Are SERPs A Popularity Contest ?

[Wilburforce]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4699490.htm [webmasterworld.com] by aakk9999 - 7:24 pm on Sep 17, 2014 (gmt 0)

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@MIW

Although some sites - including mine - have been penalised, there are other factors that may skew Google's data so that apparently less relevant pages achieve better SERPs positions.

I think it very likely that a majority of searchers who - from their search phrase - apparently wish to understand a complex question are in fact looking for a single-sentence synopsis, however inadequate or inaccurate that may appear to a specialist.

Google SERPs are informed by both personal and global search history, and a page with a couple of bullet points -

Washes as well as it wipes

Free spludger included

- may well be favoured by searchers over more detailed product specifications. Similarly, a page filled with, "Five Stars - this widget is fantastic!" might get more traffic than an in-depth review.

Part of the problem, after all, is that the internet - with Google as its main driver - is often viewed as a fount of knowledge in which Wikipedia makes universities redundant.

Part of the problem, also, is that most of us here are specialists in our own subjects and products, which may make some of Google's result patterns look more like personal insults than they could possibly be.

For all that, I agree that the current SERPs are a mess. I think, over the last couple of years, data-gathering, number-crunching and formula-tweaking has lost sight of the overall picture.

[Martin Ice Web]

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System: The following 15 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4699490.htm [webmasterworld.com] by aakk9999 - 7:29 pm on Sep 17, 2014 (gmt 0)

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Wilbur,

nice writing. I agree.

Similarly, a page filled with, "Five Stars - this widget is fantastic!" might get more traffic than an in-depth review.

This is what i see in my niche. In most cases there is only the item name on the page. No description or content, but although there is a lack of reviews on this pages.
I see top ecom sites do hide the details for the first view. You have to click a ->details<- to see them. I wonder if googles algo is able to destinguished between this option and a page that offers all information on once.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 7:32 pm (utc) on Sep 17, 2014]

[samwest]

Part of the problem, also, is that most of us here are specialists in our own subjects and products, which may make some of Google's result patterns look more like personal insults than they could possibly be.

Good observation and very true. We are all (presumably) educated experts in our respective fields, yet G focuses on what some freelancer at "ask or about dot com" aggregates from our own sites and ranks it higher.
So it's a popularity contest with the winner being the better financially backed source rather than one based on good information and facts.

After all, if you find garbage, you have to search again to find the right answer...that drags the visitor through many more ads...and $$$ is the bottom line or so it seems.

[Wilburforce]

So it's a popularity contest

I would rather say that popularity is one factor among many, and that it is likely to influence general types of data content (so that e.g. keyword density in a particular sector might have a "popularity" indicator: the most popular sites might have >2% keyword density).

The difficulty from outside, where SEO is in effect trying to reverse-engineer the algorithm, is that the factors are many (and added to, I suspect, every time someone at Google has another stroke of genius), and their relative weighting keeps being tweaked.

I don't personally find this objectionable in itself, but over the last couple of years it has often looked like they are integrating and applying punitive changes without adequate testing, and inflicting a flawed beta product on both webmasters and the searching public. Perhaps I wouldn't mind the effect this has had on my business quite so much if they were occasionally a little less pleased with themselves.

[matt621]

The difficulty from outside, where SEO is in effect trying to reverse-engineer the algorithm, is that the factors are many (and added to, I suspect, every time someone at Google has another stroke of genius), and their relative weighting keeps being tweaked.

Agreed, however when you "tweak" something they are fine adjustments. What I'm seeing is just the opposite. Very fine adjustments in the algorithm seem to be making very dramatic changes.

And frankly after 10+ years now how much can google really tweak their ideas? The basic premise is simple, popularity, there isn't a lot you can do to change that. The problem is the chicken or the egg. How does a great site get popular until it is made known? That was the whole idea of search engines. The engine gathered the data and the human made the decision as to what was good or not. I think, no I know, google puts too much emphasis on the tech and tries to remove the people from the equation.

I don't personally find this objectionable in itself, but over the last couple of years it has often looked like they are integrating and applying punitive changes without adequate testing, and inflicting a flawed beta product on both webmasters and the searching public. Perhaps I wouldn't mind the effect this has had on my business quite so much if they were occasionally a little less pleased with themselves.

Yes, the punitive changes are what is killing our sites. Every time we did/do something innovative or different from what others were/are doing, it seems google punishes us for going outside the box. Then 5 or more years later the innovation has become the norm and then Google gives the innovation their blessing. However those that were out ahead of the game were punished for their thinking until the rest caught up.

The only way is to walk away from google no matter how hard it is, we have to find other ways of letting others know about our site, products, services, etc.

[netmeg]

And frankly after 10+ years now how much can google really tweak their ideas? The basic premise is simple, popularity, there isn't a lot you can do to change that. The problem is the chicken or the egg. How does a great site get popular until it is made known? That was the whole idea of search engines. The engine gathered the data and the human made the decision as to what was good or not. I think, no I know, google puts too much emphasis on the tech and tries to remove the people from the equation.

I don't believe they are removing people from the equation at all; I believe the customer engagement is a HUGE FACTOR.

Your basic premise is probably too basic. But it's true (as I quote Rae Hoffman over and over) Google doesn't want to make sites popular, they want to rank popular sites. And yea, if you don't have a plan to make your site popular outside of Google (whether it's down to having a business plan that sets you apart from your competition, or utilizing a variety of other marketing channels, which we've discussed here at length and if you search I'm sure you will find them) you're going to be lucky to tread water in this search environment.

So the writing is pretty much on the wall.

[samwest]

I have a "popular" site, 50k paid members but guess what? nobody gives a hoot to promote you, unless perhaps your audience is very young or somewhat naive.

I agree with the chicken & egg analogy, but it's actually a briefcase of money or start up funding that does the trick.

Think about the big popular sites and how they got their starts. Funding! Maybe someone can enlighten me on a nobody site that made it big in earned back links alone.

[netmeg]

nobody gives a hoot to promote you

Uh hunh. Ok well, guess you're out of luck then.

[samwest]

@netmeg...who really shares? kids, teens, women? My demographic is primarily men 21-50 and I've found that they typically don't care to share....and yes, I'm out of luck.

You are very right on the customer engagement point...it is very important, but I find out of my 50k customers, I have less than 100 (maybe even less than 10) that are super enthusiastic and want to help the site.

The same people hit "like" on every facebook post, but I've had very few visitors do a write up (assuming my customer is a webmaster with a related site...related but not too related). About dot com did one a few years back and it just decayed, or they cleaned house. Either way it disappeared a few weeks ago.

Have any specific tips on getting better customer engagement, other than changing niches? Cheers!

[Martin Ice Web]

I see Amazon internal search pages have returned to the top of nearly every query.
How are they doing it? Special Treatment by Google? Do they get passed the query string because they pay enough for it? Or did Amazon submit just but thousand of query pages to the index?
when do they get penalized for doing this?

[GreyBeard123]

@ Martin
Perhaps it happens because Amazon is very popular...

[philgames]

"Perhaps it happens because Amazon is very popular... "

amazon maybe but the sellers on amazon arent all run amazon companies so the trust shouldn't flow into their listings. It kind similar to guest posting. guest listing on amazon yet amazon gets away with it.

[LuckyLiz]

@SamWest In my experience, age and sex has little to do with who shares. Having something worth sharing is what matters. And as Netmeg indicated, having a business plan and putting effort into marketing is what gets results.

[EditorialGuy]

In my experience, age and gender have little to do with who shares. Having something worth sharing is what matters.

Still, there's no doubt that some things are shared more than others are. For example, a cute photo of a cat mothering a mouse is more likely to be shared than a page about how to reach Widgetberg's city center from the Widgetberg airport, because it's likely to appeal to a far wider audience than the latter. Similarly, a timely political cartoon, joke, etc. is more likely to be shared (especially in the short term) than a page about the side effects of an drug for an obscure medical condition will be.

Also, sharing comes in different forms and can occur in different time frames. For example, our site receives more links to evergreen pages that have been around for years than to new pages. (Very little of the material that we publish is time-sensitive, and links to our pages are driven by topic, not by fads, trends, or current events.)

[n00b1]

I'm with EditorialGuy on this one. It completely depends on the subject of the content and your main audience. Some things are just not shared as much as others, or at least aren't shared in the same way. My content is shared extensively on forums but generally gains relatively little social sharing. I can relate to my audience and personally never 'share' things except by discussing it on forums.

[EditorialGuy]

My content is shared extensively on forums but generally gains relatively little social sharing.

Same here, because forum users and moderators who "share" (link to) our site are almost always doing so in answer to a question. We're cited as an information resource, not in the context of "I like this" or "I think this is cool and I want all of my friends to see it."

I took our Facebook "Like" button down when I realized that we were getting far more "Thank you" e-mails than Facebook Likes.

[seoskunk]

I can make no sense of the serps anymore. It could be a popularity contest rather than a content contest.

I drove loads of traffic once to a site with a script that used random proxies and random user agents. I also had a random refresh time per page and multiple entry points. I faked the referrer as google and the site went no.4 for its keyword. Turned out there was no money in the keyword so I took the script down. After that the site sunk without trace. Maybe I should dust off that script....

[netmeg]

Ok, why wouldn't Google want to serve up popular sites?

[matt621]

Ok, why wouldn't Google want to serve up popular sites?

If you have 1000 small businesses competing on content and you have one large billion dollar company and you tell Google you'll pay $xxxxxxxxx for a no. one position and let everyone else fight for positions 2 and lower.. what is google going to do? And if you have 2 or 3 of those big companies offering big bucks for those positions, google can just say "duke it out as best you can" to the rest of us.

And it doesn't have to be money. it could be some other form of quid pro quo. And it doesn't have to be on the corporate level either. Look at the code? Who really knows the code from top to bottom? It could (in theory) be a module injected by a lone individual. I know Google treats their people extremely well, but I also know some people still fall for temptation.

Look at MS and their issues with Netscape and PC Vendors. It's all in court documents. A judge found MS violated it's agreement but no real punishment was handed out. The smoking guns were the emails between MS employees and PC vendors. So these things do take place but it's only rare when it's exposed.

I HAVE NO EVIDENCE of this other than what we all see happening and the history of people (and companies) in positions of power. Look at what the Big three did to Tucker? and street cars? and POSSIBLY the electric car. Again that's history. The information is there for anyone that wants to see it.

We have not had a free market in this country since the railroads were "given" the mineral rights by the government. The progressive era of the early 1900's was another attempt to make it fair, but all it did was substitute one form of corruption with another.

I do not want to come off as a kook or conspiracy nut, or someone looking to blame others for my own failings. I just want to point out that the assumption that we are all playing on a fair field is just that, an assumption. There is no more proof of that than there is of corruption.

However history has shown time and time again that the assumption of a fair playing field is idealistic at best or delusional, or even intentionally misleading at worst.

[Wilburforce]

because they are likely being paid not to

I think it more likely that there is overwhelming search-based evidence of Amazon's popularity than that they are paying Google to keep other sites out of the results.

If they ARE paying to keep other sites out of the results, I see daily evidence that Google has defrauded them.

[matt621]

Yes, I retracted that from my post. I was too suggestive and inflammatory. I didn't mean it to be that way.

[seoskunk]

I do not want to come off as a kook or conspiracy nut

Next your be telling us that Google doesn't want to upset their friends at Bilderberg....... :)

[matt621]

They are listed as participants in the 2014 list:
[bilderbergmeetings.org...]

USASchmidt, Eric E.Executive Chairman, Google Inc.

and 2013

[bilderbergmeetings.org...]

Wikipedia shows them going all the way back to 2008

[en.wikipedia.org...]

[seoskunk]

Wikipedia shows them going all the way back to 2008

I think your onto something matt621 just a few weeks after the 2008 meeting...

Update Vince — February 2009

SEOs reported a major update that seemed to strongly favor big brands. Matt Cutts called Vince a "minor change", but others felt it had profound, long-term implications.

[moz.com...]

[RedBar]

However history has shown time and time again that the assumption of a fair playing field is idealistic at best or delusional, or even intentionally misleading at worst.

Thanks for writing that, absolutely correct, I've been trying to educate this to people for years yet they simply will not listen.

[matt621]

I think your onto something matt621 just a few weeks after the 2008 meeting...

Update Vince — February 2009

SEOs reported a major update that seemed to strongly favor big brands. Matt Cutts called Vince a "minor change", but others felt it had profound, long-term implications.

to add another stick to this bonfire:


Google Quietly Drops Its 'Don't Be Evil' Motto
[siliconvalleywatcher.com...]

And quoting from another article:

"I [Schmidt] showed up, I thought this was the stupidest rule ever, because there's no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible or something."

[dailytech.com...]

So questioning the ethics of a company is fair game. And when the company is arguably the most powerful on the planet, I think it's a good idea to seriously look into what they are doing with some skepticism and a critical eye.

[Wilburforce]

It occured to me yesterday that one reason not to penalise big businesses might be to avoid litigation.

It looks like one big business has had enough.

[bbc.co.uk...]

[netmeg]

My bad. I thought we were going to talk about ranking issues.

[matt621]

My bad. I thought we were going to talk about ranking issues.

This is discussing ranking. It's offering another explanation why some sites seem to rank well when their content is... we'll just say "confusing" to other webmasters.

People are looking for explanations and preferential treatment could be an explanation of why one site ranks above another when the content seems to be less helpful to the web visitors.

At least from this perspective.