Is Google Chrome's Personal BlockList Something That Can Be Abused?

[petelta]

Hey SEOers. I am not very familiar with Google Chrome and their tools. So, I wanted to come to the best place I know of to get some more insight.

I came across an article recently that spoke about Google Chrome's Personal Blocklist download at the LifeHacker blog. This download adds an extra link under search engine results that allows you to block sites from your search results. Not only that, but it sends this information to Google.

As the article I read explained it, Google is using this information to make their search engine results better trying to eliminate spam. That's great and all, but I would love to hear your opinions on if this tool could be abused by black hatters?

Could someone use this against their competition to hurt their SERPs?

I know Google usually does a decent job of eliminating this problem all together. From the initial read though, it seems it could definitely be abused. If so, this needs to be addressed immediately.

I could totally be understanding this tool wrong though. What do you think?

[billrice]

Whenever these debates pop-up I head for the "horses mouth" (Matt Cutts). Here's what he says:

"If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results."

I can certainly see this emerging into a future "signal," but when think about where this might go and how Google might implement it I look for analogies in the current signals. One of the big issues like this is paid links. Potentially, a black hat competitor could buy a bunch of cheap and obvious links to your website. However, according to Matt Cutts this won't get you "slapped"--those links just get devalued. So, it's almost impossible for a competitor to wage the volume to use that signal against you.

I see this going the same way.

I totally agree with you this is something that needs to be carefully researched and tested before it gets thrown in the signals algorithm. There is all kinds of opportunity for manipulation (i.e., trojans in other extensions to secretly do this).