57 replies to this topic

[DanThies]

Google or Yahoo could pay for spam cops if they wanted to, all they'd need is a $299 "reinclusion request" service, for all the poor dopes who get banned. Clean up your site, pay the fee, they look it over and decide if you get back in. That'd buy a lot of spam cops.

[Alan Perkins]

There is such a thing as deceptive advertising of course, but I'm not sure if this fits there.  Is that perhaps what you're trying to say, Alan?  Not so much that it's advertising but that it's deceptive advertising?

Yes. Any advertisement in the "organic" SERPs must be deceptive, because it isn't labelled as an advertisement. So the question is "What's an advertisement?" in the context of the organic SERPs.

Suppose I recognised a search engine spider requesting a URL on my site, and delivered that spider special content designed to rank highly for the phrase "SEO services", and achieved that high ranking. Then suppose I came to you and offered to sell that search engine traffic to you, at a cost of 5c per click, so that searchers saw your page rather than the content the spider saw. Would I be selling advertising to you? (IMO the answer is "Yes")

If the answer is "Yes" then it's deceptive advertising, because it isn't labelled as advertising in the SERPs.

Note that if you wanted to buy the same phrase "SEO services" directly from the search engine then the advertisement would have to be labelled in the SERPs. In addition, your ad would be subject to editorial review by the search engine.

[Jill]

The problem I have with what you're saying, Alan, is that I am still having trouble distinguishing it from SEO services in general.

If I were to agree with what you're saying, then I'd have to agree that SEO itself is advertising in the search engines because your putting sites there that might otherwise not be.

I have trouble making the distinction between that and what you're saying.

[cline]

Some logistical ideas for my prior suggestion.

There's no need to limit this idea to Google. It could be a meta search engine. The key is that it produces a human-edited black list.

The problem of human editing is that the editors need to be selected, compensated, and quality controlled. Since there is a revenue model, it's possible to pay people, both for editing and quality control.

To get things started, a group of whitehat SEOs could be recruited. To do it on a shoestring, they could be compensated by allowing them to make 1 free spam report for every spam report they edit. Nobody should be allowed to edit their own spam reports. Later other editors could be hired as contractors. Payment would be on a per site reviewed basis, perhaps with a multiplier effect based on quality level. Perhaps 2 editors should be required to blacklist a site, with junior editors doing initial reviews and senior editors making final calls.

Ultimately the database of spam sites could be licensed to Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.

[Alan Perkins]

If I were to agree with what you're saying, then I'd have to agree that SEO itself is advertising in the search engines because your putting sites there that might otherwise not be.

I have trouble making the distinction between that and what you're saying.

It's the difference between the kind of SEO that you do, and this:

Suppose I recognised a search engine spider requesting a URL on my site, and delivered that spider special content designed to rank highly for the phrase "SEO services", and achieved that high ranking. Then suppose I came to you and offered to sell that search engine traffic to you, at a cost of 5c per click, so that searchers saw your page rather than the content the spider saw. Would I be selling advertising to you? (IMO the answer is "Yes")

Somewhere in between those extremes it becomes deceptive advertising.

But just "making a site the best it can be" is not deceptive advertising. All you really do is fix all the mistakes that site owners have made in creating their sites in the first place. Whereas others don't fix the mistakes, they hide them or paper over the cracks.

[cline]

SEO's influence on the editorial SERPs is analogous to the influence Public Relations has on the press. It's marketing, but it's not advertising.

[Jill]

But just "making a site the best it can be" is not deceptive advertising. All you really do is fix all the mistakes that site owners have made in creating their sites in the first place. Whereas others don't fix the mistakes, they hide them or paper over the cracks.

I agree, but there can be quite a fine line between these, with many people disagreeing where that line is.

You could ask 100 "SEOs" and probably get 100 different answers.

Jill

[Alan Perkins]

I agree, but there can be quite a fine line between these, with many people disagreeing where that line is.

True. But do you agree that the specific example I gave was advertising? And, if so, do you agree that it must be deceptive advertising because it isn't labelled as advertising?

[Jill]

By specific example, do you mean this:

Suppose I recognised a search engine spider requesting a URL on my site, and delivered that spider special content designed to rank highly for the phrase "SEO services", and achieved that high ranking. Then suppose I came to you and offered to sell that search engine traffic to you, at a cost of 5c per click, so that searchers saw your page rather than the content the spider saw. Would I be selling advertising to you? (IMO the answer is "Yes")

I don't have an answer! I can't decide yet and will need to think about this some more.

Jill

[Deverill]

My 2 cents worth (for what it's worth):

"Sites that try to do things to get higher in the SERPs" can't be called spamming or all the SEOs & SEMs are out of business, it's that simple. No one who understands SEO is willing to make their site and trust fair play and Google algorithms to do the "right thing."

Paid ads in with "normal" results isn't deceptive advertising or spam - the visitor says "Give me sites about widgets". If Sam's Widgets is willing to pay $1000 to advertise his widgets then his site would be as good a candidate as WidgetsRUs who is too cheap to pay for an ad.

Human editors - not good. It's too easy to switch out the page after you're listed and who has time to keep going back and rechecking!

Black lists - won't work. If I had a SEO firm I'd get free web accounts, make a bazillion mirrors of HighRankings.com and submit them 600,000 times just to get Jill banned... then I'd be sitting where I want to be. Who is to say whether Jill or I created the mirrors? (Ok, we know Jill wouldn't but what about your smallest client? The SE's sure don't know.)

Why does it come down to "what is advertising?" To switch models for a moment, I want to find a tasty Mexican cuisine restaurant in my town. Where do I go? The Yellow Pages! Now, what about Chico's Cantina who just opened after the deadline for this year's book? It's too bad he won't get any referrals, but it's not Tex's Mexican Restaurant's fault just because Tex paid for the ad. We as a society accept advertising in nearly everything we see... we watch pieces of TV shows in the middle of them, we listen to them when we're in the car, they are buzzing in the backs of our minds when the little blue light goes on in the department store, we see them written in our newspapers, paper mail, and even on pizza boxes.

Why are ads evil when talking about SERPs? It's the culture and the lack of definitions that make them so. Why do we all assume that SERPs are full of non-advertised hits? Because it started out that way? I bet the first pizza box said pizza on it too, but they learned how to make additional revenue and the business world said "and it was good."

I think we need to change OUR thinking on this. Yes, spammy hits are annoying! Yes, I'd love to search for "Fishing boat" and not get a page that has links to the fishing boats that paid them (search engines returning search engine pages). Do we need to work on it? Yes! Are we going in the right direction? I doubt it. The visionary that solves this will be a billionare and the rest of us will be scratching our heads saying "Why didn't I think of that!"

Ok, that's what I'm thinking about all this. Probably not popular but don't think I'm taking shots at anyone who previously posted - I don't know any of you well enough to have issues like that.

[Alan Perkins]

Paid ads in with "normal" results isn't deceptive advertising or spam

Do you mean unlabelled paid ads mixed with organic search results or do you mean labelled paid ads separated from organic search results?

By specific example, do you mean this

Yes.

[Deverill]

Do you mean unlabelled paid ads mixed with organic search results or do you mean labelled paid ads separated from organic search results?

Either, actually. When you type in "Mexican Food El Paso" you are asking for websites that have something to do with that. Putting a restaurant that paid to be there is no more deceptive than then currently #3 result on G about a company that makes picante sauce that's located in Minneapolis. It's just a worthless (to me) result. In fact, if I was in El Paso Texas and wanted to find a Mexican restaurant I'd *rather* see a site that paid to be there if it was a restaurant... it would be more relevant than the Old El Paso food company.

Those SEs that totally sell their souls to the almighty advertising dollar will become unused if their results aren't useful to their visitors and that's how businesses thrive or die every day... based on how well they meet the needs of the client.

I, for one, would not use such an engine, but contrary to most of our gut feeling, it's not deceptive... just foolish on their part.

By the way, as a web designer and Junior SEO Wannabe, the thought of Joe Moneybags getting higher than me because he paid for it makes me cringe, but the Internet at large would stop using such SE's and something better than G would emerge that addresses this. Nobody ever said life was fair and it applies here too.

[Alan Perkins]

[quote name='Deverill' date='May 9 2004, 10:02 PM']Either, actually. When you type in "Mexican Food El Paso" you are asking for websites that have something to do with that. Putting a restaurant that paid to be there is no more deceptive than then currently #3 result on G about a company that makes picante sauce that's located in Minneapolis. [/quote]
Maybe you are not aware of the CommercialAlert Complaint to the FTC and the FTC's findings, which did suggest there was such a thing as deceptive advertising in search results, even when the search results were (subjectively speaking) "relevant" to the query.

Once you accept that deceptive advertising is possible in organic search results, then you have to ask yourself what constitutes a deceptive advertisement. IMO, in this context, "deceptive" means "unlabelled" and an advertisement is something which receives preferential placement, position or prominence owing to factors beyond "objective criteria" (E&OE). I've formed this opinion over a number of years from a number of sources, including this one from the FTC in their response to CommercialAlert and search engines:

[quote name='http://www.ftc.gov/os/closings/staff/commercialalertletter.htm']Thus, any Web sites or URLs that have paid to be ranked higher than they would be ranked by relevancy, or other objective criteria, should be clearly labeled as such using terms conveying that the ranking is paid for. In the staff's view, to avoid deception such labels need to convey that the sites listed are placed higher, or otherwise presented more prominently, because they have paid for their ranking or position, rather than solely based on some objective criteria relating to the probable relevance of their content to any particular search request.[/quote]

FWIW I agree with your "survival of the fittest" mentality, but there are certain rules covering the advertising and marketing industry. It's not just "Anything goes", not even on the Internet - especially now that the Internet is part of mainstream society.