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Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#71

Post by Evbn »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #21
TomGullen wrote: post #3

What's the complaint here? Google makes changes that sometimes negatively impact someone's business? As long as Google's algorithm is trending in the correct direction (that is towards better quality results) then these complaints are just growing pains and I don't see much of a problem. Some startups are criticised for simply being features of a chosen platform. Once they get big enough, the platform in control will…

>What's the complaint here? Google makes changes that sometimes negatively impact someone's business? As far as I can tell, it's largely a bunch of spammers trying to attack Google for downranking their spam. The argument is that Google competes with them and so shouldn't be allowed to use its dominance to favor its own service. But it's pure nonsense. These companies aren't valid search results. They only ever got i…

As HN favorite duckduckgo shows, sometimes the best result a search engine can provide is in fact another search engine. But not always, and not forever.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#72

Post by Evbn »

ruby_on_rails wrote: post #22
sudont wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the volatility of their algorithm and the opaqueness of it means that any small business that is getting >80% Google-referred traffic is in for a tough time if they're marked as bad. And mistakes happen. Say: * A canonical tag that shows up due to a bug. Dead. * Industry terms that appear duplicative to the NLP parser. Dead. * Too-diverse content. Lower rankings, but functionally dead. There's tons more, b…

I also call bullshit on this. Google is very open to webmasters,and has a giant like 40 page .pdf available to them strictly about what things get better search results and what things cause negative results or out right panda-ing. The article says right up front about the voting website that they had duplicated content on pages and no one linking to them to boot. Both are known negatives to anyone working in SEO or…

Also, Kraft probably wholesales half the store brand stuff to Publix.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#73

Post by Evbn »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #38
timothya wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that Google moves it's own results up as part of the organic search results. Bing puts Google Finance first before Yahoo Finance as well. Regardless of it's popularity, its position may simply because of other signals in the ranking algorithm.

Google freely admits to putting their own links first. Here's what Marissa Mayer said in 2007: We didn't actually have Google Finance until about a year ago. Up until then we were ordering the links based on various published metrics... We had the five top finance sites in their order of their popularity listed there. So we rolled out Google Finance, we put the Google link first. (You can watch it at http://www.youtu…

Assume yahoo has a better finance website than Google. Then ponder the results for these queries:

    AAPL
  
    Finance

    Finance website

 And then articulate what is wrong with Google's results.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#74

Post by Evbn »

alexkearns wrote: post #66

Our web app has recently been hit by a Google algorithm change. Search traffic has fallen off a cliff. If it continues, it could be a threat to our business. We have never done any underhand SEO. We haven't done any SEO at all. People love the app but now, alas, they can't find it. Ironically, just before we fell out of the search rankings, a Google developer evangelist got in touch to say how much they liked our app…

Do some white hat SEO.

Google.com/webmaster

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#75

Post by Evbn »

gscott wrote: post #64

Google Search is becoming more like adwords. They just removed a site I manage because it doesn't meet the Google quality guidelines easyfastcheaponlinetrafficeschool.com. When they remove your site its like disappearing from the internet... I had to switch the site to a new domain and the loss in sales has been about $70,000+ so far not to mention spending more on adwords.

Pretty sure Google's long published webmaster guide discouraged that domain name years ago.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#76

Post by Evbn »

alpatters wrote: post #55

I do wonder sometimes if google's own site would pass its site quality guidelines. Like duplicated content; the same content appearing on multiple pages, all pages should be linked from somewhere on the site or a site map, substantial original content. I think it fails on all three of these, so in some sense it is anti-competitive to block other sites that fail these measures whilst it doesn't hold itself up to those…

Example of a bad google page that ranks high in search?

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#77

Post by Evbn »

enneff wrote: post #50
snogglethorpe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do we rely so much on google ? because we became lazy Because google delivers amazingly good results. [Oh, and FF certainly isn't "obsolete because of chrome." Both are fine browsers, and the competition has proved beneficial to both of them.]

Furthermore, judging by this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Usage_share_o... it seems that Chrome's rise in popularity correlates with IE's decline.

Recent reports show IE gaining and FF dropping.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#78

Post by Evbn »

joelrunyon wrote: post #30

I'm really amazed (and impressed) at how many mentions & links Vote-USA got throughout that article. Seemed like an inordinate amount for the number of times it was mentioned. Also, I get the whole "we got deindexed" from Google, but duplicate content is not necessarily a new thing. If you got penalized for it, so did a bunch of other people. You shouldn't act like it's a surprise and whine about it. Just fix it and…

(Obligatory http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html link)
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