My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by EliRivers » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:05 PM UTC

ErikAugust wrote: post #5

Comes up first for me - https://www.google.com/#q=portrait+quilts Edit: HA! Sorry, it's an ad! I thought it was the first organic result but it was actually the second ad! I can barely perceive that shade of yellow indicating that it's an ad. Took two or three takes.

It's often interesting to perform the same search on google.com using different proxies. Sometimes I get things in my proxied results that don't turn up in my unproxied (and vice-versa).

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

#22

Post by ry0ohki » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:06 PM UTC

It's the unfortunate reality, I honestly feel like Google's algorithm has gotten really arbitrary lately (just had a huge drop off of almost all traffic for a month which was completely unexplained, only to come right back a few weeks later). The fact that they hide keywords now will make it seem all the more arbitrary.

The real world comparison is not a mugging, it's as if your small business was on Main St one day, and the next there are literally no roads to get to you.

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

#23

Post by 3JPLW » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:06 PM UTC

oftenwrong wrote: post #3

For the curious: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=portrait+quilts https://duckduckgo.com/?q=photo+quilts http://www.bing.com/search?q=portrait+quilts http://www.bing.com/search?q=photo+quilts http://www.yandex.com/yandsearch?text=portrait+quilts http://www.yandex.com/yandsearch?text=photo+quilts http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=portrait+quilts http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=photo+quilts http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=portrait+quilts…

Too many, didn't click: (the result order for me; yours may vary)

    DDG:    1 2
    Bing:   1 2 (but ads before)
    Yandex: 1 3
    Baidu:  1 2
    Yahoo:  1 2 (but so much ads/images/cruft before)
    Blekko: 3 x

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

#24

Post by neilk » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

This is more of a story about the danger of relying on search ranking than it is about Google abusing anyone.

Presumably Cringely knows this, but he also knows that carping loudly about it will increase portraitquilts.com's Google rankings.

Unfortunately, this is a zero-sum game. If portraitquilts.com deserves to win, then that's also saying that the other businesses, how-to sites, Pinterest boards, and so on deserve to lose. Is that obviously true?

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

#25

Post by jenno » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

Has this sister ever engaged in any dubious SEO practices, such as hiring "backlink providers" on fiverr, spamming her link on unrelated websites, or too much prolific use of using the anchor text of "portrait quilt"? Any of those will signal to Google that they are unnatural links and as a result, the site can be penalized and show up less in results, sometimes being removed altogether.

I apologize if this comment is too obvious -- I have worked as an SEO consultant for a while. The first thing she should do is check her Google Webmaster Tools, as this is where she will receive any unnatural link warnings. If it is there, she can start taking steps to remedy the situation by undoing any of the questionable SEO tactics she may have used, and request reconsideration from Google.

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

#26

Post by brent_noorda » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

ErikAugust wrote: post #5

Comes up first for me - https://www.google.com/#q=portrait+quilts Edit: HA! Sorry, it's an ad! I thought it was the first organic result but it was actually the second ad! I can barely perceive that shade of yellow indicating that it's an ad. Took two or three takes.

It came up for me in the adwords section, either at the top or on the right, for the first two pages. But I scrolled through five pages of results and in never came up as an "organic" result.

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

#27

Post by frakkingcylons » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

If you're going to write an article criticizing how Google lowered your spot in the SERP, then at least try to make a substantive argument for why it deserves to be higher. Otherwise it's just whining.

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

#28

Post by Systemic33 » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

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 this seems to be either Google collapsing, or a MS-esque antitrust/monopoly court.

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

#29

Post by ry0ohki » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

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…

>Sudden changes are usually the function of 'action' rather than 'inaction'

This is not necessarily true and I have plenty of first hand experience. Also Webmaster tools is useless if they were not directly affected by a spam penalty.

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

#30

Post by EliRivers » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 9:09 PM UTC

If I were running a business providing free advertising for such companies, I'd wait until a company relied on me and then make them pay for it. Given that google is a business, doesn't seem that odd that this happens. In fact, seems surprising if it doesn't.