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A glitch in the SEO matrix

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Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#211

Post by seydor »

codegeek wrote: post #4

You either play the Organic SEO game or you Pay to Play (Ads). Google as a search engine is now useless when it comes to searching for a tool/software etc because everyone has gamed the "Best software for xyz" etc. But what's the alternative ? None. There are these "review" websites like Capterra/Software Advice/G2 and again you have to pay to play. You can technically get a review from a customer and get listed BUT…

their ads are not worth it. they have become way too expensive and results are not good

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#212

Post by agmater »

timwis wrote: post #196

What perplexes me is how these sites make it to the _front page._ Isn't ranking heavily informed by the number of sites that link to the page in question, and the reputation of those sites? I would imagine that the only sites linking to these spam pages are other spam sites run by the same owner (and, of course, google.com), which themselves should have low reputations. Does "exact match" really outweigh reputation s…

In high competitive keywords, yes. But these sites don't have backlinks (https://i.imgur.com/9ka6yV1.png). So if you wanted to beat them you either write new content that matches the search intent (like OP) or you find good backlinks.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#214

Post by rl1987 »

asymmetric wrote: post #213

How do these SEO dashboards know what people are searching for? Is there a way (maybe via the ad bidding platform?) to get this kind of data from Google?

Google Ads platform has "Keyword Planner" thingy that can also be accessed via API: https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/keyword-pl...

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#215

Post by generalizations »

wombatpm wrote: post #172
generalizations wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manual curation, the way libraries work. (Or at least, good libraries) And search functions within those curated datasets.

Who is going to be the neutral arbitrator who assigns Dewey Decimal numbers or Library of Congress codes to web pages? Can’t trust the page authors that’s for certain.

No one. Remember the big list of cool blogs that were generated off HN a couple weeks ago? That's one curated dataset. People can start their own curated databases and then see if others find them useful. Big ones become well-known, like big libraries. Small ones might become known for having the best resources for niche subjects.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#216

Post by brucethemoose2 »

dahwolf wrote: post #117
brucethemoose2 wrote: post #23

The root cause of all this madness: Ads. As long as there is even a marginal financial incentive to get human eyeballs on websites (as opposed to the viewers actually playing for services or, you know, just hosting websites for free because they are cool), this will keep getting worse. A genuine desire to help incoming traffic doesn't really matter either. Anything helpful will be infinitely cloned, as long as there…

The web is still a zero-sum game without money involved. Search has 5-10 slots for whichever topic and if you're not in it, you effectively do not exist. This was even true before search, in web directories. It has a limited amount of slots, you need to be on it at all and as high as possible.

> The web is still a zero-sum game without money involved. Search has 5-10 slots for whichever topic and if you're not in it, you effectively do not exist.

Well that is a ridiculous problem that only exists because of Google's UI.

What if, for instance, thet slightly randomized search results?

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#217

Post by wilde »

superasn wrote: post #21

It's so weird that Google still hasn't created the ability to block spam domains. I don't think it's a technical difficulty but rather a management decision to allow spam as long as they have their adsense ads and it baffles me they just don't care about their end users at all. I think being a monopoly with most competitors lagging a lap behind can make you this way, but with chatgpt catching up quick, Google better…

You’re making a few bad assumptions.

1) Google and you are defining spam differently.

2) Spam is adversarial. They have the ability to block spam domains from last week, but it’s an ongoing investment as the adversaries adapt.

That said I do think Google depends too much on human raters who are not customers. It’s caused a lot of drift between the customer’s expectation of quality and Google’s.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#218

Post by jklinger410 »

Sander_Marechal wrote: post #197
nine_k wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If online ad campaigns did not bring sales, a lot of people would stop doing them. There are other advertisement media; there is organic-looking product placement, there is overt product placement and "influencers", etc. Still, people buy a lot of AdWords and similar, and occasionally I see a relevant ad I click. BTW ads within Facebook are usually of much better quality (for me as a reader), likely because they can…

> If online ad campaigns did not bring sales, a lot of people would stop doing them. I've done the math on this for a few small companies. I an thoroughly convinced that this is just not true for many companies. The vast amount of sales attributed to online ad campaigns are sales that a company would have gotten anyway even without the ads.

> The vast amount of sales attributed to online ad campaigns are sales that a company would have gotten anyway even without the ads.

This is a simple test. Turn off all of your ads for a year, compare against the previous. Write a blog post about it, destroy the industry.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#219

Post by hansvm »

citizenpaul wrote: post #200
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with all that data/information, Google still cannot find a more sustainable business model. Despite the countless number of sustinable businesses humanity has produced, so-called "tech" companies just cannot find one. These are not creative people. "We'll just keep on playing eavesdropping intermediary ("middleman") until we have undermined every business, every government and society along with it." Sounds grea…

Id argue that advertising is am emergent side effect of money/commerce. Once you can produce goods for money you need people to be aware you are selling that product. That being the case unless we stop using money their business is quite sustainable.

Right now we have a push-based ad model with a low signal to noise ratio. People are force-fed garbage in the off chance that in a moment of weakness they might accidentally make a purchase not in their best interests. The mutually beneficial aspect of what you're describing (informing people of goods and services at some Pareto optimum which they would actually benefit from) could just as easily be satisfied with a pull-based model, and the low SNR is an artifact of letting de facto scammers pay for the privilege of scamming people.

Re: A glitch in the SEO matrix

#220

Post by jklinger410 »

geysersam wrote: post #207
jklinger410 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A perfectly optimized ad algorithm reflects the market, and offers little opportunity that isn't present in the business itself. Costs go up because winners have been found. Like monopolies in capitalism.

I've seen this narrative a lot in this thread. But if Googles ad-algorithm was actually good I'd expect to occasionally see useful ads. But Googles ad-algorithm is far from perfect. That's why people use reddit or other community aggregators to find useful products, the search engines just really suck at that task.

If you are like many of the commenters on here who is using adblockers and abstains from social networks, this is precisely why you see shitty ads.

Also if you aren't buying anything by clicking them, advertisers are ignoring you because you aren't a valuable user to them.

You are most likely reaping what you sew. Which shows that the ad networks are actually working.

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