Is Seo Killing Targeted Results?, Is it really simply a case of money? Options

[1dmf]

OK, odd title I hear you say....

But I'm starting to get fed up with results in the SERPs which do not reflect what I typed.

Current example, I decided to look for some "Cheap Wii Games", the first page results, when I visited the websites are some of the most expensive prices for Wii games on the planet!

Now what part of 'Cheap' did G! not understand.... ok I know....

So is it simply a case of who can SEO their site the best and spend enough money to get to page one, regardless of actually offering the search term? or G! giving targeted results.

OK I know it's matched 'Wii Games', and it didn't give a page about potty training! but, some of the landing pages were the home page and were mainly X-Box games I had to hunt for Wii Games.

And the only thing 'Cheap' about the landing pages was the word in the title tag and NOT the price tag.

Another example was the new telly we were looking to purchase, I put "Cheap LE40B650" into G! and all you get are those damn price comparison sites, offering you the product from all the main high street names , we've already looked at them, i don't need to search an SE to find Comet, Curry's, Dixon, M&S, John Lewis, etc. etc. all i got was page after page after page of the same tosh.

In the end I gave up and used Bing, well blow me the first result page in Bing brought up a company not even shown in the G! SERPS and guess what, they were the cheapest place we could find for the TV. and i'm talking considerably cheaper, yet I didn't see them in the G! top 100!

I'm starting to feel I need a new way to look for what I want as the mainsteam SE's , ok G! in particular is saturated with people who game the SE's , perfect SEO and have more money than most small businesses, making the results no longer targeted and just show the same old rubbish from the same old high street suppliers...

What are others thoughts on the current SERPS when you look for something YOU want to buy?

I guess that's why I see many on here talk about the 'long tail' being where it's at when trying to sell something (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol.gif)

[Jill]

And the only thing 'Cheap' about the landing pages was the word in the title tag and NOT the price tag.

Well, if the website is telling the search engine that the stuff they sell is cheap (by putting it in the title) they're the ones being deceptive. Not sure how the search engine is supposed to know whether or not to believe the site owner.

It does make sense to me to show comparison sites for those putting in "cheap" as a keyword, since that way they can see which really are cheap.

[Ron Carnell]

You're absolutely right.

I looked for a short girlfriend and all of the results were over four foot tall! Now what part of "short" did Google not understand?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Randy]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/hysterical.gif) Ron !

[1dmf]

come on guys I used a caveat

Now what part of 'Cheap' did G! not understand.... ok I know....

Not sure how the search engine is supposed to know whether or not to believe the site owner.

My point exactly!

It's all just a game in the end, but i'm just wondering how better perhaps I could change the way I search to find the 'real' substance of the internet.

Do I click number 11 at the bottom of the SERPs, and then start looking avoiding the top 100 ?

Or change my search term logic?

Low cost , reduced , bargain, inexpensive

Or my search engine?

It took me 2 days and a tonne of searching to find a company that really was "Cheap", well as far as a new widescreen telly is cheap!

I didn't then purchase through the web anyway as I wanted to speak to customer services, and I hate paying or being a party to someone earning affiliate money (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_tongue.gif) , so I rung the company that had out of office hours customer service!

Though I must admit the missus forever uses those cashback sites, you get the affiliate referral fee for using a website you were going to go to anyway, they didn't give your business to the site you purchase from, you search, find what you want, clear your cache, login via a cashback site and get money for purchasing from a site you were going to use anyway.

I don't get how that works? The site being purchased from isn't gaining a new customer because of the cashback site, I was a customer anyway, so how can they afford to give away money for bringing in people who would be buying from them anyway?

[adibranch]

dont fret the cheap thing, targeting 'cheap' when the website isnt cheap, will lead to its demise eventually. It'll get a bad reputation, its orders and exit rates will be high, they'll put money into it and not get it back, and eventually hopefully close down.

Comparison sites also arent much cop i aggree, although i find google base a superb tool both for searcher and seller, and its helped send an extra few thousand visits a month to several of my ecommerce sites..

[1dmf]

I know, I shall take a chill pill and relax, not worth worrying about, but it is rather annoying and frustrating when trying to find what i want.

I do feel before so many people knew about SEO and the way SE's ticked, G! used to be the DB's in search, but it seems the more people learn how to manipulate or 'game' the SE's the less valuable the top results become.

Just the way it is i guess.

[adibranch]

i have to state due to my previous posts that the following is opinion and not fact .. i have no idea if even a small degree of this is in use, but i strongly doubt it.

A good idea would be that G and others would penalise for spammy text, such as 'cheap' , 'the cheapest' or the 'the best online' to stop this kind of abuse. If they did implement simple rules like this, it would clamp down on this kind of misleading results were seeing and users wouldnt get frustrated with some of googles crappy results.

[mal4mac]

You need to be precise! Try "wii games less than $2" until Google launch their world dominating super-semantic mind-reading search engine.

[1dmf]

Don't supose you have an ETA?

[torka]

Don't supose you have an ETA?

If you've never seen the Tom Hanks movie The Money Pit this won't make much sense to you...

It'll launch in "two weeks." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

--Torka (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[1dmf]

Is that the new house they buy, which ends up a building site and cost a fortune to do up when everything goes wrong?

I don't get to see many Tom Hanks movies, missus hates him, reckons he can't act and he's always 'Tom Hanks' where as Al Pacino or Robert Deniro, though you know it's them, you see the character they play.

But that could simply be a matter of opinion and taste.

So Torka, is that 14 earth days or Arkillian? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[torka]

It's"two weeks" in general contractor speak.

In the movie, the homeowners kept asking the contractor how long the repairs would take. The answer was always "two weeks." Even after the work had been ongoing for over a year...

--Torka (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)