Category Archives: SEO

Google search transparency? You call that transparency?

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Google does a lot of wonderful things, including many that people do not give this amazing company nearly enough credit for doing. These include mail, calendar, and document applications as well as great free search.

However Google transparency goes out the window when it comes to open discussion of the incredible amount of collateral damage Google inflicts daily on websites – including many that never know how their mom and pop business has been displaced by clever SEO tactics from spammers as well as legitimate marketeers who understand the system well.

Udi Manber at Google suggests that they are working for better transparency in the rankings process but I’m sure not holding my breath.

Strategically I believe Google continues to make a mistake here that ultimately is their great achilles heel, though Microsoft and Yahoo have been so busy fumbling their online balls that they don’t seem to get that yet.

The idea is that transparency leads to sharing ranking secrets and that leads to abuse of those rules. Sure, there would be some of that, but better would be to do a lot more to involve the online community in the definition and policing of spammy material, and also to be more responsive to webmasters who have questions about why their sites suddenly disappear from the rankings or – far more common and mysterious – are simply downranked to the degree they no longer get Google traffic. This last penalty offers one of the few instances where Google actually comes very close to lying to webmasters, implying that when “your site appears in the index” you have no penalty when in fact the downrank penalty by Google is severe, leading to almost no Google traffic. If you are an advanced SEO person you’ll have a sense of the downrank penalty, but in the best indication of how the lack of transparency backfires at Google it is the top SEO Marketers and spam experts who immediately will determine that they have penalties.

Mom and pop businesses are often hung out to dry with these penalties or – more often – simply ranked lower than they should be because they have failed to perform basic SEO on their websites because they have no idea what SEO even means. Also common are websites who hire or associate with questionable SEOs (which constitute about 90% of all SEOs), not knowing that they have violated Google’s improved-but-still-too-ambiguous webmaster guidelines.

In fairness to Google they do have a huge scaling challenge with everything they do.  Dealing with milllions of sites and billions of queries can’t be handled with more than a tiny fraction of the effort going into manual solutions.   However this is what the socializing power of the internet is for.  Digg, Wikipedia, and many other sites effectively police content quality without massive labor costs.

So Udi I’m thrilled you and Google are bringing more transparency to the process but forgive my skepticism that Google will give more than lip service to a much broader, open discussion and corrections of the many ways the ranking process has failed to deliver something that is really important: fairness.

 

Update:
My comment about this topic left over at the most excellent Mr. Matt Cutts’:

Matt I really thought Ubi’s post was probably too generic to be of practical help to most sites with problems. From the inside it probably appears that Google is bending over backwards to make absolutely sure almost no “innocent” sites get caught up in the SEO and Spam crossfire, but in practice most sites now attempt SEO in some form and many sites (and even companies) wind up damaged or destroyed without even knowing what hit them. The issue is the degree to which Google should share “what hit them”. Policy is to share nothing about algorithmic damage, and I think policy is still to define “being in the index” as “no penalty” which totally confuses anybody outside of SEO and even many of us who understand SEO quite well.

It’s the classic collateral damage argument – Google thinks this is necessary to protect the Algorithm, but I think long term this is a mistake and Google should expand the system of communication and community so there is at least a better explanation of the severe downranking penalties that leave sites in the index but out of view.

Towards a solution? Next time you do quality team hires have the new people play webmaster for a month before you share any info with them – have them work some sites, try to communicate with support, etc. This might help bring the outside frustrations…inside.

Blog Revolution Note XXIV

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At SoundBiteBlog I stumbled (or rather twitter-comment-followed) an excellent post about how much the poisonous / ranting writing styles of many blogs help them succeed.   The author wonders if nice blogs can finish first …

The short answer is “sure”.  A good example is Matt Cutts at Google who rarely has a bad word to say about anybody at his blog yet has one of the most read technical resources on the internet for Google search issues.   Fred Wilson’s A VC is also a blog with heavy readership and a friendly tone.    Marc Andreessen at blog.pmarca.com  is another and there are many, many more.

However I think the key blogging success issue is ranking, and there are many ranking problems in blogging paradise.  Blogs that rank well will be read more often and in turn will confer more rank via linking, so the  *linking style* of most of the old timer blogs  has really inhibited the broader conversation.   The best posts about any given topic are rarely by A list blogs anymore but these posts are rarely seen because the ranking structure favors older, more linked blogs over those with less Google authority.   

The old authority models work much better for websites – where high ranks for a general category make sense  – than for blogging where authors tend to cover a lot of topics.    TechCrunch will appear with a higher rank than almost any other blog if a technology topic is covered even if their coverage is weak, wrong, or misguided.    A thoughtful and well researched post about a critical topic is unlikely to surface if it is written by an “outsider” and escapes the RSS feed of somebody prominent, or sometimes even if linking to that post is seen by the “A lister” as giving a potential competitor too much free juice.   Note how “up and coming” tech blogs like Mathew Ingram link generously while most A list blog writers – who are now often hired writers, paid to be seen as a key breaking source of news – are far less likely to  cite other blogs.    Ironically I think success has really diminished some formerly great blogs.    John Battelle is one of the most thoughtful writers on the web but now he’s way too busy with Federated Media to keep Searchblog as lively as it once was.  

Google and other aggregators (like TechMeme) in part use metrics similar to Google pagerank to define TechCrunch as more reliable because they have more incoming links, more history on the topic, and more commenting activity.   This is not a *bad* way to rank sites but it tends to miss many high quality, reflective articles from sources who do not actively work the system. 

Solutions?  I still think a blog revolution is needed more than ever to re-align quality writing and new bloggers with the current problematic ranking systems. 

In terms of the ranking algorithms I’m not sure how to fix things, though I think Gabe should use more manual intervention to surface good stuff rather than just have TechCrunch dominate TechMeme even when their coverage is spotty and weird.   I’m increasingly skeptical that TechMeme is surfacing the best articles on a topic – rather it seems to give too much authority to a handful of prominent but superficial stories.    As others link and discuss those stories we have only the echo of a smart conversation.  

I don’t spend enough time searching Technorati to know if they are missing the mark or not, but I like the fact they are very inclusive.   However like Google and I think Techmeme, Technorati has trouble surfacing content that is highly relevant and high quality but not “authoritative”.

For their part, Google needs to do more to bring blog content into the web search results.   Last year at SES Matt Cutts was explaining to me that they are doing more of this than ever and I’m sympathetic to the fact that fresh content into the SERPS will lead to spamming problems, but I’m finding that I often get more relevant results from a blog search at Google than a regular search.   This is more the case for breaking news or recent events but it has even happened for research topics where the blog search has led me to expertise I don’t find in the web listings.

Yahoo Microsoft: Is the fat lady almost singing at $34?

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Henry Blodget is whining that the Yahoo Microsoft deal is back to where it started, but I think Henry’s wrong … again!     

I’m glad Henry was wrong about the rumor that Yahoo’s Q4 would beat expectations because it was part of the reason I bought YHOO then, and even though the stock dipped due to a bad Q4, it surged on Microsoft’s offer of $31 per share so I’m well in the black.   But now he’s wrong to say the deal is not almost done.  I think this Yahoo Microsoft merger is coming very soon to an internet near you.

Citibank Analyst Maheney upgraded Yahoo this morning, anticipating a boost in the MS bid to $34.   Hey, maybe he read my blog post of about 6 weeks ago where I suggested Microsoft raise their bid to $34?    

Unlike Henry, I think this is not back to where it all started at all!

Yang didn’t want to merge, now he sees it as almost inevitable.  Yahoo board wanted more, now they know anything past initial offer is gravy.  Part of the show was probably the board protecting itself against lawsuits from the unlucky minions who bought their Yahoo at $35+, some at over $100.

Barring a Q1 miracle that would recalibrate Yahoo prices without help of MS bids, I think the fat lady is now almost done singing on this deal.

 Disclosure:  long on YHOO

Click Fraud Class Action against Miva / Lycos: Good idea, but payoff and motives questionable.

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Update upon closer examination of the terms:   Holy crap, BatClickMan, this action is pretty bogus unless you are on the legal team.   Here’s the deal:  Lawyers get a bunch of cash from MIVA while the defrauded customers get 50% off future purchases of clicks from MIVA.      Given that MIVA clicks are generally of  questionable value and positive ROI is tough even with PPC campaigns at Google where they do much better job making sure clicks are legitimate and relevant, this is almost a worthless payment for the defrauded folks unless they have accounts with MIVA now and are spending huge amounts AND are getting some good  ROI.

I won’t even be bothering with this nonsense which appears more like the legal firm looking to nab a few million for an interesting case rather than much if any justice getting done. 

As a MIVA advertiser I just got the email announcing a class action lawsuit against Miva/Lycos that alleges:

… MIVA and Lycos breached their contracts with class members, unjustly enriched themselves, and engaged in a civil conspiracy by failing to adequately detect and stop “click fraud” or other invalid or improper clicks on online advertisements.  MIVA and Lycos deny Plaintiffs’ allegations and contend that all payments they have received from class members for online advertising were legally and properly charged …

I’m surprised there have been so few of these lawsuits because there has been and still is a staggering amount of click fraud, and despite some crackdowns all the advertising places are essentially misleading people about the extent of the fraud.    Part of the reason the wrath has been lower than one might expect is that you generally can get pay per click refunds from search engines  for many types of complaints and I assume they have done a lot of crediting of major ad accounts if fraud was discovered or even suspected.

Of course this may not be worth the trouble as the payout is in … wait for it … more MIVA clicks!    Ha – I guess this could be called the “one fraudulent click deserves another” class action?

Under the settlement, MIVA will establish a settlement fund of $3,936,812.00 on behalf of MIVA and Lycos, of which a portion will be used to pay class counsel’s fees and costs, and the remainder will be available to class members in the form of advertising credits that may be applied to up to 50% of the cost of future online advertising purchased from MIVA.  To receive credits, you must submit a valid and timely claim form.  Credits will be awarded on a pro rata basis, taking into account the amount that you paid to MIVA and/or Lycos for ads that you believe in good faith to have been result of click fraud and the total amount of credits available.  For example, if the amounts that you paid to MIVA for the affected ads were 1% of the combined online advertising revenues of MIVA between January 1, 2000 and September 30, 2007 and Lycos between September 23, 2002 and March 30, 2006, you would be eligible to receive 1% of the total available credits.  You must certify in your claim form the percentage of your ads you believe were the result of “click fraud.” Credits must be used within one year of issuance and may be used only for advertising on the MIVA Media US Network.

Here’s the online claim form and a lot more information:  www.PayPerClickSettlement.com

Google economist on Google’s success: Huh?

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Hal Varian is an economist at Google, and I’m sure he’s a good one.   However his Freakonomics and Google blog analysis of why Google has done so well in search leaves a lot to be desired.    After knocking down a few straw man items that obviously have nothing to do with Google’s search   monopoly   dominance, he goes on to conclude that Google is just better than the competition because they have been doing search for so long.

Hal – Excuse me but you call that economics?    I doubt this would be your internal Google explanation (assuming you want to keep your economics job, let alone your degree).  In fact it was so thin and almost bogusly “cheerleading” that it raises for me the ongoing questions about Google’s questionable mantras about doing no evil and transparency:   Transparency in all things except those that might affect our bottom line!

As I’ve noted ad nauseum I do NOT think Google has more than a modest obligation to be more transparent, but I’m tired of how often Google *witholds information* to protect Google and then pretends this is in the interest of users.  Google screws users and webmasters regularly – this is common knowledge in the search community.   The most glaring challenge is with ranking errors, mistakes, penalties, and rules.   In this area literally tens of thousands of mom and pop websites, and sometimes larger enterprises, are indexed in questionable ways by Google leading to serious economic challenges.   Unlike almost any other business however Google has only a tiny team of specialists who generally can only offer vague and often useless canned information, even when the problems are fairly obvious to an experienced search person.   

But I digress into ranting….!  

My working hypothesis about Google’s success is simple and I think would hold up far better than Hal’s silliness:  Humans are creatures of habit, and Google was the best search at the time when most formed their internet search habits.   Yahoo, LIVE, and even Ask are only marginally inferior to Google search now, but there were dramatically inferior a few years ago when the online ranks swelled with people looking for information.   Google provided (and still provides) high quality, fast, simple results. 

This hypothesis helps explain the following facts:
Google is not the search of China where Google.cn traffic is dwarfed by Baidu.com
Even as Yahoo improved search quality they did not improve their search market share. 
Quality differences are slight, yet Google search share in USA is very large.
 

Another indirect factor in the Google success equation is that Google’s monetization remains superior to the competition by a factor of more than 2  (per Mike Arrington .09 vs .04 per search at Yahoo).   In this monetizing sense Hal’s “we are better from experience” would ring very true, and if he had written about *economics* he would have noted that Google’s brilliancies in monetization are a lot more notable than in other areas, and are more of a key focus area at Google than is generally talked about.    In fact such a focus area that they are downright opportunisic in the effort to monetize the heck out of the searches.  My favorite examples are when Google violates their own guidelines to bring users …. non-information from advertisers.   I ran into this last week with the following search for airline tickets.   

Google Query: “Xiamen to Beijing”

The top result on the left side, which is supposed to be reserved for non-commercial results, at first seems helpful, giving you the ability to order tickets from several places:

Flights from Xiamen, China to Beijing, China

Departing:   Returning: 

CheapTickets – Expedia – Hotwire – Orbitz – Priceline – Travelocity

Unfortunately though, you can’t order the tickets because at least some of those clicks lead to commercial websites that do not offer that route.  

No big deal?  I guess not, but this is a clear violation of the Google Guidelines which call for clicks to a page where you can really get the thing advertised.  Also it would be refreshing for me if Google stepped down at least half way from the high horse of claiming they never put money ahead of users, and more importantly used some of the enormous profits to bring more transparency and helpful information into the mix.

In summary I want to be clear:  Google has the right to make big money online.   They also have the right to be very aggressive in making money.   However with their success goes an obligation for quality communication and transparency.   They are failing in that obligation and perhaps as importantly are not even recognizing that they are failing.   Google is a great company.  But they can do much better by users whose habits have made Google the most successful company of this generation.

Google’s reinclusion nightmare

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John Honeck has an excellent piece about the challenges with Google’s site reinclusion process, a virtual nightmare of inconsistency and confusion.     I’ve seen the benefits and pitfalls of good and bad Google rankings and indexing at many sites, and “inconsistency” is the only clear pattern.    On the one hand I don’t have enough information to fully “blame” Google for the problems.  They have their hands full deleting junk or deceptive sites created by extremely sophisticated spamming operations around the globe, but as I noted over at John’s blog:

This is an *excellent* set of observations, and with all due respect to my pal Matt I’ve always been totally unmoved by Google’s suggestion that making the reinclusion and webmaster information process more transparent would somehow jeopardize Google’s ability to kill spammers.

In fact from my observations over the years I think the lack of transparency, along with initally vague webmaster guidelines (now fixed), have caused many if not most of the spam problems as both spammers and regular web folks vie to push the limits of the rules while staying in Google’s good graces. The big problem now is the profound inconsistency in the way sites are indexed, and the fact that it’s very difficult for webmasters to get much feedback from Google.  Google would be well advised to consider better automated or customer pays routines to examine websites for problems and allow reinclusion, because the frustration is building more than they realize in the webmaster and small business community.

Death by Google

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My Airport Codes Website, AirportCityCodes.com , was completely removed from the Google index last month.   Not at all clear why and I’m hoping it’s just a a fluke.    The site was very stable and although it was somewhat uninspired it offered airport code and other information on about 9000 airports.     Google traffic has become so critical to a website’s success that without Google a site is generally almost “dead” in terms of traffic and revenues.

The site had enough sloppy construction and odd duplication across directories – problems that I had simply left intact after taking it over several years ago – that there could be hundreds of reasons the index didn’t like the site, but usually Google reserves a complete deletion like this for a major transgression against Google guidelines.    

I’ve posted questions over at the Google forum and the answers should be interesting.  

Another shot in the Blog Revolution? Few links if by land and none if by sea.

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Louis Gray is rightfully pissed off at the way Mashable, a major tech blog, did not properly handle some stories written by Gray.   Basically they under-attributed Gray’s reporting of Robert Scoble’s PodTech departure.   I’m not familiar enough with Mashable to know if Gray is reasonable to suggest that they’ve built the whole site on this type of secondary reporting, but I certainly agree that blogs are now doing what mainstream media has done for decades – sacrificing good quality reporting in the interest of monetization.   Also I think the great and thoughful voices of several big blogs have been largely replaced by marginal writers and writing as those sites struggle to become “media companies”.  

Another defect of the new web is that linking practices and linking strategy have become very critical to success – A list sites simply don’t link out appropriately because they (correctly) view their links as valuable and (incorrectly) choose not to give that value away.   

Matt’s got a good post on this story, noting how attribution is a cornerstone of good journalism and Mashable and others should do a better job of attribution, though I’m not clear if Matt would agree that insufficient linking is part of opportunistic linking strategies more than journalistic oversight:

I wrote over there: 

…. but monetization is trumping journalism all over the place and I think the blog community should think about this a lot more than we do.

I don’t know about Mashable’s practices, but often it is marginally paid and marginally talented writers who feed the big blogs that originally had really thoughtful voices.

Also, natural linking has effectively become a “web currency” and many “A list” sites are very reluctant to link to sites outside of their frames of reference – I believe they see it as too big of a favor where even 5 years back it would have been done without a second thought.

I see this as a growing problem with many large, heavily monetized tech blogs. They are (slowly) trading profit concerns for journalism and web concerns. An inevitable thing, but a bad one

The Donny Deutsch Experiment

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Hey, my Donny Deutsch post, part of our SEO Experiment series here at Joe Duck, is now at #12 worldwide as we move into CES.   What?  a few hours after this post I dropped to 34 – not sure wazzup. OK, now back to 12 minutes later – may just have been a server shuffle thing or my mistake …   My goal is to get into the top three sites for the query “Donny Deutsch” although Google’s quirkiness could make this tricky to do before next week. I think I’ll rise over time thanks to the incoming links and the inordinate amount of Donny Deutsch attention here at the blog, but normally you’d try to rise to the top over many months and not a few weeks. However “Donny Deutsch” is not a highly competitive term so I’ll have a shot here.  Though Donny Deutsch is is a fairly heavily searched name due to Donny’s excellent TV show “The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch”, his bombastic style and his ability to pony up $200,000,000 without going into debt.\

What?  You are looking for the Donny Deutsch Big Idea CES website?   Here it is!

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2007 from Tamar

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Tamar Weinberg  has an excellent  list of some 250 internet marketing posts she collected from various online marketing niches that she feels were the best blog posts of the year.    Obviously you can’t be exhaustive with this type of list but it would be a great way for somebody unfamiliar with internet marketing to jump in and “get it” pretty fast.