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“created 25,000 search optimized landing pages” It’s garbage that this approach works for SEO. Who wakes up in the morning and decides that creating 25k versio

“created 25,000 search optimized landing pages” It’s garbage that this approach works for SEO. Who wakes up in the morning and decides that creating 25k versions of the same web page is a good use of time, automated or not. Apparently it pays off, but I don’t want to compete on who can generate the most fluff, and it’s bogus that this behavior is rewarded.

arrel 8y ago
They mention that these pages were created for every combination of “connect service X to service Y”, which matches twhat people are actually looking for, so I would argue this is a great use of 25K landing pages that are adding value and being rewarded by google for doing so.
- weisser 8y ago
  It is fantastic. I pay for Zapier and sometimes I end up on these pages when searching simply because I was unaware of a new integration. The pages do a fantastic job of showing people a solution they are searching for.
  - jwdunne 8y ago
    It's funny. This happened to me yesterday. Not a new integration but I wanted to know if I could get data from a forum into a Google sheet once a month. Zapier landing page: Sure, just use a webhook trigger to Google sheets.
rtpg 8y ago
It's not 25k versions of the same web page. It's a page for each combination of app that they service. "Connect Trello to Gmail" is a totally different thing from "Connect Stripe to Salesforce".
- abootstrapper 8y ago
  It's not "totally different." It's connect "API X to API Y." Extrapolating every single permutation of this concept to outrank the competition on a specific search phrase in Google is a hack, and a failure in the broader vision of web search. These "25 thousand pages" are created for computer search algorithms first, and humans second. It's a dumb game we're forced to play to stay competitive.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    no, they're explicitly created for human searchers. Searching for "connect gmail to workflowy" or whatever combination should bring you to Zapier (or another company that does the same thing), right? These landing pages facilitate that.
    - rahoulb 8y ago
      Just to add to that, when you're creating a Zapier plugin, you need to add human readable descriptions of your triggers and actions - so the actual content about linking X to Y or X to Z actually becomes readable and usable as a help page.
  - lvh 8y ago
    They are completely different to the person making the buying decision, and they are only completely different from a technical perspective if you’re an architecture astronaut in low earth orbit that all you see of an API is boxes on a diagram.
prawn 8y ago
The template is the same, but the content is different. How is it that different from LinkedIn ranking for an individual's name or a news article or forum discussion? I don't know about others but I favour something like StackOverflow because it's consistent and predictable. I know it will load quickly, things will be in the spot I expect, and I won't have to jump through modals to get to the content. They'd have more than 25,000 informative and templated pages ranking and it's a positive thing.
- abootstrapper 8y ago
  Say you do business anywhere in the state of California. To another human you would say, "we serve the entire state of California." But to outrank your Google competition you must create a landing page for every single city in California you do business in. This is not the same thing as a different forum post or different profile pages. This is auto-generated redundant fluff. It bring no value other than outranking the competition on a specific search phrase, and possibly misleading the reader to believe you're more local or focused than you actually are. I get that it's the rules of the Google game we're all playing, but I don't buy that it's somehow positive to the web user's experience.
  - puranjay 8y ago
    But if you do business everywhere in the state of California, how is it wrong to say that you also do business in the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco? It's not a lie; it's an exaggerated truth.
manigandham 8y ago
It's what most "plumbing" style companies do, by making a separate page for each permutation. It's easy to generate with some stock data for each option and is very good at matching the queries that users actually type. It only works if the company supports it obviously, but it's a nice win for them and completely legitimate in terms of both search engines and users finding what they need.
robbiemitchell 8y ago
Garbage? I found Zapier many years ago because I was searching for a way to connect two specific products together. They made a page to advertise their general purpose tool as a way to solve my specific need. It was effective, and at a time when there was no other way. Not sure why you see this as such a negative thing.

arrel 8y ago

They mention that these pages were created for every combination of “connect service X to service Y”, which matches twhat people are actually looking for, so I would argue this is a great use of 25K landing pages that are adding value and being rewarded by google for doing so.

weisser 8y ago
It is fantastic. I pay for Zapier and sometimes I end up on these pages when searching simply because I was unaware of a new integration. The pages do a fantastic job of showing people a solution they are searching for.
- jwdunne 8y ago
  It's funny. This happened to me yesterday. Not a new integration but I wanted to know if I could get data from a forum into a Google sheet once a month. Zapier landing page: Sure, just use a webhook trigger to Google sheets.

rtpg 8y ago

It's not 25k versions of the same web page. It's a page for each combination of app that they service. "Connect Trello to Gmail" is a totally different thing from "Connect Stripe to Salesforce".

abootstrapper 8y ago
It's not "totally different." It's connect "API X to API Y." Extrapolating every single permutation of this concept to outrank the competition on a specific search phrase in Google is a hack, and a failure in the broader vision of web search. These "25 thousand pages" are created for computer search algorithms first, and humans second. It's a dumb game we're forced to play to stay competitive.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  no, they're explicitly created for human searchers. Searching for "connect gmail to workflowy" or whatever combination should bring you to Zapier (or another company that does the same thing), right? These landing pages facilitate that.
  - rahoulb 8y ago
    Just to add to that, when you're creating a Zapier plugin, you need to add human readable descriptions of your triggers and actions - so the actual content about linking X to Y or X to Z actually becomes readable and usable as a help page.
- lvh 8y ago
  They are completely different to the person making the buying decision, and they are only completely different from a technical perspective if you’re an architecture astronaut in low earth orbit that all you see of an API is boxes on a diagram.

prawn 8y ago

The template is the same, but the content is different. How is it that different from LinkedIn ranking for an individual's name or a news article or forum discussion? I don't know about others but I favour something like StackOverflow because it's consistent and predictable. I know it will load quickly, things will be in the spot I expect, and I won't have to jump through modals to get to the content. They'd have more than 25,000 informative and templated pages ranking and it's a positive thing.

abootstrapper 8y ago
Say you do business anywhere in the state of California. To another human you would say, "we serve the entire state of California." But to outrank your Google competition you must create a landing page for every single city in California you do business in. This is not the same thing as a different forum post or different profile pages. This is auto-generated redundant fluff. It bring no value other than outranking the competition on a specific search phrase, and possibly misleading the reader to believe you're more local or focused than you actually are. I get that it's the rules of the Google game we're all playing, but I don't buy that it's somehow positive to the web user's experience.
- puranjay 8y ago
  But if you do business everywhere in the state of California, how is it wrong to say that you also do business in the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco? It's not a lie; it's an exaggerated truth.

manigandham 8y ago

It's what most "plumbing" style companies do, by making a separate page for each permutation. It's easy to generate with some stock data for each option and is very good at matching the queries that users actually type. It only works if the company supports it obviously, but it's a nice win for them and completely legitimate in terms of both search engines and users finding what they need.

robbiemitchell 8y ago

Garbage? I found Zapier many years ago because I was searching for a way to connect two specific products together. They made a page to advertise their general purpose tool as a way to solve my specific need. It was effective, and at a time when there was no other way. Not sure why you see this as such a negative thing.