4 ms·

If this discourages "marketers" from using the web it sounds like a win to me.

clavalle 13y ago
I generally don't like SEO and I'd agree with you if I didn't know so many clueless small business owners (I mean that in the least offensive way possible -- marketing is just not their strong suit). So many people have something really cool to offer but their message is unfocused or overly complicated or just not elegant. Keywords offered a relatively simple and cheap way to see what people who might be interested in what they have to say/sell are looking for and hone their shop window to the world. Now they get to pay Google for the privilege. It is nice that Google is trying to get rid of the disease I just hope they don't take too much of the good flesh with it.
- mfincham 13y ago
  Did having the visibility of search keywords ever really help people "optimise" their page text for increased business? I am far from an expert in this, but wouldn't you only get to see the search queries of people who found the site already? How do you get from that to knowing what to change? :) I did always enjoy looking at the AWStats output for my old web pages to see what hilarious pornographic keywords people were using to accidentally find me.
  - dangrossman 13y ago
    People who ran websites used to be able to link specific searches to specific sales or subscriptions. That means you can assign actual revenue numbers to different groups of search terms. Now, you have no way to make that link. You know which search terms bring traffic to the site, but not which among all those terms are linked to your revenue. With the first data set, you can see that people searching for "red widgets" buy your product, while people searching for "blue widgets" don't. You stop writing about blue widgets, make more content about red widgets, go out and blog about red widgets, run ads about red widgets, and both increase your traffic and your revenue. With the second data set, you see "red widgets" and "blue widgets" are bringing people to your site. Maybe "blue widgets" even brings much more traffic, and you assume that's where your sales are coming from. You could spend months optimizing content, building audience and running marketing campaigns about blue widgets before you realize they weren't your customers at all.
    - anaphor 13y ago
      So you mean this will help get rid of those sites that create fake pages based on search results?
      - dangrossman 13y ago
        No, it won't have that affect at all. They weren't creating pages based on search traffic they were already receiving, but search traffic they could potentially receive. You can still use the Google Keyword Planner to get lists of millions of keywords and their search volume. Webspam isn't going to be reduced by this change.
    - mfincham 13y ago
      If search engine queries being visible leads companies to write more promotional "blogs" and "content" that cruft up the web...
      - dangrossman 13y ago
        The kind of query visibility they need for that has not changed at all. Google still reports search volume for specific sites in Webmaster Tools, and for the search engine as a whole through the Keyword Planner tool. It's only the ability to link search terms to individual people that's been lost... unless you pay for it, as advertisers still get that data.
        mfincham 13y ago
        Got you. Thanks for the thorough explanation, you've made an important distinction for me that the linked article did not.
vdaniuk 13y ago
Not again. If marketers stop using the web there is no web. There is no Google, bing, twitter, Facebook, reddit,stack overflow, hordes of startups that use ads to monetize, plethora of blogs and therefore VC companies and whole startup ecosystem would bust. Do I want a more efficient system of transfer of commercial information? Yes. Is there is better system than marketing at the present moment? No. One of my hats is a marketer and I am shocked how the industry is misrepresented here on HN and on reddit. The level of arguments is comparable too.
- quesera 13y ago
  > If marketers stop using the web there is no web. There was a web before marketers. I liked it.
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    Then you are one selfish dude or dudette. I will endure some cognitive noise aka ads if that means more web for everyone. And you know what? 50% of ads I see are from edx,new relic, code school,treehouse, engineyard, heroku and I am very ok with that,
    - quesera 13y ago
      No need to be hostile. I'm not threatening your livelihood. Nor am I trying to change your opinion or influence your thoughts to suit my agenda. But I do confess: I wouldn't be disappointed if that was a common courtesy.
      - vdaniuk 13y ago
        Any oral or written communication between humans or machines has a probability P to influence thoughts or opinions of human agents engaged in communication or machines that are able to learn. Marketers are increasing P to reach their business goals. Actions taken to increase P may have positive or negative externalities. For example, edX uses Google Adwords and remarketing to spread awareness about free moocs from Harvard, MIT, etc. This is an example of an action with a positive externality. Thus I demonstrate that subset of marketers that are trying to change opinions is beneficial to society, even if they are pursuing their own agenda. I respectfully reject your statement that you are not trying to change my opinion or opinions of other HN readers. See my first argument for justification.

I generally don't like SEO and I'd agree with you if I didn't know so many clueless small business owners (I mean that in the least offensive way possible -- marketing is just not their strong suit). So many people have something really cool to offer but their message is unfocused or overly complicated or just not elegant. Keywords offered a relatively simple and cheap way to see what people who might be interested in what they have to say/sell are looking for and hone their shop window to the world. Now they get to pay Google for the privilege. It is nice that Google is trying to get rid of the disease I just hope they don't take too much of the good flesh with it.

mfincham 13y ago
Did having the visibility of search keywords ever really help people "optimise" their page text for increased business? I am far from an expert in this, but wouldn't you only get to see the search queries of people who found the site already? How do you get from that to knowing what to change? :) I did always enjoy looking at the AWStats output for my old web pages to see what hilarious pornographic keywords people were using to accidentally find me.
- dangrossman 13y ago
  People who ran websites used to be able to link specific searches to specific sales or subscriptions. That means you can assign actual revenue numbers to different groups of search terms. Now, you have no way to make that link. You know which search terms bring traffic to the site, but not which among all those terms are linked to your revenue. With the first data set, you can see that people searching for "red widgets" buy your product, while people searching for "blue widgets" don't. You stop writing about blue widgets, make more content about red widgets, go out and blog about red widgets, run ads about red widgets, and both increase your traffic and your revenue. With the second data set, you see "red widgets" and "blue widgets" are bringing people to your site. Maybe "blue widgets" even brings much more traffic, and you assume that's where your sales are coming from. You could spend months optimizing content, building audience and running marketing campaigns about blue widgets before you realize they weren't your customers at all.
  - anaphor 13y ago
    So you mean this will help get rid of those sites that create fake pages based on search results?
    - dangrossman 13y ago
      No, it won't have that affect at all. They weren't creating pages based on search traffic they were already receiving, but search traffic they could potentially receive. You can still use the Google Keyword Planner to get lists of millions of keywords and their search volume. Webspam isn't going to be reduced by this change.
  - mfincham 13y ago
    If search engine queries being visible leads companies to write more promotional "blogs" and "content" that cruft up the web...
    - dangrossman 13y ago
      The kind of query visibility they need for that has not changed at all. Google still reports search volume for specific sites in Webmaster Tools, and for the search engine as a whole through the Keyword Planner tool. It's only the ability to link search terms to individual people that's been lost... unless you pay for it, as advertisers still get that data.
      - mfincham 13y ago
        Got you. Thanks for the thorough explanation, you've made an important distinction for me that the linked article did not.

vdaniuk 13y ago

Not again. If marketers stop using the web there is no web. There is no Google, bing, twitter, Facebook, reddit,stack overflow, hordes of startups that use ads to monetize, plethora of blogs and therefore VC companies and whole startup ecosystem would bust. Do I want a more efficient system of transfer of commercial information? Yes. Is there is better system than marketing at the present moment? No. One of my hats is a marketer and I am shocked how the industry is misrepresented here on HN and on reddit. The level of arguments is comparable too.

quesera 13y ago
> If marketers stop using the web there is no web. There was a web before marketers. I liked it.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  Then you are one selfish dude or dudette. I will endure some cognitive noise aka ads if that means more web for everyone. And you know what? 50% of ads I see are from edx,new relic, code school,treehouse, engineyard, heroku and I am very ok with that,
  - quesera 13y ago
    No need to be hostile. I'm not threatening your livelihood. Nor am I trying to change your opinion or influence your thoughts to suit my agenda. But I do confess: I wouldn't be disappointed if that was a common courtesy.
    - vdaniuk 13y ago
      Any oral or written communication between humans or machines has a probability P to influence thoughts or opinions of human agents engaged in communication or machines that are able to learn. Marketers are increasing P to reach their business goals. Actions taken to increase P may have positive or negative externalities. For example, edX uses Google Adwords and remarketing to spread awareness about free moocs from Harvard, MIT, etc. This is an example of an action with a positive externality. Thus I demonstrate that subset of marketers that are trying to change opinions is beneficial to society, even if they are pursuing their own agenda. I respectfully reject your statement that you are not trying to change my opinion or opinions of other HN readers. See my first argument for justification.