Some Google Sidewiki Help
I highly doubt if you’re a website owner, that you are thrilled about Google’s SideWiki – if you are, you’re site probably hasn’t reached the massive proportions yet where you’ve become so well known, everyone wants to spam you.
Spam is there in our email, and in our blog comments. But thankfully, we can control our email – marking something as spam (note this is not the same thing as marking something as *spam* if you simply didn’t feel like reading today) and we as site owners, especially those who have blogs, can moderate the comments so that you don’t get those nasty Viagra links everyone just loves *chuckles*.
But, with the Google SideWiki … drumroll please…you CAN’T control what spammy comments are made even though it appears as though it resides on your own site!
Let me explain…
If you have the new Google toolbar installed, you will have an option in that toolbar called “SideWiki”. If you click on that SideWiki button, a window to your left will open up and you can then leave any kind of comment you wish in that box.
Now, granted, you have to sign into your Google account to leave a comment in a site’s SideWiki area but anyone and their brother can sign up for a Google account. Big deal.
Once you’re signed in, you can then leave a comment on that website (and note, it does not have to be a blog. It can be any website whatsoever.) And those comments can be good, bad, indifferent, nonsense, jokes, whatever.
Now, most people will (hopefully) adhere to that unspoken rule to be “an adult” online and actually leave helpful comments – even if some are bad, there is such a thing as constructive criticism. But it’s the “others” that you, as a website owner should be concerned with.
You see, you, as a site owner have absolutely no control over what shows up in that Sidewiki. (is your mouth hanging open in astonishment yet?)
Scary isn’t it?
Anyone, anywhere, at any point in time now has the ability to make comments on your website and you, as the site owner, have no say in what’s there.
There’s no place in Google where you can choose to opt-out of having this SideWiki show up on your site, and for those who are less familiar with how the SideWiki works, your typical website visitor will most certainly believe that you chose to have those comments there, good, bad or indifferent.
You can report a Sidewiki comment to Google, but this doesn’t mean that they’ll rush right out and remove it for you…frankly I think that Google is getting too big for it’s britches and for some reason believes that IT knows better than the site owners themselves.
Say, that reminds me of something…oh yeah, the Borg.
So, all that said, here’s a somewhat bright side (kind of).
In the Google Webmaster Help forum, there is a link to a JavaScript file which states that using the file will block those who try to use Sidewiki on your site.
BE WARNED! I have not used this file – I don’t know if it works or not, and I also have no idea of any SEO implications it might have. But it’s there, if you decide to use it.
Since it blocks those who try to use SideWiki on your site, this will hold true for both good and bad comments – so use it at your own risk.
If I get ballsy enough, I’ll toss it in on one of my sites to see if it makes a difference at all for SEO purposes – but, in the event that you already have good rankings on a site, I wouldn’t go using it.
Hopefully, Google will come to their senses and allow website owners to moderate the commentary there themselves, or, better yet, do away with it all-together.
Anyhow, there you go. Have a great day!