Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

nenadseo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 164 posts

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#71

Post by vini »

davemel37 wrote: post #40
pdeuchler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really don't want to take my word for it, Google explicitly states how the links that TFA addressed are clearly in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines : https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356 "Here are a few common examples of unnatural links that violate our guidelines..." (3rd bullet point)

I dont see any evidence that this was a large scale effort. As another poster pointed out as well, these might be affiliate links dropped by a widget like skimlinks,etc...

you can use NerdyData to search links like those directly on the sites source code: http://d.vncs.me/T864 [short link, HN mess the full link]

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#72

Post by girvo »

davemel37 wrote: post #49
hkmurakami wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if the govt pages continue to link to these newly reborn link spam pages, certainly these expired domains have higher link value than a brand new fresh domain?

you are mistaken. This was the case until about 2008 or so... here is a quote from matt cutts. "On expired domains, Matt said Google tries to reset pagerank/links for all expired domains to zero when they are registered by someone new. They don’t try to penalize the expired domain, but they also don’t want to give credit for the previous owner’s links." http://www.seo.com/blog/conferences/matt-cutts-does-domain-r...

The keyword there would be "tries", I'd wager...

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#74

Post by declan »

acgourley wrote: post #13
PaulHoule wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the worst content farms either evolved from or bought second and third tier search engines (About.com, AOL) because they could sue Google in an antitrust lawsuit if they ever got burned for their crappy content and linking schemes.

That's pretty interesting if true - do you have any evidence?

It's not true. First, it's wrong on liability under federal antitrust law. Second, just look at (ick) Demand Media, home to eHow.com and Cracked.com, which operates no search engines.

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#75

Post by swang »

cclogg wrote: post #17

It's weird when you realize how much stuff that seems organic is really just a massive ploy/effort by a company or PR firm. I think even Paul Graham had an article about PR firms related to the comeback of the 'suit' haha. One wonders how safe HN will be from this. Inevitably if something can generate views or $$ then someone will have an interest in gaming it.

The article you are referring to is "The Submarine"

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#76

Post by shaneofalltrad »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #59
MichaelTieso wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely paid linking. I own a very popular travel website and friends with other popular travel related sites. I can confirm that Expedia has contacted us to purchase links. It's not really news and very well known in the travel community. Often their pay is as low as $10 for a link.

This is what always frustrates me about these discussions. There will be a long, article citing many sources and someone will simply say "thats not true" without seeming to have any knowledge at all of what they are talking about. Later on, someone like you, with actual facts, contradicts the other person and I wonder why someone who had no idea what they were talking about definitively shot down a well thought out p…

Paid links and paying for conversion can be different pricing structures, but the fact is they are either paying someone in house or for contract to create links to the website through blog. This is common, as blogging, especially if the blogger can get the article on a legitimate website it has value. They can pay in many set rates by volume of work to performance of the links.

Another thing is the website owners can be paid to add new content to the blog via an in-house SEO grunt, who has to add a number of links and space them out based on expected. I.e. one link per blog. They will edit over or add to the actual bloggers content.

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#77

Post by my_username_is_ »

throwaway420 wrote: post #33
pknight wrote: post #3

This just adds to the list of why to hate Google. Basically if you are either a big brand or a spammy company or have a nimble operation, you can afford to do grey & black seo. If you are a small business/ up and coming company white seo practices are the safe choice.

Even if you use nothing but white-hat and above-board SEO strategies, you're at risk of your page getting penalized or delisted. This happens to people every day. Only unlike Rap Genius, there is literally zero way to communicate with somebody at Google unless you manage to get a popular thread going at HN. I'm happy this Rap Genius incident happened because it's driven some attention to how Google's business actuall…

While I agree that it is necessarily difficult to create a search engine ranking algorithm that isn't gamed, customer service isn't something that should be lumped in with the 'difficult problems'. Google has been notoriously terrible at customer service for years and it's amazing that they've been so successful despite this.

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#78

Post by busterarm »

iaskwhy wrote: post #8

This kind of SEO hack seems hard to fix with an algo. One way might be to target "content" creators like Abby and Jennifer as they probably use Google+ (and probably other social networks) to promote their work. By targeting the writers and giving some penalty to everything they write as well as the site where the article is published, these sites will need to verify how good the writers are before accepting the gues…

Ignore all links from pages with "Top #" in them. Or in paragraphs below emphasized/numbered headlines.

That'd really stick it to sites like Cracked.

Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

#80

Post by clarkm »

davemel37 wrote: post #25
cclogg wrote: post #17

It's weird when you realize how much stuff that seems organic is really just a massive ploy/effort by a company or PR firm. I think even Paul Graham had an article about PR firms related to the comeback of the 'suit' haha. One wonders how safe HN will be from this. Inevitably if something can generate views or $$ then someone will have an interest in gaming it.

This is and always has been the nature of Business. Long before search engines or the internet came into being. People will do whatever they can to get exposure, publicity, and a competitive edge. All marketing is a Ploy if you really think about it, and businesses for intents and purposes is just an investment vehicle and marketing is how your turn over that investment. Heck news media a ploy for corporations. Someo…

It wasn't too long ago that calling someone a "corporate shill" meant you were parodying tinfoil hatters. It's funny how quickly things change.
Post reply on HN