Forum Moderators: phranque
The problem they [search engines] are now bringing down upon themselves revolves around their misunderstanding of the critical role a very basic journalistic principle plays in running a successful media business.Put simply, the search and directory firms have put their futures in question by flouting time-tested business practices that require an absolutely clear separation between editorial content and advertising.
That is for the most part getting right to the heart of the matter. It's interesting that most reporters view search engines as "media" companies. That's a tricky distinction for most people to understand. The concept that SERP's (search engine results pages) are editorial content is difficult to comprehend. After all, search engines are robotic mindless thoughtless beasts incapable of "editorializing". It seems to come as a shock to many reporters when they realize that the search engines have transformed from encyclopedic listings of sites (white pages), to paid advertising (yellow pages). The media label dies hard.
There is only one point in the article, I disagree with Plotkin. He points out what is apparently a duality in Googles policy towards urls:
"...we [Google] do not add all submitted URLs to our index.."Google's advertisers, on the other hand, are invited to buy prominent places on the results pages that appear whenever users search for any particular words or phrases.
I don't believe that characterization is fair. No search engine can add all submitted urls to it's search engine. They can't add them for for several reasons:
a) technical reasons (spider blocks, unindexable content, index size)
b) quality control (spamdexing prevention)
c) copyright, trademark, and legal concerns.
No other major search engine (or site for that matter) on the web today has such clearly delineated advertising as Google does. Sure, I would like to see sponsor replaced with advertiser too, but don't blame search engines for a trend that started with Uncle Milty on TV in the late 1950's. The characterization that Google has a double standard is unfair. They didn't become the most useful search engine on the net by allowing just any old page into the index.
There are a few other technical corrections that need addressing from the article:
>Yahoo! was one of the last big holdouts.
Ah no they weren't, they were one of the first. They were the ones that ushered in the era of paid search engine listings. The order in which search engines "fell":
- Goto.com/Overture has sold results since the first day they went online.
- altavista attempted to sell serp placements in the spring of 1999. There was such a backlash and outcry, that before the summer, they had dropped the program.
- Looksmart began charging $79 in early 2000.
- Yahoo started charging $199 shortly there after.
- Looksmart matched their fee.
- Inktomi began selling spidering services.
- Inktomi later began selling placement via their cloaked feed program.
- Altavista followed suit with their cloaked feed program.
- Somewhere in the above MSN privately began selling placements on their serps.
- Many smaller directories have attempted to follow the Yahoo path. Many have failed.
- In the last two years most major portals including :MSN, Altavista, AOL, Yahoo, and many "meta" search engines have begun using Goto.com results.
- In the last three months, European search engine Fast/AllTheWeb has been beta testing a pay for spidering program.
The search-engine industry is now hanging out in the Internet's red-light district.
It's only a matter of time before most of the public begins to look elsewhere to find what they need.
I don't think it is all that bad. The last year was depressing, and at the same time exciting. We lost some engines, and we had two new engines born in WiseNut and Teoma.
The cost of putting a major search engine online has never been cheaper. Excite was reported to have spent $65 million to develop. That same search engine could be built today for a fraction of that cost and be more powerful at the same time. Those economics are making it very tempting for companies to toy around with search engines.
They're not confused at all Brett. They know EXACTLY what they are doing.... they may be crooks but they are not stupid.
Therefore, those who get paid for SEO work are "crooks?" We "fool" the search engines, and the users.Should the unpaid listings also have a tag that says "Placed by Professional Search Engine Optimizers" when we are indeed paid to provide this service? Or do we maintain the perception (illusion/deception) that rankings are granted to the deserving by some beneficent being at the search engine?
John, I dont agree that SEO are simply a step down in the chain from Search Engines!
What obligation does a SEO firm have to the consumer? None that I can think of. Your job is to deliver rankings and ensure that your client achieves decent positions on the engines. Your obligation is to the client and has nothing to do with the surfer - period.
What obligation does a search portal have to the consumer! A huge one if they wish to remain sustainable going concerns! Almost all of them have built their brands promoting a value proposition based on relevant results which differentiated them. They gained market share and customer loyalty with the hope of making money via selling advertising which has now proven to be a lost cause. If they turn to PPC models, this affects the very essence and fundamental part of their value proposition - that being to offer relevant results - They become a low value commodity!
SEO and Search Engines -Different business models offering different services to different markets
Paid product placements in tv shows and movies
I am trying to remember where I saw it over the past few days but remember, those of you in that age bracket or those that watch TV Land, how the advertisers produced the shows and the actors pitched the products in them?
It seems that advertisers are thinking again of getting into producing the program and not just paying for the program. If that’s the case we’ll be seeing a lot more actual Coke and Pepsi cans on the sitcoms. Fox says no, I think it was ABC and CBS who said no but NBC is seriously considering allowing it. Advertisers were concerned about appearing to promote the programming their advertising appeared on and want to retain more control. Maybe this is an opportunity for real truth in advertising;)
How exactly does PPC or PFI for that matter *automatically* detract from relevance?
It doesn't. UNLESS, the bid is the *only* criterion.
Any PPC provider that allows that to happen deserves to lose their share of users. If I sell shoes, and bid on terms like xbox, or mp3, I will suffer dismal conversions, and the PPC that allowed me to bid so irrelevantly will take my money, but suffer from loss of users, which will in turn lower their click income, voila, another dinosaur fossil.
It is still up to humans to review PPC listings, just as it is up to humans to try and create an algo to replace their watchful eyes (editorialize/ editorial lies).
I refuse to beleive that PPC in itself is evil. Unfettered bidding - without some sort of relevance check is as stupid for a PPC engine, as it is irrelevant for the user. It is almost as stupid as it would have been to continue to allow keyword meta tags to be the deciding factor in the SERPS.
I still maintain, that relevance is entirely subjective, and determined ONLY by the person doing the search.
But I won't belabor the point. Rather than wasting our collective time arguing the merits, or detrimental effects of what is now "in vogue", I will concentrate my efforts on keeping my clients happy... which does NOT necessarily hurt the consumer. (Yes, I understand that I have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to the user, but I DO have a large obligation as you so eloquently explained, to my client. )
The higher relevance I deliver from my efforts, via the SE's whether PPC or whatever comes next, the better the ROI. Whether that means outbidding a competitor, or out-thinking a spider.
You are arguing a point to suit your own purpose in life rather than the point Napoleon made to begin with. Go to Excite and identify which are paid listings and which are not. You can't!
They are intentionally hiding the fact that their (so called) "search results" are not "search results" at all ... they are paid listings.
Now go to AOL or Overture and see how they do it ... see any difference? That is the only beef I have and I think it is what Napoleon was trying to point out. It is intentional misrepresentation, a lie and it is despicable!
Call a spade a spade and an ad an ad. There is nothing wrong with paid advertising ... but there certainly is when it is misrepresented as a "search result".
Whether a site is truly relevant for any given search term on any SE/Directory is a matter of opinion. While most could probably agree that SOME sites/pages dont't "deserve" the positions they've received, there will never be much concensus on who really deserves to be up top on any terms from a content perspective.
Overture (or any other PPC) partners might not make it apparent which listings are paid and which are not, but provided the paid listings returned are truly relevant to the search terms used, there's no deception taking place. Personally, every PPC engine I've worked with has legitimately reviewed my desired bids, and I've often had terms rejected that I thought were relevant, but apparently they did not.
Remember that the end user didn't ask to query only URL's hand-submitted by those of us looking for free visitors, they asked to find pages relevant to a search term they typed in, period. We all may think the sites we represent offer the best content for the words/phrases we target, but you can bet our competitors don't.
What's relevant is always subjective. Having the most instances of a keyword/phrase on a page doesn't mean the page is most relevant, nor does your finely tuned META tags, emphasized page elements, or whatever you might do to bolster your rankings.
Before labelling search engines inclusion tactics as unethical, ask yourself how many times you've altered a pages actual CONTENT solely for the purpose of better rankings. Now who's deceptive?
The Hubs and Authorities model is clearly a winner at Google. It universally clears out junk from the bloated db's and identifies the core mega sites in each keyword sector.
Although there has never been more competition, referrals hold steady through 98 and into early 99 across most of the engines.
And, I might add, H&A still produces the traffic as we move into 2002. The loss of hubs and authorities is, IMO, the real cancer when it comes to singling out the short list of "Things That Doom Search." PPC and paid spidering models only focus on the surface of the web, but it takes true, unbiased spidering to triangulate on authority sites.
If the message gets out that the top 3, top 5 top 15 are paid for links to enough of the searching public then the important numbers to be hitting will be the 4,6,16 slots and the search engines, PPC providers will have to rethink how they prduce the results.
Tails don't wag dogs.
-To advertise them-
Any listing in a SE is essentially an ad. Whether you paid in sweat equity through creation of magnificent content <which coincidentally matched a particular SE's algorithm> , paid a SEO, paid a PPC service, or just got lucky.
**It is an ad, and how it got there is less of an issue to the user as whether it is relevant to their own subjective criterion - which is not based on whether someone paid someone else, somewhere, to be listed.**
Are the sites submitted to LS, Yh, and Ink considered "ads" only if they paid? Oh, wait, THIS is why Yh only charges for "review" -not inclusion. They can still claim that the listings are Pure editorial."
Is a searcher guaranteed better relevance <totally subjective, of course>, and total freedom from advertising, and commercial interest by the site owner of a listing that is not labeled as paid? Of course not. Therefore the implications of label versus not label is moot, and the basis for argumentation of the label and its distinction is moot.
Does the average user have any idea that SEO exists? or that such a thing as an "al gore rhythym" determines what the engine thinks they are looking for? Nope. They only know , and or care if the SERPs give them what they want. The market will decide this, in short time.
I've talked to hundreds of users who when in the "buying" mode, -which is the only mode commercial sites are interested in- could not care less if someone paid for the listing. As a matter of fact, many use Overture "direct" where the listings are not as "cluttered with info sites and personal pages" <Not my quote, from a user friend.>
Regardless of the court's decision, who exactly is Excite hurting, and who can tell them what criteria they can use <payment included> to determine ranking.
This issue is already been addressed by Mr. Nader, and we will see how it falls out. Personally, it does not affect me.
My real "self-serving" question as a businessperson, is do traffic and/or conversion change when a "Sponsored" of Featured" or whatever tag is added. A purely academic question, as it is far beyond my control.
a) Money
b) Number of visitors
Money was the overall winner - with site popularity running a close second.
Let's face it - for commercial operations - answer (a) is often correct.
The problem with not disclaiming paid for results is that a user cant see the reason why a listing is included, and you cant make a sensible decision on whether to visit or not.
If commercial listings predominate, eventually many will stop using the Web, as the good objective and informational pages are impossible to find below heaps of commercial spins and shopping centres.
Forget about the argument that SEO is like paying. It may have had some credence a couple of years back, but with advances in indexing ala Google, Wisenut and Teoma, SEO is becoming increasingly cost ineffective - whether it be for advertisers or those offering non-commercial information.
I am one of those who uses the Net as a library. Like others will do more in the future as they savvy up I just dont use the search engines that serve up commercial listings decpetively cause I know that it will be a waste of time. Plain and simple. I use Google, AlltheWeb, Teoma, And Wisenut plus directories and communities in the areas I am interested in.
The point is, arguments that we are seeing like the above will kill their own golden goose. If people want to go to the Web to shop, let them do so, and have their own shopping searches. Let advertisers stand on their own two feet and prove to us that the reason people go to the Web is to buy something.
But people who want to find information from government agencies, universities, or just simply personal pages with useful information should not be alienated - becuase they make up the base of Web usership and the reason it exists.
The ONLY reason the Web got popularity was becuase it was seen as a way to get quick, global, sometimes objective, usually uncensored, free information, nothing else. Turning it into a shopping mall will herald its demise. That is NOT why people use the Web, though advertisers might like to think so, though it is one obvious way it could be funded. The other way is to fund it like a library, government or university. Of course in the end, sensibly different parts of the web are funded by different means.
Commercial operators depend on opportunistically drawing people who are looking for "information" to their spins and branding. That is human nature. But as in history always, greed will cook the goose.
People will find that the inconvenience and cost involved in driving to their local library, government office, or cost of actually paying for good content on the Web, will far underweight the frustration of searching the Web by traditional means.
The author of the first article has got it right. Failing to indentify commercial content as commercial content will kill the "popular" Web. Portal style commercial search engines which mix up commercial content with non-commercial information ARE doomed.
Want to know what people search for?
Check this out:
[metaspy.com ]
Enjoy!
GoV
That must be why I've been able to triple my fees and double my new customer sign-ups in the past 6 months ;)
I would suggest exactly the opposite - a good search engine marketing strategy is becoming increasingly cost effective - if done properly.
Answer : It delivers useful traffic to a site. The definition of "useful" will vary, a sales focussed site wants people wishing to buy their goods or services, an informational site wants people who are after the information they have, but the principle holds.
Those SEs that place irrelevant, but lucrative, ads above what people want had better provide some powerful other reason for people to return, or over the long term they will fail. Relevant ads are fine. If someone is looking for a particular Beanie Baby, or a specific piece of info, they don't care whether the result provider paid an SEO to present it to him, or just cut straight to buying the slot.
The trick for the SEs is finding the balance, showing enough paying ads to keep the company in the black, whilst retaining sufficient relevancy to keep the punters coming
>> Forget about the argument that SEO is like paying
It is EXACTLY like paying. You hand over money, your traffic increases. The difference is in targetting. Using a PFI or PPC program ties you to a specific SE d/base, or a given keword set. SEO allows you to add a little human intuition, to focus your efforts on the engines that match your target demographics, and the not-always-obvious keyword combos that people use. It also allows you to
>> Turning it into a shopping mall will herald its demise. That is NOT why people use the Web
Given the amount of money being spent on the Web, may I respectfully disagree? Remind me, how much is Amazon taking in revenue now? Turning it into a shopping mall wont kill the Web, it'll cause a split. You will effectively end up with one set of sites, clustered around Overture and the like where people go to shop, and another around Google and their peers where people go for information, with only limited crosssover between the two. That would suit everyone, IMO, because then you COULD separate the ads from the content better. If you want to buy a widget, you can just get widget sales sites, no annoying personal pages from widget geeks, or pages of widget tech specs etc. Conversely, if you want the tech specs, there are no "spammy" sales sites above the pure info sites you are after
>> It is intentional misrepresentation, a lie and it is despicable!
Yeah well, life sucks. Remember, misrepresentation is a crime only if you get found out. I can think of one big company that tried to trade on intentional misrepresentation and got found out recently. Ultimately if the SEs try the same trick, they'll go the same way. As rogerd says, it can be tedious waiting for economic selection to kill the bad boys off, but it WILL happen. The web is as close as we've come yet to the perfect marketplace, and as it grows so does its power to make or break. However much they think they can, the big media concerns can't truly control the web, because they dont understand it. M$ or someone like them could exert a measure of control temporarily, but only until an alternative appeared
