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Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

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Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#511

Post by withinboredom »

kqr wrote: post #510
withinboredom wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wait, are you really asking why a search engine would care how well it finds what the user is looking for? While a useful metric, it's an unknowable metric. 1. You have no idea if the user even knows what they are looking for, so how would you know that they found it? 2. You have no idea if the user found what they are looking for, maybe what they are looking for isn't on the internet? 3. You have no idea if the us…

I disagree. It's unfortunate that some users don't know what they want, some want things that don't exist, and that some are cats. But most users are humans with a rough idea of an existing thing they are looking for. It's worth it for a search solution to find out how good it is at helping them. The cats add noise to that measurement, they don't invalidate it. Do you philosophically agree there are websites that are…

I didn’t go into all the problems with “successful websites” but it really is impossible to measure. For me, my business site is successful when I capture leads, my blog is successful when I write posts, a restaurant is successful when people show up to eat. There’s no way of knowing what variables and metrics constitute success without asking the person.

I had a CEO who searched for the related business search terms every morning. No clicks, he just wanted to see the ranking. The other day, I was searching for an open NOC page that I knew existed but couldn’t remember the search terms. Eventually I gave up, but I’m 90% sure I left the tab open to a random promising search result that had nothing to do with what I was really searching for. There’s a pdf that archive.org fought over and simply mentioning it results in a DCMA, you can find it now, but for nearly 20 years, you could only find rumors of it on the internet and a paper copy was the only way you could read it.

Even when I know what I’m looking for exactly, I sometimes open a bunch of tabs to search results and check all of them, (This is actually the vast majority of my non-mobile searches) especially because the search results are often wrong or miss some important caveats — especially searching for error messages.

The only way you could find out these searches were unsuccessful (or successful) is to ask. There’s no magic metrics to track that will tell you whether or not my personal experience found the search successful.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#512

Post by wickedsight »

sct202 wrote: post #406
sharpshadow wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google be like: this website performs well on the ranking, does it have AdSense, no, downrank.

OP's website is heavy with affiliate link listicles, which have been recently heavily downranked in favor of forums and content like Reddit and Quora.

We have a single list with affiliate links on there. Which happened because a company proactively approached us to share their link on our site because they liked the content.

Edit: I do see how it may have seemed like we had a lot of referral links due to the setup of outgoing links. Changed that now, so there is pretty much just the one left.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#513

Post by donkeyd »

jacobsimon wrote: post #380
sharpshadow wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google be like: this website performs well on the ranking, does it have AdSense, no, downrank.

To the parent commenter - have you set up google search console and reviewed what pages and keywords were affected? There could be other reasons why your pages aren't being indexed properly. If it's a small site, it could have been something as simple as changing an image or page title.

Definitely. All of them were affected equally, pretty much.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#514

Post by keepamovin »

bruce511 wrote: post #119
keepamovin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting take on the backstory. Also, > Of course Google didn't make the web site bad, you did. That's right. Whenever anybody says "X made me do Y", sometimes I get flashes of the 1980/s1990s action movie villain, in the industrial backdrop, for the violence climax scene, with the hero on the ropes, screaming hysterically "You made me do this!" Nobody makes you do anything. That's true from a strict personal resp…

>> of course that's not what this is about. It's about Google providing the incentive, for ruining perfectly good websites. Wait,what? The author wants to monetize the site. He understands the actual users won't pay. So looking for an alternate option he turns to advertising. Google says "hey, unfortunately your site isn't appealing to advertisers." That's not Google's fault, they're just telling the truth as they se…

I'm surprised no one commenting has really got this point. The truth is Google has a choice about the model it uses, Google has created the advertising industry online.

Again, you disclaim Google of any responsibility for choice but hold the author to one? Doesn't that biased difference strike you as jarring?

That's the point here. Everyone seems to complicate it; it's pretty simple.

I'm not against you specifically, I just think this is a clear issue. Admittedly, not a lot of people grasp this right now.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#515

Post by wickedsight »

dsq wrote: post #436
wickedsight wrote: post #197

Last year a friend and I made a website about the Nurburgring. It provided basic info for first time visitors that we were missing on our first visit. My friend spent a lot of time creating a UI with a custom map for displaying locations and routes. I wrote a bunch of content that was thoroughly researched. At a certain point we ended up being invited by one of the largest rental companies to see whether we could wor…

Did you any problem building a site on a proprietary subject like Nurburgring? Its private. Dont they have copyright, etc. Did you get an agreememt with them or is it not an issue in Germany?

You can write a web site about Coca Cola if you want. If it's just factual information that's all within fair use.

As long as we don't use the trademarked name 'Nürburgring' or their logo or an outline of the track in branding, it's all fair game. If we were to start selling t-shirts it would be a bit more tricky and we'd have to be pretty careful.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#516

Post by keepamovin »

jonahx wrote: post #123
keepamovin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting take on the backstory. Also, > Of course Google didn't make the web site bad, you did. That's right. Whenever anybody says "X made me do Y", sometimes I get flashes of the 1980/s1990s action movie villain, in the industrial backdrop, for the violence climax scene, with the hero on the ropes, screaming hysterically "You made me do this!" Nobody makes you do anything. That's true from a strict personal resp…

> Nobody makes you do anything. That's true from a strict personal responsibility standpoint, and it's an important boundary and important to remember: it's always your choice. There's truth in this old chestnut but it has limits... There's a spectrum from total freedom to pressure by incentives to the credible threat of violence. In extreme cases claiming someone "had a choice" is as ghastly as a free person claimin…

Yeah in a way but it's pretty nuanced.

You do always have a choice. If you surrender that you become...inhuman...I think. Because you've said: "Now this thing I've done, is not my fault." Then you go around looking for other people to blame, which makes you a monster.

To be more clear (which is useful I think): it's not your choice what the world presents to you, but you choose how you respond always.

As long as you're not unconscious of course. If your mind is there, you're choosing.

But ultimately where you come down on that is up to you. I guess it comes down to: with how much integrity do you plan to live? :)

There could be some edge cases, but it's important to remember how valid that is for the majority of experience.

I didn't start it like this, but that got dark quick hahahah! :)

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#517

Post by donkeyd »

carlosjobim wrote: post #335
wickedsight wrote: post #197

Last year a friend and I made a website about the Nurburgring. It provided basic info for first time visitors that we were missing on our first visit. My friend spent a lot of time creating a UI with a custom map for displaying locations and routes. I wrote a bunch of content that was thoroughly researched. At a certain point we ended up being invited by one of the largest rental companies to see whether we could wor…

> I hate that Google gatekeeps the internet. They really don't. People reach enormous audiences thorough social media.

We made this site for people who search. We were those people, searching Google for where to watch cars racing on the Nürburgring and then getting nothing but cryptic route descriptions on forums.

So we created a map with actual walking routes and people were finding them. Now they're not finding them and they're back to lots of searching.

We get some traction on social media too. But it's people who already go there and know a lot of what we provide already. People don't search Instagram for walking routes to POIs.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#518

Post by donkeyd »

entropy47 wrote: post #265
criddell wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that people would search for congressional apportionment on TikTok?

Probably not, but I reckon they'd have a crack for Nürburgring holiday planning.

The only thing you find on social media is influencers showing expensive cars. Good luck planning a holiday based on that.

Re: Google made me ruin a perfectly good website (2023)

#520

Post by leobg »

holoduke wrote: post #263

If you want to rank high (search, stores) you need to spend money on adwords and implemented adsense/admob. Approximately 30% on what you earn wiyh Adsense needs to be spend on Adwords. Only by completing that circle you can become part of the eco system. Its very hard to rank high organically. Only if your name is Ronaldo or Coca Cola you have a chance. But otherwise you need to buy yourself in.

Hey holoduke, if you see this, would you kindly shoot me an email? I saw one of your comments from a while back and would like to ask you something. I'd appreciate it. Address is in my profile.
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