Raise your hand if you’ve tried to do SEO for your site recently. It is a frustrating process to say the least.
First you have to sort through all the misinformation and so-called expert opinionss to get any concrete advice. Then once you get past all that, you learn that everything that has been recommended is really only speculation since no search engine will ever tell you exactly how it works. So now you’re left watching competitors dance around on the front page of Google, Bing and Yahoo, while your site isn’t even listed in the first 100 pages of any search engine.
I’ve been doing SEO work for almost 10 years now, and even for me it can get confusing and frustrating to navigate. So any time people came to us at DiscountASP.NET looking for SEO help, I do my best to point them in the right direction, either by debunking myths (e.g., You need a dedicated server for good SEO) or pointing them to sites where they can get a good start on SEO (SearchEngineLand.com is one of my favorites).
So with that being said, this video is a great introduction to search engines and SEO by Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, providing some answers to how Google works.
Google has punished smaller, organic sites for their “advertisers” sites, that’s fraud, manipulating the search market. Should be under SEC investigation. They are re-directing traffic away from legitimate owner operated, to pump up the corporate sites. But the kicker? They’ can’t even get rid of spam on Gmail, it doesn’t make them money. So much for “user experience”. Google “allows” spam. It’s a crap business.
Stan,
You are not alone in your criticism of Google. I’ve been to many an SEO conference where Google was criticized for changes made to the search results and how it favored one business or group of sites over the other. The problem is that with any change to the algorithmic processes behind the search results , there will always be a so-called “Winner” and “Loser”. Old SEO people will remember the old joke that the true definition of SPAM was “Sites Placed Above Mine”. Everyone feels their site is the most relevant for a subject or product and needs to be placed on top.
In the end what you have to remember with large businesses versus a small business, the large business will always have the advantage because more people will link and reference that company as an expert on that product or topic. It really becomes more of a numbers game. In fact you have given the an idea for a new blog post, so keep you eyes open for something on this subject.
With that being said, Google has made some recent choices that I do question, but many have been to push their own services (Google+, GMail, Google Docs) and their “forcing” of users to use and connect these services.
If I ran Google and I launched a social media product like Google plus, I’d “force” people to sign onto it too. Who wouldn’t take advantage of (i.e. exploit) the world’s largest audience? I would hazard a guess that everyone who complains about it would do exactly what Google’s doing, if not something much worse.
Were not talking about Google + although that bombed as well, MJP. We’re talking about “specific” manipulation of searches, which is fraud. If you read on the EU’s Anti-Trust Comm. report, Google violates four reg’s on their books, most are due to : taking advantage of their domination of the search engines.
That is crime, buddy, its people like you that make this world so corrupt, that anything goes, long as it makes money-that’s why the US is in such stinking shape. The “Free Markets’ don’t mean “Free to Commit Crimes -Market”. Google has abandoned all ethics, the little guy has as much right to deserve ranking for good quality content, as much as the regurgitated crap on corporation sites. Google search volumes are already down, people are seeking other forms of search already. Learn or perish Big G, even the mighty fall.
One of the complaints in the EU case is that Google AdWords prevents competitors from bidding on ad placement. That rule is in place on AdWords to prevent me from advertising my services when people search for, say, R. J. Winkler or Stan Walker (or any other names you go by). The point being, whether that violates an EU rule or not, it’s there to protect businesses, not restrict them.
As for Google+ being a failure, it just started. By that measure Facebook was also a failure, and Bing is certainly a colossal failure. You know, if we’re judging success against huge, established sites when competitors are still new.