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How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google

nenadseo.com

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

#121

Post by r0h1n »

searchmartin wrote: post #98

FULL 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…

Your allegation is a strong one. Plus considering that your personal reputation is being impugned against by Nenad, I wonder why you don't publish his email where he said he would "sell the post to the highest bidder"?

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

#122

Post by Shog9 »

cases wrote: post #101
Shog9 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's odd that you talk about snake-oil in a thread where it's already mentioned that Google will just as easily ban you even if you follow their rules. Expedia and RapGenius are the two latest examples of how easy it is to cheat the system. Meanwhile the world commerce is moving towards the Internet and Google controls 70% of that. But you don't want to come off as "spammy" so better to risk your company and follow t…

Meanwhile the world commerce is moving towards the Internet and Google controls 70% of that.

...so you gotta do what it takes to get ahead, even if that means abusing the system and everyone else who depends on it? That's been the spammer's argument from Day 1, and it's just as crap now as it was twenty years ago.

No one owes you a successful business. If the only way you can find to make money involves dumping on others, then you shouldn't be surprised when there are consequences - even if you're following the "letter of the law" while doing so.

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

#123

Post by davemel37 »

riffraff wrote: post #92
davemel37 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

By discounting all links from before the date it expired.

People used to snatch up expired domains and use the internet archives to put back up the same content and than slowly add links to their sites...

Because of this spam, Google just ignores links to a domain that expired that are from before it went live if the new registrant is a different person I presume but don't know.

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

#124

Post by berkay »

searchmartin wrote: post #98

FULL 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…

Martin, if what you're saying is true, that's very shady behavior on his part. However, it does not have any impact on what he's saying. Your post seems to say "yes big brands are doing it and can do it because they are brands, suck it up"

I don't think we should accept that same behavior should have different implications depending on who is doing it.

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

#125

Post by searchmartin »

berkay wrote: post #124
searchmartin wrote: post #98

FULL 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…

Martin, if what you're saying is true, that's very shady behavior on his part. However, it does not have any impact on what he's saying. Your post seems to say "yes big brands are doing it and can do it because they are brands, suck it up" I don't think we should accept that same behavior should have different implications depending on who is doing it.

I totally agree there should be one set of rules and thats it.

Thing is, there IS one set of rules already - and thats governed by the google organic results algo which looks at a sites backlink profile as a whole.

If its mainly crap links with no authority then the site will get banned. If its a big brand site with authority and reputation, its really tough from Google's perspective to simply ban that site and all its pages because there are some links of questionable authority pointed at it.

IF they did that, the search results would be a pretty lonely place, and it would be super easy to remove sites positioned above yours in the results!

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

#126

Post by searchmartin »

r0h1n wrote: post #121
searchmartin wrote: post #98

FULL 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…

Your allegation is a strong one. Plus considering that your personal reputation is being impugned against by Nenad, I wonder why you don't publish his email where he said he would "sell the post to the highest bidder"?

Because I turned down the offer and gave him advice before he published his story.

I took the decision then not to out the behaviour - however given that Im targeted in the article I've since slackened my ethics on how to treat the situation.

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

#128

Post by bradleyjg »

ris wrote: post #103
throwaway420 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 rather suggests that what you're calling "white hat" is a slightly less white shade than you may think. After all, who exactly is defining what "above board" is here? You're talking as though Google has some kind of responsibility to you. They don't. You are not their customer. Their…

>> 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 rather suggests that what you're calling "white hat" is a slightly less white shade than you may think. After all, who exactly is defining what "above board" is here?

We've had a lot of proof by vigerous assertion in this thread. I particularly like the protestation of lily-white innocence by marketers writing "great content" in "guest posts".

A thousand words on "10 things to bring on your next business trip", or "5 things to ask when choosing an online university" isn't exactly Woodword & Bernstein on Watergate, Joyce's Dubliners, or even Michelin's Guide to Paris restaurants.

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

#129

Post by C1D »

searchmartin wrote: post #98

FULL 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…

I would trust this post if you could at the very least provide some evidence that he did contact you and that you are leaving because to me, it seems like you're just a employee trying to pin the blame on him and do a little damage control.

The fact that you're the Marketing Director at Expedia makes it even worse (if you are lying).

EDIT: Okay, I just did some research and this person's company is extremely fishy but I would still like to see some evidence.

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

#130

Post by berkay »

searchmartin wrote: post #125
berkay wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin, if what you're saying is true, that's very shady behavior on his part. However, it does not have any impact on what he's saying. Your post seems to say "yes big brands are doing it and can do it because they are brands, suck it up" I don't think we should accept that same behavior should have different implications depending on who is doing it.

I totally agree there should be one set of rules and thats it. Thing is, there IS one set of rules already - and thats governed by the google organic results algo which looks at a sites backlink profile as a whole. If its mainly crap links with no authority then the site will get banned. If its a big brand site with authority and reputation, its really tough from Google's perspective to simply ban that site and all i…

Google does NOT only use the algorithm, and manually bans sits algorithm may have misses as it was in the case of RapGenius. I don't buy the argument that search results would be lonely, if Google somewhat punished Expedia for this, it would force them to change behavior. They would fall inline as well as others that may be using these questionable methods.
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