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"Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
but hey, SEO is not black and white. so where is the grey line.
the biggest fear I have is that my competition will pick up on the fact and start doing the same. would be a shame!
so what is the general consent? use it while it is still allowed or stay away from such "cheeky" tactics?
Why not just write:
I'll give you $5 if you click on this link!
as the title of the web page?
Surely, it's going to result in a bigger short term increase in click-throughs than a little omega?
But you need your keyword too in the title so your users fin it :)
"<STAR> I'll give you $50 if you click! <keyword1> <kayword2>"
May work ;)
Jordan
It would be much worse to have №
<added>
I now have a question about this. I am unable to get the ★ to produce any character at all besides a box in IE6 or NS7 in the regular page. Am I doing something wrong?
</added>
It is a non-standard entity. What it actually is, is the hex values for an 16-bit (top 8 + bottom 8) unicode character (0x97 and 0x33 for the star). Not all fonts / browsers support full unicode characters. Most of them only handle the trimmed down 8-bit set (UTF-8) and show full unicode chars as a box or?. The standard character entities use plain old ANSI encoding (AFAIK), that is why they are supported over a larger number of browser / fonts.
Jordan
A star would stand out even more.
Dave
Isn't the idea supposed to be to attract quality clicks rather than a click for the sake of a click? If you really want junk traffic just use the word "Free".
I added 3 stars to the start of my title, for a site that has a #3 - #5 ranking. Traffic from Google has increased in the past few days between 10 and 30%.
Adding stars doesnt decrease the quality of the click, in the SERPS it looks bloody amazing! Looks as tho Google is endorsing my site as a "3 STAR RATING!" its gold!
If I was in a PPC and paying for clicks, sure the quality of the click matters, but if someone finds me in Google for a search term that matches my site, and I get clicks on my #5 result rather than the guy at #1 .. im all for it.
Search traffic is quality traffic, what are you talking about?
I suspect Dave_Hawley is off right now adding stars etc to all his sites.
LOL
I suspect Dave_Hawley is off right now adding stars etc to all his sites.
Me thinks not. I will stick with using descriptive keywords in my Titles.
Search traffic is quality traffic, what are you talking about?
Not too many people search for a star :o) I'm not saying you wont increase traffic (although I see it as a waste of a keyword) what I'm saying is you are simply diluting your search relavence by changing a keyword for a star.
Dave
Not too many people search for a star
I'm not saying they do. All this code adds is 3 (three) rendered characters to my title tag, all i needed to do was drop 3 commas or a ".com" here or there to make up for the character loss, I STILL HAVE the rest of my keywords and my normal title .. people still get to the site because my title reads nicely and is keyword optimised ..
Only difference is, now my site now looks like a Google endorsed 3 star site! It looks like Google loves me!
As someone said earlier, its a valid HTML entity type, I doubt Google will punish sites for it .. unless we all do it. LOL.
Worst case, they escape it and it shows up as #&9999 or whatever .. in that case, ill turn it off ;)
Here is a screen shot of how my #3 result looks with a star in Yahoo!
Yahoo Masked Star [users.bigpond.net.au]
$G$
It looks like Google loves me!
LOL! You wont be saying that when Google spot it! Do you honestly think it will not get you punished? Come on get real, Google will not allow this. They wont wait for all to do it before preventing it, but they may well make an example out of you.
This is *blatent* search engine spamming. You are even silly enough to brag about it here of all places. I cannot believe some people.
Dave
They wont wait for all to do it before preventing it, but they may well make an example out of you.
Thats exactly what I want to see happen. Google reckon they dont do this.
You are even silly enough to brag about it here of all places.
I want everyone to copy it, I want to see how fast this spreads and see how fast Google fix it ..
Maybe I should put it on an adult site, once those adult guys catch wind of any new technique they will be all over it like a fat chick on a mars bar.
Is spamming too? What about &, or forgein language sites that use unicode character entities (e.g., for Kanji)?
Jordan
Who from Google said this?
RE: Is spamming too? What about &, or forgein language sites that use unicode character entities (e.g., for Kanji)?
I doubt it, these are totally relavent. I might be wrong, although I believe I'm not. Just look at it from Googles point-of-view, they obvioulsy take great pride in their search results. If everyone uses a star, their results would look very spammy indeed. When/if Google notice this, I believe they will stop it WELL before it becomes popular.
Why on earth anyone would want to risk up to 70% of their traffic for the sake of a few more clicks is beyond me.
Dave
I want to see how long it takes for them to change this particular exploit.
Hey I agree that the star looks spammy, and that if everyone starts doing it, the SERPS will look like rubbish.
But hey .. if it take the big Googs 2 or 3 months to turn it around, how can you afford NOT to use it until they do.
My stats for today are closer to 50% increase now on several of my sites. The difference in ranking #1 to #3 in volume is enormous for some topics.
Dave I never said you had to use the endorsing Google STAR RATING (lol) however I am, and will continue to until such time as they escape the characters.
I know that 50% more traffic for me generally means 50% more sales! Business is UP my friend!
OK, I see your point. If every result (or even alot of them) had wierd little symbols in them, it would at least look rather odd, if not making it harder to glance over the SERP and find relevant phrases.
Jordan
I'm being generic. This is the figure that seems to apply to most.
RE: GoogleGuy specifically in this forum has said that they would rather implement a solution into the algo than ban specific people.
Yes he did, but I think you are reading too much into this comment. Besides, GG is only one person and (as far as I know) not the official spokesman for Google.
RE: But hey .. if it take the big Googs 2 or 3 months to turn it around, how can you afford NOT to use it until they do.
That is a strange way to look at it. What about if it gets you dropped altogether? It's a bit like betting a $1.00 to to win $1.10
RE: I know that 50% more traffic for me generally means 50% more sales! Business is UP my friend!
...and you know for a fact that it ALL due to the one little star? Come one, There is no way it would increase traffic by 50%. I would say your were not at number 3 before, but are now. Nothing to do with a star! To get a 50% increase *from the same position* there would have to be AT LEAST a 50% increase in searching for your keyword/phrase.
Look, I have no problem with anyone using this method. What irks me is some poor uniformed reader will see this post and think he/she has found the magic answer to increase traffic by 50%. Only to be banned from Google at some stage.
If you really have proof, offer it.
Dave
I said ONE of my sites has gone up by 50%. I run hundreds of sites.
A 50% increase on a site that gets 10 imps a day is only another 5 impressions. Im not talking about a 150K a day site here mate, there is no way anyone would risk a technique like that on a hot site.
Metagod above says he is doing 6 times the impressions, he may have only gone from 10 impressions to 60 .. you dont think this is possible?
RE: "It's a bit like betting a $1.00 to to win $1.10"
No, its a bit like betting 100 impressions (eg. a site) to win another 50 impressions. And backed with the "betting" knowledge that it may take Google 3 months to change it, and knowing that they CANT possibly ban a site based on its use of a valid HTML entity character, im ready to gamble! And if you run short term, optimised sites, who cares? Extra 50% visitors = more sales = more bread.
RE: "there would have to be AT LEAST a 50% increase in searching for your keyword/phrase"
Well thats about where any intelligent argument with you stops .. there are lots of search terms and lots of traffic, lots of different topics and believe it or not, the traffic all behaves differently!
RE: "What irks me is some poor uniformed reader will see this post and think he/she has found the magic answer to increase traffic by 50%. Only to be banned from Google at some stage."
Exactly, LOL :)
RE: "If you really have proof, offer it."
Haha, did you just buy a computer and download the internet yesterday? LOL. If I found out what URL you were optimizing, what is the NEXT, if not MOST important thing that you would want to protect from me? STATS! No one shares stats mate, you may as well just go ahead and ask Google for some search counts.
:)
A 50% increase on a site that gets 10 imps a day is only another 5 impressions.
Good lord, say no more. You are even confusing impressions with clicks now. You could quite possible have got the same result by putting copyright symbol in there. 5 extra clicks, unbelievable
Well thats about where any intelligent argument with you stops .. there are lots of search terms and lots of traffic, lots of different topics and believe it or not, the traffic all behaves differently!
Very nice statement. Trouble is, it's simply not relavent to anything mentioned :o)
RE: "What irks me is some poor uniformed reader will see this post and think he/she has found the magic answer to increase traffic by 50%. Only to be banned from Google at some stage."Exactly, LOL :)
How old did you say you were? The whole idea of this forum is to help each others, not suck the unwary into being penalized. One minute you are trying to tell the world how good this is, now you say "Exactly, LOL :)" to my statement about it possbly getting others a drop in ranking. You want 2 bob each way.
Haha, did you just buy a computer and download the internet yesterday? LOL. If I found out what URL you were optimizing, what is the NEXT, if not MOST important thing that you would want to protect from me?
So you base your whole argument on a site that gets 5 clicks per day from Google doubling. Listen to what you are saying for goodness sake. You have no proof...period.
[STATS! No one shares stats mate, you may as well just go ahead and ask Google for some search counts.
Hey, anyone silly enough to brag and suggest un-researched spamming....... Besides, with 10 clicks per day you hardly have *the* secret recipe for traffic :o)
Dave
At minimum, we will use the data from each spam report to improve our site ranking and filtering algorithms. The result of this should be visible over time as the quality of our searches gets even better. In especially egregious cases, we will remove spammers from our index immediately, so they do not show up in search results at all. Other steps will be taken as necessary.
I would say that arguably putting stars at the start of your title degrades the quality of google's results and a spam report could be justified. Dave_Hawley - You have convinced me and I think I'll take out the stars in my titles. I never intended it to appear as a recomendation from google, but I can see how google might get pissed off by it...
There is no way anyone would sensibly use this on a domain that is actually worth something, they have put investment in re SE ratings and for which they are investing further than the next month or two.
You are even confusing impressions with clicks now.
Where? I am talking about impressions, basically visitors to my site. You were the first to mention the word "clicks" in some reference to the quality of the traffic dropping.
As far as im concerned, if someone searches on Google and I appear in the results I want my site to be visited. If this STAR thing gives me an edge, im in.
You could quite possible have got the same result by putting copyright symbol in there.
Maybe so. I might chuck a few © on my sites and test your theory! I honestly reckon the stars are better, people know stars as "quality" hell, maybe thats just me. Next time I stay at a hotel i'll look for to stay at one with the 5 Copyright rating! LOL.
... "the traffic all behaves differently" ... Trouble is, it's simply not relavent to anything mentioned
It has everything to do with it, you were saying that for a site to get 50% more traffic it would need to have another 50% more traffic on the SERPS. I am saying, this depends on the category, each segment of the market behaves differently.
How old did you say you were?
I didnt.
The whole idea of this forum is to help each others, not suck the unwary into being penalized.
If they read the entire post and everything you and I have said im sure they can make their own decision whether or not adding a star will be beneficial for their site or adversely effect their rankings in the future. For me, it works, I am happy with the results. I however watch the engines closely and can pull the plug at any time. I also have hundreds of sites and I am NOT doing it on all of them. NOTE: To the unwary - Dont try this at home kids, I am an untrained professional.
One minute you are trying to tell the world how good this is, now you say "Exactly, LOL :)" to my statement about it possbly getting others a drop in ranking.
I said it was working to increase the amount of traffic I receive. I also said I think it makes the search results look like rubbish. I agree that this method will make the SERPs look VERY BAD once everyone jumps in on it. But hey .. im not the one clicking on them.
You want 2 bob each way.
Safe bet :)
So you base your whole argument on a site that gets 5 clicks per day from Google doubling.
I knew you would say that. I was simply trying to point out that I was talking about "percentages" of traffic increase. I thought if I brought the numbers to the lowest common denominator, you, and the unwary could get their heads around it :)
You have no proof...period.
As I already pointed out, no proof that I am willing to show you :)
Hey, anyone silly enough to brag and suggest un-researched spamming
I like to know for myself how things work, I cant rely on going to forums asking for other peoples "proof" and the only way to "research" it is to try it.
Besides, with 10 clicks per day you hardly have *the* secret recipe for traffic
Don't I know it. You mean there is actually a secret to it that I haven't worked out yet?
Dave, can you pass me the "Guide To Getting #1 in Google" eBook?
Thanks mate.
These posts are getting far too long now, lets make this like a debate. You have 1 more chance to rebut my statements and then i'll do the same. Otherwise just say the affirmative side wins and we will leave it at that. LOL.
I concur. Well said. If only I had of thought of that tiny response to end the thread. LOL.
may attract a few extra less-qualified clicks
I just dont agree with this. How does it make it less qualified?
