Tipsy Tuesday – Bloggers – Are You in Violation of Google’s G+ Buttons Policy?

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Goodbye to GFC (Google Friend Connect) for many, and hello G+ –  GFC’s replacement.  Good enough except – are you in violation of Google’s G+ Button Policy in trying to get your site followed?

Google’s policy stipulates:

“Publishers may not direct users to click a Google+ Button for purposes of misleading users. Publishers may not promote prizes, monies, or monetary equivalents in exchange for Google+ Button clicks. For the avoidance of doubt, Publishers may direct users to a Google+ Button to enable content and functionality. When a Publisher directs users to a Google+ Button, the button action must be related to the Publisher or the Publisher’s content. For the +1 Button, the content or functionality that is enabled for the user must also be accessible to any of the user’s social connections who also enable it.”

I interpret this to mean – you better not host a giveaway asking entrants to follow your site via G+ or click the G+ button pertaining to that post.  If you do, you risk suffering consequences by Google.

Quite frankly – it really bums me out that Google is being this way.  I want Google to write to all companies that ask bloggers for their follower stats.  I’m sure there are a lot of companies who have no clue what has transpired, although – they should have to deal with what we have to work with…it’s out of our hands.  Ask our page ranks, FB followers, Twitter followers, and if they must – Alexa. They need to know it’s not fair game anymore.  We can’t give stats for something we can’t work on actively.  We’re just a handful of people trying to get our content read.  We’re certainly not Google!

And this linky thing going around – I’m not impressed with that either. I see that as being similar to Picket Fences – doesn’t mean crap to companies.  Alexa ratings – that’s not all it’s cracked up to be either.  Aside from bloggers – who installs the Alexa tool bar?  Heck, I never even heard of the site before I started blogging and I was always online doing something (no exaggeration) for several years before blogging came along.

Your thoughts?

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