Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
With systems and methods described herein, mechanisms are provided to generate or simulate links with artificial named anchors and to allow the browser to recognize the artificial named anchor and navigate directly to the desired specific part of the target webpage even when the author of the webpage has not created a named anchor at the specific part of the webpage.US Patent Application [appft.uspto.gov]
My first thought was "there goes my carefully designed 'above the fold' part of the page. But I can see how this would be extremely useful for the end user sent to a long page, or especially one of those monster PDF files.
< Thanks to Bill Slawski at SEO by the Sea [seobythesea.com] >
I think the upside potential far exceeds the downside (which is thus far knee-jerk reaction and nothing that a developer can't handle).
You're right of course. I'm obviously not a qualified developer so my posts are just narrow-minded, short-sighted, knee-jerks and there's not a speck of validity to any of them.
Even though 'opting out' shouldn't be too difficult by forcing the user to the top of the page, I would expect consequences for doing so.
Maybe you can help us with development...
Could you please tell us the 'not too difficult' way to do this?
(I'm referring to the 'not too difficult' opting out by landing the visitor at the top of the page.)
I'd really like to use a server-side script so bots can be excluded and it will work across all browsers with or without JavaScript enabled. Plus, I would like it to be basically undetectable, except by a hand review.
I also do not want the visitor to see anything different than a bot gets, including the source code, because I do not want to cloak anything. I just want to keep visitors landing at the top of the page when they initially visit...
If they return via another link (or have already visited) I would like them to go directly to whatever anchor they clicked, named or otherwise. The solution needs to work with or without cookies too please.
I guess the short version is I basically just want visitors to land at the top of the page the first time they visit from an external source so they can see the logo of the site they are visiting and I don't have to go and redesign everything to accommodate one search engine... I'm only asking to be able to brand the site once when a visitor initially lands on a page. Am I asking too much?
I look forward to your response, thanks!
This thread has seen a bit of hot and quick action, including 'Highlighted Post' listing; not by chance.
~ ~ ~ RE: Second quote:
Given the parameters of the follow-up comments and questions, I think it best for the integrity of a very interesting thread (which raises many different questions for different people, for varying reasons) that I remove myself from any further participation.
There will be future threads on the subject, and perhaps I will be able to participate more positively and helpfully at that time.
In fact my point of opposition was made by PageOneResults a few posts ago, because the responses webmasters have to the situation are limited and they generally include adding annoyances to the Internet on a large scale...
PageOneResults (Emphasis Mine)
I see a lot of potential for highly targeted inline advertising, and branding for that matter. I can create favicons, floating logos, etc.
I've stated my opposition to what Google is doing very clearly, and it's not a knee-jerk because there are not many options that don't just plain add annoyances and inconveniences to most websites when you're talking about the ability to brand and advertise on a website where the visitor could land anywhere on the page.
I think someone with PageOneResults skill can probably implement what they stated gracefully, elegantly and, for the most part, unobtrusively, but IMO most webmasters don't have the skill set to do it from scratch as a custom solution for their specific site, which means they'll settle for a pre-made copy, paste, implement solution that's less than 'great' for the visitors to their sites, because they need to display ads and branding (logos) and we're probably all going to have to deal with those less than ideal implementations for years into the future, because of what Google wants to do by algorithmically determining where visitors land on our websites.
You stated it was not a problem for a developer to overcome, but it really is, because when people who are in an elite class of webmasters start talking about the potential to 'float logos' (or float anything) to brand their site and it's one of the only easily accessible options to those less skilled, the end result of this 'great idea' IMO does not make most sites (or the web in general) a better place for the visitors.
IMO What it does is makes sites and the Internet overall more annoying, because most webmasters have very limited options in how they brand their sites and display their advertising when their visitors can land on any part of the page, and the masses of webmasters do not have the skill, resources or knowledge to make the implementation as smoothly and gracefully as some of the elite do.
I hope you don't drop out of the thread, but either way I do hope you see the point some of us were (and are) trying to make as more than just a knee-jerk reaction to a situation, because some of us are fairly skilled at development ourselves and have put quite a bit of thought into how to 'work with' the idea of people landing anywhere on the page and in doing so realize there are very limited options, most of which, except landing the visitor at the top of the page could (and would) be absolutely annoying to visitors if not implemented perfectly, and unfortunately, like I keep saying, IMO most webmasters do not have the skill and/or ability to get it right, and if they do have the preceding might not have the desire, time, resource or any number of other things that are necessary to not make the site less than ideal for the visitors.
This idea from Google has most likely, IMO, basically added countless variations of pop-ups and floating ads, logos, 'whatevers' to the Internet and rather than being a 'great improvement' will be the single largest 'noise, annoyance and distraction' adding idea since the pop-up was invented...
I apologize for the emotion, but I'm just plain heated over the idea, not because it hurts my sites a bit, but because IMO it will hurt my (and everyone's) surfing experience for years into the future, because there's nothing much more annoying than pop-ups, except for maybe a jittery, gaudy ad or logo that follows me down the page and can't be done away with by the click of a mouse, and unfortunately, pop-ups and floating ads, which are the two most annoying solutions, also happen to be the simplest, most accessible and easiest to implement.
Like I keep saying: Sounds like a good idea until you really think it through to it's most likely conclusion, which IMO is more pop-ups and floating garbage on an extremely large scale for every single one of us to deal with.
This idea from Google has most likely, IMO, basically added countless variations of pop-ups and floating ads, logos, 'whatevers' to the Internet and rather than being a 'great improvement' will be the single largest 'noise, annoyance and distraction' adding idea since the pop-up was invented.
Did you know that this feature is already in place?
Mini Sitelinks on Google - 4 horizontal links below snippet
2009-03-05 - [webmasterworld.com...]
Page Fragment Navigation in Mini Sitelinks - and Snippets!
2009-08-23 - [webmasterworld.com...]
You keep stating my skill level. I'm apt to believe your skill level is equal to if not greater than mine. I build websites in Expression Web aka FrontPage, surely you don't want to tell people that someone using FrontPage has more skill than you do? ;)
As mentioned in previous replies, you have the ability to opt out of this. Just force the user back to the top of the page. That might backfire on you as the snippet they read and clicked on may not match the area on the page they've landed on.
I really don't see where the difficulty is in serving inline targeted ads like this? In fact, there isn't any. Webmasters will adapt to the ever changing Google algo. If your livelihood depends on advertising, YOU WILL adapt, if you don't, YOU WILL die with all the others. It's a simple progression that happens with all technology.
If I were an advertiser who relied solely on Google for income, I'd be reworking all my templates to take advantage of sectioning and making sure that I have proper semantic markup so that Google doesn't have to guess and/or make up an artificial anchor for me. Then I'd figure out a way to take full advantage of this new feature if and when it becomes a mainstay of the SERPs. Remember, we're talking about a Patent right now. Even though Google is already exhibiting signs of utilizing these concepts, that doesn't mean they will apply to everyone across the board. I know there will be plenty of sites where Google will have a tough time creating these artificial anchors. Those who design for it, will of course reap the benefits. Those who don't - won't.
IMO What it does is makes sites and the Internet overall more annoying, because most webmasters have very limited options in how they brand their sites and display their advertising when their visitors can land on any part of the page, and the masses of webmasters do not have the skill, resources or knowledge to make the implementation as smoothly and gracefully as some of the elite do.
No. What it does it make the Internet a little more palatable. If Google can put me at an area of a page that is more specific to my query, I'm all for it. And, I appreciate not having to scroll past all the MFA crap or whatever other advertising is above the fold and in my face distracting from what I'm there for.
And unfortunately, like I keep saying, IMO most webmasters do not have the skill and/or ability to get it right, and if they do have the preceding might not have the desire, time, resource or any number of other things that are necessary to not make the site less than ideal for the visitors.
You know what, that will be their loss. I firmly believe that the Professional Webmasters will adapt. There is nothing highly skillful in placing advertisements inline. Also, I'm sure there will be a plethora of plugins available that will do it for you. Heck, Google will probably provide us with the proper JS to make this happen. I don't know about you but I'd surely like my visitors to land on a specific section that may have advertisements which are extremely targeted to their query.
Did you know that this feature is already in place?Mini Sitelinks on Google - 4 horizontal links below snippet
2009-03-05 - [webmasterworld.com...]Page Fragment Navigation in Mini Sitelinks - and Snippets!
2009-08-23 - [webmasterworld.com...]Well, they are not exactly in place because mini site links takes you to the top of the different page.
And the anchors to snippets "page fragmentation" used in SERPs are the ones that the webmaster themselves put on the page. Webmaster can take these anchors off if they do not want Google to show them in SERPs.
Here we are talking about Google deciding where the artificial anchor will be. And until you see it in SERPs for your page, you will have no idea that it even exists.
Thanks for the observation, aakk9999. This is an even newer development - a page fragment link inline, right at the beginning of the snippet instead of in a row of mini-sitelinks. It looks like this:Clickable Title Text Is Here
Jump to: [Page fragment link] Main article: [General snippet continues here...]
I feel it is all related. First we have Google referencing Fragment IDs in the SERPs although protocol states that anything after that # character should be dereferenced by user-agents. That is not the case anymore. And I'm kind of happy they've done it. I've always thought the naming conventions in Fragment IDs were of fractional value. I'm now convinced of that.
I'm going to go back to the whole sectioning thing. If you look at many documents these days, they are pretty hefty from a content perspective. I know as a daily user of the SEs that I'm using the Find function much more frequently to see where the query I searched for appears in that document. Few sites these days DO NOT invoke a scrollbar, at least not at my resolution of 1366x768. Most scrollbars are short in height and you know what that means, a long document. There is nothing wrong with long documents if they are structured properly.
Which takes us back to sections, headings, lists, etc. Did you know there are 101 Elements in HTML5? Not to mention the plethora of Attributes that can be utilized on those Elements. Yes, things have become a little more refined in regards to page structure. Want to help Google create those so called Artificial Anchors? I think document structure will play a major role, just as it has done for many years. Only now, it becomes a little more important than before.
There's a whole group of Webmasters that are going to have twice the amount of work to do once they finally realize what has been going on. I've got quite a bit of catching up myself, especially when it comes to metadata like Microformats and RDFa.
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="link-reference" />^ One of the best <head> elements ever!
Here we are talking about Google deciding where the artificial anchor will be.
Yes we are. I feel we have quite a bit of control over that. It only becomes artificial when you don't exercise that control and Google have to guess. ;)
You keep stating my skill level.
Well, people keep requesting your input and if you apply even half of the knowledge you have re HTML etc, you must have quite a bit of skill to go along with it.
I really don't see where the difficulty is in serving inline targeted ads like this?
It's not difficult from a technical 'can I make the ads show there' standpoint. The difficulty is in not turning the sites into ad-laden garbage, floating anything, or using a CSS version of a pop-up. I have difficulty doing it because, unlike many, I don't build MFA sites, or use Google Ads in anyway. I'm having an extremely difficult time doing it for the reasons I stated previously, which have nothing to do with skill and everything to do with the sites, the ads being displayed and the agreements in place.
Honestly, at least one and probably 3 are going to have to be completely redesigned, and IMO not for the better.
If I were an advertiser who relied solely on Google for income
You'd be silly.
I appreciate not having to scroll past all the MFA crap or whatever other advertising is above the fold and in my face distracting from what I'm there for.
Yeah, it's a nice 'we can't get the results right, so let's throw Internet protocol out and do something else' workaround for them. Too bad they can't just get the right sites in the results instead.
There is nothing highly skillful in placing advertisements inline. Also, I'm sure there will be a plethora of plugins available that will do it for you.
My point exactly: Now you can get away from the MFA garbage by scrolling the page. Soon you will be stuck with the advertising in front of you the whole stinking time you visit, because you're right... It's completely easy to stick some adsense (or other advertising) inline on the page. Who does it benefit? Google and the Webmaster, Not the Visitor.
Do you really not see that part of the drawback I keep pointing out?
You (the visitor) can get away from the ads now by simply scrolling the page. Shortly, you will not be able to scroll past the MFA garbage because it's altogether too easy to insert ads inline throughout the page or chase you down the page with a floating block of ish. If you don't see my point right now, wait until the day you're sitting there thinking: 'I used to be able to scroll past all this s***' and you'll understand my opposition to this so called great idea.
Landing people anywhere on the page makes it so site owners have to make it so visitors cannot get away from the ads. I have to do it! I absolutely have to find a way to keep the advertising displaying no matter where you land and it's not a benefit for my visitors to do so, but as a site owner I have to, which in addition to my previous statements about why I can't just insert the advertising (on the preceding page of this thread) is why I'm struggling with the implementation so much, because every time I look at the sites as a visitor I think: That's just plain annoying if I want to look at more than one section, but a person could land anywhere, so I have to show the ads everywhere...
This idea doesn't make MFA sites less annoying or remove them from the results altogether... It Does the Opposite! It forces them to show you the ads more often. It doesn't solve the 'why are you landing on the MFA sites in the first place question' it forces them to show you more of what you're trying to get away from.
You think MFA is bad now? Just wait...
As an end user, the place that I might welcome this functionality is on blog pages with a ton of comments. That's the main time that I currently need to use "find in page".
I think it best for the integrity of a very interesting thread (which raises many different questions for different people, for varying reasons) that I remove myself from any further participation.
Once, a long time ago, right here in this very forum, under a different user-name I made some fairly direct comments about a Google system. It was while the Reps were still posting...
I completely dogged on the system, while apologizing for the bluntness of what I had to say. The Rep replied with something to the effect of: You'd be surprised how forward we are with our opinions here at Google, and we think it's one of the things that makes us great...
I have to agree, and even if we don't agree on a point or 'have it out a bit', sometimes a good heated opinionated discussion gives way to new insight or ideas about a situation... I really hope you don't drop out of the thread, and I want to make sure people understand my opposition to this system isn't because what I (and others) will have to implement is too difficult, part of my opposition is absolutely the opposite. It's because it's too easy to add pop-ups and floating garbage to a page and when the visitor can land anywhere the display of the ads on the sites must change from the top to throughout the page for the ads to remain visible and maintain their click-thru rate.
What the preceding means is IMO the site you see today with the really long page and think, 'WOW, it would be great to land right here past all the ads and garbage... What a great idea Google', will not look the same way after this implementation. IMO It will either be full of ads or things that float and chase you down the page out of necessity for displaying ads and logos to visitors, again to maintain the 'click-thru' or conversion rate.
I think the 'skill' I kept pointing out of PageOneResults and those referenced comes into play during the implementation and while some may be able to implement inline ads and floating logos without being too annoying there are many more who either cannot or do not care to, because all they're after is your click, not your repeat visit.
IMO There's a huge difference in implementation and presentation between those who are 'skilled at building traffic' and those who are 'skilled at MFA' and own 50, 100, 1000 sites. One set will make the implementation skillfully and gracefully, but the other set isn't going to care how the implementation effects your return visit as long as they get the click, which means the quickest, easiest, most down-and-dirty method that maintains their click-thru rate is probably the safest bet for what they'll implement and that's not only unfortunate, IMO it's to the detriment of all of us who not only own websites, but like to visits sites ourselves.
My objection to the system is only partially as a site owner... and as a site owner + operator it's more because I will have to 'over-display' ads to my visitors unless I force them to the top of the page on an initial visit than for any other reason.
I will most likely have to display things in places visitors should not have to see them, because I don't know where they're going to land, but even with the preceding in mind, the bigger objection I have is as a visitor, because IMO the landscape of the Internet is going to change because of this and the site you visited yesterday with ads and logos at the top and all the text you were looking for just a scroll or two away will eventually be changed to display ads you cannot get away from all the way down the page, and personally, that's not really what I want to see as a visitor...
Monetized sites must maintain conversions and the owners really can't think, 'Oh, well these visitors were from Google, so I don't need to show them ads or try and convert them any more, because they found what they needed.' They have to try harder and make sure the visitors see the ads or branding, not just the text on the page.
So, do you think google will waive their own indictment on cloaking? Surely the proposed technique can be seen as cloaking by skipping over certain parts of a page, even though the skipped text is visible. After all, the text can be viewed rather simply in some crude forms of SE cloaking. :)
That's like asking if they're going to remove their 'no automated requests' policy, because all GBot does all day is make automated requests...
And, I don't know if they do it on purpose or not, but sometimes it seems like they have a, 'We should all work together... Let us run our site however we like and we'll let you run your site however we like.', philosophy...
Finally, one of the funniest things about G is I have a site that really serves GBot (and all major SE bots) a 410 Gone with 'noindex,nofollow,noarchive' on it and they insist on including the URL for the site in the index, but there's posts here frequently from people who just plain can't find their URL in the index, and it just makes me laugh a bit to think it's almost like they've decided: Your site will be included in the index unless we decide to ban, penalize or otherwise remove your site from the index, and don't even try to make us do otherwise.
[edited by: TheMadScientist at 12:03 am (utc) on Nov. 30, 2009]
And a lot more pagination of articles/content?
This technology is not going to spring fully executed into every visitor's browser over night. It is a provocative patent, yes, but it cannot surprise us - we'll have time to deal with it.
It appears that this possible change is not in the interest of all ... or I should say, in the commercial interest of all.
But as a user experience it appears sound. Doesn´t it? Google or whatever SE, wonts its users to have the best possible search experience, and this surely includes taking the visitor to the relevant content inside a document.
I would have thought that in many cases that visitor, will choose to read the whole page. So the site owner will possible need more visitors to get the same ad impacts.
Will this inside a page section traffic increase? Well, I guess it will for those inside page sections that the SE´s gods decide are the most relevant.
How is analytics or any other tracking software going to be able to provide me data on which page sections are driving traffic to my site?
But as a user experience it appears sound. Doesn´t it?
At the start, but then...
See all my posts to see my arguments against the idea and if you don't understand them right away, similar to what I said before, wait until you're sitting there thinking 'I used to be able to scroll past all this garbage, and where did all these floating logos come from?' and you'll understand why it might seem like a good idea now, but once webmasters make the adjustments necessary to maintain their conversion rates IMO it won't be so much fun. Because...
If (when) this happens and your conversions drop what are you going to do?
1.) Write the visits off as 'Google visitors that can't be converted'.
2.) Find a new way to show the ads you need to show to everyone.
As a site owner:
Like I keep saying you (the visitor) aren't going to get away from seeing the ads or the logos. You're (the visitor) are going to see more of them... They're not going away.
And, change the color of the body text to #333333 so my big text stands out even more. Then people might see my point a little more clearly than they can even now.
(On my sites you'll see the ads more often for sure, because I'm not going to lose conversions for myself or a client because Google decided to land visitors where ever they feel like on my page. I'm going to show you the ads waaaaaaaaay more often than I do now, which is way more often than I really have to, need to, or want to, but I'm going to have to, because of Google. I'll try my best to not be annoying, but I've got to do it. It's business.)
I can definitely see floating logos, headers and banners following readers down the page if Google introduces dynamic anchors, but the permafold will be a natural progression from header-consistency from the front page to all internal pages.
I can definitely see floating logos, headers and banners following readers down the page if Google introduces dynamic anchors...
And we'll have to agree to disagree that it's at all like insisting visitors land on the home page, because the inner pages can present the branding and other necessities for a site to operate and maintain it's profitability, but IMO landing people anywhere on a page changes what the reaction to the situation has to (will) be by a majority of site owners.
A logo and the necessary ads, etc. can all be presented at the top of individual pages, but they cannot be repeated throughout the page so each visitor sees them without adding annoyances to the web page... Landing a visitor on an inner page does not mean a logo or ad block has to float (or be fixed) to be seen by all visitors. Landing them anywhere on that page generally does.
IMO It's a completely different situation.
<added>
I wish someone could come up with a most likely end-result that's not what I keep saying it's going to be, because if you haven't read the entire thread, I think this could be a really cool idea, except for the most likely reaction of most site operators to the situation, which IMO will be to clutter up their pages and add annoyances to them, which defeats the purpose of the system.
It might not be the stated purpose, but it seems the system is supposed to make surfing the web more convenient, and except for the adjustments that are most likely to be made does this. Unfortunately, the most likely adjustments totally reverse the situation and make web pages much more annoying than they are with the ads and logos mainly at the top of the page.
</added>
[edited by: TheMadScientist at 5:28 pm (utc) on Nov. 30, 2009]
sites get my attention when they fulfill my expectations. When I am looking for some specific information, that means giving me that information in the fastest most digestible manner possible. Sites that make to much of an effort for me to see its ads and logos, well there content has to be really compelling for me to bookmark them.
I am with P1R in the idea that these segmented portions of a pages content provide the opportunity for more specifically targeted ads.
Also I agree that its better to try to help the SE get it right, which is what most of SEO is for me anyway .. but hey thats another thread right? :)
'I used to be able to scroll past all this garbage, and where did all these floating logos come from?'
I think maybe there resides part of the problem. If your branding(logo) and ads are considered crap buy your visitors ....
I dont actually think that is the case in your sites (its a hunch based on your posting quality). Bit if there are crap, well, I guess that is a real problem.
From the perspective of a site owner, this could be absolutely cool, because I can target you so hard it's not even funny. Unfortunately, when you flip the situation and think about it from a visitor perspective it's not better for you (the visitor).
You are saying it's going to be easy to display highly targeted ads as a site owner which means as a visitor you can't get away from them!
P1R is talking about the ads and the ability to show them as a site owner flip that around and think about being the visitor. Now you can scroll past the ads and the logo. Soon you won't be able to get away from either.
If you stop thinking as the site owner and start thinking as a visitor a bit more and you might think, hmmmmmm, it's going to be much easier for sites to target me, where now they basically have to show the ads at the top and generally, because they don't know what part of the page I'm going to look at except the top...
Is it better for me the visitor to have this type of micro-targeting, or for the pages I visit to have one spot they'll know I'm going to visit, and I can just scroll past that part and get to what I was looking for if I'm not interested?
##### ### #####
Honestly, today is the first time I've thought about MFA, but everyone's right it's simple to target with this system in place and if I used some AJAX with it then I can target you harder than most people here can even imagine...
Gotta run. I'm gonna register some new domains...
No Joke. Those who keep arguing with me are right. This is better for the visitors, webmasters and Google. It's a win-win-win.
I stand corrected.
Just for the record, I'm not going MFA, but it sure is tempting sometimes because I could regurgitate content and make it look unique faster than most people can imagine if I felt the urge. :)
<body onload="document.location.replace('#')">
I'm not sure this exact code would work, but you get the idea.
Kaled.
..............................
What is a bad user expedrience are highly blended, little relevant ads...
Has it been in place before or is this new?
