o2b.net : Tim Murtaugh

There seems to be a little trouble brewing for Google over their brand new web accelerator.

Inside Google lists a number of reasons the new tool is a Bad Idea, some of which are tinfoil hat-ish, but only slightly.

One example is that Something Awful users started seeing the site as if they were logged in as someone else, since the accelerator was feeding them pre-cached versions of the pages without regard for the user’s actual relationship to the site.

The guys at 37 Signals also noticed a disturbing event — users of one of their web applications started seeing content disappear in front of their eyes. Why? Because Google’s tool spiders the sites you visit, without regard for the action of the links it’s following. So, while users were browsing the application, Google’s accelerator was activating all the “delete” links on the page.

There’s a way for webmasters to block the tool — check this post on Search Engine Journal.

But there’s a potential downside to blocking the tool; this is from Inside Google:

So, what’s the big upside, the one reason so tempting that Google can assure it will not see a mass banning of its product?

PageRank.

The hidden benefit is that sites which allow usage of the Accelerator will likely get a boost in Google rankings relative to sites that do not. Google will have deeper usage data for those sites, data which can be used to determine that site’s rankings. Given the highly competitive search engine optimization field, and Google’s lofty place within it, that may be a temptation that proves too juicy to resist.