Matt Cutts on Good Guys Not Spamming Do Stand a Chance

[engine]

Google's Matt Cutts talks about good guys not spamming and they will stand a chance in the SERPs.
He talks about google getting better at fighting spam, so that should open up the playing field for the good guys. Well,, that's my take on it.

[EditorialGuy]

Matt could barely keep a straight face when he responded to the questioner. It's hard to blame him: The question made me think of Flip Wilson's catchphrase in the early '70s, "The Devil made me do it."

[aristotle]

Matt could barely keep a straight face when he responded to the questioner. It's hard to blame him: The question made me think of Flip Wilson's catchphrase in the early '70s, "The Devil made me do it."

I have no idea what any of that means.

As for Cutts, does anyone really think he's going to do anything except sing Google's praises?

[EditorialGuy]

I have no idea what any of that means.

You could Google it, but the context should be clear enough.

As for Cutts, does anyone really think he's going to do anything except sing Google's praises?

He wasn't singing Google's praises; he was answering a question more politely than I would have done. (He could just as easily have said "When you hire a guy to do the crime, you're the one who does the time.")

[nomis5]

As for Cutts, does anyone really think he's going to do anything except sing Google's praises?

Agreed but so many think that his comments are useful, believable, appropriate for them - the guy is simply a stooge for G. Believe a word he says and the consequences are entirely of your own making. He is entirely Google-centred, which is not suprising, he is employed and paid by G. Never forget that.

[bluntforce]

I felt that video was a bit contrived with the laughter about how the site owner was a "bad guy" and all the "good guy" site owners would agree he's bad.

[support.google.com ] has Matt Cutts saying if an SEO shoots you in the foot you should do a reconsideration request.

Mixed messages? Doublespeak? Manipulation? I see an awful lot of posts on this forum where people are in fear of doing the wrong thing in Google's eyes. Most of what they are doing might not fall in best practices, but it's not really anything major.
I seriously wish Google would stop the "fear" campaign because it has no impact on those who intentionally work outside the guidelines, it just makes small operators nervous.

I've pretty much chosen to not take anything Google says very seriously, but to rely more on observed realities.

[tigger]

Agreed but so many think that his comments are useful, believable, appropriate for them - the guy is simply a stooge for G. Believe a word he says and the consequences are entirely of your own making. He is entirely Google-centred, which is not suprising, he is employed and paid by G. Never forget that.

exactly, I think all links to Cutts videos should have that warning under it

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I can't watch him any more. He makes me have dark thoughts.

[ColourOfSpring]

What worries me is how the "new normal" among a number of SEO forums I frequent is the complete and utter acquiescence to whatever Google / Matt Cutts states. The "bad guy" description is becoming ridiculously widened to include all kinds of stuff, and the "good guy" description is becoming more and more narrowly defined.

Also the idea that you are responsible for links pointing to your site was never going to be fair to smaller sites. I could so easily churn out spammy links 24/7 to point to a list of domains on a scheduled script. My only work would involve adding more and more victim sites to my list. I don't even call this "negative SEO" - it's just SEO, and it's done automatically and even without cost. The "I don't care who built the link" stance works both ways.

[carlos the jackal]

I can't watch him any more. He makes me have dark thoughts.

lol I concur.

[scooterdude]

Did I hear him say this is "May 2013" ?

I have to say its all consistent with what any search engine has to say, and strive for. I've no issues with this video

[Bluejeans]

If there were more concern about returning relevant results and less about punishing "bad guys" the SERPS wouldn't be as dismal as they are. The collateral damage from the anti-spam crusade has left the SERPs like going to the mall. All the big brands, no surprises. Thanks. Now I rack my brain to remember the sites I used to like a few years ago before they got whacked. The more they try to "fix" the search experience, the more they wreck it.

[ColourOfSpring]

The collateral damage from the anti-spam crusade has left the SERPs like going to the mall. All the big brands, no surprises. Thanks.

That's my experience for most commercial searches - it's a facsimilie of a UK high street, with a few eBay and Amazon results tossed in. Can someone make a compelling argument that these kinds of results are something Google is offering that other search engines can't? It used to be that Google's breadth and depth was their advantage. That's no longer the case for commercial searches. I guess they do have the biggest advertiser database though...

[CaptainSalad2]

Matt's team should start rewarding good coding, properly optimised sites for speed, mobile and impaired users rather than who is the biggest "brand" and has the most "links".

Let's start rewarding the quality of a site as a whole rather than put 99% focus on the links which are easy to manipulate.

Then the only way to game G would be to.... guess what, keep improving the quality of the SITE rather than chase links.

Then we can talk about a more level playing field where the good guy, the good websites stand a fair chance.

[edited by: CaptainSalad2 at 1:25 pm (utc) on Mar 13, 2014]

[luckystrike]

this is a clown. nothing he says is of substance. Google is only interested in favouring its own properties and people who pay google for advertising.

[EditorialGuy]

I could so easily churn out spammy links 24/7 to point to a list of domains on a scheduled script. My only work would involve adding more and more victim sites to my list.

The questioner in the video blamed his problems on his own SEO.

[aristotle]

EditorialGuy wrote:
You could Google it, but the context should be clear enough.

Nothing about what you said is clear. <snip>

[edited by: goodroi at 3:45 pm (utc) on Mar 13, 2014]
[edit reason] TOS [/edit]

[rish3]

"When you hire a guy to do the crime, you're the one who does the time."

I suspect the person posing the question to Matt falls into this camp. There is, however, a larger camp of small business people that wreck their sites unwittingly by accidentally hiring the wrong people.

Matt had a choice here when selecting the question to answer. I assume the same question was asked by more credible people. He deliberately chose the one he did to serve his own purposes.

It would have been much more informative to address the same question from a site owner that truly did not know their SEO would violate the guidelines.

[ColourOfSpring]

The questioner in the video blamed his problems on his own SEO.

100% irrelevant since Google can never know who built the links anyway. It's not like Google punish site owners because they magically know site owners built the links or that they hired an SEO or that actually a 3rd party did it. Google can never know that, and they've publicly stated as such too. So it's not relevant at all that this guy mentions how the links were built.

[aakk9999]

100% irrelevant since Google can never know who built the links anyway

There is always a pattern. And this pattern is almost always different when you build links to own site (usually long term pattern) then when blasted by negative SEO (usually short burst, they have no patience for long term.)

So I believe that there are number of cases where Google just knows it is the owner (or the SEO owner employed).

[ColourOfSpring]

There is always a pattern. And this pattern is almost always different when you build links to own site (usually long term pattern) then when blasted by negative SEO (usually short burst, they have no patience for long term.)

Let's hope it's not that simple, otherwise negative SEO is just a case of running a random schedule over a longer-period. It's not like automated scripts require more effort if they run for longer, and they're easier to fly under the radar since you're not resorting to some ham-fisted 50,000 blog comment blast that most people seem to think is the hallmark of negative SEO.

[EditorialGuy]

The thing to remember about "negative SEO" is that Google doesn't have to treat questionable links the same way for all sites. Sites that already have strikes against them may be more vulnerable than sites with clean histories. (That would be a reasonable assumption, given what we've been told about Google's decision-making process regarding manual penalties.)

But again, the questioner in the video (which is what we're talking about here) wasn't a victim of negative SEO. He was a victim of his own bad judgment in hiring a shady SEO. For me, the main lesson of the video is pretty simple: Don't expect Google to treat you like a "good guy" just because you were ignorant or looked the other way.

[nomis5]

I can't watch him any more. He makes me have dark thoughts.

Ha ha, but oh so true!

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Matt's team should start rewarding good coding, properly optimised sites for speed, mobile and impaired users rather than who is the biggest "brand" and has the most "links".

I have to disagree with this. Google's job is (or should be) to provide the most appropriate results based on the search term used. They should therefore only reward relevant CONTENT. It is not their job to reward good coding. If bad coding prevents the algorithm from properly indexing a website then that is a different story.

[Planet13]

"They should therefore only reward relevant CONTENT."

+1

[flanok]

Matt states there is a chance. But he did not state they had a good chance. You need links from trusted and authority sites. But these sites will protect their brand first, well before linking to a new site or a small business. If you do something good as a small business, they will copy it rather than link out to you. They will put their interests first. Its called business. Just as Google will put their interests first.

[CaptainSalad2]

It is not their job to reward good coding.

A websites very foundations, its code, and delivering proper code to the browser is one of the best way to ensure a website is fast, example

1) minified coding
2) lossless image optimisation
3)eliminating render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold

this all helps to reduce the server response time which is all part of the user experience. Also, observing good coding standards is the best way to ensure you have created a website that renders correctly across all browsers and versions to ensure they don't have to fall back into quirks mode, good for the user experience.

Matt’s job is to look at the entire user experienceof a website not just the quality of the text/photos; this includes usability and accessibility of a site for impaired users, (sight impaired and those who cannot use a keyboard/mouse). If a website fails these simple user friendly tests it should be demoted below sites that cater to a broader range of users and devices IMO!

The user experience is the entirety of a website and that starts with a properly coded/optimised site for the user not search engines! Just my opinion!

[edited by: CaptainSalad2 at 1:45 pm (utc) on Mar 17, 2014]

[CaptainSalad2]

Id be surprised if Google doesn't reward sites that observe good standards/practisesas because they can clearly asses them, as seen here [developers.google.com...]

Most important these are a few quality signals Matt's team could go on that simple cannot be manipulated by spammers, unlike links, so why not reward them?

I personally wouldn't feel happy publishing a site that didn't score minimum 90% mobile and 85% desktop.

[netmeg]

They've never cared about sites that validate, so I don't much see them making a big push for coding standards (other than for site performance) They're more focused on user experience (and while coding contributes to performance, unless it's something that severely drags down the site, most users aren't going to know or care)

Accessibility has never seemed a priority for Google; maybe some day, but that's not the web we have right now. Most small web businesses would be hard put to afford the upgrade.

[edited by: netmeg at 2:14 pm (utc) on Mar 17, 2014]

[CaptainSalad2]

@netmeg Just to clarify when I say standards I don’t mean W3C (even though to me personally that’s very important) I mean standards as in general, Speed/usability/associability/compatibility.

That said the W3C do have a good mobile checker tool these days, very helpful!