11 ms·

Do they really? Wouldn't a "strong SEO" site be ideal for their spiders?

by rijoja 7y ago

xenocratus 7y ago
I think the idea is that a strong SEO site doesn't have to pay to be seen through searches.
- dmix 7y ago
  There will still be 2-4+ ads above the fold of the real "good SEO" results anyway.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
If you have good SEO and drift to the top of queries that actually are relevant for your site then you don't need to buy as many Google ads.
- brennebeck 7y ago
  Wouldn’t having strong SEO incentive competition to buy ads? Of course it also incentives them to work on SEO, but the only way to ‘get above’ a top ranking site would be to buy an ad, no?
  - Retric 7y ago
    Increasing costs for your competition is a net win for you.
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      And Google
      - Retric 7y ago
        Depends on the industry, but if you can profit at lower prices you can force your competition to spend less on advertising. That’s bad for Google.
        iudqnolq 7y ago
        That makes sense. I meant increasing the ad buy spend of a firm's competitors helps Google
- xp84 7y ago
  The way Google defends its income stream against that is simple: They allow your competitors to buy ads on your own names and trademarks, then you're forced to do so as well because otherwise your organic link is below the ads. It used to be that it mattered since only dumb users would click the ads. But now that they're unshaded and look 99% identical, only super nerds bypass ads. Meaning your #1 organic result is basically only good for bragging rights and nothing more if there's anyone willing to pay even a small amount to jump up above you.
dheera 7y ago
I guess sites with real, useful content (e.g. Wikipedia) don't need strong SEO since they have a ton of back-links from other sites that validate their high ranking, so "strong SEO" is really about making a less useful site look more useful, which makes sense for them to hate. SEO really translates to "How to fool Google into boosting your ranking artifically".
- pyrale 7y ago
  In my experience, Wikipedia has been relegated lower and lower in search results. So much so that I now specifically use their search tool rather than go through google just in case some interesting thing pops up.
  - CalChris 7y ago
    I would love to be able to overrule Google and always sort Wikipedia as the first result. Maybe this can be done with a browser extension.
  - jethro_tell 7y ago
    I use duckduckgo, and for the most part, you know what you are searching for so the !tags are really good. !w search term, just takes you right to wikipedea. When I really have no ideal what or where I'm looking for something, I still find myself looking on google a bit, but for the most part, !youtube, !arch, !git, !stack, get me exactly what I want about 99 percent of the time. Check it out, because it sounds like it might start to match your workflow: https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q= https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=
    - takeda 7y ago
      For YouTube you can use !yt, much shorter.
    - wolco 7y ago
      Is there a shorter domain name for ddg?

Do they really? Wouldn't a "strong SEO" site be ideal for their spiders?

by rijoja 7y ago

Do they really? Wouldn't a "strong SEO" site be ideal for their spiders?

xenocratus 7y ago

I think the idea is that a strong SEO site doesn't have to pay to be seen through searches.

dmix 7y ago
There will still be 2-4+ ads above the fold of the real "good SEO" results anyway.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

If you have good SEO and drift to the top of queries that actually are relevant for your site then you don't need to buy as many Google ads.

brennebeck 7y ago
Wouldn’t having strong SEO incentive competition to buy ads? Of course it also incentives them to work on SEO, but the only way to ‘get above’ a top ranking site would be to buy an ad, no?
- Retric 7y ago
  Increasing costs for your competition is a net win for you.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    And Google
    - Retric 7y ago
      Depends on the industry, but if you can profit at lower prices you can force your competition to spend less on advertising. That’s bad for Google.
      - iudqnolq 7y ago
        That makes sense. I meant increasing the ad buy spend of a firm's competitors helps Google
xp84 7y ago
The way Google defends its income stream against that is simple: They allow your competitors to buy ads on your own names and trademarks, then you're forced to do so as well because otherwise your organic link is below the ads. It used to be that it mattered since only dumb users would click the ads. But now that they're unshaded and look 99% identical, only super nerds bypass ads. Meaning your #1 organic result is basically only good for bragging rights and nothing more if there's anyone willing to pay even a small amount to jump up above you.

dheera 7y ago

I guess sites with real, useful content (e.g. Wikipedia) don't need strong SEO since they have a ton of back-links from other sites that validate their high ranking, so "strong SEO" is really about making a less useful site look more useful, which makes sense for them to hate. SEO really translates to "How to fool Google into boosting your ranking artifically".

pyrale 7y ago
In my experience, Wikipedia has been relegated lower and lower in search results. So much so that I now specifically use their search tool rather than go through google just in case some interesting thing pops up.
- CalChris 7y ago
  I would love to be able to overrule Google and always sort Wikipedia as the first result. Maybe this can be done with a browser extension.
- jethro_tell 7y ago
  I use duckduckgo, and for the most part, you know what you are searching for so the !tags are really good. !w search term, just takes you right to wikipedea. When I really have no ideal what or where I'm looking for something, I still find myself looking on google a bit, but for the most part, !youtube, !arch, !git, !stack, get me exactly what I want about 99 percent of the time. Check it out, because it sounds like it might start to match your workflow: https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q= https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=
  - takeda 7y ago
    For YouTube you can use !yt, much shorter.
  - wolco 7y ago
    Is there a shorter domain name for ddg?