31–40 of 115 posts
Now, seriously, I don't think this is Google plan. I think Google just got many billions websites and pages to rank. Google aim is not to be fair for every website, but instead to give the best results.
Given a huge number of websites (and people running them), these occurrences would obviously happen.
Comes up first for me - https://www.google.com/#q=portrait+quilts Edit: HA! Sorry, it's an ad! I thought it was the first organic result but it was actually the second ad! I can barely perceive that shade of yellow indicating that it's an ad. Took two or three takes.
It's an ad for me. Of course, Google's been doing all it can to make ads look like organic results. Looks like she bought into the protection racket.
I see a lot of these articles; someone feeling cheated because Google takes them off some or all search results. Google did not "mug" anyone - it is the reason for your traffic to begin with. The fact that you even ever had discoverability among a billion or so websites is a beautiful thing. Additionally, have some perspective, the search is a free tool that is very tough to get right. This might sound harsh, but I b…
No, people searching for "photo quilts" are the reason for the traffic. Most of those people happen to be using Google, but if Google disappeared, they would switch to another search engine. The site owner has a legitimate interest in Google doing its job better, and so do we as Google users. The point of this post is that Google isn't serving anyone's interests properly here (except, perhaps, its own). As a Google user, I want to know that.
And apparently Mr Cringely doesn't know anything about Webmaster Tools, which would probably be the first stop of anyone wanting to know about a sudden change in rank. Sudden changes are usually the function of 'action' rather than 'inaction' so I'm guessing that somewhere there was an action. Did she succumb to some black hat SEO marketing pitch? Did Cringely piss off some black hat SEO person? Did her site get comp…
Google makes software, and no software is perfect. I've been bitten by shitty google services before. My most recent sting was Google Webmaster Tools not showing any Googlebot crawls to me website. My website is very niche and literally 1 of 4 competitors in the same arena.
5 month. 5 MONTHS. and google has yet to crawl my website, even though google analytics shows me stats day in day out.
Why? Google breaks sometimes, and it's incredibly crappy that you can't even reach out to someone to ask what's up.
I see a lot of these articles; someone feeling cheated because Google takes them off some or all search results. Google did not "mug" anyone - it is the reason for your traffic to begin with. The fact that you even ever had discoverability among a billion or so websites is a beautiful thing. Additionally, have some perspective, the search is a free tool that is very tough to get right. This might sound harsh, but I b…
But in another sense, Google is not free at all. The fact is, Google lives and thrives off of the data generated by the public. Yes, Google employees smart people. But its real value is derived from the underlying public data that Google gets- for free.
Google search works because the world allows Google's bots to traverse their websites freely and index their content. Google translate works because the EU and other governments translated their documents into many languages and then gave them away to the world. Google Maps works because of GIS information gathered on the public's dime. Gmail is able to operate because users allow it to mine their personal messages to better tailor advertisements.
Google is built on top of and depends on the public- both to be its customers and to be the source of its products. It has taken the market in search, email, browser, and mobile. And, for the most part, it has created some great tools for people to use. But there is a minority of people whose lives are affected by Google for the worse. Its important not to marginalize these people.
This is a non-democratically elected institution whose policies and actions have more effect on people's lives than the governments of many nations. Those policies and actions ought to be looked upon critically by the people.
> Now I’m angry.
I would be more angry if Eric Schmid had helped. Because not everyone whose website gets de-indexed knows someone who knows a buddy of Eric Schmidt.
So at least it stays equally shit for everyone and there's no two-tier society of website owners divided by Silicon Valley real life contacts.
Get that cheater off my SERPs, I wanna go with the honest portrait quilt providers.
"She founded PC Data, the largest PC market research firm, now part of the NPD Group."
She founded the largest PC market research firm and now she has to make a living making quilts? How did that happen? Wouldn't the bigger story be how she lost all her money (which I'm assuming) running a PC market research firm?
And apparently Mr Cringely doesn't know anything about Webmaster Tools, which would probably be the first stop of anyone wanting to know about a sudden change in rank. Sudden changes are usually the function of 'action' rather than 'inaction' so I'm guessing that somewhere there was an action. Did she succumb to some black hat SEO marketing pitch? Did Cringely piss off some black hat SEO person? Did her site get comp…
That's a function of inaction however.
Moral: don't base your income on something as volatile as your Google ranking