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But there is a serious issue that no-one seems able to address: Most sites on the internet are not informational...they are sales sites (online stores)
Googles entire ranking system is completely useless for online stores. All of the "anti-spam" logic that Google employs is basically intended to push informational sites to the top of a search list and to push stores to the bottom (or off).
But the giant flaw in this logic is made clear by Overture. The reality of the web is that 90 percent of the websites are selling stuff and consumers want those sites listed first.
The suck factor increases when you think about the fact that the first 3 links (sponsored) are going to be from the firms who spend the most money on advertising (and therefore have the worst prices,customer service, and everything else....least bang for the buck). Compound that with the fact that the first 1-3 "non" sponsored links are acutally sponsored links as well (in case you couldn't figure out why that PR3 link was coming in on top of yours) and the picture should become clearer.
The reality of searching for "buy widgets" in google is this:
Most expensive 3-6 stores with worst quality widgits first.
Most useful 20 pages about widgits next.
Best companies to actually buy widgits from lost in the next zillion pages of competetors.
Who does this help?
How the heck is this useful to a consumer? Since consumers make up the majority of the people surfing the web, isn't it time for Google to re-think their function and segregate the information from the sales?
If someone even thinks about suggesting that the best sales site should have the best information, and thus rank higher than the others, than I will hunt you down and bonk you. When I want to buy a shovel, I don't give a damn if Skippy the Wonder Clerk knows the history of the gardening tools from ancient Sumeria to the current era. Nor do I care if this particular HomeDepot has held the annual Shovel Parade for 30 years running.
A consumer cares about speed, price ,quality, and customer service. Not information about the product. At the point where someone is ready to buy, the next step is comparison shopping. But because of Google and Overture, its a world where only impulse-purchases are allowed.
I'm sure the marketing folks at both companies have set this as Dogma: This model is working...fear all change...rip-off the customer...the customer is too stupid to understand. In reality they could improve their own profits a thousand times if they made their product more useful. Stupid people might spend their money faster, but smart people have more money to spend....if there is a smart way to spend it.
</RANT>
welcome to WebmasterWorld. A little less Rant and little more onjectiveness will make a better discussion. ;) I think the short answer to your posting is:
Froogle *G*
The longer answer would be: Check your assumptions. You are mentioning
the reality of the web is that 90 percent of the websites are selling stuff and consumers want those sites listed first.casually as if it is a broadly accepted fact. I highly doubt this. From your perspective it might be that you only care about those sites, but don't assume that 90% of the websites are for selling stuff. And IMHO certainly most searchers do not want to see commercial sites selling stuff. Take a look at the Google Zeitgeist... ;)
You are not using the Web-search of google to find pictures, neither would you have complained (back then before there was an image search) that google wouldn't find you the pictures you were looking for.
It is the responsibility of the users to find the right tool for the right task. Google is a powerful tool, but it is not the best tool for every task.
[edited by: ruserious at 4:07 pm (utc) on Mar. 26, 2003]
For the 99% of the time that I am seeking content, Google rocks.
You seem to have head the nail right on the head. With my sales sites I am forced to build them to conform to google and not so much to the consumer.
The consumers I deal with are looking for a fast food window so to speak where they can quickly find and buy what they need online from the comfort of home. With google we have to build sites that compete with information sites, and do this without spamming, plus the rules or "algo" changes every month. If I just build a great "sales" site then I will get buried in google's results.
I am not sure what the answer is but somehow I would like to see 2 categories of sites with the dot com's being sales sites with some sort of different algo than the information sites. This would help stop a lot of "tricks" that get used to try and turn a sales site into something google approves of.
I'm not convinced about some of your statements. But of course you are free to mention them here. And if you give some more information, you could convince me.
> the fact that the first 1-3 "non" sponsored links are acutally sponsored links as well (in case you couldn't figure out why that PR3 link was coming in on top of yours)
Google doesn't only sort on PR, but also on things like the text in the link to a page, the title and many more factors. If you read some more on this forum you will better understand that.
> Since consumers make up the majority of the people surfing the web
I think it is quite the opposite. Most people surfing the web seldom or never buy something on Internet.
> 90 percent of the websites are selling stuff
Where is that percentage coming from? That is certainly not my experience.
That statement is a little misleading. When people are searching for "buy widget" "cheap widget" they are not looking for information. Large business's are online for a profit, not to give out free information. They are there because of the online sales, to sell something there must be people looking to buy.
There is a large group of surfers looking to buy something, there is another looking for just infomation on the same.
Offer both! Content and sales
That a very good idea indeed ... you will then also attract visitors who where looking for widget as a source of interest/information and might end up with more sales ...
sure it requires some more work but, he, a website is not something that you put up there and expect to remain static/unchanged for the rest of its life ... take your time and build pages after pages, slowly but surely ...
leo
'48% of people in Western Europe and 73% of people in the US, have access to the internet. Of those with home access, 6% in Europe and 14% in the US, have ordered and bought products or services online.'
Only 6% of respondents had made more than 5 purchases online. Most people were concerned about service reliability, reliability of information and security.
Yes, the web is a great place to make researched or impulse purchases...and depending on the industry sector involved and whether the item(s) being purchased are products or services..then the amount of associated reading and research material will vary..AND..people making larger purchases will read, research and generally be more willing to learn some unique and different..about the product or service and it's nuances...
As to trying to convert the web into a drive-through (albiet from the respective seat of one's pants)..this is probably not going to happen for some sectors of the economy..and dishing out deep content will always be the norm. Certainly if you are a website owner who subsides on high volume sales of consumer goods with tight margins then you want to see the web work your way...
What Google has basically done here is approach their business model from their own biases...look at the culture of the people who are building out the Google app(s) and you will find extremely well educated, highly-motivated individuals who have a deep appreciation for content and, especially, the value of high quality, on topic content...and these folks are used to researching and learning to broaden their knowledge base for any particular problem solving task at hand...
What Overture has done is figure out that if you can get people bidding against each other for traffic from a deep network of resources you will make big money...and from the merchant's point of view sometimes when you have a ton of money to spend your product offering will suffer because now you are spending a lot of resources managing PPC and PPI and the like...and volume becomes the issue to maintain the high bidding prices...this is, in my opinion, a self-feeding, self-maintaining loop that can be detrimental to the end user...
CosmicDan, I can sympathize with your frustrations and you do make a good point regarding pure information sites vs. pure sales sites....I do believe that there is a balance in there somewhere...because as we all know...a ton of the information sites are really trying to sell (soft-sell) as opposed to just straight selling...
Enough from me...
decaff
> a large group of surfers looking to buy something
I agree that some surfers who don't buy online, still look for product information on Internet, and they use this information to buy the products at a bricks and mortar shop.
> Large business's are online for a profit, not to give out free information. They are there because of the online sales, to sell something there must be people looking to buy.
Having a site to make profit doesn't automatically mean they are successful in making profit. Even a big site like Am*zon had after some 7 years, only 2 quarters with profit. There are not that many large businesses very profitable.
Would I be wrong to suspect that you maybe looking at this from a website owner rather than a visitor perspective, CosmicDan?
I cannot recall a single time where someone has complained that they wanted to buy something and they couldn't find anywhere suitable. However, I can think of many occasions where people have complained about commercial listings showing up in informational searches.
>>The suck factor increases when you think about the fact that the first 3 links (sponsored) are going to be from the firms who spend the most money on advertising (and therefore have the worst prices,customer service, and everything else....least bang for the buck)
This to me seems wildly inaccurate. So the people that are the most profitable always sell the worst products? How did they manage to sell so many products then? When I type in 'car' and I get the Mitsubishi site, I can see no problem.
>>Compound that with the fact that the first 1-3 "non" sponsored links are acutally sponsored links as well
Again this doesn't seem very accurate to me.
>>in case you couldn't figure out why that PR3 link was coming in on top of yours
Better optimisation works for me ;)
For instance, I recently researched a bought a new PC using Google and get a better deal and a better PC as a result. At no point did I encounter any of the woes you describe above.
I was not attempting to engage in a argument over what percentage of users to what, so I will restate my arguments in a (hopefully) clearer idiom.
1:Sponsored links are presented first. The money comes from the links that people pay for. Webmasters don't pay to let you know about their great information site, they pay to get customers who will buy things. Logically, the fact that this information is presented first means that this is what is most important to Google, the Webmaster, and the folks doing the searches.
2: When I say that 90% of the people using the web are buying stuff, I was speaking in terms of the search for "buy widgets". I was not at all clear about that and I beg forgiveness for what appeared to be a factual numerical representation of what actually was simply a gross estimate. I would however guess that 90% is not far off on the relationship of "buy widgets" keyword searches to people buying widgets.
3: BONK goes out to those people (as promised) who suggested that I make a great information site to sell my products. There is NO correlation between information about a product and a company's ability to stock, ship, refund, or support that product. How could I possibly put up an informational site that has more factual information than the manufacturer of a product has published? I'm certainly not gonna put up a forum so that 10,000 idiots can bicker over which flavor of shovel makes you look taller. Every byte of information I carry on my site is overhead that I would have to pass on to a customer, thus lowering my ability to bring true value.
4: All you folks who raved about how great google is for getting information missed my point. I agree. Google is the best tool I know of to get information. But it pays for itself by being in the advertising business (like any other aspect of the Media). My point is that it could do so so so much more. Think about Google as a newspaper...would anyone want a newspaper where the underware ads were above the headlines? Of course not.
5: You have to decouple information from sales. Only an idiot would trust the information posted on a site that was selling them something. Does the Ford site say "Ford! Our cars explode and roll over!" or does it say "Quality is job #1!".
I think you folks get my gist. =)
It's presented first because that's the only way Google can get money from it, not necessarily because they agree with it ideologically. The webmaster wouldn't pay for it otherwise. The folks doing the searches can take it or leave it, since there is not necessarily a correlation between those who pay for the advert and the quality of the product. See all the ads for affiliate pharmaceutical sales, for example.
"When I say that 90% of the people using the web are buying stuff, I was speaking in terms of the search for "buy widgets". I was not at all clear about that and I beg forgiveness for what appeared to be a factual numerical representation of what actually was simply a gross estimate. I would however guess that 90% is not far off on the relationship of "buy widgets" keyword searches to people buying widgets."
Erm, ok - that wasn't very clear in your post. I agree that virtually everyone searching for a keyphrase is interested in that keyphrase, typos aside... ;)
"Every byte of information I carry on my site is overhead that I would have to pass on to a customer, thus lowering my ability to bring true value."
I don't get this bit. Content costs you nothing except the time you spend writing it. It costs you no more to host an extra 100kB of content and it can draw in a lot of potentially useful traffic.
If you want to win for little money in Google then put up content and use good site design to convert information seekers into buyers. Use the Overture keyword suggestion tool and hunt for 'widgets'. As well as 'widgets' and 'buy widgets' you'll also find 'cheap widgets', 'bargain widgets', 'blue widgets', 'widget for sale', 'latest widget', 'widget review' etc. etc. Without decent content, you're never going to draw in all that accessory traffic.
Content from an independent site is often far more objective and hence useful than the content from the manufacturer, especially if you review the product and compare it with its competitors. I don't think you should feel that you can never beat the manufacturer's content.
If someone even thinks about suggesting that the best sales site should have the best information, and thus rank higher than the others, than I will hunt you down and bonk you.
Your bonk is graciously received :) ... but duck as I chuck my rubber chicken your way. If you prefer not to play the game the way Google has set up their algo... then keep ranting. If nothing else, at least you were able to vent your frustrations! It won't do a thing for your rankings, but it may temporarily make you feel better. :)
Your second post was more clear, but your assumptions still seem unfounded.
We are getting more evidence every day when we compare the behaviour of visitors from Google "proper" and our listings in Adwords, that adwords are delivering a far better prospect. People going through the "normal" google links are looking mainly for research or information.
I am absolutely convinced that Google is moving to this model and enouraging it with their algos in both places. It makes very good sense. It was a crap shoot to get commercial sites at the top of google in competitive areas and as you say, information gets in the way!
All your pain can be removed by using adwords and overture for your commercial sites. The days of relying on free search listings for commercial sites started disappearing a few years ago, and now are well and truly numbered.
I really think that is the reality of the web today. As others suggest having both info and selling sites is one way to stay as a player, but as you say you are not interested in that, well.. PAYING for your ads, as you do in any other media, is the stark future.
1:Sponsored links are presented first. The money comes from the links that people pay for. Webmasters don't pay to let you know about their great information site, they pay to get customers who will buy things. Logically, the fact that this information is presented first means that this is what is most important to Google, the Webmaster, and the folks doing the searches.
Well, I have heard the argument often, that since Google is making its money through advertising which is the opposit of their main service to users, i.e. providing (objective) information, that these competing areas might get in the way of each other. However the key here is trust/credibility. Google is doing (IMHO) everything to make sure that both of those "businesses" (i.e. selling ads and providing a good searchable index of the web) are distinct.
Ads are clearly marked as ads (colored bar in the background). As long as people are happy with the results they will keep using it, which given the huge market share they have, seems to prove them right.
Why are you arguing that google should change the way they work, when the one who is going to profit most is you... ;) I think google knows well that the google websearch is not the optimum for product/shop searches, which is why there is froogle, right?
One argument that I think is being discussed with a "wrong" twist is, that you would need a lot of content to rank well for "buy shovels cheap". This is not true, not at all. You can have all the forums on shovels, and historical information you want: You will not have any better chance on ranking well with google directly. Content will only help a) your sites overall popularity and b)ranking well for rather "exotic" keyword combinations. If you have a webshop that is really good (remarkably above average) you should not have a problem getting a lot of the people to link to your site, which will make up for enough link pop. For anything else you want you don't need content. ;)
The only one who can then get in your way, is the guy who is building an informational site on the right/best way to buy cheap shovels online. *G*
An example. Let's say I want to buy a record by widgetman. The chances are that sites about widgetman (fan sites etc.) will win out for anyone searching for 'widgetman' or even 'widgetman records'. Without content, I will only atract visitors that type 'buy widgetman records', missing out on lots of traffic who wanted to buy, but get information sites first.
If I add useful information about widgetman, I stand a much better chance of catching all of the useful searches, and I will also be providing a service that widgetman fans will like, link to and revisit.
So I wanted to illustrate that he can get what he wants with the way google works... ;)
The lesson is that pages need to be designed for all of these potential visitors, and that means informational content.
Is this bad? I think not. Part of selling something is demonstrating a sound knowledge of the product - in other words, information. Information about the product. Information about the service. Information about the support being offered.
The only people that this may impact negatively are those that do not have a clear vision of their business, or thaose that are selling other people's products, i.e. pure affiliate sites.
My $.02
This is true. But also bear in mind that your visitors will not fit a certain demographic - some will be first timers, some experienced searchers and so on
>Part of selling something is demonstrating a sound knowledge of the product - in other words, information
Exactly.
There is NO correlation between information about a product and a company's ability to stock, ship, refund, or support that product. How could I possibly put up an informational site that has more factual information than the manufacturer of a product has published? I'm certainly not gonna put up a forum so that 10,000 idiots can bicker over which flavor of shovel makes you look taller. Every byte of information I carry on my site is overhead that I would have to pass on to a customer, thus lowering my ability to bring true value.
I'm going to address this as a consumer who has been buying over the web since before Google. Not as a webmaster. Not as someone pretending to represent all consumers. I represent *me* when it comes to spending my money.
When I am shopping online I want more information from the websites that are selling to me! You don't have to overload me with information on the item page, but I want that information available through links on your page.
When I buy a motherboard for a system that I am building, I am a lot more likely to buy it from a site that will tell me what chipsets they are using. Most people don't care, but I do.
If I am searching for HTML editing software, should I have to *leave your site* and go to Microsoft and Macromedia to find out the basic features and differences between frontpage and dreamweaver? Put up a chart comparing them.
Lots of people will buy any old shovel. When I buy one I want to know the the handle is made of. I want to know what sort of coating is on the blade since my shovels are use for clamming in salt water.
You mention price and service. I have been quite happy with with the service available from every site I go to that has gone to the extra effort of giving me all the information that I want. They do seem to have a correlation. Their prices are rarly the lowest, but they aren't off by much.
If I am searching for something and I am on a site with a reasonable price, and they answer all my questions about the product, I will most likely purchase from that company.
So I guess you can go ahead and bonk yourself, because you are throwing away an entire category of customers who would like more information. And if google has a bias towards those of us that like more information, it just might be because the brain trust at google is the same way.
Do I know enough about a product, ok then it seems at first it's all about the price, but also availability, shipping, delivery ... and service. - But can i trust that provider? It ends in demand for information.
Do I don't know which product does fit my personal requirements ... then information comes first. I want to inform myself, to compare, a.s.o. - And again important: who's offering that information?
For me the aspect of building up confidence in the web is far more important than offline. You very often don't know who's behind a site / an offer ...
IMHO giving information is investing in user's confidence.
I think the web and SE's will be MUCH different in 5 yrs....
Better or worse, who knows?
I agree: for sure money talks.
But sometimes still walking that's what i like with G:
do your home work, don't pay to be listed, and watch your site climbing in SERPs.
May it last a while like this ... :)
Imagine a sales site with no information - just a blank page with a Buy button in the middle of a white space.
