Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
complain about a real problem
Can't see the sandbox being a "real" problem, or a problem at all. It's there to stop the SPAM. If I start a new company called Mesothelioma Lawyers Ltd you reckon I should show up in the top 500 purely because that's my company name?
Sure, the "sandbox", whatever it is, hurts some. It hurts people who are creating sites for free traffic. Many of them are spammers/freeloaders. It also hurts others. They - particularly anyone starting a new business with a business plan that relies on free SE traffic - are probably better off staying unemployed (or employed if they can find a job). Any new site starting off on the premise that free traffic will sustain it deserves to fail.
So, if you remove the sandbox as a reasonable cause for complaint, and remove most of the other whining, we'd reduce this thread to one page and those that can't even be bothered to read it will get a personal reply from Googleguy because he owes them.
Irritating reply coming from someone who has probably never tried PPC.
WRONG. PPC is a valuable part of our overall marketing strategy. To date (as I've previously stated), I make roughly $6 for every $1 I spend.
The average webmaster will not be able to run or relay on PPC traffic alone to sustain his business without having free traffic to compliment sales
Our business did it for probably the first 18 months or so of it's existence. The key is to stop chasing the "marquee" keywords, and go after the lesser trafficed (and therfore much cheaper) keywords. With a great deal of research, it's not that hard to create keywrod lists in the high 5 digits. In an area where I know my competitors are paying upwords of $.70-$.80 a click, I average $.12 or less. The truth is the "average" webmaster doesn't do the necessary amount of legwork, testing, or tracking to maximize the profitbility of a PPC campaign- so in that sense I agree with you - the "average" webmaster won;t be able to sustain a business on their "average" PPC research.
If you’re a small developing business you will not be able to accommodate such expenses for too long.
This is due to unrealistic expectations more than anything else. Far too many world-be entrepreneurs think that starting a business with $50 in their pocket is a sure thing (due in part to all the hype surrounding such things).
Not mentioning that it is 10 times harder to sell something online then it is in real world.
Now THAT is just plain not true. An online business done properly has far less overhead, startup costs, etc. etc. than a "bricks & mortar" biz, and therefore frees much more capital and time for marketing and customer acquisition. Very few markets offer such a low custoemr acquisition cost. In my former corporate position, it would cost our company $500 just to get a customer in the door. Even at $1.00 a click, that's dirt cheap.
Advertising is to help sustain a brand AFTER it is created and "owned". Yes you may be able to survive on advertising but you will have to spend alot of money to use it to build a brand. This is difficult for small time businesses and startups.
There is a plethora of ways to create "top of mind" awareness (and just as many ways to waste your chance at doing so).
This is why a building good solid well known brand should be a #1 priority.
I agree.
Do you get enough clicks/sales from PPC at the end of the day to realy make a difference. That’s my question. I suspect that the vast majority of webmasters would answer NO to that.
Yes.
and then only 0.02% of visitors (if your lucky) buy or do something.
...and there you have it. You've idnentified your problam right there. Such a dismal conversion rate would have a difficult time sustaining ANY kind of paid advertising campaign(s). Our average conversion rate is over 2.5% (and over the holidays was as high as 4%!). With your numbers (.02%) it would take 5000 visitors to make one sale. If that's the case, then I agree a PPC campaign based on that model would be unsustainable (unless your item(s) are so high-ticket that they make up for it).
Our average conversion rate is over 2.5% (and over the holidays was as high as 4%!).
A 0.02% conversion rate? I think that was meant as a joke. My experience is 1 - 5% on Adwords. If you are talking about other PPCs then yes I can believe 0.02%.
You don't have to like Google's SERPs, but their traffic and their PPC program is arguably the best.
Why on Earth should he teach you how to get your a**e out of this - he's not paid to do that. He and those 50 PH.D's are paid to devise elaborate methods to strangle SEO as a viable business!
Google's search engineers are paid to deliver the results that, in Google's estimation, users want to see.
The SEO is paid to deliver the results that its clients want to see.
So yes, there is an inherent conflict between Google's mission and the SEO's. But why get angry with Google for fulfilling its mission rather than the SEO's?
Our average conversion rate is over 2.5% (and over the holidays was as high as 4%!).
LOL,
An old wise man once said:
"You can brag and tell Fairytale stories as much as you like. The facts always surface for everyone to see..."
If you are getting such brilliant PPC return then why on earth do you even bother wasting your time on an Allegra thread. What interest do you possibly have in free G traffic or the lack of it. You’re the PPC master able to triple and quadruple your investment. Aren’t you?. You are better off just firing your browser and starting more PPC campaigns. Thats what I would have done...unless I’m just full of it off course ;)
[edited by: max_mm at 4:38 pm (utc) on Feb. 15, 2005]
Google’s mission is to provide relevant results and they do not do that.
people are hurting and you're just rubbing it in. We know by now that you're so much better, smarter and savy than us. No need to keep making the same point over and over again.
How is presenting an alternative (and solution) to someone's problem "rubbing it in". The fact that some of the people here would prefer to simply have company in their misery, as opposed to presenting/adopting solutions does not negate the fact that I am trying to help, not hurt. 100+ posts about how "I've seen slight movement on this datacenter" does nothing to assist in fixing the underlying cause of all the anguish. As opposed to simply commenting ABOUT the problem, I prefer to discuss solutions TO the problem.
If you can't see that, then the problem is yours, not mine. Don't like what I have to say - don't read it. If the "woe is me" points can be made over and over ad nauseum, then so can the counter-points.
If you are getting such brilliant PPC return then why on earth do you even bother wasting your time on an Allegra thread. What interest do you possibly have in free G traffic or the lack of it. You’re the PPC master able to triple and quadruple your investment. Aren’t you?. You better of just firing your browser and starting more PPC campaigns. That what I would have done…unless I’m just full of it. ;)
I fail to see how personal attacks on my integrity help you make your point. The above statistics were not meant as a "bragging" point, but as an example how an site optimized to convert the customer can aid in maximizing ROI. I'm not going to get into a $%@$ing match and start impuning a stranger's integrity.
Want a mature discussion and debate - attack a poster's position or argument (if you can), not the poster himself. Anything else is just schoolyard crap.
Clearly you know everything about the web but not everything about running a business. Some businesses have business models that can afford high advertising rates ie pay per click, whereas others are run as very low margin and hence very low advertising budget businesses.
Now that Google has decided to put the squeeze on many commercial sites, the ones that will suffer first will always be the lowest margin businesses. In this sort of situation, there is little that thousands of low margin businesses can do to counteract a single business in a dominant position.
Google’s mission is to provide relevant results and they do not do that.
Relevance is in the eye of the beholder, but I think most users would rather leave the job of determining relevance to Google, not to SEOs. :-)
Also…
Looking through log files for other sites I’m noticing regular G$ referrals from as far down the SERPS as page 20-50. Very interesting indeed, it proves one thing: Surfers are not getting what they are looking for on page 1,2,3,4,5,6..........etc.
Europeforvisitors,
I am new in here and do not want to get into a debate like the one above. However not finding a corporate site after its brand name its not a relevant result.
I did some test searches for a “product testimonials” and from 20 results 16 did not had anything to do with my search: just blogs where spammers added links.
I understand that Google results are for User Joe and not for us but this time Google have a bug.
Relevance is in the eye of the beholder, but I think most users would rather leave the job of determining relevance to Google, not to SEOs. :-)
So, if Google is listening they need to understand that the average American right now is in many instances not finding what they are seeking on Google. But they are finding it on other SE's, including a few that are minor players right now, but are creating favorable impressions with disgruntled former Google searchers. This seems like bad news for Google to me.
Yes, I am also condsidering allowing them the top directory with 100 or so pages only and not the larger sub directories as we get negligible meaningful traffic from them for the amount of server overhead they consume spidering the entire site. I also believe most of the spidering is the result of redirect links and the sites doing the redirecting are getting most of the benefit from the daily crawls of these meaty deeper directories.
So, if Google is listening they need to understand that the average American right now is in many instances not finding what they are seeking on Google.
So where is the evidence of this?
Don't get me wrong, I am not here to defend Google and I agree that their SERPs are not as good as they should be but outside of this forum and this business I have heard only one person commenting on this and he is quite IT literate.
IMO many people don't even know that Google is a search engine and they often blame themselves for bad results. That is why they get away with stuff like the sandbox.
I also believe that when the "Average American" searches for company names and they cannot find them they often don't realise that Google is to blame. Unfortunately some of them blame the completely innocent companies for the absence of their websites.
So, if Google is listening they need to understand that the average American right now is in many instances not finding what they are seeking on Google.
Maybe, maybe not. (And why limit the audience to Americans? People in other countries use Google, too.)
In my own searches--some commercial, some noncommercial--I've found that Allegra's results are better than what came before. That may not be true of all searches, but I certainly can't complain that a search for "[prescription drug] side effects" now displays pages about the drug's side effects instead of the affiliate and scraper pages that I was seeing two weeks ago.
Still, my point wasn't--and isn't--that Google's search results are perfect; I simply think that WW members need to remember that Google's mission doesn't always coincide with that of the SEO or Webmaster, and it isn't reasonable to become angry with Google if attempts to manipulate its algorithm have unexpected and unwelcome results.
- Nick
many instances not finding what they are seeking on Google.
I think that they are still finding what they are looking for in the results as they have been over the years. I think what's missing is the competition and price equilibriums that the free market of the net is supposed to bring us.
For example, if someone is looking for widget services, they're still finding some sites offering widget sevices. What they're missing are the dozens of sites that offer widget services that might service their widgets better and/or at a lower cost. Used to be that all these sites would make the first three pages, but no longer.
What I'm seeing in our sample keywords is that one or two sites are surviving the sandbox while others are so far down they can't be found. No one would expect that there are dozens of relevant sites down there on pages 8 to 15 becuase they start running into off-topic junk on the first page. By the third page its all junk so they stop searching and assume that these few sites are all that there is.
I've notcied that some of these surviving sites charge up to 300% more than we do... and have been getting it too, the bastards. They're ranking it in, but I think unfairly becuase they have a de facto "information oligopoly" created by Google's odd SERPs combined with its currently underserved reputation for being the best search engine out there. In our main markets, I'm shcoked to say that Yahoo/Ink is bringing up more relevant sites in the first few pages and people are getting a much broader sample of what's available.
Here we go again. One of my sites that was launched March '04 just got out of the sandbox with this past update. All of the sudden today, I'm back in the sandbox and buried in the normal Google SERPS except when using quoted searches. I check a bunch of other data centers and am seeing results vary quite a bit across them...another dance?
Wow, I'm back up again... wierd ...serious bounceage
---EDIT--- Spoke too soon, gone again
- Nick
For example, if someone is looking for widget services, they're still finding some sites offering widget sevices. What they're missing are the dozens of sites that offer widget services that might service their widgets better and/or at a lower cost. Used to be that all these sites would make the first three pages, but no longer.
Depends on the sector, I guess. In sectors where affiliate pages have tended to dominate the SERPs, the result has been less price competition, because individual vendors have been lost in a flood of boilerplate pages that have pointed mostly to a handful of merchants.
Google's mission isn't to be a price-comparison or shopping engine (except with Froogle), but with luck, more aggressive purging of boilerplate content will help buyers find a wider variety of sellers and prices.
It would be nice if Google would give a little input on all this. They might be surprised just how much MORE influence they could have on the entire makeup of the web by simply expanding their recommendations and guidelines for getting favorable results in SERPs.
I don't think this would actually help the serps themselves, as there are (IMO) far more people willing to take the easy route to SEO (i.e. doorway page generators, cloaking, etc.) in commercial sectors than there are willing to put the time in creating a unique, content rich destination.
That is not to say that plenty of unique, content rich sites can be difficult if not impossible to find via google in some sectors (at least temporarily), but google has already seen the kind of damage being "too" public with the makeup of their algo can do to the overall quality of the serps (i.e making public how pagerank worked), and the more in the dark they can keep webmasters, the more they can keep their algo from being reverse engineered.
In my own searches--some commercial, some noncommercial--I've found that Allegra's results are better than what came before.
In some cases, yes the results are better, but it depends what you are searching for. I have found detailed searches to be horrible. This is the main reason that I have used Google over Yahoo. For main searches, they provide similar qulity in my opinion, but when I want to look up an obscure fact, piece of source code, etc, I have used Google. Now, as a user, I am having a hard time finding anything relevant.
And for the near sighted, here is the PPC forum
[webmasterworld.com...]
Wouldn't it be even better if this could signal to the robots that the page or site was ready for a deeper crawl or deeper analysis. If the robots found them to be in contravention of (a) or (b) then they could be deleted from the index.
But then that's impossible isn't it?
No - wait a minute - what about, dare I say it, manual editing ...?
<-- it isn't reasonable to become angry with Google if attempts to manipulate its algorithm have unexpected and unwelcome result -->
with respect, a bit of a generalisation there.
don't forget that with google's latest *update* some of the webmasters affected probably wear a whiter hat than you! :)
if it is your opinion that ranking some (white hat) websites number x for its own domain name and showing sites that link to it above it is acceptable then that's your prerogative.
also, in my humble opinion having two sets of SERPS with up to a 50% difference in the results returned for any particluar query is not what i would call a reliable/stable SE.
i have stated my theories about what is going on with G at the moment (and surely, there has to still be something going on due to current data center activity) elsewhere so i wont state them again.
just my thoughts
good luck to all (including EFV :) )
dazz
<edit> clarified (i hope) </edit>
It would be nice if Google would give a little input on all this. They might be surprised just how much MORE influence they could have on the entire makeup of the web by simply expanding their recommendations and guidelines for getting favorable results in SERPs.
Google can't give recommendations for getting favorable results in SERPs, because there isn't room for everyone in the top 10 or 100 results for a competitive keyphrase.
IMHO, the current Google Webmaster guidelines (including the "quality guidelines") are clear and helpful enough. Google could boil the entire page down into one sentence: "Build it and make it crawlable, and they'll come."
