Grapevine is ripe with rumours of Google vying with Yahoo in a bid to take over the URL shortener bit.ly. If you thought bloggers used bit.ly only in tweets, think again. Ahem! It’s also used to cloak the URLs of the deep linked pages containing link exchange requests and link sale offers. Now I need not tell you the consequences if Google has its way to bit.ly along with all that ‘classified’ information. Here are the top 5 sites most bloggers consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously wish Google never buys.
1. Digital Point Forum
DP is one of the most popular forums among bloggers and does not require any introduction. Most of the blogging community is rather addicted to it. Deals ranging from buying, selling and exchanging links & ads to domains & complete sites take place here. The least you’d wish is to pass on your deal details to Big G.
2. PayPal
Be it transactions involving multiple currencies or transactions between parties located at different parts of the world – PayPal has been the most preferred payment gateway among the blogging fraternity. As of now, PayPal does not get into the intricacies of what a particular payment pertains to. But what if one fine morning you wake up to read that Google has access to all your PayPal transaction details!
3. Text Link Ads
TLA is said to be one of the biggest marketplace for buying and selling text links – something that can get you in Google’s bad books in no time. I don’t see any reason why Google should go for it. In case that happens, it would be interesting to see what Google makes out of it… A marketplace for nofollow links? Well, that’s none of our botheration. But it would definitely be a hard blow on TLA users.
4. Review Me
This is the place where most of the high paying sponsored reviews come from. Sponsored review as such is not against Google policy. But how many reviews happen with nofollow links? Again not a good buy for Google but very risky for many blogging biggies!
5. StatCounter
The most popular site out there to keep track of your site stats real time. You may not see its acquisition as a threat if you have enough trust in Google. But if you are the kind who doesn’t use Google Bookmarks, who stays away from Google Analytics and who sees Google Chrome as a chunk of spyware, this may be really threatening for you!
Nice, I agree with you. Is it bad to post TLA ads on your blog?
And you think that Google Chrome is spyware? I trusted it! :'(
DP is indeed such a forum, that attracts a huge number of visitors but as far as Google’s buying is concern,DP can’t be the one as it acts as a referer site that makes people aware about how to enrich your content. This in turn is helping Google for serving more relevant content to it’s visitors.
i agree with you,these sites never by a google
Google has already burned its hands in services like Buzz etc. Its best suited for takeover corporate strategy. Do hope it goes slow on the mentioned ones though.
Title of this post is an eye catching for me.I only knew two of these five sites and remaining three are new for me.It is good that you have provided some information with each site.
Welcome to the new decade: Java is a restricted platform, Google is evil, Apple is a monopoly and Microsoft are the underdogs
Not much in to tech, but I kind of agree with your 5 sites survey! Google can really kill competition!
I would love it if Google bought Paypal. I think the opposite of your privacy concerns are true. Paypal is an awful company with shady practices and horrible customer service. Many horror stories can be found on the web.
I’d love it if Google bought Paypal and hauled everything over to Google checkout or just do what they did with Youtube.
I agree with you on Digital Point – just because I really feel like too much of the internet is getting sucked into big box sites like Facebook, etc.
The other sites I’m not familiar with – can’t comment.
I think google should stop expanding like that.
I wish google would go back to be a small little search engine
Google Becoming Internet Emperor by taking all these good websites including PayPal. I’m sure one day our complete data is available in Google’s Database from born to death.