Google, brands, unfairness, etc
- Thread starter wezcountry
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inb4 tomaszjot waits to check what reputable members have to say, reuse their thoughts and writes a post some WF members who did not see this gimmick like, keeping his reputable member status in eyes of the noobs.
Way to re-purpose content that I copied from a site that was linked in an article that I linked into from something else bro!
Yawn. Aaron Wall has been saying this shit for years. He definitely has a point but there are many exceptions to the rule.
ie. Panda destroyed massive brands like Demand Studios (owners of Livestrong and Ehow), which is a publicly traded company that makes their money from Adsense. Even though G was getting a cut of their revenue via Adsense, they still hit them.
Call me naive, but I think they just want to show the best results to their users.
ie. Panda destroyed massive brands like Demand Studios (owners of Livestrong and Ehow), which is a publicly traded company that makes their money from Adsense. Even though G was getting a cut of their revenue via Adsense, they still hit them.
Call me naive, but I think they just want to show the best results to their users.
Demand Media (not Studios) isn't wiped out. They are currently being funded by Google to produce Youtube filler content; they might get nailed in the future, but not until Youtube 3-boxes are above all organic queries...so, a while imho.
Frankly, Aaron Wall has forgotten this week more than most of you know or will know about search. I chat with him daily and while I might be an unknown quantity to many of you, I'll just say he's unbelievably smart and gracious with his knowledge.
Frankly, Aaron Wall has forgotten this week more than most of you know or will know about search. I chat with him daily and while I might be an unknown quantity to many of you, I'll just say he's unbelievably smart and gracious with his knowledge.
They were a content mill that inspired many others. They were basically producing rewritten content to target long tails.
Not saying they're toast. But Panda fucked them up for a while. Here's their stock price after Panda.
Cool story bro and nice namedrop.
Personally, I love Aaron and SEO book. Not hating on the guy one bit. He's a white hat SEO that doesn't look down on SEOs. And isn't afraid to point out the hypocrisy of big G (unlike Rand and the gang).
But like anyone, he has flaws. And his is that he's been saying this shit for years (literally) and likes to ignore the fact that big brands have been hit in the past.
Style, look into the compete.com downstream estimates from Google to see what type of proportional traffic ehow and the rest of the DM empire is pulling in. It is significant. They were hit on the second iteration of Panda, but for the most part recovered (and then some if you count the Youtube traffic).
I'm surprised you don't think there's a brand bias. This isn't to say there won't be edge cases where a brand gets hit, but is significantly more rare for a brand to be meaningfully penalized for operating identically to a non-brand. That's the bias, and it is getting stronger, not weaker. Ever since Vince this shit has been getting worse and worse.
I'm surprised you don't think there's a brand bias. This isn't to say there won't be edge cases where a brand gets hit, but is significantly more rare for a brand to be meaningfully penalized for operating identically to a non-brand. That's the bias, and it is getting stronger, not weaker. Ever since Vince this shit has been getting worse and worse.
Big brands have advantages over the little guys everywhere you go, why should the SERPs be any different?
Aaron is a great mind, I follow him on Twitter. My only disagreement with him re: Google is that his opinion implies that Google is a public utility.
On the contrary, Google is a private company and there is ZERO obligation to small brands, small business, etc.
The truth is, Google search is a zero sum game (win-lose). Your position goes up and someone else necessarily has to go down. Such games by their nature favor the winner. Do we really want Google to socialize the results based on firm size or budget?
In other words, do you want Page A to rank above Page B because page A was written by a college student and page B was written by a large corporation?
Would you watch the Olympics if they mixed in every day people off the street? Well, maybe for the comedy...
Re: Infographic, sure there is a brand bias. That's why I gave up thin affiliate SEO (I had planned to give it up in 2010 to build a health community online) and am now building a directory. People doing thin affiliate stuff don't realize how much the deck has become stacked against them the last couple years.
On the contrary, Google is a private company and there is ZERO obligation to small brands, small business, etc.
The truth is, Google search is a zero sum game (win-lose). Your position goes up and someone else necessarily has to go down. Such games by their nature favor the winner. Do we really want Google to socialize the results based on firm size or budget?
In other words, do you want Page A to rank above Page B because page A was written by a college student and page B was written by a large corporation?
Would you watch the Olympics if they mixed in every day people off the street? Well, maybe for the comedy...
Re: Infographic, sure there is a brand bias. That's why I gave up thin affiliate SEO (I had planned to give it up in 2010 to build a health community online) and am now building a directory. People doing thin affiliate stuff don't realize how much the deck has become stacked against them the last couple years.
Just did that.
You're right, they did bounce back. But I still don't see ehow on the front page as much anymore though (thank God).
Anyway, my point was that DM was a huge brand that was basically sharing revenue with G and they got hit. The argument that a brand somehow protects you from updates doesn't always add up.
I do think that there's a brand bias and that G prefers brands in the algo. But is it as much of an issue as Aaron makes it sound? Not IMHO.
He has more of a point about offline brand recognition fueling links and social shares. I mean, look at Wallgreens.com. That site provides ZERO value (it's a thin ecommerce site) but it has 8 million links and 4 dmoz listings. That's BS.
But that's business. As a small business owner I don't see the practical value of harping on Google for favoring brands and taking over the SERPs with Adwords. I mean, he has like 8 infographics on this topic. I get it. I want him to tell me what I can do to fight back in the SERPs.
My point wasn't that Aaron was wrong, or that he shouldn't give them shit for it. It's that I get the point.
It isn't just with SEO. Small business has been getting harder and harder and big business easier and easier for a long time (taxes, legislative compliance, etc)
Unless you want to influence the times, the best thing is to adapt and aim to be in a good position in life.
Unless you want to influence the times, the best thing is to adapt and aim to be in a good position in life.
I am not going to pretend I know what Aaron is thinking, but there is a market for SEOs who take a stand that Google does evil.
It's good marketing for SEOBook tbh.
SEOmoz are the guys who are all just happy to be in the industry and SEOBook are the hardcore guys who see through all of the lies and propaganda.
Brand differentiation.
It's good marketing for SEOBook tbh.
SEOmoz are the guys who are all just happy to be in the industry and SEOBook are the hardcore guys who see through all of the lies and propaganda.
Brand differentiation.
Gaming with brands its a dangerous thing for google - because they game here industries which are bigger as they are.
Brands do not use ads on their sites.
They even do not need Adwords (notice the "need" instead of "use").
In the "real" (or better "old/established") advertising world, google/adwords/adsense is far away from be the big player as it maybe looks like.
Adwords counted in the advertising business around 2010 still as a not professional tool, i can't see that changed.
No one knows, how the business really works in, let say, 2015 - which is not far away.
How is the impact of mobiles & Ipads then?
What will facebook be able to do?
Amazon? The most underrated player in this game IMHO.
And Ebay is recovering faster as they was going down.
Will the browser force the java supression of ads code? Google can fast
come to a situation like "google chrome - the browser designed to show you
ads". That they found mozilla was and is perhaps their smartest move of
the last 10 years.
IF there comes a trigger which allows brands to kick in ads, lets say for
mobiles, outside the adwords system and the SE - then google has a big,
big problem.
Then their SE are dominated from sites which generate their income
complete outside their traffic/SE system and do not need adwords.
I am far away to be a google hater, but when i would have the chance to
use the 2010 google SE, i would change from the current in a second.
Brands do not use ads on their sites.
They even do not need Adwords (notice the "need" instead of "use").
In the "real" (or better "old/established") advertising world, google/adwords/adsense is far away from be the big player as it maybe looks like.
Adwords counted in the advertising business around 2010 still as a not professional tool, i can't see that changed.
No one knows, how the business really works in, let say, 2015 - which is not far away.
How is the impact of mobiles & Ipads then?
What will facebook be able to do?
Amazon? The most underrated player in this game IMHO.
And Ebay is recovering faster as they was going down.
Will the browser force the java supression of ads code? Google can fast
come to a situation like "google chrome - the browser designed to show you
ads". That they found mozilla was and is perhaps their smartest move of
the last 10 years.
IF there comes a trigger which allows brands to kick in ads, lets say for
mobiles, outside the adwords system and the SE - then google has a big,
big problem.
Then their SE are dominated from sites which generate their income
complete outside their traffic/SE system and do not need adwords.
I am far away to be a google hater, but when i would have the chance to
use the 2010 google SE, i would change from the current in a second.
Aaron's theory is that this is why they get preferred in the free serps.
It makes the serps look good to the average user if they see brand results, and the small guys are the ones who will buy Adwords, and that is how they can get placed above the fold.
greenleaves is right, small business continues to get harder.