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The Destruction of the Web

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: The Destruction of the Web

#21

Post by pre »

anon1385 wrote: post #19
pre wrote: post #13

When I started getting emails from companies asking for the spam-links from my sites to be removed I assumed it was a good sign. If they're cleaning up their spam-links then presumably Google have found a way to make those spam-links not pay. Hopefully fewer spam-links and robot-comments, no?

You are assuming the requests to take down links are coming from the owners of the sites the links are pointing to…

Indeed.

Though I was mostly surprised to see them at all, they were all been for a forum I thought I'd closed down years ago but had apparently been collecting spam for quite a while.

And they were spam, certainly. If I'd been monitoring the thing they'd have been deleted right away.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#22

Post by threeseed »

babarock wrote: post #3

I'm "relatively" new to the web. I started using it around 2004. To me, the only way to browse the web goes through Google. I don't think there's a single day I spent in front of the computer without me hitting Google at one point. I even use Google search when I'm specifically targeting Wikipedia or StackOverflow. For the people who got introduced to the web before me, how was "web browsing" done in the earlier deca…

Before Google there was plenty of ways to find links. Other search engines (e.g. Lycos, Yahoo, Excite, Altavista), link directories (e.g. Yahoo, Netscape Directory), magazines (e.g. Wired, .Net), content-driven ISPs (e.g. AOL, CompuServe, eWorld).

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#24

Post by threeseed »

arkitaip wrote: post #5

What Google seems to ultimately be doing with its Pandas and other attempts at stopping search spam is TEACHING businesses that the only safe way forward is great content and white hat practices. Sure, you might temporarily get some advantages with search spam but come next Panda and you might be totally screwed. Better play it safe and play nice with Google.

The problem is that "great content" (aka landing pages) is merely another form of spam.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#25

Post by lmm »

babarock wrote: post #3

I'm "relatively" new to the web. I started using it around 2004. To me, the only way to browse the web goes through Google. I don't think there's a single day I spent in front of the computer without me hitting Google at one point. I even use Google search when I'm specifically targeting Wikipedia or StackOverflow. For the people who got introduced to the web before me, how was "web browsing" done in the earlier deca…

There were indeed search engines pre-google, the "big four" and a host of smaller ones.

There were also "directories" that were very useful. Yahoo's at least is still around. If you wanted to find a bunch of sites on a specific topic you'd use those. But a lot of the time you would follow links between sites - most sites would have a dedicated page of "links to other sites that we think are good/related". A sibling has mentioned webrings which were also a thing.

I never used AOL, but it had a "keyword" system that worked a bit like twitter - you could look up a keyword and see a bunch of sites that claimed to be related to it.

And it was a lot more common to type in a URL that you found offline - books came with their homepage on (they probably still do).

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#26

Post by acdha »

That was a long, windy read for … no clear argument and a ton of begged questions. Spammers have been trying to get backlinks since the 90s – no evidence that this has suddenly become unmanageable. There's a flat claim that nobody makes legitimate backlinks any more, which is both completely unsupported and transparently wrong.

“Destruction of the Web” is a bold title for what appears to be a minor kerfluffle affecting only web marketing types trying to scam search engines. If you produce decent content or something else useful, you can ignore it and carry on: back links will take care of themselves as they have for the last couple decades.

Put another way: the link-bait title got me to click but the anemic post left me less likely to come back and uninterested in sharing. Fix that if you want better search engine rankings.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#27

Post by oneandoneis2 »

I've never understood the concept of black-hat SEO.

If your site isn't worthwhile enough to be on the front page of relevant search results, why would you pay somebody to set up link farms and comment spam et al that might get your site up the rankings; instead of just paying Google to put your site as an ad when people run the relevant searches?

Either way it's going to cost you money, but one is guaranteed to work & have no negative repercussions; the other isn't. Is it just about price, or do the SEO guys have really good marketing, or what?

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#28

Post by _delirium »

DanBC wrote: post #4

This is a nice description of the hell of modern WWW. But things are worse than that! With few exceptions (Stack Exchange and Wikipedia are notable) most searches will return sites that have been SEOd. My Google search for [spectacles cases] returns these two sites on the first page: ( http://www.spectaclecases.co.uk/ ) ( http://www.aglassescase.co.uk/ ) > Welcome to SpectacleCases.co.uk. You will find a wide selecti…

I noticed this when looking to mail-order some espresso pods: there were eight versions of the same shitty German mail-order company in the top 30 results or so, each trying to look like an independent site targeting a different audience, which you only found out were the same when you tried to check out and saw the same ridiculous extra fees tacked on in the shopping cart. Took forever to find a legit store which was not run by the same guy.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#29

Post by robryan »

oneandoneis2 wrote: post #27

I've never understood the concept of black-hat SEO. If your site isn't worthwhile enough to be on the front page of relevant search results, why would you pay somebody to set up link farms and comment spam et al that might get your site up the rankings; instead of just paying Google to put your site as an ad when people run the relevant searches? Either way it's going to cost you money, but one is guaranteed to work…

It is hardly that simple, the costs involved could be completely different, high organic ratings might create a positive ROI whereas PPC might be far too expensive. Also if your content isn't at all really desirable it is possible you will have trouble running Adwords for it as well.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#30

Post by sofiane-d »

Sorry, but for me this article is a bit BS, because what the author describes as the destruction of the web is for me the healthy and eternal balance between good and evil, all over the society.

One one side, systems like Google, facebook... compete to be the best spam filters, on the other side, cheaters try to fight back by using more advanced spam techniques.

At the end of the day, the Web keeps improving and tons of new applications flourish. It also makes it harder to spammers who can then decide to go white hat.

I must admit the quality of Google's SERPs is going down since Panda, especially for long tail keyword phrases, but look, Hacker News is one good example of alternative to Google and Facebook, and the web is not just about Google...

I also believe black hats are the best friends of Google, because they push the level of anti-spam higher, where newer or smaller search engines can't compete because of its lack of history.

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