Thursday, August 1, 2013

The Fuzzy Logic of the WordPress (.com) Terms of Service

In this post I will prove to you that almost every WordPress.com should be suspended as a violation of the Terms of Service of the site. Proceed with caution


Warning: There's a healthy dose of irony (and little bit of sarcasm) in this post.



Did you read the line above this?


And the one two lines above this?


Good - This post is about WordPress.com and it's Terms of Service, and me wondering how any blog can comply with the TOS :)


OK, now - smile, laugh a bit... And read on.


FACT: WordPress.com Does Not Like Commercial Sites and/or Random ****


Take a look at the quote below, from the WordPress.com Terms of Service, or TOS, as it's often called...



the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing); - WordPress.com TOS



That quote is highlighted on the page, so it's damn important, OK?


Excellent - now check this quote from WordPress.com support as an partial explanation for the above quote and the TOS in full...



WordPress.com does not allow blogs that are created for the purpose of directing traffic to commercial web sites, affiliate/ptc programs or multi-level marketing campaigns - WordPress.com Support



According to these two quotes, any WordPress.com that has been created for the purpose of directing traffic to commercial web sites, is in fact, against the TOS.


FACT: Links are the most important factor for the search engine rankings


Further, any hyperlink has the purpose to "direct traffic" to it's destination. And each and every website is either directly or indirectly commercial, even the non-profits (because they link to their donators / sponsors, from whom some are commercial).


Because any link, in theory will provide tiny support to search engine rankings, and thus, increase traffic of the target site, all links on WordPress.com are bad.


Clear so far?



  • Directing traffic to a commercial web site is against WordPress.com TOS

  • Any hyperlink will drive traffic

  • Every website is indirectly or directly connected to a commercial site (with a link)


Ergo, each and every WordPress.com that has links must be banned, because each and every WordPress.com blog links to a commercial website, directly or indirectly (2-3 links away), thus at least "boosting the search engine rankings" of a commercial site.


We're all doomed!


Stay with me. Read that TOS quote again.


WordPress.com blog must not have links to any site, because each and every link will "drive traffic to third party site" if anyone clicks on it (and someone will), or boost search engine rankings of third party sites (= not WordPress.com?), that are commercial.


OK, it also says with unethical or unwanted commercial content...


Unethical is kinda clear, but WTF is unwanted?


"Happily", the "clarification" from the support pretty much says that any content directing traffic to commercial website is bad = each and every website in the Internet, apart from Wikipedia maybe, but then again, there are links to commercial sites in Wikipedia, which boost their SE rankings, so linking to Wikipedia will boost the rankings too...


The 14 million blogs of WordPress.com (as of September 2010, according to WordPress.com stats), should be deleted. Maybe apart from the ones ran by WordPress.com staff / Automattic folk, since it's their place.


Doomed!


Not convinced?


Think of it, and look at your WordPress.com blogs:



  • Do you not autopost content via Posterous there?

  • Do you not link to your Twitter account?

  • Do you not post links to your WordPress.com blog?

  • Do you not create WordPress.com only to act as a satellite to your "main site"?


Links to Twitter are bad, let alone (auto)posting your Tweets to the sidebar or the blog itself (that's double whammy since it's machine generated/automated). Plus, 100% Twitter users link to some site that is commercial, and Twitter links purpose is to drive traffic to the site.


Adding Delicious widget is against the TOS since it links to god knows what places that sell stuff = commercial.


You certainly cannot link to your main site, because obviously you'll be boosting your search engine rankings, and why you'd want to do that unless you're in it to gain something...


Doomed, I tell you.


I'll be the first to admit it, that I have created WordPress.com blogs, because I want to aggregate stuff I do into one place, including this blog, Twitter and Posterous, just to name few sources - and that's machine generated, isn't it, although I wrote it the first time, but I'm geeks are pretty damn close to robots, so that makes it nearly-machine generated.


And I certainly have posted links in WordPress.com posts to sites I've something to gain from, as a pitiful attempt to boost the search engine rankings, and even that I'm the Zen Master of *Not* Making Money Online, one might argue that I'm "driving traffic" to a commercial site (I'm 100% sure one site I've ever linked to from WordPress.com, is commercial).


On the other hand...


Since the ~14 Million blogs are still running, I'm guessing I've misunderstood something of this :D


What do you think?




Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

The Fuzzy Logic of the WordPress (.com) Terms of Service








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