Today, I was surprised to see an email drop into my inbox from a Google employee. I won’t reveal his name, but I checked him out and he does work for Google. I also checked out the header of the email and verified that it came from Google. Part of the email was a disclaimer warning me not to republish any of the email’s contents. I’m probably jeopardizing my blog now, but what the heck, you’re only young once, right?

The email was an invitation to the Google Elite Sector. I’d never heard of this group before, but according to the email, the Google Elite Sector is a collective of individual webmaster who have access to increased Page Rank, better SERPs and easier indexing in Google. Basically, you get your blog or website streamlined.

When you join the Google Elite Sector, you get an automatic Page Rank of at least 5, instant indexing of all your pages, a top-10 position for any 10 search phrases and a top-30 position for another 20 phrases. You have your website or blog turned into what Google calls an Elite Google Product.

It sounds like a great offer. According to the email, only 500 invitations are sent out to webmasters and bloggers every year. Each invitation is selected by a team of 10 Google employees based on five factors:

• Quality content
• Style of writing
• Topic of the website or blog
• Language of the website or blog
• The marital status of the webmaster or blogger

The more I read about the Google Elite Sector the more excited I became – until I got to the catch. To join Google Elite Sector, you need to pay a one-time fee of $10,000. I was shocked to see how much it cost to join this group. Would you pay $10,000 to get in Google’s good books?

Of the 500 people invited each year, only about 50 of them accept the offer and pay the fee. If you look around the blogosphere, you can start to see who has paid the $10,000 to Google. Invitations are sent out every two to three months. Once you have an invite, you are given seven days to accept the offer. If the time expires, then you become automatically excluded from any future Google Elite Sector invitations.

I did a bit of investigating and I am starting to see the Internet the way Google does. If you look at sites like Cash Quests, Shoemoney and Pro Blogger, you start to see patterns emerging. I don’t want to say for sure because I risk my neck if I’m wrong, but those blogs look to me like they are part of the Google Elite Sector.

I also read on an underground webmaster forum that both John Chow and John Cow refused entry into the Google Elite Sector, which is why they have lower Page Ranks than they should.

If this is the sort of level Google will stoop to, it makes you wonder what else is going on behind closed doors. Don’t be surprised if my blog “disappears” in the next few days. Lucky for me, I don’t live in the US. If I did, there’s no way I would publish this blog post.

Stay safe.

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Tags: Around the web //