Yet Another Reason to Hate Google

wsuffa said:
Speaking of punishment, it appears that Google may be punishing Expedia. Google does own ITA software, an airfare comparison site, but you can't purchase tickets (yet) via ITA.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/did-google-punish-expedia-pulling-rap-genius-move

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231001

I will say this: as Google accumulates more web sites and offers more services, they will have to be very, very careful in doling out punishments that affect competitors. I remember when Sabre got hit by the Feds for prioritzing AA flights over all others.
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How does google punish anyone? Anyone that "deals with" google, free or paid does so by their own free will.
 
What is at stake is googles reign as the search engine, I use a few different ones at times. Granted most of them suck but I'm trying others because of googles games.
 
ClimbnSink said:
What is at stake is googles reign as the search engine, I use a few different ones at times. Granted most of them suck but I'm trying others because of googles games.
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Yep. Vote with your http server.

Drop a robots.txt on your server and ban the bot from stopping by.

If such a wonderful website isn't going to have Google rain down accolades and praise on them, then they should take their ball and go home and allow a more deserving search engine to index their site. When all the good sites start popping up on Bing not google, the flock will follow.

Better yet, since everyone seems to know how to be google better than google. Fire up a server and put out your superior product. There's alotta bank to be made by taking down the king.
 
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bartmc said:
Yep. Vote with your http server.

Drop a robots.txt on your server and ban the bot from stopping by.
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Your repeated references to robots.txt is addressing the wrong problem. Banning Googlebot prevents your site from being crawled at all. Most site owners want their sites to be crawled, and others (those with personal or family sites, etc.) don't care one way or the other.

Rather, the problem arises when Google decides that a link posted by a forum member is paid spam. Most of them aren't; and if a site has a large number of incoming links from forums, the chances are that's because their content is good or because they're a merchant that happens to sell stuff that those forum members need.

But because of Google's arbitrariness, rather than those sites being rewarded for their good content or for having the products that those people need -- either of which would argue for "relevance" by anyone's definition -- there's a good chance that someone posting a link to a site that he likes, for whatever reason, is harming the landing site by hurting its rankings, or even getting it delisted altogether. This is the complete opposite of the "relevancy" that Google claims to seek.

The solution I've settled on is just adding the 'rel="nofollow"' attribute to external links. It's a ****ty solution, really, that works against relevancy because the vast majority of the links are not monetized. They were placed because the landing sites were relevant to some question, issue, or need on the parts of the members. But it is what it is. I can't think of a better solution off the top of my head.

An additional problem, which Bill alludes to, is that Google is no longer "just" a search engine company. Because they have their hands in so many different businesses, they're increasingly in competition with other companies whose sites they index. That creates a conflict of interest that may (hopefully, in my opinion) come back to bite them in the ass someday.

The Expedia situation will be interesting to watch, especially if Google goes into direct competition with them.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
The complaint of the person who contacted me was that he found out that Google was penalizing his site for "link spamming" because several forum users had posted links to his site because it provided answers to questions that other forum users had asked.
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Sounds like you're getting all worked up because a moron on the Internet sent you an e-mail. And then it's Google's fault. LOL.
 
You can cry over this all you want, but there's nothing wrong with the scheme. For every alleged "innocent" site you want to hold up there are tons of sites that are using "low quality links." By the way one of the scourges of operating a forum such as POA (I operate two other large vBulletin based sites) is that there are always BOTS trying to put spam links into your site. They are banging on the door all the time.

At least google tells you what the rules are and gives you due process to undo it.
If you are a SEO whore and give a crap, disavow the links that are driving your score down.
Being listed on a FORUM even if it is a non-spam link isn't the "high quality" type stuff that google uses to INCREASE the ratings. A random user posting a link is determined to be lesser than a web site keeper who places such a link on the site. More editorial.
 
bartmc said:
I've watched with my own eyes and seen places hire marketing people to join forums and get involved and every now and then drop a link in. Some of the biggest aviation vendors do it. I only caught on to it after I found this one guy had a weird devotion to an aviation interior company. 98% of his posts had nothing to do with aviation interiors. Took me 2 years to figure it out and I had access to the database, then I started digging for more. Yep, IPs traced back to the same marketing firm. A casual human observer sitting behind a desk in Mountain View won't catch this but the bot might.
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I recently stumbled across someone who appeared to be acting as a paid shill for products sold on Amazon. I saw a listing for a book that appeared to me to be written by a snake oil salesman, and had only two reviews, both very positive. One of the reviewers had posted many, many reviews on Amazon, for an improbably wide range of products. Almost all of them were five stars, with a few four stars mixed in, and they were all glowing reviews. :rolleyes:

The reviews were listed as being from a person who had actually purchased the products on Amazon, so it appears that part of the deal was reimbursement for funds to actually purchase the product.

There are lots of ways to game systems that are set up to assess trustworthiness.
 
RJM62 said:
Your repeated references to robots.txt is addressing the wrong problem. Banning Googlebot prevents your site from being crawled at all. Most site owners want their sites to be crawled, and others (those with personal or family sites, etc.) don't care one way or the other.

Rather, the problem arises when Google decides that a link posted by a forum member is paid spam. Most of them aren't; and if a site has a large number of incoming links from forums, the chances are that's because their content is good or because they're a merchant that happens to sell stuff that those forum members need.

But because of Google's arbitrariness, rather than those sites being rewarded for their good content or for having the products that those people need -- either of which would argue for "relevance" by anyone's definition -- there's a good chance that someone posting a link to a site that he likes, for whatever reason, is harming the landing site by hurting its rankings, or even getting it delisted altogether. This is the complete opposite of the "relevancy" that Google claims to seek.

The solution I've settled on is just adding the 'rel="nofollow"' attribute to external links. It's a ****ty solution, really, that works against relevancy because the vast majority of the links are not monetized. They were placed because the landing sites were relevant to some question, issue, or need on the parts of the members. But it is what it is. I can't think of a better solution off the top of my head.

An additional problem, which Bill alludes to, is that Google is no longer "just" a search engine company. Because they have their hands in so many different businesses, they're increasingly in competition with other companies whose sites they index. That creates a conflict of interest that may (hopefully, in my opinion) come back to bite them in the ass someday.

The Expedia situation will be interesting to watch, especially if Google goes into direct competition with them.

-Rich
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I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, I can't fault google for acting in a way they believe to be in their best interest. I don't see that they owe this guy anything. Whatever positive results he's gotten from them seem like gift to me, yet he's crying that they didn't give him what he deserves. IMHO, he doesn't deserve anything from google. Understand he's the product being sold. The farmer will keep the hogs healthy and fed, they won't be getting a king sized bed with silk sheets.

If someone tells me that something evil is harming their revenue and punishing them. My suggestion would be to separate themselves from that entity. Robots.txt makes it a quick, easy divorce.

If enough folks get fed up with googles punishment and the damage google is doing to their revenue stream, they'll robots.txt them away and google's product dries up.
 
Palmpilot said:
I recently stumbled across someone who appeared to be acting as a paid shill for products sold on Amazon. I saw a listing for a book that appeared to me to be written by a snake oil salesman, and had only two reviews, both very positive. One of the reviewers had posted many, many reviews on Amazon, for an improbably wide range of products. Almost all of them were five stars, with a few four stars mixed in, and they were all glowing reviews. :rolleyes:

The reviews were listed as being from a person who had actually purchased the products on Amazon, so it appears that part of the deal was reimbursement for funds to actually purchase the product.

There are lots of ways to game systems that are set up to assess trustworthiness.
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It's hard to say. Almost all the product reviews I write are positive, but that's because I research carefully before I buy, so I'm usually satisfied with the product once I get it.

I only remember writing one Amazon review that was negative. All the rest were glowing. And I've also purchased a wide variety of products. My recent purchases have included:

  • A BlackBerry holster for $0.97 (that was yesterday: I actually bought two at that price, if you happen to need one)
  • A laptop hard drive
  • A fuel filter for a 2000 Kia
  • Some SDHC flash memory cards
  • A serpentine belt tensioner, thermostat, radiator, and fuel filler cap for a 2001 Saturn
  • A stainless steel frothing pitcher (to make cappuccino)
  • Two bottles of Cat's Claw and a vial of Pata de Vaca
  • A 52mm lens cap for a Nikon
  • A Hoover SteamVac hose
  • "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
  • Foam filter pads for a Fluval aquarium filter
That's an improbably wide range of products, too -- except that I actually bought them all.

So although it's certainly possible that the guy you're referring to is a shill, I personally believe it's also possible that he uses Amazon as his favorite online retailer, buys all sorts of stuff from them, and actually was satisfied with his purchases.

-Rich
 
Palmpilot said:
I'm not saying that it's not POSSIBLE that he's legit. It's just a feeling I got from looking at his reviewing history, and the improbability of his claims relative to the book I was looking at. Your mileage may vary.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A19AEYYI6PAE2W?ref=pdp_new_reviews_link

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200422&pf_rd_i=507846
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In Steven's case, I must admit that the sheer volume of books he claims to have read within the time frame raises an eyebrow or two. That's a lot of reading.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Thank you. Or at least to not be arbitrary and capricious in labeling sites as "spammers."
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Isn't that a lot like slander? Could their actions be actionable in a class action?
 
Everskyward said:
Can they be fixed to differentiate link spam from valid links? I sure don't know, but Rich seems to think it would take human intervention. I don't see how that is logistically possible without a huge labor expense.
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If google reviewed 1/60th of the sites they indexed for one minute, it would take 337 people a year to do it.

The behavior he describes sounds like a link spammer who got caught and now regrets it.

"Good content" is highly subjective.
 
gismo said:
Isn't that a lot like slander? Could their actions be actionable in a class action?
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They wouldn't advertise it to the public. And as far as I know youre still free to not do business with people for any reason you wish, except race, sex, age etc...
 
There might be a reason that Google has decided your website is a source of linkspam other than those particular links. If so, it will downgrade all the links on your site. You admit that spammy links sometimes wind up on your site, maybe you could fix that.
 
Lindberg said:
There might be a reason that Google has decided your website is a source of linkspam other than those particular links. If so, it will downgrade all the links on your site. You admit that spammy links sometimes wind up on your site, maybe you could fix that.
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I delete spammers when I catch them, and all the links are now tagged "nofollow." Beyond that... Well, I don't own the forum, it's not hosted on my server, the forum's owner doesn't care, and I get paid very little; so there's only so much time I'm going to spend analyzing users' linking habits. When someone asks a question, and another user provides a link that answers or relates to that question, as far as I'm concerned, it's relevant.

And you know what? The owner has a point when he says he doesn't care. If a member asks a question and another member provides a relevant link that answers that question, why should I care if he got paid for posting the link? Because it messes with Google's algos? Screw Google's algos. If the link is relevant, does it become less so because maybe, just maybe, someone got paid to post it?

I mean, seriously, Google's whole business is based on paid links, when you get right down to it. Doesn't that make them the biggest spammers of all?

If forums are such colossal sources of spam (which some of them surely are), then I suggest Google simply disregard all links from forums. That would solve the problem all around. No one could be falsely accused of buying or selling links, no one's unfairly penalized, and the link spammers are put out of business.

But that, of course, assumes that Google had any interest in ethics.

-Rich
 
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RJM62 said:
Compare this for a moment to others who render opinions for a living, such as food critics. A food critic can make or destroy a restaurant's reputation, In fact, there have been some successful lawsuits filed against food critics who did exactly that.
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Show me a lawsuit filed against a critic for saying nothing at all about a restaurant, and I'll accept your comparison as valid.

It's entirely possible that the link from a heavily-used forum is of more value than moving up a couple spots in Google. If linking in social media hurts your SEO, lots of big, successful companies appear not to care.
 
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