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The Destruction of the Web

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: The Destruction of the Web

#91

Post by whatusername »

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,…

I think I need to link to the relevant XKCD here: http://xkcd.com/810/ And to slightly paraphrase: "But what will you do when Spammers provide useful and relevant content" "Mission Fucking Accomplished"

I'm not saying that's where we are -- But that's hopefully the end-goal

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#92

Post by MDS100 »

macca321 wrote: post #61
_delirium wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

Eight versions targeting different audiences? Sounds almost like something patio11 might suggest...

Twist: He earns all his money by selling nespresso capsules. There has never been any consulting or AP business. It's all coffee.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#93

Post by robryan »

oneandoneis2 wrote: post #60
robryan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So it's better to pay less for an unreliable solution that sucks, than pay more for a guaranteed place at the top of the front page? And if your content "isn't at all desirable" then how is SEO going to help? "We have stuff nobody wants, if only we could get on the front page they'd buy it!" doesn't seem like much of a business plan..

Some will say that they think people don't click on ads (which in general is false). For some terms clicks can be very expensive.

There is plenty of spammy leads campaigns that Adwords won't let you on that will absolutely make you a lot of money if you have good search position, half the stuff on http://www.clickbank.com/ Think diet pills and similar.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#94

Post by josephjrobison »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #71
nostrademons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little baffled by the suggestions of a whole new protocol to fix this: it seems to me like there's a really easy solution. Just say no to people who want to buy links, or votes, or ask you to take down links. Throw those e-mails in your spam folder. I say this not as a Googler but as someone who struggled with boundary issues as a young adult, where people would ask me unreasonable things and I would comply or…

"If I were to leave Google and found a web business, I would spend very minimal time on SEO, despite knowing (in broad strokes) how the ranking algorithm operates and having a huge leg up on the competition." This is a critical point and needs to be underscored. Chasing SEO from a technical perspective is a fool's game. I think SEO can inform your choice of person-to-person marketing activities, but can never take th…

For the most part you won't be penalized for "over-tweaking" on your site. Keyword stuffing and hidden text were dealt with in the early 2000's. If you are targeting keywords in the page title, headers, and body of your site at a reasonable amount, you don't have to worry about "over-tweaking". You do have to worry about over the top link exchanges, buying links, selling links, and too much commercially targeted anchor text pointing at your site.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#95

Post by randomseogeek »

So if I refer my link in this discussion will that be spamming or is it allowed to be referred as I am trying to let people know some SEO guidelines which I feel like sharing here.

http://webmasterfacts.com/google-webmaster-guidelines-seo/

But since the original Google page already explains much, I think there should be no provision of building pages with "verified" keywords as well. Now that official T&C directly states that one cannot take control of the content but one can sure take control of the spam words. What if I had an added service to the link above to some SEO company?

Would that have been ethical link building strategy? I don't know much about how things run around the Google cubicles but I know one thing for sure - No one is going to tell that for the next 100 years.

@Matt: Keep the fight on @rest: Keep the questions coming.

Good Luck.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#96

Post by aruegger »

larrys wrote: post #86
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

AdWords is a bad example, its probably the most straight forward product Google offers, likely because its purpose & functionanlity is discussed in detail by Google.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#97

Post by hitchhiker999 »

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…

That's completely unrealistic, we've been on one of the main forums for SEO for the last 2 weeks - there are a few decent ones at most (not 250M) - YELLING out that we need real help, and real communication. The have SCALED that communication down for you by front paging it.

There are, at most, a few places like this on the web you could easily focus on.

Bonus: I've written to you 4 times, tried google+, twitter, the lot. Poke poke poke.

I'm armed with a comprehensive set of example data, and have 30 years of programming experience behind me. I've been doing this with a bunch of whitehat webmasters who have a combined audience of about 10 million people a day. We have received absolutely no indication that you have even seen anything we've posted or written, or asked about.

Seriously Matt, you're not exactly reaching out. Frank.

Re: The Destruction of the Web

#98

Post by hitchhiker999 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #59

Gad, I am so sick of SEO. Not Jacques article, but SEO in general. Google owns the game. They run the game on a computer. Ergo, if you want people naturally coming from Google, you must do things its computer likes. Only they won't tell you that. Instead, they'll offer platitudes like "write good content and the users will come" when we all know you could write great content until the cows come home and if nobody lin…

I can't believe I'm reading this, it's like a freakin' miracle. We've been fighting a battle about this for 2 weeks over at WMW. Nobody is listening, it's sick and maddening - it's made 10x worse by people screaming 'Google is evil' and dominating any intelligent thread about the subject.

For the love of all that is awesome on the internet. Webspam team - take a step back, listen to what engineers / webmasters / intelligent people are telling you - make some serious changes soon and fast.

This whole thing is a proper, sod-awful mess.

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