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Search engines and SEO spam

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Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#21

Post by thomasmarcelis »

rickdeveloper wrote: post #14

I think a lot of this is due to Google both owning search and the ads on the websites (AdSense). There’s an incentive for them to prioritize click farms (and other sites filled with their ads). I think in general there may be a correlation between the number of ads on a site and its usefulness to me, which is inverse to its usefulness to google. I’m curious what would happen if those products were split up into 2 sep…

I also can't help but wonder this. I'm certain people at google search want to provide the best quality search results and do this with integrity. But at some point in the business hierarchy you are at a level where people set objectives for both these departments ( search & ads ) and are trying to optimise for things like total revenue/profit.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#24

Post by phsource »

birken wrote: post #5

The funny thing is that if the people who worked on spam at Google were free to talk about it, I'm sure it would become evident that they know more about spam and anti-spam efforts than anybody else in existence. It's a ridiculously hard problem, especially when people are targeting you directly. But they aren't free to talk about it, because if they did it would just give more assistance to the spammers, and make th…

This 100%. In travel, we see Google constantly tweaking its algorithms, and compared to Bing, Google surfaces a ton more small, well-written travel blogs [1]

Not only that, Paul and Michael have seen plenty of startups, and at least in recent memory, the number of vertical search and consumer startups that Y Combinator has funded hasn't been that high

As a consumer startup, I know this issue firsthand. Paul and Michael assume that if you build a better product, they will come! That's simply not true these days.

Instead, you need to:

- Build a better product

- Option 1: Figure out a channel with enough growth on an existing platform. This likely means you're doing SEO for your new search engine

- Option 2: Get your customer lifetime value high enough so you can pay for ads. This is tough, since it's a bit of a chicken and the egg problem since most search engines are monetized with ads

As the founder of Wanderlog (YC W19; https://wanderlog.com), a consumer vacation planning app [1], I definitely remember the idealistic days when I thought the best consumer product on its own would win! But growth doesn't just come, and the same can be said of vertical-specific search engines.

[1] Try searching "[your city] itinerary" on Google vs. Bing: it's much more likely you'll find a small blog rather than Lonely Planet or the local travel bureau as the top result

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#26

Post by DenisM »

coding123 wrote: post #4

> Lots of people want to be amateur police. (pg) This is very true. How many times have I clicked on a site met with ads so bad that the browser slows down, and after 10 seconds the page gets covered up by more and more crap and then a paywall shows up sometimes too. Now here's the thing - a competitor to Google might detect you clicking back and then pop-up a special set of controls near the search result that lets…

Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with ballot-stuffing - companies trying to bury their competitors by casting lots of negative votes.

Perhaps ML will help in detecting such campaigns.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#27

Post by compiler-guy »

goatherders wrote: post #11
birken wrote: post #5

The funny thing is that if the people who worked on spam at Google were free to talk about it, I'm sure it would become evident that they know more about spam and anti-spam efforts than anybody else in existence. It's a ridiculously hard problem, especially when people are targeting you directly. But they aren't free to talk about it, because if they did it would just give more assistance to the spammers, and make th…

This x100000. There is no scenario - none - where thousands of engineers at Google working on search wake up in the morning and say "we sure have made it good enough wr2 SPAM. I think I'll have another Danish."

When the cafes were open, you can bet they said, "I'll have another Danish, and then get back to work on this problem that never seems to go away."

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#28

Post by cinntaile »

coding123 wrote: post #4

> Lots of people want to be amateur police. (pg) This is very true. How many times have I clicked on a site met with ads so bad that the browser slows down, and after 10 seconds the page gets covered up by more and more crap and then a paywall shows up sometimes too. Now here's the thing - a competitor to Google might detect you clicking back and then pop-up a special set of controls near the search result that lets…

> However, if such an engine were to start beating Google, I'm sure Google would implement it in their own way: automatically detect why you clicked back in such a short timespan.

Do you seriously believe that Google doesn't use that as a datapoint already?

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#29

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

I'm honestly not trying to take a potshot against PG or YC here, but it's kinda funny to see him saying this after I worked for a YC-backed startup years ago that built its core revenue streams around generating SEO spam, we just marketed it as something else. Just to be clear, I don't think PG or YC are responsible for all or even most SEO spam, but I know firsthand that they've profited from it through at least one of their incubated companies.

I never considered the possibility that an incubator would support a specific product, then later on call for alternatives that would essentially freeze out the original product that they supported. I'm sure this very rarely happens, but it's interesting to see a real-world example in action.

Re: Search engines and SEO spam

#30

Post by tonyedgecombe »

hammock wrote: post #9

>This may not just be a problem with Google but possibly also the recipe for beating Google. A startup usually has to start with a niche market. Why not try writing a search engine specifically for some category dominated by SEO spam? >You might need to do a lot of manual spam fighting initially. That could be both the thing-that-doesn't-scale, and the thing that differentiates you by being alien to Google's DNA. (Th…

I'm starting to think Yahoo circa 1994 might be better than Google today.
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