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SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

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Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#21

Post by stevenleeg »

jawns wrote: post #9

The most egregious example of a huge site doing things that smaller sites are not allowed to do is ... GOOGLE! Recently, I've seen its "survey wall" cropping up on more and more sites. It works like this: You do a Google search. You see a link to an article you want to read. You click through. You're met with a message that tells you that if you want to actually read the page, you have to complete a survey. And the w…

I've actually noticed Chegg doing the exact same thing experts exchange did.

For example, if I'm looking up homework help for second order differential equations, I'd see something like this[1] in the Google results. Does anyone know why is this not being penalized?

[1] – http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/1-f...

Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#22

Post by gk1 »

jawns wrote: post #9

The most egregious example of a huge site doing things that smaller sites are not allowed to do is ... GOOGLE! Recently, I've seen its "survey wall" cropping up on more and more sites. It works like this: You do a Google search. You see a link to an article you want to read. You click through. You're met with a message that tells you that if you want to actually read the page, you have to complete a survey. And the w…

On the flip side of this is Google Consumer Surveys[0], which is actually quite useful. You set up a survey, specify your target demographics, and Google takes care of finding participants. How does it get participants? With the popups you mentioned.

[0] https://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home

Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#23

Post by [deleted] »

lazyant wrote: post #17
mrsaint wrote: post #3

When Google replaced other search engines like Altavista back in the last century, one thing that made it so special was that it was fully automated and didn't seem to favor anyone. Nowadays, post-Panda, things seem to have become a lot more murky, and I am not sure whom to thank for that (overzealous SEO folks perhaps who had tried to game Google's algorithm?). I mean seriously, have you ever received one of those "…

silly question: how do you know a link hurts you?

[deleted]

Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#25

Post by digitalengineer »

stevenleeg wrote: post #21
jawns wrote: post #9

The most egregious example of a huge site doing things that smaller sites are not allowed to do is ... GOOGLE! Recently, I've seen its "survey wall" cropping up on more and more sites. It works like this: You do a Google search. You see a link to an article you want to read. You click through. You're met with a message that tells you that if you want to actually read the page, you have to complete a survey. And the w…

I've actually noticed Chegg doing the exact same thing experts exchange did. For example, if I'm looking up homework help for second order differential equations, I'd see something like this[1] in the Google results. Does anyone know why is this not being penalized? [1] – http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/1-f...

Same as Quora. I can google it and clcik the link to it, but then it's blurred and I need to login to see answers: "You must be signed in to read this answer."

Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#26

Post by fear91 »

jawns wrote: post #9

The most egregious example of a huge site doing things that smaller sites are not allowed to do is ... GOOGLE! Recently, I've seen its "survey wall" cropping up on more and more sites. It works like this: You do a Google search. You see a link to an article you want to read. You click through. You're met with a message that tells you that if you want to actually read the page, you have to complete a survey. And the w…

The best thing is they punish you for "ads above the fold" and actively de-index "scraper websites". Matt Cutts preaches how bad it is constantly.

Ironically, what Google could be summed up as is a scraper website absolutely FULL of ads above the fold ( http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2012/01/... ). If you place ads like Google does, your website won't rank shit.

Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#27

Post by franze »

the hypothesis here is that: big sites do shitty SEO but they are still big sites, that is why google is evil.

this hypothesis if flawed: just because they are big site - and are still big and show up in google - does not mean that they get away with it.

google's response - from algorithms, mini algorithms (which just target a specific vertical of sites) and spam actions - are most of the time subtle and seldomly targeted at a whole site (especially if the site overall delivers some value)

i have consulted websites - market leaders in their markets and vertical - which had major SEO issues from their technical setup (shooting themselves in the foot) + manual penalties + (user generated) spam issues on their site. still they were the market leaders from brand perception and overall site traffic. they were performing well compared to the competition, they were not performing well compared on how well they could (and later did) perform without these issues.

my recommendation of loves looking at crappy SEO at other sites: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? - in general a better use of your time and ressources

Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#28

Post by smackfu »

gk1 wrote: post #22
jawns wrote: post #9

The most egregious example of a huge site doing things that smaller sites are not allowed to do is ... GOOGLE! Recently, I've seen its "survey wall" cropping up on more and more sites. It works like this: You do a Google search. You see a link to an article you want to read. You click through. You're met with a message that tells you that if you want to actually read the page, you have to complete a survey. And the w…

On the flip side of this is Google Consumer Surveys[0], which is actually quite useful. You set up a survey, specify your target demographics, and Google takes care of finding participants. How does it get participants? With the popups you mentioned. [0] https://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home

I would hope that ads are generally useful to the people placing them.

Re: SEO: 4 things huge sites are allowed to do but you’re not.

#29

Post by sogen »

devx wrote: post #2

I've also noticed sites like TheVerge do native advertising in a way that's very hard to tell until you actually see the article. And I don't think I've seen any "Sponsored" or similar tag anywhere close to the article, which I believe is in Google's policy. Google itself seems to be doing this, too (not properly labeling ads), while telling everyone else not to do it and penalizing them.

Agreed, Google Ads now look exactly like search results, dark pattern!
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