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Everytime google changes something it alters the distribution of income on the web. we are all to blame for allowing google to gain near monopoly power.
At first google was insanely great, now its insanely irritating.
I am going to start using ATW and teoma and encourage everyone I know to explore non-google options. If this becomes a trend the web won't be so dependent on google for the distribution of web dollars.
This might encourage google to look at its business ecology. Quite simply it doesnt have one. It doesnt help business' on the web and isn't interested in sharing income. It doesn't publish any rules and changes them on whim. This lack of business ecology is going to seriously hamper its momentum going forward imho.
Are you reading this google? we want some stability and certainty! and to the point we want cooperation.
The main issue has to be do you want your site to suceed if so then google must be a vital part of your seo effort.
Mack.
There's a natural backlash directed at successful companies. It's not too far-fetched to imagine thousands of sites with 'Ban GoogleBot' logos on them. Get a few high profile sites to ban the bot publically and you have a nice grassroots movement. Not that I think WG is serious. I think the message was more along the lines of "stop complaining and do something about it" tinged with a bit of, "enough already, we've covered this ground" rolled up in a bit of sarcasm.
I could be wrong. If I am I'm sure WG will be along to clear it up.
I think we should wait to see what happenes first. ;-)
Mack.
But why wait? Google is clearly broken and they have a stranglehold on the flow of informantion across the web.
The general web population may not yet understand how broken Google is, but that is just because they have yet to be educated about the real issues.
I don't see it much different than issues like Linux vs. Windows. Linux has made huge gains as a viable Windows alternative. Those gains came about because a handful of people were willing to give up the conveniences involved with a pure Microsoft world and they dedicated the neccessary time and energy to help change the hearts and minds of the general population.
Google does not giveth and then taketh away. We do. We are the creators of the content that allows Google to exist. And IF we could ever muster up the kind of balls it actually takes to create change, we could bring Google to its knees in a matter of months.
But like I said earlier, that would require making sacrifices. And why do that, when you can just sit around and complain?
[edited by: WebGuerrilla at 11:27 pm (utc) on June 3, 2003]
Don't think I can agree with that, I would say evolving rather than broken. Clearly no shange is going to be quick when you concider the sheer size and amount of data that google has to manage. The changes have to be finalised and working before things can start to improve.
"I think some of us could start our own SEs. Does not seem too difficult."
I think theres more to it than meets the eye ;-)
Mack.
[edited by: mack at 4:04 am (utc) on June 4, 2003]
A client mentioned that he saw a report where Lynne Cheney was asked how she does research...or something along those lines.
She said that she had a researcher but had learned how to "Google".
I did a search for this mention, but could not find anything. :)
As long as Google does mostly good for us and our clients it is our "friend".
When it goes goofy (like now) we ain't too thrilled.
For all webmasters and hobbyists who get screwed over for a while (?) there are some who get bumped up the ladder.
I haven't seen many posts like "YES- I'm still #4 this update!"
The happy folks will tend to be silent and the screwed more vocal.
No grass root Google ban would hurt Google. I'd like others to try though! :)
In fact, ya'll should ban AdWords too! Yeah!
;)
Everyone should keep in mind that Google hasn't even started to advertise and market yet.
If you hate Google now just wait until they start to churn out radio and TeeVee ads! Weeeeeee.
The only thing Larry and Serg probably get irked at is when people refer to Google as "Yahoogle".
Now...there could be an easy call to arms amidst the army of geek to start referring to Google as Yahoogle. If that caught on, even a bit- it would erode brand identiy and really annoy Google lovers and employee's. Just guessing though. ;)
That's the most you could do to "hurt" Google...realistically (kinda sorta).
Things will get interesting if/when Y incorporates Ink to the exclusion of G.
When Google IPO's who will be the buyer and who will be the seller? Perhaps, not too far off it really will be Yahoogle. :) Or GooYoo or...
AW
Month after month I have read here and carefully chosen a few tidbits of what I've learned to apply to my site.
Month after month my traffic grows. Not fast, but pretty darn steadily.
Month after month I watch the folks above me, in my not terribly competitive area, battle it out for rankings, a lot more aggressively than me. ( I swear, they must be reading here! I read stuff here and presto, it pops up on their sites! :) }
Untill Dominic I can't recall one of us falling off the first page in many, many months. We all pretty much maintain our places, up one/down one, that's about it.
This time someone (not me) fell off and was replaced by a 404. Ok, that seems a bit odd. But I'm also thinking this has a ways to go before the dust settles.
I dunno. I'm not sure it's as much Google doing the giving and taking as is it us doing it.
We are the creators of the content that allows Google to exist.
This is weird it's like one of those horror movies where the monster feeds on your fear and no matter how many toy airplanes and nuclear bombs you throw at it you just can't kill it until you stop fearing it and then remove the one thing that made it strong and it just shrivels up and dies.
Europeforvisitors, just to clarify: When I said a good seo, I meant "good" in the sense of white-hat, as DigitalGhost correctly assumed.
I guess I could use an editor myself. :)
[edited by: martinibuster at 4:13 am (utc) on June 4, 2003]
It would be very interesting if this happened before google got back up to full strenghth.
Mack.
I think the jokes on us ;).
I could very easily write a batch program for the site that would check the robots.txt file on the associated web sites so that only websites that actually had the exclusion for googlebot would be listed and certified by przero.com to be "google free"...
People will just cloak their robots.txt.
If a site 404's in the forest, and no one is around, will it generate a clicktrhough?
>> "google owes us" bleats <<
Well actually I think it does. It is called a PARTNERSHIP... which means BOTH parties owe something to the other.
Those who build content, bother to read the Google TOS, and generally follow the model that Google presents, SHOULD be rewarded. No... I don't mean auto-first-page or #1 placement (obviously relevancy must be the criteria), but with at least STABILITY.
That in my view is the MINIMUM payback from Google for the social contract between it and webmaster/content-providers who play their game. STABILITY.
Broad STABILITY is a valuable commodity. Not in the form of exact fixed placement, but certainly NOT 'on the radar' and then totally gone either. It is that sort of INstability that costs jobs and livelihoods, and it is that which has caused so much negativity over the last few weeks.
This I feel is where Google has gone astray somewhat. Sites, which are full of great content, and have followed the Google philosophy to the letter, have gone (at least on the main keywords). OK, they may be back, but that's not the whole point. Google has delivered total instability to these people. It has not, IMHO, fully met its obligations under the social contract.
Obligation? Well yes... Google expects webmasters to play by their rules. When they do, it is therefore not reasonable to zip their sites in and out of the index every 5 minutes. Google is therefore morally bound to give something in return. If it doesn't, it can hardly complain if those people rip up the Google TOS and consider it to be fair game for any tactic going. It MUST give something back to expect something from webmasters. That something has to be at least stability and fair play.
It's a two-way relationship - a 'social contract' - which has worked well until recently. It is also one that may continue to work - we will have to see what transpires in the next couple of weeks with the so called 'lost data'. Maybe Dominic has just been a glitch. Maybe not. We will have to wait and see (although I can't keep preaching 'wait and see' for ever - this thing is going on and on!).
By the way, the biggest threat webmasters pose is what many seem to be doing already.... using ATW/etc and recommending it to all and sundry. I think you have to bear in mind that web professionals are perhaps the most INFLUENTIAL group out there when it somes to SEs. That influence was one of the prime factors in Google's growth: Google was consistently recommended by "the experts".
It is clear to anyone who isn't blind that some of this support has gone. Word is spreading, like it or not, and more people are starting to notice that there is a problem with the index (eg: major sites are missing, 404s, etc), and that many webmasters are shifting ground with respect to supporting Google.
It's all timing. The longer this Dominic effect remains in place, the greater the risk to Google in terms of lost market share. I am assuming that they believe that the risk is manageable at present.
WG: Any revolution needs a focal point. I'd say you need a specific site to act as that focal point to have any chance of attracting widespread support for any campaign against a search organization (be it Google, Looksmart or whoever).
It is called a PARTNERSHIP... which means BOTH parties owe something to the other
For natural results I would actually say Google owes us nothing. If we dont like the results then use a different engine, there are plenty of others out there which are just as good and some like Alltheweb which in my opinion is far better.
The only reason its not used as much? Generally only webmaster and technical people know its there. Its not a general public use engine because it has not had any form of advertising.
However, my point now is the ATW recommendation thingo! I like ATW and Teoma, and reocmmend them, have done so for well before dominic, but i dont think webmasters recommending ATW has got to the extent you seem to think. also we should remember ATW is now owned by a web advertising company. The aquisition has ust gone through and we dont have a clue how OV will strategically use ATW. You can argue quite rightly that Google is going in that direction too, but it is still and will probably remain a Web search company, at least for the foreseeable future - as oppoosed to a search engine owned by an advertising agency.
I don't think it is necessarily bad that it is owned by an advertising agency - as long as they find a format which doesn't pollute the results. Although Google aren't owned by such an agency they themselves do use advertising (AdWords) as a means to generate revenue. The way Google present their sponsored listings is just about right - visible for people looking to buy stuff, while leaving the main results clutter free. The fact has to be faced that SEs must generate an income from somewhere to keep providing good results - the alternative is a publically funded engine; for me, that is the idea of a living hell!
Pretty well describes Google these days, me thinks. They are making huge laeps in the advertizing market, it's probably only a matter of a year or so before they own the advertizing market the same way they own the websearch market already.
Agreed. I certainly wasn't advocating them myself (I wouldn't direct anyone to ANY property owned by Overture!). I was just pointing out that quite a number of webmasters are now looking there and indeed recommending it.
>> I dont believe "stability" is the way i want google to treat my sites <<
Then I think you differ significantly from most businesses. It is VERY hard to plan and build when you can have zero confidence in how things are. Most business strive to build a stable base.
In search engine terms, sure, that's hard. But surely it is not too much to expect that an excellent content site, having played 100% by the 'rules', will not be dropped from perhaps #1 to #999999.
As I mentioned above, why then play by the rules if that happens? What incentive is there? If you get stuffed anyway, why not spam?
They surely have to offer SOMETHING in return for helping to keep their index high quality? The only thing that can rationally offer is 'a degree' of stablity. The above example is actually zero stability, so they are offering zero - at least at present.
I guess it's down to Google. Do THEY see a partnership in any shape or form? I think so, or why have GoogleGuy here? I think partnership is great for them, and for us - it's just that it is somewhat strained at the present time (hopefully temporarily).
On the other hand, maybe they see me as a blithering idiot and laugh at the concept of partnership (aka the Microsoft approach!).
I then checked our backlinks and what do you know we have dozens of backlinks showing for a similar url to our own instead of .com it's .com.ve. Come on, they can't figure that out? Also many of our parked domains are ranked - Google doesn't rank any of them.
Bottom line - very amatuerish search engine with no traffic to speak of.
Next thing, they'll be complaining that Google fails to thank them for easing the robots' workload.
The reason that a 'revolution' against Google will always fail, is that the spammers know that every site that blocks Google's robots, helps Google in reaching its goals.
You got it dead right!
So what outcome, exactly, will this action by such competitive people have?
Well, it'll leave higher listing for their competitors, for a start. I wonder how many people have 'supported' this 'superb' initiative, but haven't, quite, yet, err, actually blocked Google?
**Note to moderator - my last word on this issue, honest ;)
I'm a bit surprised that your strategy looks more like a conventional frontal assualt, it has to fail because it lacks troop strength, something along the lines of sporadic javascript redirects based on referer (guess who) would be more effective.
If everyone commited to redirecting a hundred visitors from the target, the mission could be accomplished with little or no collateral damage. The beauty of guerrilla warfare.
>added: I really don't think google is "bad" in any sense, however I do believe a situation where *any* entity or individual controls information access in any significant way is dangerous.
[edited by: john316 at 12:33 pm (utc) on June 4, 2003]
Excellent posts. I could not agree more.
Kaled.
