The nature of web searching is that it should be based on qualified content and valid links. Yet the current ideology from the Joomla! team may not exactly engender quality content. For the question must be asked. Is the Joomla! project engaging in questionable or "black hat" search engine marketing ?


Now before anyone panics and decides to ban me from the Joomla! forums for saying such a thing, there is a backstory to consider. Firstly, this week Google decreased the ranking of a known SEO company within Australia for trading links to their site though a free "counter" tool. Now the current Red Barchetta release of Joomla 1.5 Beta 2 also has a link trading scheme, found here. Not only does it conform to a known 'dial-home' device, something that has been frowned upon by the wider Joomla! community, but it also dimishes the relevance of the Red Barchetta release itself.

This artificially increases the relevance of Joomla! across the Net, when in reality, anyone who has installed Beta 2, such as myself, qualifies as a Beta Tester. In the same way that the Found Agency got blacklisted, perhaps it might be a sanity check that Joomla! doesn't get itself blacklisted either.



Just something to consider.. oh, and just so people know, the Beta badge in this post doesn't dial home. It's been sanitised.
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