It’s not my fault, I didn’t do anything wrong. I was only doing what you told me to do. You told me to write good content, so I did. You told me not to write content stuffed with keywords, so I didn’t.

You told me to build an authoritative website which would encourage other websites, blogs and directories to link to me, so I did. You told me these links were the most important thing to have in order to gain your love.

So I worked hard to get them, because I wanted your love, and they started coming. At first just a few, then it grew some more, and then it started snowballing naturally, the way you said it should. There were links coming in from all sorts of directions, over 800 of them at the last count. I thought that’s what you wanted.

I did all that. I did it over an eight-year period. I built my website, Proper Spanish Tapas, and wrote over fifty pages of good content, aimed at humans, about a subject I’m passionate about. I did it for you, because you promised me you’d love me. And you did love me, you put me at the top of your search results. I was at #1 to #3 for my main search term, ‘spanish tapas’, plus a few others as well. You even loved me more than that pushy bitch, Wikipedia. I thought we were an item, a partnership, a fucking marriage even. You know, ’til death us do part and all that.

But no. You dumped me. Just like that. As if our relationship has meant nothing to you over the years. I’m hurt, gutted, my life is in ruins. I’m now on page three/four, around the #30/32 mark, which we all know is tantamount to being invisi-fucking-ble! And, it seems, you don’t give a fuck. You won’t even explain where I went wrong. You just say it’s something to do with Pandas, or Penguins, or some other cutesy animal name you keep coming up with.

Oh yes, you tell me now that you’ve decided some of those links coming in are bad links, but you won’t tell me which ones. You tell me that I have to contact the webmasters of these bad sites that are linking to me and ask them to remove their links. Are you fucking serious? 800 links? And I’ve got to spend hours and possibly days deciding which ones are doing me harm and trying to do something about it?

I didn’t ask for these links, I just wrote the content. I don’t have any control over who wants to link to me, or the quality of their website. Why should it be my responsibility to police the internet? It was you who told me to go out there and get them in the first place, so you fix it.

Quality search results? I don’t think so

While I’m on the subject, let’s see the quality of the first page of search results today (on google.com) if I’m looking for information on ‘Spanish tapas’. Let’s see how your precious Pandapenguin has helped weed out the spammy dross and given us quality information, shall we?

• Well, not surprisingly, the bitch is back at #1. Three paragraphs of info, a bunch of recipes and a few non-Spanish variations? Really?
• The next two spots are given to About.com. Which is about as in-depth as Justin Beiber’s facebook page
• At #4 is Saveur.com with a handful of recipes and no info about tapas
• Tienda.com takes #5, which is fine, it’s a very comprehensive site about Spanish food and tapas
• Next we have bbcgoodfood.com. Nothing at all about tapas itself, just a collection of recipes
• Foodandwine.com comes next, with one page of nothing but pictures of small starters that I wouldn’t even class as tapas
• Good old Martha Stewart comes next – nothing but recipes though
• At #9 is an Australian tapas restaurant!
• Need I go on?

Page two is more of the same and page three, except just one, is all tapas restaurants!

Well done Google, your constant moving of the goalposts, and blatant favouring of large brands, have resulted in the removal of any real in-depth information on what your searcher is actually looking for. Way to go!

So, oh Great Gods of Google, will I be making changes to my website, or trying to contact hundreds of webmasters who are linking to me, just to get my hand back in your knickers? Here’s my answer: You can stick your Penguin up your arse.

Throw a bucket of fish up there as well while you’re at it, we wouldn’t want the little fucker to starve, would we?