Snipe signs. You’ve seen them. Typically they consist of a 18″ x 24″ corrugated plastic panel, affixed to a wire stake, and driven into the ground on the shoulder of a road. They have advertising messages applied to them, usually, by self adhesive vinyl lettering or screen printing. Sometimes the really cheap one’s are handwritten with a permanent marker.

Many political jurisdictions in the United States have ordinances prohibiting them.  These laws have been enacted for several reasons. Chiefly because they’re placed on property not belonging to the sign owner. Other justifications include safety and aesthetics.

Imagine for a minute you’re the owner of a fast food restaurant located at a busy intersection. You have your legal signage–perhaps a large yellow arch–and the guy who owns a competing burger stand down the street comes by and plants a dozen or so signs adjacent to your property featuring a regal personage wearing a crown. You’re unlikely to be thrilled.

Let’s switch gears for a moment. You own one, two or a hundred websites. Virtual real estate. Over time you’ve worked your butt off to buy domain names and pay for hosting. In addition you’ve spent considerable time and effort, and possibly money, to design, build and upload content to your sites. You have things working well. You’re in control of your property and you’re looking for a return on your investment.

When people pull up in front of your restaurant or see your site you don’t want them distracted. It doesn’t matter what the distraction is. It may be a competitors sign or a notice of a local carnival that catches their eye. If it takes their focus off your hamburgers it’s not good. Online if it distracts people or changes their focus from your site’s message it’s not good.

I wonder what Google’s reaction would be to several hundred snipe signs appearing overnight in Santa Clara County, CA? Particularly if they read Bing or Yahoo!

The Google Sidewiki is a virtual snipe sign!

The shoulder of the road does not belong to your competition.

The side of your site does not belong to Google.

PS. For a more in depth treatment of the Google Sidewiki debate read this from Paul Myers:

Google steals the web

PPS. For the record: I do not hate Google. On this issue I think they are flat out wrong!

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