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What I have seen is infact such a powerful trick that a site is dominating on a huge number of serps on google by using only the trick and nothing else.
This trick is actually similar to good old doorway pages but with a difference .. and this difference makes it so powerful.
What they are doing
1) Put a search box on their site.
2) Get some seed traffic and let the users try to search on their site.
3) Save keyword combinations used in these searches in their database.
4) Next time a user searches with similar set of keywords,
they are provided the current combination as a "related searches" links on the page.
(Like altavista)
The Trick
The purpose of search box is to get users to enter keywords and then use those keywords as a feed for creating highly targeted doorways with urls like - xyz.com/b/a/ss_keyword1_keyword2.html
the title of the page is "keyword1 keyword2 - comparison shopping for X"
The page only says
"keyword1 keyword2 did not match any thing on our site .. here are some of the related keyword searches which users have made on the site"
this is followed by links of "related searches" which also lead to pages as above with only difference being "keyword2 keyword3" instead of "keyword1 keyword2".
This obviously is a script generated page masqurading as static html which is not very difficult to create.
My take on this
What begins with an innocent search by a user on xyz.com .. ends up becoming a highly targeted doorway with
1) keywords in anchor text from other pages linking to it.
2) keywords in title.
3) keywords in top body of the page (even though it only says keyword1 keyword2 did not match any thing).
4) keywords in the url of the page.
5) And the best part:
This new page is automatically linked to some of the "related searches" and in turn links to some of its "related searches".
This becomes a web of doorway pages which are linked to each other by common keywords...and may qualify as "good themes" too.
The trick might be simple but the number of pages one can get into the search engine by this is potentially colossal. All you need to start is to write a few scripts and bring your keyword database to a critcal mass...once that is reached .. it begins self sustaining with users coming and searching newer combinations and system responds by generating more pages and links which spiders follow and index.
It is as if the site is constantly evolving to add thousands of spider friendly pages which are on "theme" every day.
1. If these pages were not meant for search engine fodder then why not exclude them with tags or robots.txt.
Pixel Juice said "...give me one good reason why they shouldn't make these pages from an SEO template? "
2. Since when did doorway pages become accepted SPAM because thats all they are...oh, except one difference they don't even sell what they promote!
You can fool the search engine or you can fool the user, either way it is deceptive spam.
"Don't deceive your users." The site is deceiving users.
How is the site deceiving users by archiving existing search queries and showing the user related products? This only becomes spam once Google indexes it and it beats someone elses page in the serps.
On its own it is a useful feature for users. Again I cite Amazon's related product links, which as an Amazon shopper I have found extremely handy. I know they are just trying to sell me more stuff, but they do it in a way that encourages me to shop at Amazon more often.
If these pages were not meant for search engine fodder then why not exclude them with tags or robots.txt.
So if you don't intentionally make a page for search engine indexing, you should ban it with robots.txt? That isn't what I thought robots exclusion was for. Should Amazon exclude their related product pages on the off chance Google decides it's spam?
Googlebot looks for all the pages it can. Google find these pages and put them in the serps. As soon as it annoys joe webmaster whose page is getting beaten, it becomes spam.
You can fool the search engine or you can fool the user, either way it is deceptive spam.
Please show me one piece of evidence that suggests either of those things is true. Who is being fooled? No-one asked Google to put these pages in the index.
Since when did doorway pages become accepted SPAM
A doorway page is a page designed only for search engines in order to direct visitors to the 'real' site. This does not apply to the site in question in this thread. I said it already, but these pages ARE NOT doing particularly well in Google serps.
*This may manifest itself in poor spelling and rambling
[edited by: pixel_juice at 1:42 am (utc) on April 26, 2003]
Thanks.
Or do i have to add to the flooding of this poor guys mailbox... :P
A quick observation, the discussion seems to be revolving around whether this is an unacceptable practice or not. I am thinking we could better discuss what improvements could be made to the technique to perhaps make it more acceptable. Just a thought.
Onya
Woz
what improvements could be made to the technique to perhaps make it more acceptable.
For dodger:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Without seeing the site itself, I would:
1) Disable the auto publishing of the pages. A runaway doorway publishing system is not what I call a responsible online marketing tactic. (I'll back that up in another post :)
2) Code a function instead, to skim the most popular searches and have a human approve pages to put live as suggestions/doorway pages. This would also eliminate wacky pages from being created (You guys/gals know what people type into search boxes...sheesh)
3) Any approved terms used in doorways would be considered for new inventory as site search terms are prime suggestions for expanding a product range. (Hey, the site is already recieving hot leads on those terms)
4) On including a new product based on this process, replace the doorway page (which by now you hope will be receiving significant traffic through Google listings) with the actual product page to increase conversion rates on that item (hence reducing clickthroughs) and to make sure your new item 'hit the ground running' in terms of sales.
If your SEO is on target, your new product page won't lose any ground in the SERPs moving forward.
5) I would also measure how many sales were made by doorways converting people to purchase items that actually were in stock. Any underperforming keyphrases and terms that don't make it to your product line, are de-activated to ensure the integrity of the search engine listings and your business stays out of the spot-light.
I see a couple of holes in there - such as: what about the integrity of the search listings while you are deciding whether to include a product or not. etc ... but hey its a start...
Now I'm going to preach ... sorry, can't help myself.
IMO
It seems to me that something has been forgotten here in this discussion of whether or not this consitutes spam, whether it is good SEO or not and whether Google is at fault for presenting pages generated by this script at the top of the serp's. What has been forgotten? Who is the SEO being done for?
Google's purpose and the purpose of SEO is to make it easy for the searcher to find what he/she is looking for. Period. The bottom line is: if the technique does not improve the searcher's experience by reducing the searcher's frustration with the whole search proceeding it must be bad SEO. It must be, because it reduces the relevancy of the results. It must be, because it alienates the person you are trying to attract in the first place. If you have to trick the search engines to place your site you are not performing SEO. In fact, if you make a practice of tricking the search engines you are no better than a con-artist.
Does the use of this type of thing within a site, to eventually generate pages directed to the user, such as at Amazon, constitute bad SEO? No. This is actually a collection of marketing information with which the retailer can direct his sales efforts. This is no different than the concierge at a good hotel asking if you would be interested in a tour of the city after you've asked for a guide book. As opposed to the huckster standing outside telling you what you really want is to look at his merchandise, not get into a taxi.
Blame Google. Sure that's a good idea. Why don't I buy my client, who sells sporting goods, a listing in the yellow pages under lingerie and blame the yellow pages for listing it. It's their book after all. Nope. Sorry. Can't agree with that at all.
As a web professional, I feel a responsibility to guess who?
Surprise! Myself as a user, most of all. I don't like being frustrated. I don't have time to waste. I want relevant search results. Therefore, I must make sure that when I optimize a site it is for the ultimate goal of providing me with what I'm looking for. Side bonus is, my client, who only wants me to visit if I have an interest in his product, gets what he wants too.
Unfortunately, there are too many out there who are prepared to do anything to get to the top. The way the use of this script was originally described sounds like it falls into the "anything" category.
Its very good that the site offers alternative search suggestions .. but what is the most interesting part of the story which has got overlooked by some here is that when you click on that "suggested" link .. it leads to another page which has nothing but more "suggestions" and it goes on and on and on and on .. and on and on ;)
[edited by: jaski at 7:52 am (utc) on April 26, 2003]
Its the thin edge of the wedge as dynamic and script generated pages are the way of the future - in the great majority of cases (not all), they cannot compete with hand tailored pages for the user experience.
Maybe the problem comes from the ability and willingness of search engines to spider and index EVERY page on a site and be very page-centric while reducing their site-centric algos. While the SE algos remain imperfect (as they always will be), they may well have a higher SEO benefit than user benefit. Search engines need to come to terms with it and develop their alogos to decrease the effectiveness of this technique IF it really is degrading their SERPS.
Of course I know what most worry about is whether our competitors are or will use this techniqiue and how long SE's will take to catch up with it, or alternatively if we should use the same method to compete and we need to know the "risk"!
As far as google is concerned - if you think it is spam, report it and let Google decide. If enough people complain about one site, it will get their attention.
If it was me and the feature was good for users, i would just robot.txt it out due to concerns over duplicate content etc. just for one.
AS THEY HAVE IMPLEMENTED IT (upper case so nobody misses the point) it is a little spammy - there isn't enough underlying content there to support every search possible. However, searching for "aluminum tripod" certainly did return some interesting results.
However, if there was enough content underneith it all to return some relevant "possible alternatives", I wouldn't consider it spam at all, more like "self targetting marketing". It creates "content", by storing the results of searches as callable pages, showing potential related searches and stuff. Every user search gives potential results and a new page to show those results in.
They aren't dishonest, the text on the page clearly states that they have no match for "term1 term2"...
They actually have given me a VERY good idea... now I have something to work on this weekend! :-)
Alex
Could you sticky-mail me that site as well?
I'd be curious to see it.
It's a site with a presumably huge selection of products. They have a search box.
If the search matches, you get you search query spit back at you along with:
(a) links to site categories that are related to your search,
(b) the search box again, and
(c) about 4-5 text links of "similar searches that other people performed".
Sometimes you'll also get 3 "top products" related to your search as well.
If the search doesn't match, it's the same as above with a no match message (containing the search term). The same template.
The related searches are one's that have ANY of the terms you searched on, so if you searched for "shiney blue widgets" the related search might look like "shiney widgets", "large widgets", "blue forks", etc. I bet the same applies to how they match catagories. They only show a few silimar searches, so I guess they are the top ones.
When I searched on a nonsense word then I didn't get a list of matching departments. Instead, I got a new template that showed a Yahoo-style list of all their departments under the heading "Departments". This appeared below the search box, and there were no similar searches displayed.
When you do a search using the search form, it does a GET request so the URL of the results page has a query string including the search term and a few other vars.
On the other hand when you click the similar search links, the URL is rewritten - no query string, and the search phrase is in the path.
On the home page there in a link to the "top searches" which is basically a site multi-page site map with links (just links) to all these saved search queries. This explains how Google is finding them. There are about 100 links per page + nav links, and the link text is the search string. As a rough rough guess I would say there are about 300,000-400,000 of these links.
Any search term that I did, matching or not, did not appear in the similar search list and did not appear in the top searches site map. So this part is not dynamic, or at least not automatic.
We searched the entire site for "brand" and "model" without finding a match containing both words. However, the individual words produced the following results:brand: 33 departments, 17 shops
model : no matchThe combined results are displayed below
brand model MATCHED FOR THE FOLLOWING DEPARTMENTS!
Brand in the quote above is a link. And "brand model" appears on the top searches "site map" page.
Very brilliantly gray area stuff here.
Doing site:domain -slfjsljfslfsjweorwu_ie_any_rubbish
returns 238000
ie this is the total number of pages in the google index from this domain ..
not sure how many of these are on either side of the line though ;)
Jaski
And why use a title tag like this if it isn't with SEO in mind.
Widgets - Buy at the best price on ***** - Widgets
If a title like that comes up in the serps the user instantly thinks they sell it and at the best price too. WRONG! Very clever, very profitable, very spammy...
I would say that google shall fight against these sites, even if it is NOT spam.
The reason is simple ... if there is a lot of such a sites and user searches for widgets in google can't find widgets - he will choose another SE to search for. This is the only and the main reason for google to fight against them.
But I agree with a previous poster, these auto pages never do very well and can always be beaten by a good hand written page. Not sure Google is against what this site does because this site along with Amazon is a major premium ad player.
Thanks for stickying the URL. No doubt you will get another 200 requests for the sticky. ;)
I looked for "weapons of mass destruction" and lo and behold -- they have them. I looked for "aircraft carrier" and "Saddam Hussein" -- guess what, they have everything you can throw at them.
If they have a script that is generating and storing (and submitting?) an actual page for every search generated, it would be interesting to throw some more funny words at it.
As a user I don't want to get lured into a site by a trick that claims to have any word I am looking for. Reminds me of shysters in tourist traps.
Not sure Google is against what this site does because this site along with Amazon is a major premium ad player.
They may or may not take any isolated action but this is definitely some thing they will be concerned about as an issue as it affects their own quality.
Search Engines and index spammers have always been fighting it out, its just a next level of sophistication from index spammers...and it seems they have penetrated the defences of the biggest and the best for the moment. How search engines and esp. google respond to this will be interesting to see. I believe that to be some time soon now that the battle lines have been drawn? ;)
I looked for "pornography" and it suggested CDs, books, films, and DVD - but no actual pornography in the offerings. It did mention that other visitors had conducted similar searches.
Yup, it's the old tourist trap sucker bait here.
which means any competitor finding an unmoderated script like this could muddy the waters very easily with a few minutes search each day. I guess the trick would be to moderate your list of queries and only inject the worthwhile ones.
Onya
Woz
which means any competitor finding an unmoderated script like this could muddy the waters very easily
Yes. It cannot be unmoderated. Also the fact that the new searches do not immediately make into the suggested links at the bottom. I am sure they are clever enough to think in advance of such a danger .. so keyword combinations must be getting approved by a human editor on their end before they make it into the link pool.
Jaski you may have opened pandoras box on this thread. Already had a few posts here going, "Hmmmmm, that gives me a good idea, knock up a script like it over the weekend for my shopping site!"
The rate at which these viral pages are created could mean a SARS like spread across worldwide serps!
Look at the PR. Is it so high because it's self generated?
When you get down to it this is nothing more than a glorified cloaking technique.
