I don't doubt the power of mom blogs, but his point remains. The article found 400 of these blog posts, most of which don't look like mom blogs, but moreover like blogs no one anywhere actually reads (on purpose, at least). Even if you assume a decent ROI, in absolute numbers the user increase would be well below the noise.
If these were sponsored results for JCPenny, for instance, it is very unlikely anyone would think they were seriously trying to gain market share directly -- it would be fairly obvious they were trying to game search results. However, since it's google themselves, I don't know what on earth someone was thinking.
I just think the paid post campaign was outsourced and the consultant company did a really bad job in describing the way they would have liked to have posts written up.
I doubt their objective was to game search results, but rather had an objective to get Chrome in front of influential mom-bloggers.
According to the guidelines Google advocates, any form of endorsements should be notified in the post and have a no-follow attribute on the link when there is money involved.
The majority of mom-bloggers are familiar with the rules around give aways, paid endorsements and advertising. They know how to run a business.
It's a pity that the bloggers who have been featured in this campaign will take the flak, as Google brings down the hammer. Some of the bloggers don't know any better, and take an easy opportunity to monetize their websites.
And who can blame them, It's Google! If a campaign is from Google, with a mantra: Don't be evil, it can only be a good thing to do this, right..?
Google has a responsibility here, not only to choose the right advertising consultant, but also to educate the bloggers on how their websites will be treated given their war on paid links and endorsements.
If these were sponsored results for JCPenny, for instance, it is very unlikely anyone would think they were seriously trying to gain market share directly -- it would be fairly obvious they were trying to game search results. However, since it's google themselves, I don't know what on earth someone was thinking.