131 replies to this topic

[peter_d]

Split off from this thread.

I believe I have seen numerous instances where sites in those link farmy type places are getting penalized, even if they're not linking back.

It would be difficult to isolate cause and effect in this regard.

However, this brings up a wider issue. So what if a search engine drops a site? They own the index, they can do what they like with it. If you don't pay them for inclusion, they aren't answerable to you in any way, shape or form.

Beyond spider accesibility issues, an SEO provides no value to a search engine whatsoever. In fact, they can and do prevent the search engines customers' buying sponsored listings. In this respect, SEOs are a commercial risk for a search engine.

Warning bells sound....

Edited by Jill, 25 September 2003 - 05:52 PM.

[qwerty]

The last time you suggested this my response was ignored (although I suppose I was stretching things a bit), so I have no comment this time.

[Jill]

So what if a search engine drops a site? They own the index, they can do what they like with it. If you don't pay them for inclusion, they aren't answerable to you in any way, shape or form.

Absolutely! I've been saying the same thing for years.

But the "so what" part...well, obviously it matters a lot to the site owner who's site got nailed. Certainly, it's too bad for them, and dems is da breaks, but doesn't mean they will be happy about it!

As an SEO, sometimes one of our jobs is to figure out why a site was dropped and try to do what we can to get it back in.

However, if it never gets back in, you're exactly right...it's simply too bad. The engines definitely don't owe anyone a listing and they can (and do) list whomever they want.

Jill

[Bad Andy Good SEO]

Interesting thought Peter,

I tend to believe the opposite is true of SEO's value to SE's. Let qualify that by including ethical SEO's. SE's in general have a mission to provide relevant links for Searchers'. An ethical SEO provides this by expanding the original web site concept to include relevant content, as opposed to the typical cookie cutter list of bulleted services.

Paid inclusion will always be listed on top of these relevant results, but in actuality how often do you click on them? I rarely if ever do so. I treat TV commercials the same way, which is why they're called commercial breaks, this is when I get up and get snacks or whatever. Maybe that was a bad analogy My point being that the value of an SEO is determined by whether is was done ethically our unethically.

Andy

[lots0]

I won't ignore you qwerty.

So, when our pages (which are of course, objectively more relevant than others  ) go to the top of Google's SERPs, it makes it clear that Google serves up more relevant results. Therefore, more users are happy with Google, so it remains the #1 SE, and therefore, more people spend money to advertise on Google because they'll get more eyes.

How's that for appologia?

I don't think the googlies look at it quite that way... googlies tend to be very defensive about how pages are ranked in their results. I have found that they really don't like anyone or anything that tries to "help" them determine relevance.

[lots0]

My point being that the value of an SEO is determined by whether is was done ethically our unethically.

LOL - you have got to be kidding, right?

[qwerty]

Thank you lots0.

But my point wasn't that I'm helping them determine what is and isn't relevant. I'm doing what they're asking all webmasters to do by following their guidelines to the best of my ability. So I'm helping them by making sites more relevant based on what they've told me they want.

[peter_d]

But the "so what" part...well, obviously it matters a lot to the site owner who's site got nailed. Certainly, it's too bad for them, and dems is da breaks, but doesn't mean they will be happy about it!

They could, of course, come up with a search strategy that mitigates risk. Some do, some don't.

Qwerty:

that is, by making a page more relevant, we're making it more relevant to Google.

When did a search engine ask you to make a page more relevant to their algo?

[peter_d]

My point being that the value of an SEO is determined by whether is was done ethically our unethically.

I'm with Lots0 on that one.

[qwerty]

When did a search engine ask you to make a page more relevant to their algo?

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
Create a useful, information-rich site and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.

etc.

[lots0]

Qwerty the guidelines you link to are “Webmaster guidelines” Not SEO guidelines, there is a difference. I think you have seen this page before, it does not sound like the googlies think highly of SEO’s to me.

I guess some will attempt to justify SEO by saying that they comply with google's webmaster guidlines, but SEO is SEO, if you SEO you are attempting to manipulate THEIR results for you or your clients benefit.

[qwerty]

SEO, in my opinion, is what every webmaster ought to be doing. If they don't have time to learn to do it and take care of it themselves, they hire an SEO to do it for them.

[SearchRank]

Beyond spider accesibility issues, an SEO provides no value to a search engine whatsoever. In fact, they can and do prevent the search engines customers' buying sponsored listings. In this respect, SEOs are a commercial risk for a search engine.

I would have to strongly disagree. There have been many clients throughout the years that when they first came to us, their sites were a horrid mess. They would have great information, products or services to offer but because of the lack of proper SEO, a search engine could not decipher what the site was about. I have seen sites that had the same title and meta description tags in every page or worse, no title and meta description tags, body content that was a bunch or sales hype instead of descriptive and relevant copy, etc,. etc., etc.

We corrected these problems so that people could then find the products, services or information they had to offer.

SEO is not always about helping someone rank higher than their competitor but rather helping site owners make sure that what they have to offer can be found.

Unfortunately there are a massive amount of sites out there that are poorly optimized and flood the SERPs with irrelevant information. I was sitting down with a potential client today who is offering a regional service and in trying to pull up something relevant to what they had to offer, I found nothing but irrelevant results (that was on Goolge mind you). Therefore the task of optimizing their site will be easy and once it begins to show in place of the garbage I found today, it will be a relevant result to an end user.

As long as SEOs are helping people to make their sites easier to find by optimizing all of the elements we know to optimize, then it helps SEs because they have relevant results to display to their end users.

As for sponsored listings, any smart SEO will always, always recommend a client spend money on sponsored listings in conjunction with traditional SEO. I know we do. It's just that not every client has the budget. However, if a search engine does not have relevant results because they have a bunch of crap that they cannot identify what it is, then why would anyone use them and why then would anyone want to advertise with them?

It is the spamming SEOs that Ses do not need but the ones who practice ethical SEO, they compliment the SEs indices IMO.

[peter_d]

The spirit of the webmaster guidelines in clear: by all means make your site accessible to our spiders, but ranking/relevance is the search engines business, not yours.

The SEO guidelines have a somewhat different tone.

[peter_d]

Hey Dave,

From your site:

"Therefore it is highly recommended that you hire a professional SEO company if you want to reach the top of search engine results."

The top? So not just SE friendly, then