I thought this was understood across the board. I'm interested to see how the conversation plays out though.
How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
91–100 of 164 posts
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#92Earlier 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...
how would that work? I mean, the old links would still point to it so the juice would still flow in that direction.
What if the content stays the same but the owner is different?
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This. What I despise the most is their hypocrisy and the clean face their Head Hypocrite Matt Cutts always wears when answering those SEO questions. So you have the biggest search engine in the world and all the transparency you can think of consists on putting a man in front of a camera like a country preacher, always saying things that leave open spaces of interpretation?
Because, what? You expect Cutts to be on the phone handling calls from irate webmasters instead?
If Google sells me ad-space - or a Nexus - and then doesn't respond when I have a problem, that's bad. But if your pages drop in the search result rankings, suck it up and maybe pay a bit more attention to the spirit of that preaching - Google owes you ZERO customer support if all you're paying for is snake-oil from some 3rd-party SEO "expert".
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matt Cutts has said Google is trying to break Blackhat SEO's spirits. That tactic appears to be working and this post is a result of that. The author is not trying to build their brand or position themselves. Rather they are sad and angry. To them the situation feels unfair and they want to make the big abusers feel the same pain they've experienced.
I think it's awesome that Google busts as many blackhats as they can. I don't want blackhat seo to be what I need to engage in in order to be successful. I'm reckon I'm better at creating value than I am at link building, so it suits me. That said, Google are not doing a very comprehensive job of busting blackhats. Even some of the cases that an algorithm should be able to easily detect are not being punished in the…
This is probably the best argument in favor of that "break the spirit" strategy then: if you've little-to-no hope of actually putting a dent in the shear volume of abuse by way of penalties, making the existence of penalties (and the behaviors that lead to them) as notorious as possible might be the next best thing... Make associating with such SEO tactics appear too risky for any valuable brand, and cut off the funding for them with FUD.
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#95Just a few emails I usually get from Expedia. "In fact, the article can be about any topic related to your blog, just mentioning at some point something like “find coupon codes for Expedia”, “get some deals in Expedia”.. Do you think that would fit in? Doesn’t have to look very spammy (we don’t want that either). What do you think? About the price, how much would it be a post like this with maybe 2 links? " AND "I’m…
Isn't this very similar to what RapGenius just got penalized for? Only difference seems to be Expedia is not providing anything in exchange for the crappy linkbit like RG was offering to.
Yes, this is similar but more sophisticated. With RapGenius, taking action was easy because the company admitted what they were doing and all the evidence was in the open. Also, the links were clearly spammy.
With these examples, the links are clearly spammy to a human but a little less detectable by a bot. And -- this is crucial -- there is no evidence yet linking these bloggers back to Expedia. Google will have to do a little more digging to figure out the nexus and analyze the quality of Expedia's backlink profile before they can slap a penalty. My guesstimate is that there's a 1 in 3 chance there will be a penalty and a 1 in 10 chance the penalty will be public.
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#96I can demonstrate that Microsoft sells links.
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#97Just a few emails I usually get from Expedia. "In fact, the article can be about any topic related to your blog, just mentioning at some point something like “find coupon codes for Expedia”, “get some deals in Expedia”.. Do you think that would fit in? Doesn’t have to look very spammy (we don’t want that either). What do you think? About the price, how much would it be a post like this with maybe 2 links? " AND "I’m…
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Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#98FULL DISCLOSURE:
Im an Expedia employee (inbound marketing director, covering SEO), although Im currently at the end of my notice period. (Im leaving in two weeks).
Also, I worked in the B2B division, nothing to do with the consumer side that this article references.
The author of the post linked above contacted me a couple of days before publishing it, to warn me that he would publish (quote: "damning evidence of expedia spam").
HOWEVER: If I wanted him to not publish it, he would "sell the post to the highest bidder".
That was what prompted me to post this on my personal blog: http://webmarketingschool.com/big-brand-seo-spam/ and for the record, I told him to sling his hook reference to extorting money out of anyone in exchange for not posting stuff about their backlinks.
No doubt that is why I got singled out in the article. You'll notice that at the top I get mentioned as being in charge of this stuff, then right down at the bottom, he mentions that in fact Ive got nothing to do with it.
I'll let you all draw your own conclusions.
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this very similar to what RapGenius just got penalized for? Only difference seems to be Expedia is not providing anything in exchange for the crappy linkbit like RG was offering to.
Yes, this is similar but more sophisticated. With RapGenius, taking action was easy because the company admitted what they were doing and all the evidence was in the open. Also, the links were clearly spammy. With these examples, the links are clearly spammy to a human but a little less detectable by a bot. And -- this is crucial -- there is no evidence yet linking these bloggers back to Expedia. Google will have to…
It's no secret that a lot of Google's reviews are manual[1] and popular websites like Expedia and RapGenius aren't reviewed by bots. This post and the one about RapGenius shows it's too easy for them to influence the algorithm. Like you said RapGenius got a manual penalty because they were openly flaunting their spam and giving Google a bad name in the process. Expedia does it more descretely and spends millions on Adwords so they won't have to worry.
[1]http://searchengineland.com/google-now-reports-practically-a...
Re: How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
#100FULL DISCLOSURE: Im an Expedia employee (inbound marketing director, covering SEO), although Im currently at the end of my notice period. (Im leaving in two weeks). Also, I worked in the B2B division, nothing to do with the consumer side that this article references. The author of the post linked above contacted me a couple of days before publishing it, to warn me that he would publish (quote: "damning evidence of ex…
Conclusion: You guys are having some he-said-she-said issue that's kinda cute but doesn't change thing about the questionable Expedia tactics.