Google has an image problem

[Harry]

There's already a bunch of Webmasters continually complaining about Google and threatening to boycott. Half of them are probably paid agitators from the competition.

But in my mind what loses Google the most points, are not the spam srapper Webmasters, it's the genuine advertisers that feel that their natural ranking plummets whenever they end a Google Adword campaign. I keep on doing the tests over and over again, as soon as I end a campaign or pause it for a few days. I lose all my ranking.

I can't say for sure this is the case, and I'm not about to start any rumours. There's enough going around, and I really like to believe that search results are 100% independent from Adword influence. I like to believe this because I want to believe that Google is the good guy. I still believe in them.

Yet, they should really state it once and for all, if they haven't done so, that the search results part of the company is 100% free from influence from the advertising part. If they have already stated this, then they should repeat the message, email it to advertisers every 6 months, remind them in their Adword accounts, because I am not seeing this information, and I should not have to dig up tons copy just to find it. It should be available to me and in my face whenever possible.

My tests are saying that the reality is different from what I want to believe though.

[wrgvt]

I've seen just the opposite complaint: that people runnings AdWords see their site do poorly in natural SERPS. Their theory is that Google keeps their site artificially low for search so they keep spending money on AdWords.

The inherent problem with Google SERPS is that it's unknown algorithm that is constantly updated. People can make educated guesses at what drives the algorithm at any point in time, but any time a change affects their site, they go looking for any data that might correlate to that. So I imagine you'll find every possible theory.

At times it seems that every webmaster thinks his site is the ultimate in its niche, deserves top ranking, and all his competitors are crap. Or maybe that's just people who post to WebmasterWorld. :)

[cazgh]

I found the same thing - adwords has negative effect on serps but even the Google guy disagreed with me - but I cannot change my research - it clearly shows drops in serps listings when adwords is involved.

[Harry]

Of course, like everyone else, I think my sites are the best and they are ;) . But I don't assume I'll be on top. I've got great competitors with very strong contents on their sites too.

[patient2all]

I've noticed a tendency on my part, when I design a page for AdWords purposes that I get a little lazy on the SEO part. Could that be the case for any one else?

patient2all