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My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

cringely.com

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Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#61

Post by drhayes9 »

mkhaytman wrote: post #59
drhayes9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty unrealistic moral in the face of the reality of how the consumer web works. I mean, I get the whole "don't depend on another company for your revenue" (e.g. apps in the Apple app store), but you're saying "don't count on Google sending traffic to your site". Plus, her ranking didn't change -- her site vanished out of the index. EDIT: Unless you mean "don't depend entirely on organic traffic"? I can so…

How did you infer the site was deindexed? They said specifically by typing the URL of the site, it would show up.

From the site:

"...but if you look for photo quilts or any similar search term, Portrait Quilts — which for years was always the top result — no longer appears."

I'm being a little imprecise, but her site was deindexed for a bunch of search terms that she used to rank highly for.

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#62

Post by MichaelGG »

drhayes9 wrote: post #47
VMG wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did she not actually update the content for the last 5 years (including Copyright notice) so it doesn't appear to be a dead site. That's a function of inaction however. Moral: don't base your income on something as volatile as your Google ranking

That's a pretty unrealistic moral in the face of the reality of how the consumer web works. I mean, I get the whole "don't depend on another company for your revenue" (e.g. apps in the Apple app store), but you're saying "don't count on Google sending traffic to your site". Plus, her ranking didn't change -- her site vanished out of the index. EDIT: Unless you mean "don't depend entirely on organic traffic"? I can so…

The site did not vanish. Go search for a snippet of text on the site, and it shows up right there.

Edit: Even for "portrait quilts" in quotes, her site shows up on the 8th page for me (opened incognito window to limit customization).

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#63

Post by grey-area »

mkhaytman wrote: post #53
sergiotapia wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking out of your ass and it's really infuriating to hear people disregard real, tangible problems you are facing. 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. an…

I'd contend you're the one talking out of their ass. Relying on another company for all your business isn't a sound business strategy. The person in the article put all their eggs in one basket and this is the result.

In principle, I'd agree that relying on another company is not a sound business strategy, but Google has a virtual stranglehold on organic traffic to websites, something that is outside the control of most web companies.

How do you suggest a web-based company should counter that and not rely on google for much of their business?

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#65

Post by pcmonk »

tedunangst wrote: post #13

Eric Schmidt said he was sorry but he couldn’t help. Now I’m angry. Wow. I think I respect Google more now. I don't like the "take it to the people" approach needed to get action out of Google, but I like "I know people who know people" approach even less. The chairman of the company should not be dicking about with search results because a friend asked.

The real problem is not that they couldn't get preferential treatment. The problem is that there is no way to get treatment at all. If they hadn't have asked Eric Schmidt, then we could have wondered whether they had really tried everything. Since they did, it's obvious that Google simply has a problem that they're not interested in fixing.

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#66

Post by ChuckMcM »

VMG wrote: post #40
ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

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…

> Did she not actually update the content for the last 5 years (including Copyright notice) so it doesn't appear to be a dead site. That's a function of inaction however. Moral: don't base your income on something as volatile as your Google ranking

True, that would be an inaction.

I disagree with your moral though, a moral would suggest a choice, and it would be difficult to not depend on Google for exposure here since they are the dominant source of identification. It is perhaps a poor choice to depend on Google for 'organic' exposure however.

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#67

Post by derekp7 »

maaaats wrote: post #54
wonderyak wrote: post #20

This is what I see on Google: https://i.cloudup.com/7ymLpPBmma-3000x3000.png The first organic results don't even show up with the size of my window. The whole situation these days on the SERP for any purchasable item is pretty sad. Luckily, I don't use Google that much when pricing or shopping. Results for data are much more helpful and useful for me.

And the shading is so much more hidden now. I had to tilt my screen properly to even see that it was ads.

I found out that this varies quite a bit based on your monitor. For example, on my newer Thinkpad, the yellow background really stands out. But on my desktop monitor (a 5 - 6 year old Samsung), it isn't noticeable at all, even with tilting the monitor.

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#68

Post by drhayes9 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #62
drhayes9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty unrealistic moral in the face of the reality of how the consumer web works. I mean, I get the whole "don't depend on another company for your revenue" (e.g. apps in the Apple app store), but you're saying "don't count on Google sending traffic to your site". Plus, her ranking didn't change -- her site vanished out of the index. EDIT: Unless you mean "don't depend entirely on organic traffic"? I can so…

The site did not vanish. Go search for a snippet of text on the site, and it shows up right there. Edit: Even for "portrait quilts" in quotes, her site shows up on the 8th page for me (opened incognito window to limit customization).

That's interesting data. Incognito ["portrait quilts"] and it doesn't rank on the first two pages for me, which is why I felt safe putting in my comment in the first place.

Maybe it's a quibble, but most humans don't put quotes in their search terms.

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#69

Post by fyrabanks »

maaaats wrote: post #54
wonderyak wrote: post #20

This is what I see on Google: https://i.cloudup.com/7ymLpPBmma-3000x3000.png The first organic results don't even show up with the size of my window. The whole situation these days on the SERP for any purchasable item is pretty sad. Luckily, I don't use Google that much when pricing or shopping. Results for data are much more helpful and useful for me.

And the shading is so much more hidden now. I had to tilt my screen properly to even see that it was ads.

You might want to color calibrate.

Re: My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her

#70

Post by Systemic33 »

gagege wrote: post #42
Systemic33 wrote: post #28

I think it is quite terrifying, that one company can singlehandedly shut down business, even if you have never used a Google service in your entire life; because all your customers only discover you through Google. And what is to be done about it? you aren't a Google customer in the direct sense, so they feel no obligation to assist, and it seems as if even actual customers get negligible support. The only way out of…

Let's say I own a single store and it happens to be in a space in a mall. Also, the mall is letting me do business there for free. I get exposure, electricity, easy access, all kinds of good stuff, for free. (The mall is Google) Suddenly the mall wants to extort me by charging me money to use their space, electricity, water, etc. Those jerks!

Completely missing the problem.

The problem i'm talking about is more in the case of some company distributing a large phonebook for the city, which includes all stores and people, information they gathered by downloading public city records.

So people start using this phonebook all the time, and for most citizens, it's the only way they can find your business.

But on day the phonebook company, decides for an uknown reason to delist a business.

When the store then contacts the phone company, they are reached with a voicemail, every time they try to contact. The store knows some friends who know the owner of the phonebook company, but the guy they know refuse to comment on it.

What the hell is the store supposed to do? The entire city is so hooked on the phonebook company, because they give them free phone lines, and all sorts of seemingly free stuff, which is really just feeding drugs to the addict.

How does this not stink far away of antitrust? The phonebook is actively working to keep its users with free stuff, so that they keep using them, and enables them to extort the phone store to have to pay the phonebook company for getting them listed again.

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