6 ms·

The War Over ‘Mother’s Day Flowers’

12 points by ssclafani 15y ago

byrneseyeview 15y ago
If any HNers have questions about the research, I'm happy to answer them. (I'm the "Byrne" cited in the article.)
pitdesi 15y ago
Is there a good way that us white-hat folks can report our black-hat competitors? Almost all of the sites ranking higher than us for key terms use obvious black-hat techniques... backlinks from strange sites. I'm recording them all in a spreadsheet and have reported them https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en&pli=1 https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en&#38... here but I don't think it does anything... thoughts?
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Only solutions I'm aware of at this point is to A) Inform Google or B) Beat them at their own game
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    They are mutually exclusive you can't beat a black hat at their own game without becoming one yourself. I'm so torn about this ongoing debate, on the one hand I understand Google's need to stop this kind of stuff, but on the other google game their own rankings with extremely poorly marked adverts (very, very light yellow barely distinguishable from the white of the search with an absurdly small 'Ads' in the top right corner). No newspaper could get away with that and yet people scream about newspapers using outmoded models. The truth is that it's a lot more complicated, there's a lot of laws governing newspaper behaviours while Google can get away with murder. Google have recently done a lot of very, very underhanded and nasty advertising in recent years in my opinion. Their monopoly really stick in my craw. It's like having only one high street in the entire world ruled by the Americans. Given the ever more extreme stances american political parties are taking, it's not going to be a good high street we're forced down for very long. My only consolation it that at least they started from a fairly moral position so their gradual corruption is one from a good position. At least they're not Zynga.
mynameishere 15y ago
I can't believe the nytimes gave one of those companies (1800flowers) an extremely valuable anchor in such an article.
- tbgvi 15y ago
  They mentioned it as 1800Flowers.com, so their CMS probably turns anything with '.com' into a link. I'm sure their SEOs high-five'd when they noticed that :)
Hipchan 15y ago
I honestly don't get what Google is supposed to do in situations like this. Google's algos are supposedly measuring for 'relevance'. But when it's not documents you're talking about but companies offering probably identical flowers for probably similar prices it's hard the make the argument that one is more 'relevant' than another. I honestly think Google should start a different 'business' section of the search engine that plays by different rules. That is ranked by custom satisfaction or price or something. Otherwise the only ones who win are the SEO companies.
- jrockway 15y ago
  I honestly think Google should start a different 'business' section of the search engine that plays by different rules. That is ranked by custom satisfaction or price or something. It's called "Google Shopping". The problem is, nobody uses it, so optimizing your business for it probably isn't going to be profitable. Because people search for products in the "normal" Google search, that's where the incentives to do SEO come from. Personally, if I wanted to buy flowers, I would google for flowers and then search for each company that turns up to find reviews. If you really want to screw people like me over, you need shill reviews, not the #1 Google spot.
transburgh 15y ago
Is the NYT the new paid search police? I love that someone is targeting these black hat tactics but it is interesting that the NYT keeps publishing articles with sites and sending findings to google. I guess if it keeps putting google and the buyers in the media it will help with the ultimate goal.

12 points by ssclafani 15y ago

If any HNers have questions about the research, I'm happy to answer them. (I'm the "Byrne" cited in the article.)

Is there a good way that us white-hat folks can report our black-hat competitors? Almost all of the sites ranking higher than us for key terms use obvious black-hat techniques... backlinks from strange sites. I'm recording them all in a spreadsheet and have reported them https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en&pli=1 https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en&#38... here but I don't think it does anything... thoughts?

sliverstorm 15y ago
Only solutions I'm aware of at this point is to A) Inform Google or B) Beat them at their own game
- mattmanser 15y ago
  They are mutually exclusive you can't beat a black hat at their own game without becoming one yourself. I'm so torn about this ongoing debate, on the one hand I understand Google's need to stop this kind of stuff, but on the other google game their own rankings with extremely poorly marked adverts (very, very light yellow barely distinguishable from the white of the search with an absurdly small 'Ads' in the top right corner). No newspaper could get away with that and yet people scream about newspapers using outmoded models. The truth is that it's a lot more complicated, there's a lot of laws governing newspaper behaviours while Google can get away with murder. Google have recently done a lot of very, very underhanded and nasty advertising in recent years in my opinion. Their monopoly really stick in my craw. It's like having only one high street in the entire world ruled by the Americans. Given the ever more extreme stances american political parties are taking, it's not going to be a good high street we're forced down for very long. My only consolation it that at least they started from a fairly moral position so their gradual corruption is one from a good position. At least they're not Zynga.

mynameishere 15y ago

I can't believe the nytimes gave one of those companies (1800flowers) an extremely valuable anchor in such an article.

tbgvi 15y ago
They mentioned it as 1800Flowers.com, so their CMS probably turns anything with '.com' into a link. I'm sure their SEOs high-five'd when they noticed that :)

Hipchan 15y ago

I honestly don't get what Google is supposed to do in situations like this. Google's algos are supposedly measuring for 'relevance'. But when it's not documents you're talking about but companies offering probably identical flowers for probably similar prices it's hard the make the argument that one is more 'relevant' than another. I honestly think Google should start a different 'business' section of the search engine that plays by different rules. That is ranked by custom satisfaction or price or something. Otherwise the only ones who win are the SEO companies.

jrockway 15y ago
I honestly think Google should start a different 'business' section of the search engine that plays by different rules. That is ranked by custom satisfaction or price or something. It's called "Google Shopping". The problem is, nobody uses it, so optimizing your business for it probably isn't going to be profitable. Because people search for products in the "normal" Google search, that's where the incentives to do SEO come from. Personally, if I wanted to buy flowers, I would google for flowers and then search for each company that turns up to find reviews. If you really want to screw people like me over, you need shill reviews, not the #1 Google spot.

transburgh 15y ago

Is the NYT the new paid search police? I love that someone is targeting these black hat tactics but it is interesting that the NYT keeps publishing articles with sites and sending findings to google. I guess if it keeps putting google and the buyers in the media it will help with the ultimate goal.