Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sick of SEO Scumbags

thehodge.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 132 posts

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#61

Post by abeatnik »

e40 wrote: post #53
abeatnik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It seems a lot of Android fanboys and "Google Openness believers" are sleepwalking us all into the next dark "Microsoft" chapter." If anyone is "sleepwalking" anyone anywhere then I think it's the people making big money from companies like Google, not consumers or openness advocates. That is, people like you before you found yourself unceremoniously kicked out of the club.

"It seems a lot of Android fanboys and "Google Openness believers" are sleepwalking us all into the next dark "Microsoft" chapter." Did you change what the OP wrote or did they after you copy/pasted it? They statements are pretty different (now). Here's what the OP says: Android fanboys and "Google Openness believers" could sleepwalk us all into the next dark "Microsoft" chapter. Could/are... very different. That is,…

The quote is a copy and paste.

I guess what I was trying to say is that Android users and openess advocates are not very relevant to the topic being discussed. Google's monopoly in search and advertising should be considered in relation to those who directly benefit and lose from it as these are the ones who will determine whether it continues or not.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#62

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

walshemj wrote: post #59
csomar wrote: post #47

Since people started criticizing Google :) I'd like to point out something really quite annoying (and also a little Evil) that Google is doing: They are hiding the search terms in your Google Analytics report . Google pretended that it's going to affect a single digit of your search terms (check the blog post), but for me, it's from 70% to 90% on my sites (around 8 sites, same issue). This is really the worst move th…

But adwords users get that data - this is hipocrasy on teh part of Google.

Yup, its pretty hypocritical. It also annoys me as it doesn't give me enough insight into what search terms convert well for the company I work for, which means that I am unable to convince my bosses to buy search terms on Google. So its a net loss for them too.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#63

Post by a5seo »

blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #50

From the article: If your telling the client your doing high quality link building, then buying the cheapest package you can from a link seller, that’s fraud and in todays world, you can cause serious damage. The mom and pop store that got hit... It is a shame. But: This mom and pop store certainly has their own responsibility. Especially if they rely on Google to keep their business afloat. They are webmasters, and…

I agree with you, but everything you say about SEO can be said of PR. The difference is that PR is a more mature field and people understand what it's about.

It probably also helps that few have the attitude that they are entitled to news coverage the same way they feel entitled to traffic. So we accept that it's capricious and that someone who knows what they're doing can get results. And that's OK.

Anyway, who cares about "blind SEO hate on a start-up site?" It ultimately gets punished by the market.

If you hate SEO, great. Make your site hard to crawl chock full of duplicate content and inscrutable urls; don't bother to get authority signals (links) deep and wide; don't make pages that satisfy search intent.

Your competitor who DOES will get traction, funding, a better team, and down the road you'll be yet another guy at a bar saying, "Yeah, I used to have a startup... tough racket."

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#64

Post by walshemj »

hackerboos wrote: post #8
davidroberts wrote: post #6

Maybe the OP should write an 'SEO for Dummies' book that helps people avoid becoming victim to SEO scumbags.

All the information needed for good SEO is publicly available from Google.

Can you point me to a detailed Google document on how to migrate a large say 5M page site from several platforms to another one.

I had to work with 10 RC's and almost 5 months from the third party developer to get FWI's new classified platform in a fit state to launch - and that snot counting the work to develop the redirect plan.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#65

Post by blauwbilgorgel »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #29

If I read it correctly, the mom and pop shop used "SEO service" to boost up their traffic, but the service used "black hat" ways which result in Google "ban". How do I prevent e.g. my competitor for doing the same to my website?

It is up to Google to prevent that. You can't do much about it (but laugh, as your competition is trying to frame you, when they could use that wasted time to focus on their own rankings). If it is really blatant, you could file a spam report [1], post on the webmaster forums [2] or disavow certain links [3].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

  Is there a way that person A could hurt competitor B?
  We try really really hard to design algorithms that are 
  robust and resistant. Any algo that the search team has 
  done in the recent years, we do walk through those cases.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38...

  Can competitors harm ranking?
  Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being 
  able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from
  our index.
Still, some webmasters do feel it is possible to do "negative SEO". For example the above quote used to read:

  There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your 
  ranking or have your site removed from our index.
I myself wouldn't worry about competitors trying this. There is not much you can do to stop others from behaving a certain way. I think it is much more likely that Google detects these attempts, than a competitor finding a way to damage rankings that don't belong to them.

[1] https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en

[2] http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/webmasters

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=393nmCYFRtA

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#67

Post by languagehacker »

Damn, this is some bad writing. I know we live in an age of post-editorial content, but can we please avoid sharing stuff with gratuitous comma splices and "your" vs. "you're" confusion? If I wanted to read shit like that, I'd open up the comments on Reddit.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#68

Post by blauwbilgorgel »

walshemj wrote: post #64
hackerboos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the information needed for good SEO is publicly available from Google.

Can you point me to a detailed Google document on how to migrate a large say 5M page site from several platforms to another one. I had to work with 10 RC's and almost 5 months from the third party developer to get FWI's new classified platform in a fit state to launch - and that snot counting the work to develop the redirect plan.

While 5 million pages is a very big number (that probably requires a lot more planning) this might be the Google document you are looking for:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38...

  Moving your site
  If you're planning on moving your site to a new domain, 
  here are some tips that will help you retain your site's
  ranking in Google's search results.
Edit: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/moving-to-a-new-web-host/ (2005)

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.nl/2008/04/best-pract... (2008)

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#69

Post by Axsuul »

cbeach wrote: post #23

There's only one search engine that anyone cares about. Companies live or die by their inclusion in that index. SEO is a nasty little cottage industry that benefits from the algorithmic monoculture in search. On a somewhat related note, there is only one display advertising program that anyone cares about. If you get banned from Adsense because a competitor hammered an ad on your site, say - you're out. Forever. With…

Start a DBA and reapply for a new AdSense account.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#70

Post by walshemj »

blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #68
walshemj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to a detailed Google document on how to migrate a large say 5M page site from several platforms to another one. I had to work with 10 RC's and almost 5 months from the third party developer to get FWI's new classified platform in a fit state to launch - and that snot counting the work to develop the redirect plan.

While 5 million pages is a very big number (that probably requires a lot more planning) this might be the Google document you are looking for: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38... Moving your site If you're planning on moving your site to a new domain, here are some tips that will help you retain your site's ranking in Google's search results. Edit: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/moving-to-a…

oh a single page how generous of them :-0
Post reply on HN