4 ms·
I agree completely. Sites like Mahalo and Scribd are just wrapping up content and duping people into clicking through SEO to their site, and then clicking on ad
by axod 17y ago
I agree completely. Sites like Mahalo and Scribd are just wrapping up content and duping people into clicking through SEO to their site, and then clicking on adSense adverts to get what they really wanted in the first place.
There's a reverse incentive at work there - they have no incentive to provide a better user experience, since then, users would get what they want, and wouldn't need to click on the ads.
Google could, and definitely should IMHO detect that user behaviour, and penalize sites for it. For example:
* If a user clicks on a natural search listing
* If that same user quickly clicks on an adSense advert at the site
* We can assume that the landing page was bad quality
* Now penalize them either by not paying the adsense, or
reduce their ranking for that page.
If you have a valuable site, Google should only be there to provide you new users, not all your users.
I think the quote about Google being the frontpage to stackoverflow is pretty ridiculous personally.
- qeorge 17y ago"I think the quote about Google being the frontpage to stackoverflow is pretty ridiculous personally." Why? Because its true? There's a lot of content sites I use all the time but never visit directly. Yahoo Answers comes to mind.
- axod 17y agoI just don't think it's a useful state of affairs once a site has tens, even hundreds of millions of pages indexed by google. Why wouldn't you go to Yahoo answers and do a search there? I'm just not too into the business model of "We know about everything", lets get listed for every single search on google. For stackoverflow, personally I don't usually find the content useful, so it's just irritating to have to specify I don't want stackoverflow results. It'd be good if Google could better judge quality of pages, as in "Is this just user generated / scraped content, or is it verified reliable fact".
- ericd 17y agoYou don't go to Yahoo answers directly because you can either search one, or search them all at once. Do you still go to the bakery, then the butcher, then the vegetable stand, or do you go to a supermarket? As for judging quality and verifying as a reliable fact, I agree, that would be excellent. This is something I was thinking about as part of a potential startup. Unfortunately, it's wicked hard to do without resorting to (probably paid) human experts.
- axod 17y ago>> "Do you still go to the bakery, then the butcher, then the vegetable stand, or do you go to a supermarket?" I often still go to the bakery, then the butcher, then the farm shop actually. The quality is far better than anything you get in a supermarket.
- ericd 17y agoHeh actually I wish I had all of those things located nearby, I've never been disappointed when I've spent the time to go to all of those.