Google Toolbar Has a Secret

Imagine for a moment: you walk over to your computer and fire it up. And you notice the new Google toolbar you just downloaded has some special features.

You click on each one and find one has a way to auto fill out your web forms, way cool. You click another as it says autolink, your not sure what it is, so you think it's got to be good, as it's by Google, so you activate it....

Thats how my day started. Later on, while reading a newsletter from Axandra about search engines, I find this tasty tip bit...

Google toolbar AutoUpdate pushes AutoLink onto users [reg. required]
"Google forced an update to their toolbar that activated an autolink button feature by default. What this means is that this button, when activated, will allow Google to place links on your web page to Amazon, among other places."

Well I was actually concerned, did I read that right? Google will replace links on my web pages to Amazon and other places....

I had to read more to find out, as I had just activated that link....so I clicked on the link in the article from the search engine to this site. I am quoting it a bit below.

"The autolink feature has been controversial since it came out. In fact, there's a javascript for killing google autolink, which indicates how much webmasters are against the autolink feature."

What I did eventually, was uninstall the toolbar, at least for now. But to be fair, you do have to activate it in the first place. Plus I read from Google in defense of themselves, "remember that -every single time- you want the features of autolink you have to click the button".

I just want to report this as I was not aware that my affiliate links would possibly be changed to what ever Google puts there, and may be you were not aware of that either, which is pretty important, if your a webmaster as I am.

I would like to hear your comments on this one please.

Linda
http://www.wealthhere.com


Interesting don't you think?

Ohh I just read some great examples of what this autolink can do, basically you could be reading a page with an ISBN number of a book, and a magic link will appear which re directs you to Amazon to buy the book. Or you have a company web site address, and a magic link appears which directs you to the google maps (that's not so bad)...

Here's a link to Googles feedback as the tool is still in Beta... To be fair you can download it or read more here too.

You really should read what these guys here say: http://www.google-watch.org/toolbar.html