34 replies to this topic

[Jill]

A ton of people and websites are making tons of money using PPC as their sole method of advertising. People are indeed clicking on those ads. Would they be, if they were finding exactly what they wanted in organic?

[prits]

Well, Google certainly enjoys monopoly in universal search - with qualified SERPS vis-a-vis many others.
It seems likely that they may manipulate the algorithms to suit paid search
Increasingly from what I have read vertical search is proving to be a good competition.
It provides value to the consumer by delivering much targetted and relevant results.
Expedia, Zillow etc and many other Verical engines that are presently in stealth mode, would prove competition.
After all universal search can only offer so much in terms of valid results considering that overall size of the content (text, video) on the www is increasing each day.

[nethy]

Several insinuations seem to be made here that I disagree with:

Google may (is?) increasing the inventory (ad clicks) that they have to sell by encouraging ppc clicks rather then organic:

Seriously? This is very far from Google's usual style. Up to now they have been extremely disciplined & never tried to go for a quick buck or an easy win. They certainly know that their no.1 status is not guaranteed. Such a tactical desicion, would almost certainly be a mistake. The type of mistake google generally does not make.

Ads are necessarily evil or less good
IMO, the ads are just another another part of the SERP that may be what you are looking for, just like suggested queries, images, videos, stock quotes etc. You know what you are getting when & I click on them when I want commercial information. I actually thing that G! have managed to create on of the highest quality advertising platforms around. It is beneficial to the users not realy a price they pay (like on tv).

[MaKa]

I used to be same way, but when I couldn't find anything useful via organic results I figured I really didn't have much choice.

The only problem is I often can't find what I'm looking for when clicking on the ads either. Most campaigns are not setup correctly as I'm in the Republic of Ireland and 75% of the ads are from companies who don't ship here from the UK. A well if they want to throw their money away, I'm happy to help them by clicking.

[Hyperformance]

A ton of people and websites are making tons of money using PPC as their sole method of advertising. People are indeed clicking on those ads. Would they be, if they were finding exactly what they wanted in organic?

Ahhh, But Jill -

That is assuming they are finding what they are seeking in their PPC click(s) - on the first one, or the second, or the.... Regardless, the Ads are paid for to Google, whether the conversion or sale was made on the PPC or the third one?

AND, just because the more directed Ad, may have taken them directly to the product, it does not mean they had the best price, service, delivery or reputation... goes back to that whole "We are a more impatient people than ever before".

Not too different than an organic search and find to me?

Lest we forget, last check that Google generates about 96% of their revenue from these ads... and to think I tell everyone not to put all their eggs in any one basket... Good advice, I think - and Google will learn this one day (I think again).


- Scott

[1dmf]

I'm lost on this one, I thought it didn't matter who linked to your site. So how can link spamming hurt?

Also it would be rather stupid of G! to remove an original provider of content and allow the 'theives' to gain better ranking with plagerised content, G! would have the ass sued off it for purpetrating a theft!

and once it was public knowledge that G! allowed people to steal your content and then penalise you for duplicate, well G! won't last long in that climate surely!

If any of this is possible, and is going on , then one assumes it's only the little man having it done by companies such as G! and the little man doesn't even know it's happening.

Because if it was happening to big companies and they knew, there surely there would be far more public cases of other companies and G! being sued, wouldn't there?

[Nueromancer]

"SlightlyShadySEO" has an interesting post on Why Negative SEO is Becoming More Common.

I've been enjoying many of SSS's posts that I've found at Sphinn, and can tell he's a sharp cookie who appears to be an up-and-comer in the SEO world.

In his post he says:
If what he's saying is true, then the things we've heard in the past about Google Bowling, where you can knock down other sites (mostly newer, less established sites) it pretty much sucks.

Is Google really allowing competitors to ruin perfectly legitimate websites? And if so, what can we do about it, if anything? Are we at our competitor's (and Google's) mercy?

interesting will have to look at this in more detail also matt mentioned this in the semoz video he did recently with rand and also about how black hat's might be resorting to actual black hat hacking in 2008 in this post http://www.mattcutts...08-predictions/

[1dmf]

hmm, still lost on that Nueromancer, how does Matt Cutts call it 'black hat SEO hacking', err hacking is hacking regardless of reason or what the hacker does once they have hacked in.

This is not black hat SEO, it's hacking, since when was G! so big that anything and everything links back to G! and SEO, crickey are they going to start employing people to follow you around a supermrket and replace goods in your trolley for other brands while your back is turned!

So when you get to the checkout everything is G! branded!

Come on hacking is hacking, whether they are hacking the bank to steal money or hacking your website to put up an anti-whatever slogans or hacking your website to loose your visitors or SERPs, it's still hacking and still a seriously illegal activity.

Putting hidden links on a website or selling PR or keyword spamming is hardly in the same league or even linked in any way to an actual crime or criminal activity.

Jezus Matt are you going for a job with the G! Police , big brother isn't watching you but G! certainly is!!!!!

[Nueromancer]

"SlightlyShadySEO" has an interesting post on Why Negative SEO is Becoming More Common.

I've been enjoying many of SSS's posts that I've found at Sphinn, and can tell he's a sharp cookie who appears to be an up-and-comer in the SEO world.

In his post he says:
If what he's saying is true, then the things we've heard in the past about Google Bowling, where you can knock down other sites (mostly newer, less established sites) it pretty much sucks.

Is Google really allowing competitors to ruin perfectly legitimate websites? And if so, what can we do about it, if anything? Are we at our competitor's (and Google's) mercy?

I had a think about this and for the 301 redirect attack vector I think theres a fairly easy way to solve the problem using webmaster tools to acept or repudiate any domain to domian redirects.

I even got off my ass and did a SEO related post on my blog about it.

[Nueromancer]

hmm, still lost on that Nueromancer, how does Matt Cutts call it 'black hat SEO hacking', err hacking is hacking regardless of reason or what the hacker does once they have hacked in.

This is not black hat SEO, it's hacking, since when was G! so big that anything and everything links back to G! and SEO, crickey are they going to start employing people to follow you around a supermrket and replace goods in your trolley for other brands while your back is turned!

So when you get to the checkout everything is G! branded!

Come on hacking is hacking, whether they are hacking the bank to steal money or hacking your website to put up an anti-whatever slogans or hacking your website to loose your visitors or SERPs, it's still hacking and still a seriously illegal activity.

Putting hidden links on a website or selling PR or keyword spamming is hardly in the same league or even linked in any way to an actual crime or criminal activity.

Jezus Matt are you going for a job with the G! Police , big brother isn't watching you but G! certainly is!!!!!

Mat was saying that to get the links onto sites more black hats SEO's woudl resort to actual Hacking attacks for example the hack on all Gores blog that had dumped hidden links at the base of the pages thats a violation of US law

[1dmf]

but it's not black hat SEO, it's hacking!

What's more worrying is the thought that people are actually going to commit such a serious crime as hacking to put a few dodgy links on someone elses website, whoa, what with the other thread going on about Piracy not being theft, what is this world coming to, and what the hell are there laws for if everyone is so easily able to flaunt them.

You know what I think they should do......

Round em, put em in a field and BOMB THE BASTARDS!!!!

[Nueromancer]

but it's not black hat SEO, it's hacking!

What's more worrying is the thought that people are actually going to commit such a serious crime as hacking to put a few dodgy links on someone elses website, whoa, what with the other thread going on about Piracy not being theft, what is this world coming to, and what the hell are there laws for if everyone is so easily able to flaunt them.

You know what I think they should do......

Round em, put em in a field and BOMB THE BASTARDS!!!!

well yeh ime not disgreeing with you :-) just interestg that Matt thoguht that some would go over the edge maybe Deep Black SEO would be a better term.

[1dmf]

Subversive Ghetto SEO, now thats a cool name

[Jill]

I'm lost on this one, I thought it didn't matter who linked to your site. So how can link spamming hurt?

Exactly. Which is why it's so concerning.

[1dmf]

You're not wrong there Jill. That is very worrying.

I thought the point of G! was to provide targeted search results, and the big PR debacle was all about G! doing what ever it can to stop the index being skewed.

If they allow inbound links to damage you, that's so open to abuse it wouldn't just skew their index it would completely destroy it, nah they can't allow that surely, makes no sense.