Who Believes There is Still "No Link" Betweeen G Depts?

[internetheaven]

This last Panda update has pushed the company websites I managed down in the SERPS ... again ... whilst the spam sites I created for each have shot up ... again ...

Not long after Google went public, I noticed that in periods of "drought" the SERP changes seemed to switch. I therefore built spam site versions of each of my company site and placed Adsense all over them. Now, when Google pushes all my company websites down in the SERPs so that I have to buy Adwords Ads, that extra ad revenue spend is subsidized by the Adsense revenue from all my spam sites that shoot to the top.

I'm not the only one. But I just wondered if there are enough people seeing this now to spark a proper investigation in to Google's practices? Their "innovative changes" surely only increase their bottom line, not their SERP quality?

Have you ever heard anyone say "Oh, my. Google results have gotten better recently. Not nearly as many ads as there used to be and plenty of relevant results!"

... no, me neither ...

[tedster]

I still believe - honestly, I do. Google certainly wouldn't want what you've done to become a widespread practice. At the same time, I can certainly understand why you did it.

[internetheaven]

Google certainly wouldn't want what you've done to become a widespread practice.

Why not?

They currently have the monopoly so don't need to change this bottom-line increasing tactic for at least another 5%-10% lost share in the search market. Flip-flopping constantly between boosting Adsense sites and dropping companies for more ad revenue is quite a decent plan, as they can blame it on the webmasters themselves for breaking "secret rules" only Google knows about (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

They've certainly recovered their share price well after that massive drop. I don't think it was because Panda was brilliant for organic search ... do you? Since Panda, all I have seen over my 100+ websites and the hundreds more I work with is increased Google Ad spend and increase in spam/MFA rankings.

The best cover for all this, is Google has is Wikipedia. If Google didn't have Wikipedia in it's results, I think a lot of people would be trying Bing. Wikipedia is often the ONLY relevant non-advert, non-spam result.

[netmeg]

Since Panda, all I have seen over my 100+ websites and the hundreds more I work with is increased Google Ad spend and increase in spam/MFA rankings.

Yea, but that's not what I see, over 250+ sites (my own and for clients) I mean, sure I have seen some, but not ALL. Not even most. Your experience isn't everyone's (neither is mine)

(FWIW I pretty much agree with tedster)

[herculano]

I have this at the back of my mind for a while, two of my sites are like this.. combined i have been spending about $3.5k to $5k for these 2 sites and these two are not ranking via the serps.. it used to though... however I still think it's probably a coincidence for me... or maybe not?

i have started.. testing slightly similar site.. the one I use for adwords is not indexable by the search engines.

slightly more work but....

[BillyS]

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This week we're going to start a redesign of our site, that will include pulling the plug on both Google+1 as well as Analytics. It's bad enough Google's ads slow down the site, I'm sick of losing a second to what are really useless addons. I don't need Analytics and I suspect Google +1 will eventually go the way of knol.

I find the above in my Adsense account amusing. We lost 20% of our traffic to Panda and they want me to replace an ad unit with a larger one.

I think they are clueless between departments.

[Scurramunga]

We lost 20% of our traffic to Panda and they want me to replace an ad unit with a larger one.

I have lost over 50% of my traffic, nearly all of my revenue and they want me to increase my ads and my ad block sizes. [Who are these people?]

[Whitey]

It's the bottom line that connects. Financial targets.

All purpose in a business is driven by this. So if departments talk, or don't talk there has to be a connect in policy and strategic direction that drives that bottom line.

The only avenues to do this are :

- Raise traffic to G
- Raise yield to G by various tactics. We all know what those are.
- Retain recurring revenues for the sake of G's sustainability.

If you tie your fortunes on the back of G, you may find you have no saddle to ride on one day, even if the great beast you ride, keeps telling you things you want to hear. It is still a wild beast tamed by no-one.

[jsherloc]

I would guess for just about every ONE established, aged, trusted, "previously-reliable" authority website loved by thousands before some random Panda iteration date, there are now thousands of "micro" sites designed and optimized every different way possible, all covering the same material that was previously relegated to ONE website, displaying similar content in every different way possible (images, text, charts, videos, inforgraphics, document downloads, combinations of these, etc) from the original Panda-hit site, all vying for organic search attention, all put on the Internet by the owner/company behind the Pandalyzed site.

"Diversify or die" is the mantra and always has been, but what people don't realize is that this means something different for A LOT OF PEOPLE, it just means "more websites built different ways targeting the same groups of people", all pulling in organic traffic.

These people are not necessarily with any other realistic/practical options of offline or online traffic generation...they just aren't in MANY cases. Is that a horrible business model to be in? IMO, yes, yes it is. That doesn't change the effects of this business model on the Google SERPs and people like us that desire some clarification every now and then. Wasn't that Google's number one feedback request from one of their surveys recently too...better clarification etc?

Creating massive paranoia in the publisher community pollutes the web with publishers trying to diversify every which way, at least that is what I am seeing in the results, it is what others report seeing in the real world and online, and it is certainly what the "major players" are reporting doing on all the popular webmaster/internet marketing forums. Lots of case studies, etc...

I'd like to be optimistic...I REALLY would...but I don't believe "chaos" is always the best route to take over "clarification" in the business world.

[ken_b]

Linked? I dunno.

Do they talk to each other? I think that at least some do.

The last time I talked to someone on the AdSense Optimization Team, last fall, they went on with the usual, more bigger, ATF routine.

I asked if that might hurt my site in any way.

The answer was that it wouldn't hurt from an AdSense POV, but it might cause problems with the WebSpam Team.

So it seems that somehow at least some AdSenes staff are either talking to the spam team, or getting the message some other way.
.

[tedster]

It's the bottom line that connects. Financial targets.

As far as I know, the organic search team employs only user satisfaction KPIs, not financial ones. That was the main reason that Matt Cutts first started posting in webmaster forums.

He knew that there was no Adwords influence - and he understood how long-term-deadly such an influence would be, so he wanted to counter that impression. He wanted to counter it mostly to help webmasters think more clearly about organic search, not just for the purposes of "spin".

I've worked with a lot of companies who do both organic SEO and Adwords. Nothing I've seen in those stats has been suspicious.

[CainIV]

The two departments would not need to be connected in order for Google ad layouts in the SERPs to increasingly take a higher percentage of competitive real estate. The one team would be perfectly able to do that on its own.

[Whitey]

The one team would be perfectly able to do that on its own.

And the other teams to interpret it for their organisational purposes .... leading to the big desk at the top of the building [ so to speak ].

[randle]

Who Believes There is Still "No Link" Betweeen G Depts?

Me, I dont believe, or see, any evidence of a consistant effort of the Adwords, Adsense and Organic programs (the only ones anyone cares about) working in concert to achieve a bottom line increase for Google.

I certainly wouldn't put it past them, their capable of it technologically and I certainly dont think its some sort of ethical thing; its just good business for them not to muddle the organic results with financial factors that would be very hard to inject algorithmically. The risk of really upsetting the apple cart is to great.

I will say there is a rather incestuous relationship Google has created between their organic results and their Adsense program. They tend to talk a little out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to this dynamic; they profit from aggressive seo (which they claim they look down on) aimed at increasing Adsense clicks.

I dont believe the organic and the Adsense departments have any departmental "link" between them, but one puts an awful lot of pressure on the other.

[internetheaven]

That was the main reason that Matt Cutts first started posting in webmaster forums.

And now he doesn't. He became the puppet talking from the ivory tower telling us scare stories and magic tales about the secret sauce with the ... well you get the idea with that ...

Creating massive paranoia in the publisher community pollutes the web with publishers trying to diversify every which way

Ah, yes! That's what I meant. Thanks. By spouting scare stories about penalties and these frequent updates, Google keeps the spam and SEO adjustments coming so that they can say we only have ourselves to blame. The difference between Panda and previous updates is that big companies without a big Google spend are the ones being hit. Google used to hit big companies with penalties, even the ones with big adwords accounts.

The reason I'm so suspicious is because Google've stopped this. They're no longer attracting the attention and wrath of large companies with lawyers. The only time I don't want to annoy lawyers is when I'm actually hiding something they might find. ;)

there is a rather incestuous relationship

Bit strong for my taste, but I agree with the point.

Organic: "We will penalise sites that have too much ad space above the fold."

Adsense: "Why don't you try more and bigger ads?"

[tedster]

This thread, unfortunately, has become JACT (Just Another Conspiracy Thread) - the kind we've been seeing for years and years.

The opening question has been answered. There's nothing actionable here that helps anyone with Google SEO - and that's the purpose of this forum. I'm locking the thread.