Are Google's Standards High Enough?

Effects On Website Development

[austtr]

OK.... I'm probably leading with my chin on this, but the topic has been on my mind for a little while so lets give it some air.

I saw somewhere that Google is reputed to control, either directly or indirectly, the level of exposure of 75% of all websites. Everyone with a commercial website (SEO or any other)wants their target audience to see it, so they look to Google to see how others do it. Naturally they look at the top ranking sites and try to emulate what they see. Isn't that what we all advocate?

Now these forums have been chock full of posts about perceived spam.... and whether you think it is spam or not, whether Google ignores the technique or not, whether there is a rankings advantage or not.. most of us would probably agree that we see site after site after site using techniques that fall on the "don't" side of the guidelines.

Just a few:

- same colour text and background
- "make your own" meta tags to hold more keywords
- title abuse
- hidden text
- off page divs
- hidden frames
- invalid html lines stuffed with keywords
- stuffed comments

plus any number of cute tricks that show the search engine one thing and the viewer another.

We see posts in these forums that openly state, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, that you should learn from the successful and do the same.... and if we are supposedly the experts, be sure others will follow. (Page Rank... what's that? I can see that this site is #1 because of all those hidden tricky thingies... works for him so I'll do it as well)

This is not a moralistic spam crusade, far be it from me to pronounce on the efforts of others, but I can't help wonder what calibre of sites we will have in, say 12 months time, if the current proliferation of "tricked up" sites continues unabated and Google does not start applying some of their guidelines with a little more rigour.

Just my 2c.... some food for thought.

[martinibuster]

I understand your point but it seems to me that cheater sites are generally weeded out within one or two cycles.

That said, it does seem reasonable to think that Google should have put measures in place to keep these cheater sites out of the database in the first place.

I'm not ragging on Google or anything. I'm just having an insightful moment.

[mosley700]

martinibuster,
I know of cloaked sites maintained by the biggest player in one market that maintain top ten listings for several high traffic search terms.
These sites were reported six months ago. They remain in the top ten (first page).
I don't think weeding out cloaking spammers is a high priority for Google.
...

[vitaplease]

In any mildly competitive search area, these on page factors do not play a role in ranking. Its the off-page factors that count. Should one of these "spammy" sites be on tops in a competitive area, that mostly comes from external inbound links. Now if they are attracting attention with these see-through dubious tactics, whilst ranking well because of off-page factors, they are really stupid.

[austtr]

martinibuster
>>>it seems to me that cheater sites are generally weeded out within one or two cycles <<<

Not so... same sites appear month after month. Lots of posts saying the same thing. Some posters actually questioning if Google is able, or bothers, to detect these types of on-page spam, or relies just on algo tweaking & PR to reward/punish.
----------------
vitaplease
>>these on page factors do not play a role in ranking. Its the off-page factors that count<<<

And we learned that in this forum. We consist of what, maybe 3-5% of the site submitting population? The remainder will be replicating what they see in other sites that rank well but without the depth of knowledge available here.
-----------------

What I am talking about may well be considered as "harmless" spam that the algo is able to ignore and which has little or no effect on rankings. But by appearing to condone "business as usual" for these existing sites, it is only natural that designers/developers of new sites will use the same methods.

That's the part that get's me thinking.

[GoogleGuy]

austtr, here's a quick thought for you: just because a site uses a trick and shows up in our search, it doesn't mean it's because of that trick. Sometimes it's even in spite of that trick. For example, it's not to hard to detect if someone uses a "title" tag multiple times. That doesn't mean that Google is really ranking that page higher.

mosley700: try reporting the spamming site one more time. You might want to mention me, webmasterworld, or even your user name from this forum.

[mosley700]

GoogleGuy,
Thanks for the suggestion, but I have faith in Google.
The sites I refer to are cloaked sites, and this problem is prevelant in Google. I thought it was just a few sites, but then I was searching for a wedding related item (wedding dress or something like that - don't worry, I came to my senses and called it off), and there were cloaked sites there, too.
I figure Google knows about the problem and will take whatever measures are necassary to fix it. Google has done great so far, so a few cloaked sites don't get my shorts in a wad.
;)

[GoogleGuy]

We're always looking for reports of cloaking to train on. :)

[austtr]

GG ... thanks for joining in.

When a designer opts for a tricked up site it's because of the perception that they are gaining an advantage. They see plenty of evidence suggesting that other successful sites got to be that way by doing the same thing... or so they think.

Now this forum can keep putting out the message that using such techniques counts for nought, it doesen't work with Google, don't waste your time etc etc.... but those messages only reach a fraction of people who design websites.

All the others are going to carry on doing whatever THEY BELIEVE will give them that extra advantage. Hell, there are companies operating as professional web designers who produce sites for clients that are full of the stuff we are talking about. As long as they are able to do that with impunity, they will continue to do so. Whether they are perpetrating a fraud on those clients is for another post at some other time...

I guess I have a concern that by not exercising some level of control on these techniques now, it will allow them to continue unchecked and in the longer term the reputation of the web will not be better for it.

[asomani]

hmmm...