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Not sure if people saw the comment that someone left on the original thread: "Seriously? It is because of the Panda update and the resulting shift in traffic aw

Not sure if people saw the comment that someone left on the original thread: "Seriously? It is because of the Panda update and the resulting shift in traffic away from ad-ridden low-quality sites and towards higher quality sites that often haven't yet been optimized for ads in the Google network. They've addressed this directly in both of the last two earnings calls and have said they expect the effects to be largely transitory."

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Matt, hated to downvote you but your comment didn't add much here. Simply saying that something was addressed and dismissed doesn't tell the reader why it was dismissed so that they could judge for themselves. Your premise seemed to be that if Google says something it must be true, which isn't necessarily the case. (And I'm definitely not implying any evil or bad reason, sometimes people are just mistaken)
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  DanielBMarkham, let me try again using quotes from Google's last two earning transcripts from the last two quarters and see whether that helps to clarify. I'm loath to go anywhere near a subject like corporate earnings for various reasons, but Foremski says "There is no explanation from Google or Wall Street analysts that I could find," but anyone can go read Google's Q2 2011 earnings call transcript, which you can find at http://seekingalpha.com/article/279555-google-s-ceo-discusses-q2-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript http://seekingalpha.com/article/279555-google-s-ceo-discusse... . The relevant sentence is "Network revenue was again negatively impacted by the Search quality improvements made during the latter part of Q1, as you will remember, and know that Q2 reflects a full quarter of this impact." Now go read Google's Q1 earning's transcript at http://seekingalpha.com/article/263665-google-s-ceo-discusses-q1-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript http://seekingalpha.com/article/263665-google-s-ceo-discusse... . The relevant section is "The Google Network revenue was up 19% year-over-year to $2.4 billion. That Network revenue was negatively impacted by two things, the loss of a Search distribution partnership deal and also, what has been broadly communicated, by Search quality improvement made during the quarter. Regarding the Search quality improvement, remember that we regularly make such trade-offs. We really believe that the quality improvements that benefit the user always serves us well both in the short term and in the mid term in terms of revenue." So Foremski claims that "For some strange reason no one has picked up on this or noticed this huge change in its business model. There is no explanation from Google or Wall Street analysts that I could find." I would contend that Google has actually been quite clear about the reasons for the change in network revenue in its earnings calls. In particular, Google has been clear in that it's willing to accept an impact in our revenue in order to improve the quality of our search results.
  - DanielBMarkham 15y ago
    Thanks. I'm obviously pursuing you into a spot you can't go, and for that I apologize, but the relevant problem here was your quoting a commenter from a blog who claimed from the earnings discussion that the effects would be transitory. That's a little too much indirection and terseness for my tastes. I also lost track of pronoun antecedents. In particular, I read it as transitory in terms of partner performance, when I guess it was meant to be transitory in terms of Google earnings performance? Still a bit unclear there. It's not worth chasing down myself, and we've beat on it enough. I was more concerned about somewhat-famous-person-makes-blanket-pronouncement-which-goes-unquestioned stuff, which is trashy for the quality of the site. Appreciate the clarification and additional resources provided for anybody who cares about this more than I do.
    - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
      No worries. Going back to the original earnings transcripts is nice because then it's official Google statements, not something I'm claiming. I'd been meaning to find those quotes anyway; back in January, a few skeptical people wondered whether Google "has a disincentive to algorithmically weed out the kind of drivel that exists for no other reason than to make its publisher money via AdSense" -- that's a quote from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2127937 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2127937 . What the last two earnings calls show is that Google is willing to accept an impact in our revenue to improve our search quality. So it was a helpful exercise for me to track down the relevant bits from the earnings transcripts.
      - teflonhook 15y ago
        Yes but I think Google possibly are being disingenuous here. Yes its negatively impacted by some search quality improvements, but is it NETT negatively impacted, or is it also positively impacted as well. After all, you are displaying ads that someone has paid for, so if someone isn't clicking on them, then maybe the content is no good for the ads (ie poor quality). Likewise you can tell by how much someone will bid on the keyword how valuable the content is.
  - 15y ago
mapgrep 15y ago
If that's true then come out and say it's true. Don't be coy. No, really, don't: You can't have it both ways, implying the original author is somehow dumb without being willing to stick your neck out enough to say it yourself. Pointing to a random anonymous internet comment is weasely.
- esrauch 15y ago
  Except he might not know that it's true, he was just drawing attention to an interesting comment.
teflonhook 15y ago
So use Adsense at your own peril? Add Google ads and risk being deprioritised in search rankings if they decide they are not making enough money?

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Matt, hated to downvote you but your comment didn't add much here. Simply saying that something was addressed and dismissed doesn't tell the reader why it was dismissed so that they could judge for themselves. Your premise seemed to be that if Google says something it must be true, which isn't necessarily the case. (And I'm definitely not implying any evil or bad reason, sometimes people are just mistaken)

Matt_Cutts 15y ago
DanielBMarkham, let me try again using quotes from Google's last two earning transcripts from the last two quarters and see whether that helps to clarify. I'm loath to go anywhere near a subject like corporate earnings for various reasons, but Foremski says "There is no explanation from Google or Wall Street analysts that I could find," but anyone can go read Google's Q2 2011 earnings call transcript, which you can find at http://seekingalpha.com/article/279555-google-s-ceo-discusses-q2-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript http://seekingalpha.com/article/279555-google-s-ceo-discusse... . The relevant sentence is "Network revenue was again negatively impacted by the Search quality improvements made during the latter part of Q1, as you will remember, and know that Q2 reflects a full quarter of this impact." Now go read Google's Q1 earning's transcript at http://seekingalpha.com/article/263665-google-s-ceo-discusses-q1-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript http://seekingalpha.com/article/263665-google-s-ceo-discusse... . The relevant section is "The Google Network revenue was up 19% year-over-year to $2.4 billion. That Network revenue was negatively impacted by two things, the loss of a Search distribution partnership deal and also, what has been broadly communicated, by Search quality improvement made during the quarter. Regarding the Search quality improvement, remember that we regularly make such trade-offs. We really believe that the quality improvements that benefit the user always serves us well both in the short term and in the mid term in terms of revenue." So Foremski claims that "For some strange reason no one has picked up on this or noticed this huge change in its business model. There is no explanation from Google or Wall Street analysts that I could find." I would contend that Google has actually been quite clear about the reasons for the change in network revenue in its earnings calls. In particular, Google has been clear in that it's willing to accept an impact in our revenue in order to improve the quality of our search results.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  Thanks. I'm obviously pursuing you into a spot you can't go, and for that I apologize, but the relevant problem here was your quoting a commenter from a blog who claimed from the earnings discussion that the effects would be transitory. That's a little too much indirection and terseness for my tastes. I also lost track of pronoun antecedents. In particular, I read it as transitory in terms of partner performance, when I guess it was meant to be transitory in terms of Google earnings performance? Still a bit unclear there. It's not worth chasing down myself, and we've beat on it enough. I was more concerned about somewhat-famous-person-makes-blanket-pronouncement-which-goes-unquestioned stuff, which is trashy for the quality of the site. Appreciate the clarification and additional resources provided for anybody who cares about this more than I do.
  - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
    No worries. Going back to the original earnings transcripts is nice because then it's official Google statements, not something I'm claiming. I'd been meaning to find those quotes anyway; back in January, a few skeptical people wondered whether Google "has a disincentive to algorithmically weed out the kind of drivel that exists for no other reason than to make its publisher money via AdSense" -- that's a quote from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2127937 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2127937 . What the last two earnings calls show is that Google is willing to accept an impact in our revenue to improve our search quality. So it was a helpful exercise for me to track down the relevant bits from the earnings transcripts.
    - teflonhook 15y ago
      Yes but I think Google possibly are being disingenuous here. Yes its negatively impacted by some search quality improvements, but is it NETT negatively impacted, or is it also positively impacted as well. After all, you are displaying ads that someone has paid for, so if someone isn't clicking on them, then maybe the content is no good for the ads (ie poor quality). Likewise you can tell by how much someone will bid on the keyword how valuable the content is.
- 15y ago

mapgrep 15y ago

If that's true then come out and say it's true. Don't be coy. No, really, don't: You can't have it both ways, implying the original author is somehow dumb without being willing to stick your neck out enough to say it yourself. Pointing to a random anonymous internet comment is weasely.

esrauch 15y ago
Except he might not know that it's true, he was just drawing attention to an interesting comment.

teflonhook 15y ago

So use Adsense at your own peril? Add Google ads and risk being deprioritised in search rankings if they decide they are not making enough money?