Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Are top 10 - 20 results in organic search a right or a privilege.
The reason I ask, is because for a long time, I felt it was a right. My site has tons of links, great optimization, good structure and content etc... And up till BD, I was #1 - #3 on ALL of my kw's in SERPS. And well deserved...
Now, everyday is a crapshoot, and I'm pretty tired of being reactionary to every minor control change to G.
I have a great site, converts well etc, so why should I care.
Now, the purpose of this rant:
Is G trying to tell us, especially since FL/Bourbon updates, that top positioning and natural traffic is a privilege they can take away at any time?
Seems to me the answer is yes. G is a publicly traded company now and natural search is for the user, and for G, the profits on the ppc on that page.
Thus, rotating natural to find the best permeations of clickable traffic would be a wise move.
Are we all trying to control something, that has far exceeded our control?
The argument also reveals a misunderstanding about how advertising works. If advertising worked best when surrounded by irrelevant, low-quality content, then savvy media buyers wouldn't pay a premium for quality targeted media.
This is quite wrong, and at odds with the point made. I'm not suggesting Google are sabotaging their own results to force people to advertise. Rather, perhaps we're seeing a gentle massage of top 10 results designed to work out the best combination of SERPs to increase revenue.
As speculative as this is if it were true then the only visible evidence would be fluctuating SERPs. And that's the point, why do things jump around as much as they do?
Also the idea that a high number of engineers would need to be aware of this is also false. It could, after all, be a single algorithm out of hundreds that handles this. They have a fairly complex setup to determine ad exposure for AdWords as it is, including different ads for keywords and spreading your budget across a whole day to get maximum exposure etc. This is definately not beyond them.
As for worrying about competitors overtaking them? I'm not sure this is realistic. What I'm suggesting is SERPs that are generally "good enough", but biased toward revenue generation. With shareholders to satisfy why would they miss the opportunity to make more money?
When she is ready to buy (usually a few days later as the MRS has a 4 day shopping cycle), she goes back to G types the same search but sees a slightly different set of results. She can't remember the site and now is surfing through G, up to 4 or 5 pages deep.
She may do that, but there's another way of looking at it. There are considerable benefits for google to deliberately vary the results shown for searches for the same keywords, even by the same person.
From the user's view, they don't see the same sites over and over again. And, after all, google is not a bookmarking service, but a search service.
From a fairness perspective, if you accept the fact that the serp algos are imperfect, and it's not possible to read the searcher's mind, it really does make sense to vary up the results to allow the user to easily see more options that might be closer to what they are looking for, and, it allows more websites to recieve exposure.
I'm actually quite in favor of fluxing search results. I think they are fairer to websites, and more useful to searchers.
Having the same site pop up as number one for a term over YEARS doesn't seem all that useful, given the rankings are imperfect.
...but that doesn't mean Google is skewing the results to promote advertising. It just means that Google profits from delivering what its readers are looking for.
But that delivery can also be accomplished via the text adverts. Even more so if the user is not quite sure what's an advert and what's an organic result. Despite there being little evidence to support this (it's not as if they'd confirm it) it is at least possible.
It's real simple.
Google is in the business of making money.
That's it.
Amen to that.
And a recent internal review found that Google had failed to invest enough resources in its bread-and-butter product: the search engine
Interview with Eric Schmidt LA Times - June 12 [latimes.com] May require registration after the 12th
It just means that Google profits from delivering what its readers are looking for.
Or not, as the case may be :)
Either way, Google wins, which for them, is what matters ;)
It's real simple.
Google is in the business of making money.
That's it.
You could say the same thing about THE NEW YORK TIMES, ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, or the makers of Taittinger Champagne. So what? That doesn't mean THE NEW YORK TIMES, BRITANNICA, or Taittinger are going to devalue their products or brands in the hope of achieving short-term gains.
Believe it or not, there are many businesses that understand the value of building an audience, a brand, and a reputation. There's no good reason to assume that Google isn't one of them.
IMO, G has made it clear that it is a privilege based on the simple notion that instability within results hinders a site's ability to secure an organic search slot. Meaning, the quality and content of my site does not create the search ranking, rather, G does.
That instability thus leads to a debate on the reason for the instability itself.
Once again, IMO, G is pushing people to Adwords because it's the "bread and butter" of their revenue matrix.
If my opinion (in conjunction with others on this board) is correct, there is no longer a need for DATACENTER WATCH JUNE 4 etc, because these search results will be in a constant state of flux that will guarantee G the most adword revenue possible, while still delivering relevant organic results.
The pre-IPO G was the antithesis.
It was about delivering results and complementing those results with adwords.
Hey, no harm no foul.
Just saying that if you make a living off of SEO, you may want to think about diversifying your revenue streams...
Once again, IMO, G is pushing people to Adwords because it's the "bread and butter" of their revenue matrix.If my opinion (in conjunction with others on this board) is correct, there is no longer a need for DATACENTER WATCH JUNE 4 etc, because these search results will be in a constant state of flux that will guarantee G the most adword revenue possible, while still delivering relevant organic results.
What gets me about most of these conversations about google is that they say almost nothing about google, but a whole lot about the people writing in the threads.
I think there is a scary amount of people, both here and in N.A., in general, who really WANT to believe in nefarious conspiracies, and trust nobody at all. I'm all in favor of scepticism, but the practice of taking a scrap of information, and weaving it into a major storybook about google, or anything, for that matter, is rather amazing.
Maybe it's because kids don't learn the difference between things like conclusions, facts, inferences, assumptions and so on, because there sure gets to be a lot of them mixed up.
I dunno about others, but what's worthwhile to me is INFORMATION, not speculation. I guess there just isn't a whole lot of information to be found so we get opinion passed off as the missing info.
Time to manufacture an anti-google foil hat.
I'm going to franchise it. Anyone want to be an affiliate for the product?
Having started this thread, the point of it was to establish whether a website's poistion in SERPS is a privilege or a right.
That's easy to answer: It's a privilege. (Don't take my word for it--read the federal judge's ruling about Google's First Amendment protection in the SearchKing v. Google case.)
Rbacal wrote:
Time to manufacture an anti-google foil hat.I'm going to franchise it. Anyone want to be an affiliate for the product?
Only if I can count on organic search listings for my datefeed foil-hat affiliate pages. :-)
I dunno about others, but what's worthwhile to me is INFORMATION, not speculation. I guess there just isn't a whole lot of information to be found so we get opinion passed off as the missing info.
Most people that post on this topic often use the caveat IMO (in my opinion), no one is stating fact, rather an sassumption on why thins are the way they are.
I don't think G is being tricky, rather making a decision on usability and stability vs revenue.
If constant tinkering with organic search results provides them with better adword revenue, would they come out and say it?
Probably not as the fear of losing market share to Yahoo and MSN would hurt the overall traffic and adword revenue.
So, if this is all in my mind, then they are simply perfecting search to a degree that I can not understand. Totally possible as my IQ is not that high.
But the last 6 months seems a little to unstable to me to pass off as a process toward a better search environment.
And once again, if this opinion is true, and it is only an OPINION, we could never know because they would be foolish to advertise it.
Thus, we're left with speculation.
But, at some point, if it walks and talks like a duck.......
****
But then, here's the problem. It seems wrong of Google (morally? philosophically?) to maintain that their principles are just the same now (post IPO) as they were then (i.e. pre-IPO).
If their principles are different, then they are being hypocritical at best; if they are not, then it seems Google search has become a beast no-one - least of all Google - can control.
And, BTW, what of the much vaunted appoitment of Adam as another webmaster liaision & communciation? What happened there? Would it be too cynical to conclude that this is another example of expedient but, dare I say it, deceitful PR?
Rod
If their principles are different, then they are being hypocritical at best; if they are not..
"If" is the most abused word on Webmaster World. "If" is like "Some say" on Fox News: It's a way to make malicious allegations without accepting responsibility or supplying evidence.
I'm all in favor of scepticism, but the practice of taking a scrap of information, and weaving it into a major storybook about google, or anything, for that matter, is rather amazing.Maybe it's because kids don't learn the difference between things like conclusions, facts, inferences, assumptions and so on, because there sure gets to be a lot of them mixed up.
The entire point of a discussion like this is generally speculation. Most people on this forum accept they are not in full possession of the facts, with much of the opinion expressed being an attempt to make sense of the very few facts or personal observations they do have.
One of the effects of this speculation is that people try to draw conclusions, no matter how tentative. That's why we're here.
One reasonable conclusion could be that a publicly traded company, existing in a capitalist economy, will explore ways to increase revenue. The thinking on the forum about the observations made may be flawed, but the principle behind it is sound.
If your point is we can't know absolutely whether we are correct, therefore we should stop expressing opinions, then you're in the wrong place. Naturally if you have absolute evidence to refute the emerging points made on threads then spit it out, don't hide behind other people at least trying to make sense of it all (no matter how flawed).
As for your own opinion that this is a result of poor education, why, that's pure speculation.
Having started this thread, the point of it was to establish whether a website's position in SERPS is a privilege or a right.
I don’t think its either one, Google just is, its nothing personal. I know what it’s like when you have a site that’s been around 7 years, squeaky clean, authoritative and you wake up one day and find it sitting in position 650. The natural reaction is to feel like you got screwed and your “rights” have been violated, or a “privilege” has been taken away. Neither has happened, something just changed.
I look at it like when all people had available to move their goods to market was the wind. Some days its blowing your way and other times it aint, some days it’s blowing so hard you almost sink, and other days it doesn’t blow at all so you sit there and drift. At the end of the day though, it’s pushing my boat generally where I want to get to, and there not charging me to do it so it’s tough to #*$! when I don’t like the direction.
If you’re making money from organic Search in Google, you’re just along for the ride.
Some days its blowing your way
A skilled sailor can reach the desired destination no matter which direction the wind is blowing. It's called tacking, and you do it by sailing at an angle to the wind for a while, then changing the sails to proceed at a different angle.
It takes skill and patience, but the right zigzags can take you to your goal even if the wind is never in your favor.
However, there will always be changes you can’t anticipate; it’s just a function of how often you guess right.
85% of the top 10 results were either adwords or adsense sites.
15% were either news articles or .edu or .org
Make your own conclusions.....
IMO, I don't think that having adwords gives you any better chance than not. Just a good honest site, with no hidden tricks ... and no vast supply of linking buddies. Oh yeah, and a bucket load of patience ... it has always taken time to get to the top.
All the Best
Co :-)
Like I said, those are averages.
