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The Destruction of the Web

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: The Destruction of the Web

#81

Post by obstacle1 »

marssaxman wrote: post #78
obstacle1 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White hat SEO = following a search engine's rules = positive behavior. Disparage not that which you do not understand.

If the goal of SEO is to manipulate a site's position in search engine rankings, I don't care what color the hat is. I don't want the site's owner to be able to do that. I want the results of my searches to be based on their relevance to my query, and not on the degree to which the people who stand to profit from my attention to their sites have manipulated the system. The ultimate search engine would be ungameable,…

Google itself explicitly encourages people to SEO their sites. So much so that they publish a SEO starter guide for webmasters and SEO professionals [1].

SEO isn't what you think it is, yet you continue to paint all of SEO with your broad brush. Stop.

[1] (pdf) - https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrus...

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#82

Post by Matt_Cutts »

larrys wrote: post #70
buro9 wrote: post #15

I've received a fair number of these, dating back to late last year and continuing to this day. I'm not sure when Panda came in, but I wouldn't say they've increased or decreased since they started. The sites I run are all based around user generated content, and the links are all genuine instances of people sharing information and linking in the process. None of it is backlinks provided to benefit some third party,…

"I forwarded an example to Matt Cutts a while ago thinking that this whole area feels spammy and dodgy, but I understand he's busy and must get a lot of mail." The question is why is there only "Matt Cutts"? Google could have teams of "Matt Cutts" that are accessible and approachable. Noting that in the traditional legacy business world (that everyone complains about all the time as the "old" way and needing "disrupt…

There's actually a lot of Google employees who post around the web, take feedback and get it to the right teams at Google, etc. I'm just one of the more well-known people.

If the question is "Why doesn't Google have someone I can talk to about my issue?" then I think the answer is probably related to the scale of the web. Remember that Google gets billions of searches a day. There's also ~250M domains on the web. Even if we shifted every single Google employee to user or webmaster support, I'm not sure we could talk to everybody. That's why we look for scalable methods of communication, e.g. our webmaster console or webmaster videos.

Note that we have gotten better over time though. AdWords has phone support now, for example. And just yesterday we started sending example URLs when we send our messages about manual webspam actions. That helps because now webmasters have a better idea about where to look to solve their issues.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#83

Post by Matt_Cutts »

buro9 wrote: post #15

I've received a fair number of these, dating back to late last year and continuing to this day. I'm not sure when Panda came in, but I wouldn't say they've increased or decreased since they started. The sites I run are all based around user generated content, and the links are all genuine instances of people sharing information and linking in the process. None of it is backlinks provided to benefit some third party,…

buro9, what email address did you forward things from? I searched my email for buro9 but didn't see anything.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#84

Post by marssaxman »

obstacle1 wrote: post #81
marssaxman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the goal of SEO is to manipulate a site's position in search engine rankings, I don't care what color the hat is. I don't want the site's owner to be able to do that. I want the results of my searches to be based on their relevance to my query, and not on the degree to which the people who stand to profit from my attention to their sites have manipulated the system. The ultimate search engine would be ungameable,…

Google itself explicitly encourages people to SEO their sites. So much so that they publish a SEO starter guide for webmasters and SEO professionals [1]. SEO isn't what you think it is, yet you continue to paint all of SEO with your broad brush. Stop. [1] (pdf) - https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrus...

Are you claiming that "SEO" no longer stands for "search engine optimization", or are you claiming that "search engine optimization" is no longer about "optimizing" a site for "search engine" result placement?

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#85

Post by buro9 »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #83
buro9 wrote: post #15

I've received a fair number of these, dating back to late last year and continuing to this day. I'm not sure when Panda came in, but I wouldn't say they've increased or decreased since they started. The sites I run are all based around user generated content, and the links are all genuine instances of people sharing information and linking in the process. None of it is backlinks provided to benefit some third party,…

buro9, what email address did you forward things from? I searched my email for buro9 but didn't see anything.

Would've been from david@ buro9.com which is a Google Apps domain.

I tend to permanently delete spam, phishing and related dodgy stuff once I've dealt with them in some way. It is just luck that I still had that one I stuck on pastebin as it took some searching to find one that I hadn't nuked.

I'm fairly sure that pastebin is one of the couple I forwarded to you (kept the original in case you wanted the headers), and I believe your email is just matt.cutts@

Edit: Just delving into my inbox, here's another from September 2012. http://pastebin.com/8N3XhLVN . I don't have too many as I am thorough in my deletions, tend to receive at a rate of one or two per week since late Summer last year.

I haven't kept track of Panda as I don't really bother with SEO/SEM beyond making content readable, but a quick search says those updates were March/April this year? Hence my point that these take-downs precede that, and given what appears to be false representation that I believe these people are using FUD to harm competitors.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#86

Post by larrys »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #82
larrys wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I forwarded an example to Matt Cutts a while ago thinking that this whole area feels spammy and dodgy, but I understand he's busy and must get a lot of mail." The question is why is there only "Matt Cutts"? Google could have teams of "Matt Cutts" that are accessible and approachable. Noting that in the traditional legacy business world (that everyone complains about all the time as the "old" way and needing "disrupt…

There's actually a lot of Google employees who post around the web, take feedback and get it to the right teams at Google, etc. I'm just one of the more well-known people. If the question is "Why doesn't Google have someone I can talk to about my issue?" then I think the answer is probably related to the scale of the web. Remember that Google gets billions of searches a day. There's also ~250M domains on the web. Eve…

Thanks for you thoughts I do appreciate.

"There's actually a lot of Google employees who post around the web"

The overwhelming amount of people that would need help don't see or know who these people are.

I don't even know who these people are and I've been on the web since before there was a google. I know your name because I've seen it so many times in and around the "domain" business.

"then I think the answer is probably related to the scale of the web. Remember that Google gets billions of searches a day. There's also ~250M domains on the web."

Hence the problem. Google has tremendous power and is extremely profitable but isn't able to take care of all the people that it serves or touches. As a result people frequently feel they have gotten, for lack of a better way to put it "the shaft".

"That's why we look for scalable methods of communication, e.g. our webmaster console or webmaster videos."

One of those "scalable" methods has to be the ecosystem that serves the same function as the ecosystem surrounding Microsoft. The ubiquitous "tech guy" who you pay to figure it all out. Adwords is a good example. Easier to pay someone to do that that knows the lay of the land than to watch and learn yourself using the mass of info you need to know to do ad buys the right way.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#87

Post by johnsonmkj »

marssaxman wrote: post #84
obstacle1 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google itself explicitly encourages people to SEO their sites. So much so that they publish a SEO starter guide for webmasters and SEO professionals [1]. SEO isn't what you think it is, yet you continue to paint all of SEO with your broad brush. Stop. [1] (pdf) - https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrus...

Are you claiming that "SEO" no longer stands for "search engine optimization", or are you claiming that "search engine optimization" is no longer about "optimizing" a site for "search engine" result placement?

It's all about the scope of what you would consider "SEO" projects. Would you consider creating search-friendly URLs SEO projects or just best practices?

That's one of the first things I think about when I look at a site from a SEO perspective: can the bots easily digest this site.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#88

Post by mmphosis »

Just like I don't put all my API eggs in one big corporation's basket like the so-called "ecosystem" platform of Apple, Microsoft, et al.

I don't put all of my search eggs in the google basket.

I think that google search was great for about a decade. In the past couple of years, I am starting to have serious doubts about Google's search results. No I don't want the result tailored to me, or whatever IP address that I am searching from. And, I suspect there are lots of sites that are relevant that are not showing up. I also suspect that someone can do search better than Google.

There are other dominant and not so dominant search engines, please use them ...

https://duckduckgo.com/ http://www.yandex.com/ http://www.baidu.com/ http://www.bing.com/ http://gigablast.com/

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#89

Post by moultano »

marssaxman wrote: post #78
obstacle1 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White hat SEO = following a search engine's rules = positive behavior. Disparage not that which you do not understand.

If the goal of SEO is to manipulate a site's position in search engine rankings, I don't care what color the hat is. I don't want the site's owner to be able to do that. I want the results of my searches to be based on their relevance to my query, and not on the degree to which the people who stand to profit from my attention to their sites have manipulated the system. The ultimate search engine would be ungameable,…

A large part of SEO is just making it obvious what your page is about. This helps both the user and the search engine. A lot of it is just usability, but usability specifically for a user who is coming from a search engine.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#90

Post by obstacle1 »

marssaxman wrote: post #84
obstacle1 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google itself explicitly encourages people to SEO their sites. So much so that they publish a SEO starter guide for webmasters and SEO professionals [1]. SEO isn't what you think it is, yet you continue to paint all of SEO with your broad brush. Stop. [1] (pdf) - https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrus...

Are you claiming that "SEO" no longer stands for "search engine optimization", or are you claiming that "search engine optimization" is no longer about "optimizing" a site for "search engine" result placement?

I'm claiming that your characterization of all such "optimization" as malicious is misguided.

White hat is not exploiting the rules of a game, it is following the rules. Proper SEO according to G is doing everything you can to make your site interact well with crawlers. That's akin to following directions when applying for a job, or following the rules when playing a sport. You can't be considered for the job if you don't apply properly, and you'll soon be disqualified if you ignore the rules of a sport. Same with search: if your site doesn't comply with a search engine's standards for crawling, you won't have the opportunity to be ranked fairly.

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