Google has launched Google Knol officially today (officially beta of course) and in case you don’t know what Google Knol is about:

Knols include strong community tools which allow for many modes of interaction between readers and authors. People can submit comments, rate, or write a review of a knol. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements.

Essentially it’s middle ground between Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia - with ads for revenue! It’s heavily focused on authors writing the content (the URL strings are author-based first, article title second).

So, how useful could it be for abuse… I mean for SEO? It’s definitely useful, but think twice about the amount of time you will need to spend on it.

The Good

  • It is expected that many of these pages will rank quite well for a variety of terms with external backlinks and that Google will be promoting it through very highly ranked Google pages.
  • $$$$ - need I say more?
  • Brand reputation management for people and corporations
  • Long-tail content that can be outsourced

The Bad

  • Brand reputation hits on people and corporations
  • <meta name=”robots” content=”index,nofollow” /> - So much for getting backlinks to your site with spammy pages (this goes for internal links as well)
  • The amount of time to spend writing worthwhile articles may not be worth the investment except in certain markets
  • Once you die, Google no longer needs to pay anyone–in the long term that means heavy investment up front, but low maintenance costs over time

And The Ugly

  • Wanna knock down prominent Wikipedia pages? Duplicate the content, but change it enough to avoid claims of copying it
  • Google corporate-owned SERPs
  • Once the site gets large enough, the feasibility of stopping spam may become too great to stop (This is different from Wikipedia due to vigilant non-Wikipedia employee people helping for free)

There’s probably more on each side, but these are the first few ideas that popped into my head. Feel free to comment on any other things that may come up.