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I assume that Fandom pays Google for that placement

abound 2y ago
Theoretically, you can't pay for placement on Google without it being labelled an ad. Practically, you can pay SEO experts to help you keep your rankings up.
niam 2y ago
If Google were to have the astoundingly poor business sense to secretly allow payment for higher 'organic' search rankings: they'd hopefully at least have the good sense to not blow that secret on a fish as small as Fandom.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  How so? Fandom seems to have Google ads. We wouldn't be able to prove if Google ranked sites with their ads higher. Google's search ranking is black box. Edit: I guess at great effort you could scrape thousands of sites, not if they remove or add Google ads, and track their rating. I think it is a better assumption to make, that Google puts their profit above luser experience, when it comes to search ranking.
  - niam 2y ago
    > We wouldn't be able to prove if Google ranked sites with their ads higher This to me is a different argument, though admittedly reasonable to arrive at through the language of "paying Google for placement". > I think it is a better assumption to make, that Google puts their profit above luser experience, when it comes to search ranking. I mean, yes. Though I should hope I needn't preamble any statement about <company> with how cynical I am about their intentions... It's not relevant here because I'm not arguing on the grounds that 'Google would be ethical and kawaii if they didn't accept payment for organic search ranking'--I'm saying that from a business standpoint it wouldn't make sense.
    - rightbyte 2y ago
      Ok sure I might have misunderstood you. I agree that Fandom is most likely not writing checks or paying directly in other means to Google for increased search rank.
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    The black box leaked recently. https://sparktoro.com/blog/an-anonymous-source-shared-thousands-of-leaked-google-search-api-documents-with-me-everyone-in-seo-should-see-them/ https://sparktoro.com/blog/an-anonymous-source-shared-thousa...
- permo-w 2y ago
  a relative of mine worked for a company who were explicitly paying Google for higher "organic" search results
snowwrestler 2y ago
They don’t need to. Fandom benefits from being an old and popular site. Google manually adjusts their ranking to prioritize such sites, because they think those sites are what the “average” searcher expects to see come up when they search certain topics. Essentially, Google fears that the average searcher will think Google is broken if certain popular sites don’t come up in their results.

Theoretically, you can't pay for placement on Google without it being labelled an ad. Practically, you can pay SEO experts to help you keep your rankings up.

niam 2y ago

If Google were to have the astoundingly poor business sense to secretly allow payment for higher 'organic' search rankings: they'd hopefully at least have the good sense to not blow that secret on a fish as small as Fandom.

rightbyte 2y ago
How so? Fandom seems to have Google ads. We wouldn't be able to prove if Google ranked sites with their ads higher. Google's search ranking is black box. Edit: I guess at great effort you could scrape thousands of sites, not if they remove or add Google ads, and track their rating. I think it is a better assumption to make, that Google puts their profit above luser experience, when it comes to search ranking.
- niam 2y ago
  > We wouldn't be able to prove if Google ranked sites with their ads higher This to me is a different argument, though admittedly reasonable to arrive at through the language of "paying Google for placement". > I think it is a better assumption to make, that Google puts their profit above luser experience, when it comes to search ranking. I mean, yes. Though I should hope I needn't preamble any statement about <company> with how cynical I am about their intentions... It's not relevant here because I'm not arguing on the grounds that 'Google would be ethical and kawaii if they didn't accept payment for organic search ranking'--I'm saying that from a business standpoint it wouldn't make sense.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    Ok sure I might have misunderstood you. I agree that Fandom is most likely not writing checks or paying directly in other means to Google for increased search rank.
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  The black box leaked recently. https://sparktoro.com/blog/an-anonymous-source-shared-thousands-of-leaked-google-search-api-documents-with-me-everyone-in-seo-should-see-them/ https://sparktoro.com/blog/an-anonymous-source-shared-thousa...
permo-w 2y ago
a relative of mine worked for a company who were explicitly paying Google for higher "organic" search results

snowwrestler 2y ago

They don’t need to. Fandom benefits from being an old and popular site. Google manually adjusts their ranking to prioritize such sites, because they think those sites are what the “average” searcher expects to see come up when they search certain topics. Essentially, Google fears that the average searcher will think Google is broken if certain popular sites don’t come up in their results.