squelch competition by targeting businesses and arbitrarily reducing their PageRank or search status. ... We can empathize with SearchKing's frustration, but if Google is not allowed to reduce the PageRank of a site because it hurts the siteowner's business, the PageRank system will surely die. ... One of our sources says that the reason SearchKing was penalized was that Google had discovered extensive use of doorway pages and linkfarms under the searchking. ... Moreover, if there ever were such pages, SearchKing would certainly have tried to delete them.

• Google Responds to SearchKing Complaint.
• With each update cycle, half of those pages gain in PageRank, and the other half loses. ...
• Now if every webmaster who sees that one of his pages has lost PageRank in an update would start a lawsuit about "malicious injury", do you think that would make sense? .
• That's irrelevant to the lawsuit, however they do it everyday, they're called SEO's :) .
• King (I know its Massa) would have just kept a low profile and sold his text based ads as most others have done in the past without trying to sell Google PageRank, then all of you in the network would probably be doing well right now. ...
• Could you please stop inventing legal theories on the fly? Even if Google *maliciously* went after SearchKing, the courts have ruled in the past that such behavior was perfectly legal. ...
• King (I know its Massa) would have just kept a low profile and sold his text based ads as most others have done in the past without trying to sell Google PageRank. ...
• "He" never attempted to sell PageRank(PR). ...
• Google took their aim at searchking. ...
• I'm not siding with/or against Searchking, just merely stating the facts. ...
• Bottom line, Bob got nailed at SearchKing, for what he did with PRAdNetwork, but I commend him for stepping up to the plate. I've known him for years, and I watched SearchKing evolve over that time. ...

• Last fall, an Oklahoma Web company, SearchKing Inc. ... In effect, SearchKing was offering its clients a chance to boost their own Google rankings by buying ads on more-popular sites. SearchKing filed suit against the search company in federal court in Oklahoma, claiming that Google 'purposefully devalued' SearchKing and its customers, damaging its reputation and hurting its advertising sales.
• In court filings, the company said SearchKing 'engaged in behavior that would lower the quality of Google search results' and alter the company's ranking system.
• As evidence of the dangers of running afoul of Google, optimizers point to Oklahoma City-based SearchKing, an online directory for hundreds of small, specialty Web sites. SearchKing also sells advertising links designed both to deliver traffic to an advertiser and boost its rankings in Google and other search results.
• Bob Massa, SearchKing's chief executive, last August launched the PR Ad Network as a way to capitalize on Google's page-ranking system, known as PageRank. PageRank rates Web sites on a scale of one to 10 based on their popularity, and the rankings can be viewed by Web users if they install special Google software. PR Ad Network sells ads that are priced according to a site's PageRank, with higher-ranked sites commanding higher prices. ...
• What's more, sites that participated in the separate SearchKing directory also had their Google rankings lowered. He filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma City federal court, claiming Google was punishing him for trying to profit from the company's page-ranking system.
• In its court filings, Google said it demoted pages on the SearchKing site because of SearchKing's attempts to manipulate search results. The company has asked for the suit to be dismissed, arguing that the PageRank represents its opinion of the value of a Web site and as such is protected by the First Amendment.
• Massa, who is persisting with the lawsuit even though the sites have had their page rankings partly restored. ...

• Viewing: SEO Chat Forums > Google > Google > PR Lawsuit Against Google Dismissed .
• PR Lawsuit Against Google Dismissed http://gooogle. searchking. ...
• It's Googles database to do with as they please, and when the manipulation of their pagerank system through the blatant selling of it comes to light, then no one can seriously blame Google for stamping it out. If you let the Search Kings of this world get away with it, you open the door to everyone who wants to make a fast buck courtesy of Googles pagerank system which ends up making a mockery out of Google and the SERPS over time. ...
• The suit was filed because of alledged manipulation of the "objective" PageRank algorithm arising from Google's desire to stifle competition. Google's actions are troubling, as indicated by statements such as: "The Court must, therefore, determine whether Google's manual decrease of Search King's PageRank was malicious and wrongful, and was not justified, privileged, or excusable. ...
• « Previous Thread | Next Thread » Viewing: SEO Chat Forums > Google > Google > PR Lawsuit Against Google Dismissed .

• Last fall, an Oklahoma Web company, SearchKing Inc. ... In effect, SearchKing was offering its clients a chance to boost their own Google rankings by buying ads on more-popular sites. SearchKing filed suit against the search company in federal court in Oklahoma, claiming that Google "purposefully devalued" SearchKing and its customers, damaging its reputation and hurting its advertising sales.
• In court filings, the company said SearchKing "engaged in behavior that would lower the quality of Google search results" and alter the company's ranking system.
• As evidence of the dangers of running afoul of Google, optimizers point to Oklahoma City-based SearchKing, an online directory for hundreds of small, specialty Web sites. SearchKing also sells advertising links designed both to deliver traffic to an advertiser and boost its rankings in Google and other search results.
• Bob Massa, SearchKing's chief executive, last August launched the PR Ad Network as a way to capitalize on Google's page-ranking system, known as PageRank. PageRank rates Web sites on a scale of one to 10 based on their popularity, and the rankings can be viewed by Web users if they install special Google software. PR Ad Network sells ads that are priced according to a site's PageRank, with higher-ranked sites commanding higher prices. ...
• What's more, sites that participated in the separate SearchKing directory also had their Google rankings lowered. He filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma City federal court, claiming Google was punishing him for trying to profit from the company's page-ranking system.
• In its court filings, Google said it demoted pages on the SearchKing site because of SearchKing's attempts to manipulate search results. The company has asked for the suit to be dismissed, arguing that the PageRank represents its opinion of the value of a Web site and as such is protected by the First Amendment.
• Massa, who is persisting with the lawsuit even though the sites have had their page rankings partly restored. ...

• Posted: 10/19/2002 06:26 am Pagerank, it's parts, etc. ...
• He had no better way of "quantifying" the value other than using Google's PageRank. ... Once he did that, not only was he using Google's PageRank without their permission, but he was infringing upon their product. ...
• Bob Massa, a search engine optimizer who runs SearchKing, seems to know that Google is more than PageRank, but he also knows that many people put a value on that little green bar in the toolbar. And so he's "selling" higher PageRank scores. ...
• searchking. ... searchking. com -- and he prices ads on those sites according to their PageRank scores. ...
• searchking. com, a PageRank 7 site? Because they think they know how Google works: If you get a link from an important site, your own site becomes more important. ... searchking. ...
• SearchKing can provide you with a quality traffic through your text ad and give you quality links. ...
• " He couldn't keep up with orders for his PageRank ads -- and he hopes that Google won't interfere with that business. If the company asked him to stop using the word "PageRank" in his promotional material, he wouldn't mind doing that. ...
• If anything, Google used restraint in not issuing a "cease and desist" nor initiating a lawsuit on its own. ...
• They got all the SEO's and webmasters fixated on PageRank and Google - not on what is best for their sites, but what is best for their PR. ...

• The strange Google lawsuit over its page-ranking monopoly.
• SearchKing Court Findings Confused? .
• It would appear that the ruling the PageRank is an opinion is based on a misunderstood and confused interpretation of PageRank.
• SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied .
• PageRank IS an Opinion? .
• I read on the Search King sites that the courts believe that PageRank is an opinion (but it looks as though this may yet be argued). ...
• Google Asks Court to Dismiss SearchKing Lawsuit .
• Google has responded to SearchKing's lawsuit alleging that Google improperly reduced SearchKing's PageRank scores, asking the U. ...
• Google sued over PageRank .
• Google counters search-fix lawsuit .
• Google has moved to quash a lawsuit that alleges the company manipulated search query results, according to a court filing.
• It would appear to me that, from the very beginnings of Google, PageRank was intended to be an objective measure and not an opinion. ...
• Google IS losing favor among many webmasters due to the threat of site/page penalization and low PageRank scores that appear suspiciously like censorship.
• Google replies to SearchKing lawsuit .
• Google thinks, or at the very least is asserting, that it has a slam-dunk iron-clad defense to SearchKing's claims.
• Google's Response to SearchKing Lawsuit .

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