What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#71

Post by BrianEatWorld » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:10 PM UTC

jcampbell1 wrote: post #36

programminggeek wrote: post #27

I think the biggest problem that Google can't fix is that they treat links as a voting mechanism, and that voting mechanism has value. So, there is a big economic incentive to "buy votes" by buying links. As long as there is a financial incentive to ranking well in google and that the mechanism to rank better is to get links, people with money will buy links in the same way they buy influence in the media, politics,…

Google punishes people that buy links, just like our government punishes people that buy votes. That sets up an incentive to not do it. I would say, this problem is not in the "can't fix" category. Just like in real politics, Google must tread carefully. You can't arrest the president because someone bought votes on his behalf, just like Google can't nuke a site because it has purchased links.

Extending that analogy though, the government can punish people buying votes, but that doesn't stop the billion dollar lobbying industry from shaping public policy.

The incentive doesn't disappear, as there is a great deal to be gained by being bumped up search results. They raise the costs or circumventing the system, but that just means people look elsewhere. Its an arms race.

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#72

Post by OGinparadise » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:11 PM UTC

RBerenguel wrote: post #69

OGinparadise wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His name probably has immunity, just as most large brands do. Small/er sites are fried. Deep fried.

Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm. But of course, there's inertia. Big brands have a huge inertia: you can think of a big brand as having thousands or millions of small links that push its ranking up. That is very hard to overcome with these tactics, it's like stopping the sea with a teaspoon.

Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm

Almost certain that there is. After a certain internal Google score (?) it appears like no update will penalize you with things like 70% traffic drop out of the blue. Big brands are largely not effected by Google's many updates and even when they buy links etc they are forgiven very fast. Regular sites on the other hand are told generic nonsense as they lose visitors update after update.

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#73

Post by codeka » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:25 PM UTC

OGinparadise wrote: post #72

RBerenguel wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm. But of course, there's inertia. Big brands have a huge inertia: you can think of a big brand as having thousands or millions of small links that push its ranking up. That is very hard to overcome with these tactics, it's like stopping the sea with a teaspoon.

Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm Almost certain that there is. After a certain internal Google score (?) it appears like no update will penalize you with things like 70% traffic drop out of the blue. Big brands are largely not effected by Google's many updates and even when they buy links etc they are forgiven very fast. Regular sites on the other hand are told generic non…

Do you have anything to back that claim up? You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation?

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#74

Post by snowwrestler » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #59

a5seo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I disagree with your definition of "white hat SEO". White hat is about earning links. A arms length third party has to give you a link for it to count. That means it has a lot more to do with Public Relations than Page Rank. If you drop a link yourself in a forum or blog comment, that's fundamentally NOT white hat. That's just non-automated black hat. That's also been below Google's radar. This is the fundamental…

Fair enough, but if forum links aren't white hat then 99% of SEO companies/freelancers are black hat. I have yet to hear an SEO company say "We'll make your product great enough people will link to it organically."

There's a pretty big gap between forum links and nothing.

A websticker program, for instance, that is marketed via actual direct contact with potentially valuable partners, can provide high-quality in-bound links that are voluntary and durable. True, this works better in B2B than B2C. For B2C, an affiliate or discount program can do similar things. These can be supported by advertising as well.

These sorts of programs take a commitment, though. You're not going to make a quick big splash this way. But they do work over time, particularly since Google values age in both domains and inbound links.

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#75

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #43

This negative SEO is huge problem now and I'm concern about it. What some bloggers are now doing is buying links to destroy competition. They don't even need to "order" black hat. They just go to fivver and order some of "panda optimized" gigs for $5 (these gigs just hurt - they dont help). And whola.... competition is toasted... I hope this is going to be fixed somehow. EDIT: Also is this is just an "urban legend" o…

[deleted]

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#76

Post by arbuge » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:39 PM UTC

Not to be too dramatic about this, but I basically feel that the moment it became possible to negative SEO a competitor for ~$5 via services like fiverr et al is the moment that will be remembered as the end of Google as a dominant search engine, or at least the end of a Pagerank-centric algorithm for its search.

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#77

Post by arbuge » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

codeka wrote: post #73

OGinparadise wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm Almost certain that there is. After a certain internal Google score (?) it appears like no update will penalize you with things like 70% traffic drop out of the blue. Big brands are largely not effected by Google's many updates and even when they buy links etc they are forgiven very fast. Regular sites on the other hand are told generic non…

Do you have anything to back that claim up? You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation?

It makes sense there would be some kind of immunity. "Immunity" is probably the wrong word - I'd call it common sense. I would think Google has a simple lookup table which always places results like "bmw.com" #1 for query "bmw", "wikipedia.org" #1 for query "wikipedia", etc. irrespective of backlink profiles.

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#78

Post by RBerenguel » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:44 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #77

codeka wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have anything to back that claim up? You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation?

It makes sense there would be some kind of immunity. "Immunity" is probably the wrong word - I'd call it common sense. I would think Google has a simple lookup table which always places results like "bmw.com" #1 for query "bmw", "wikipedia.org" #1 for query "wikipedia", etc. irrespective of backlink profiles.

But there's no need to. Such big sources have huge anchor links with this tag, backlinks supporting them and whatnot. It should work organically without even needing a lookup table

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#79

Post by OGinparadise » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

codeka wrote: post #73

OGinparadise wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immunity? There's no immunity (supposedly) inside the Google search algorithm Almost certain that there is. After a certain internal Google score (?) it appears like no update will penalize you with things like 70% traffic drop out of the blue. Big brands are largely not effected by Google's many updates and even when they buy links etc they are forgiven very fast. Regular sites on the other hand are told generic non…

Do you have anything to back that claim up? You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation?

Do you have anything to back that claim up?

Yeah, lots of things. Things I mentioned in the comment.

You're on hn every time there's a Google story talking about how they're killing smaller sites, acting monopolistic, violating anti-trust regulations or whatever, what is your motivation?

T-R-U-T-H is a great motivator.

Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]

#80

Post by joonix » Mon, May 13, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #76

Not to be too dramatic about this, but I basically feel that the moment it became possible to negative SEO a competitor for ~$5 via services like fiverr et al is the moment that will be remembered as the end of Google as a dominant search engine, or at least the end of a Pagerank-centric algorithm for its search.

What do you propose as an alternative system?