2009 Predictions Update: Google Penalizes Itself

In my 2009 predictions, I wrote the following:

However, there is a dark spot for Google in August, when it discovers that AdSense is nothing more than a massive pay-per-link scheme. Google penalizes itself by reducing its own PageRank from 10 to 0.

Well, it’s currently late February, and we are inching toward proof of my prognosticatory powers. As Daniel Tunkelang reports on his excellent blog The Noisy Channel:

The other day, I was shocked to hear that Google was employing a pay-per-post stategy in Japan–precisely the sort of strategy they’ve historically condemned. I was certainly among those crying “hypocrisy”.

Well, to his credit, so was Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team. In fact, he didn’t just complain–his team did something about it. Via “Google Penalizing Google” at Google Blogoscoped:

head of Google’s anti web-spam team Matt Cutts via Twitter writes, “Google.co.jp PageRank is now ~5 instead of ~9. I expect that to remain for a while.”

I didn’t plan on checking the accuracy of my predictions until at least December, but it’s good to know that I’m well on the way to becoming the next Sylvia Browne.