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How Expedia Buys Its Way To The Top Of Google
- pastpartisan 13y agobrb gonna declare bankruptcy (google ads are reallly expensive and lots of bot/garbage clicks)
- JoshGlazebrook 13y agoSince you joined just 3 days ago, just want to let you know that this isn't Reddit. Comments like this^ will be downvoted by most people here.
- pastpartisan 13y agoI wish there were a way to delete since now i'm gonna get negged to death and I will probably need to make a new account
- bdcravens 13y agoThere is for a short time. If your account is only 3 days old I guess nothing of value is lost :-)
- pknight 13y agoThis just adds to the list of why to hate Google. Basically if you are either a big brand or a spammy company or have a nimble operation, you can afford to do grey & black seo. If you are a small business/ up and coming company white seo practices are the safe choice.
- chaz 13y ago> This just adds to the list of why to hate Google. Aren't all search engines susceptible to the same practices? How would you like to see them fixed?
- PaulHoule 13y agoNote that the worst content farms either evolved from or bought second and third tier search engines (About.com, AOL) because they could sue Google in an antitrust lawsuit if they ever got burned for their crappy content and linking schemes.
- hkmurakami 13y agoThe most hilarious example I know for black hat seo is in japan, where expired domains for congressional candidates get bought up by these spammy companies for their link quality. (The Japanese govt pages have high page quality, and link directly to these candidate domains, thus giving these candidate pages high link quality status in google's eyes. The candidate pages become info-spam-blog pages that peddle things like cosmetics and link to the mother payload pages to impose so rank.)
- davemel37 13y agogoogle resets PageRank on expired domains.
- hkmurakami 13y agoCorrect me if I am wrong, but if the govt pages continue to link to these newly reborn link spam pages, certainly these expired domains have higher link value than a brand new fresh domain?
- davemel37 13y agoyou are mistaken. This was the case until about 2008 or so... here is a quote from matt cutts. "On expired domains, Matt said Google tries to reset pagerank/links for all expired domains to zero when they are registered by someone new. They don’t try to penalize the expired domain, but they also don’t want to give credit for the previous owner’s links." http://www.seo.com/blog/conferences/matt-cutts-does-domain-roundtable/ http://www.seo.com/blog/conferences/matt-cutts-does-domain-r...
- hkmurakami 13y agoThanks for the correction! :)
- girvo 13y agoThe keyword there would be "tries", I'd wager...
- throwaway420 13y agoEven if you use nothing but white-hat and above-board SEO strategies, you're at risk of your page getting penalized or delisted. This happens to people every day. Only unlike Rap Genius, there is literally zero way to communicate with somebody at Google unless you manage to get a popular thread going at HN. I'm happy this Rap Genius incident happened because it's driven some attention to how Google's business actually operates, how poor their algorithms actually are, how arbitrary their search engine actually is, how poor their customer service practices are, and many other similar ideas. Granted, these are monumentally hard problems to solve and Google still does it better than anybody else, but it's good that some attention is directed here because there are numerous problems with how ranking in Google currently works.
- my_username_is_ 13y agoWhile I agree that it is necessarily difficult to create a search engine ranking algorithm that isn't gamed, customer service isn't something that should be lumped in with the 'difficult problems'. Google has been notoriously terrible at customer service for years and it's amazing that they've been so successful despite this.
- camillomiller 13y agoThis. What I despise the most is their hypocrisy and the clean face their Head Hypocrite Matt Cutts always wears when answering those SEO questions. So you have the biggest search engine in the world and all the transparency you can think of consists on putting a man in front of a camera like a country preacher, always saying things that leave open spaces of interpretation?
- Shog9 13y agoBecause, what? You expect Cutts to be on the phone handling calls from irate webmasters instead? If Google sells me ad-space - or a Nexus - and then doesn't respond when I have a problem, that's bad. But if your pages drop in the search result rankings, suck it up and maybe pay a bit more attention to the spirit of that preaching - Google owes you ZERO customer support if all you're paying for is snake-oil from some 3rd-party SEO "expert".
- mesozoic 13y agoThe problem being for any competitive keyword you're almost assured not to rank with completely white hat practices.
- richardw 13y ago> If you are a small business/ up and coming company white seo practices are the safe choice. Not (entirely) true. Here's a 'small business' sans any big-brand protection that is obviously spamming the heck out of electrician/plumber niches and has been succeeding for years. If you're near one of the relevant areas and Google "[area] plumber" you'll see a few of their sites on page 1. Not one or two. Maybe five. My fiancee got an electrician in from one of those sites and he was so clueless he claimed that his people were building an oven element (rather than buying it for $20 and just installing it.) http://find-sa.co.za/directory/category/a1_plumbing_services/index.php http://find-sa.co.za/directory/category/a1_plumbing_services... See two pages with the same layout, and if you click around you'll see they're barely trying to hide it. http://find-sa.co.za/directory/category/a1_plumbing_services/page_e.php#pagelink_654082 http://find-sa.co.za/directory/category/a1_plumbing_services... This is 90's stuff. Google's being gamed badly by the most unsophisticated techniques. The guys who actually work in those areas and provide relevant services must be going crazy.
- PaulHoule 13y agoI know a really good restaurant with a non specific name that has made a point to have landing pages at many different sites so if you search for them the top 20 or so results are all about them
- Achorny 13y agoI read the article, and obviously Google isn’t as good at filtering out overly optimized anchors as they claim. But I don't understand how this favors big brands over little ones (other then the fact that big brands probably have more money to throw at people to write the overly optimized anchors in the first place)?
- hvass 13y agoI am a bit confused about the argument about Expedia not being penalized because they are spending on AdWords, wouldn't great organic rankings reduce their paid budget? And if Google penalizes them for legitimate reasons I doubt they would cut their AdWords budget. I am sure Matt will provide more info soon especially after what happened to RapGenius.
- davemel37 13y agoGoogle did research that shows having organic rankings and paid ads, boosts your click rate significantly. So, it would be a mistake to stop advertising if you rank well organically. http://www.google.com/think/infographics/organic-impact-on-paid.html http://www.google.com/think/infographics/organic-impact-on-p... This is nothing compared to what RapGenius did. This is a low quality, but legit link building tactic. The author claims the articles are poor quality, but they aren't. The only red flag is commercial keywords as anchor text, which Penguin today does a good job of discounting.
- girvo 13y agoWhy is this legit? It seems bullshit to me, as an outsider, just another way if gaming the system.
- ars_technician 13y agoYeah, I don't understand how a company essentially paying bloggers to create links to their site is a legitimate method of ranking in a search engine. That sounds fundamentally broken and far from 'organic'.
- camillomiller 13y agoWell, if the n-th useless top ten blog post about travel is "quality content" I'm seriously scared by the brainwash that the google-cutts philosophy of great content has already performed upon us.
- hvass 13y agoI am aware of the study, even so, where does the Expedia AdWords spend come into play as an argument? So they get penalized - they won't cut AdWords obviously, they might even up it. They do not get penalized, they either cut their AdWords budget or it remains the same. Again, where is the incentive for Google to not penalize Expedia? Because the AdWords argument doesn't hold.
- wzy 13y agoThis is why i don't follow what Google say about "correct" SEO. I just do what i know works for me.
- iaskwhy 13y agoThis kind of SEO hack seems hard to fix with an algo. One way might be to target "content" creators like Abby and Jennifer as they probably use Google+ (and probably other social networks) to promote their work. By targeting the writers and giving some penalty to everything they write as well as the site where the article is published, these sites will need to verify how good the writers are before accepting the guest post. I believe avoiding targeting the big brands is for the better since giving bad reputation to the brand linked on these articles would backfire with false articles against competitors.
- davemel37 13y agoThis is what Google was hoping too accomplish with AuthorRank. Penguin is also discounting many of these links that have commercial keywords as anchor text. (I wonder if these links even help them.)
- busterarm 13y agoIgnore all links from pages with "Top #" in them. Or in paragraphs below emphasized/numbered headlines. That'd really stick it to sites like Cracked.
- jpalomaki 13y agoDoes this all lead to Google+? It sure would help Google if more content was produced inside their walled garden where they have pretty good grasp on who is producing it.
- bryan_rasmussen 13y agoIt seems that this is an awful thing that google is doing, but I really couldn't get very far in the article before getting tired of the author's unintentional schtick - the following is where I stopped: "They don’t buy links? They don’t bribe bloggers? They don’t sell links on MOZ? Yes, you’re reading right. SEOs sell links on MOZ. But we all know this. It is so obvious. But MOZ is not the topic of this article. And this is not going to be an article; I would like to look at it as a report. We will make a report about huge companies (we will start with one company), ranking for tens of thousands of keywords using black hat tactics. "
- RBerenguel 13y agoI almost stopped there, but the examples afterwards are pretty much spot on
- com2kid 13y agoIt is sad that an article with actual content towards the end has so much filler to start with. I think this post would be a lot more impactful if it started out as "Hey, you want to know who else pays bloggers to link to their site? Expedia.com, here is some proof:" I can understand the author's frustration, and he brings good points to the table, but the first quarter or so of the article is neigh unreadable.
- milsorgen 13y agoI personally enjoy the 'squeeze page' aesthetic used.
- davemel37 13y agoI see no proof or mention of paying bloggers for links.
- aptwebapps 13y agoWhy did they do it then? The links weren't topical and they weren't affiliate links. Is it that hard to figure out the motive? Edit: Are they using http referrers so reward the correct affiliate?
- mesozoic 13y agoUnlikely and besides it wouldn't even work because they're guest posting on other domains than the one they own or would have registered.
- MichaelTieso 13y agoDo you honestly think they are not paying bloggers? They've paid PLENTY of bloggers. I get these emails all the time.
- cclogg 13y agoIt's weird when you realize how much stuff that seems organic is really just a massive ploy/effort by a company or PR firm. I think even Paul Graham had an article about PR firms related to the comeback of the 'suit' haha. One wonders how safe HN will be from this. Inevitably if something can generate views or $$ then someone will have an interest in gaming it.
- davemel37 13y agoThis is and always has been the nature of Business. Long before search engines or the internet came into being. People will do whatever they can to get exposure, publicity, and a competitive edge. All marketing is a Ploy if you really think about it, and businesses for intents and purposes is just an investment vehicle and marketing is how your turn over that investment. Heck news media a ploy for corporations. Someone has to Pay the Bills and Keep The Lights On
- clarkm 13y agoIt wasn't too long ago that calling someone a "corporate shill" meant you were parodying tinfoil hatters. It's funny how quickly things change.
- RyanZAG 13y agoIt was always a valid point and has been going on for a very long time. There was a concerted effort awhile back by PR companies to attack anyone calling out their corporate shill accounts, mostly done heavily by Microsoft on engadget and slashdot among others. Popular industry blogs like communities-dominate have also been a historical hotbed for shill accounts. It's nothing new and generally any furious backlash you see against people calling it out is more of the same.
- swang 13y agoThe article you are referring to is "The Submarine" http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- bdcravens 13y agoSo an SEO "firm" (around since 2010, but their domain was registered in November?) is exposing secrets of SEO, which they imply is the secret sauce to getting to the top. What's the end game?
- hkmurakami 13y agoEstablish themselves as an expert and increase potential consulting business revenue
- bdcravens 13y agoIt seems though that they're not disputing the ethics of the thing, and they even acknowledge they were busted by Google for unethical tactics. Not exactly confidence inspiring.
- hkmurakami 13y agoThe next question to ask then would be, "do marketing managers who would hire these guys care about the ethics, or simply the perceived competence of the shop?"
- Danieru 13y agoMatt Cutts has said Google is trying to break Blackhat SEO's spirits. That tactic appears to be working and this post is a result of that. The author is not trying to build their brand or position themselves. Rather they are sad and angry. To them the situation feels unfair and they want to make the big abusers feel the same pain they've experienced.
- jfoster 13y agoI think it's awesome that Google busts as many blackhats as they can. I don't want blackhat seo to be what I need to engage in in order to be successful. I'm reckon I'm better at creating value than I am at link building, so it suits me. That said, Google are not doing a very comprehensive job of busting blackhats. Even some of the cases that an algorithm should be able to easily detect are not being punished in the same way that RapGenius was. This essentially leaves everyone in an awkward situation. You can't compete using whitehat methods because your competitors are using blackhat methods and Google is turning a blind eye. You end up with two options; (a) lower your standards and start using blackhat methods, or (b) hope that Google will eventually punish your dodgy competitors and buy traffic from Google in the interim.
- davemel37 13y agoI see no smoking gun here or evidence of paid linking, or even link schemes. I just see legit guest posts, that could just as easily be meant to drive referral traffic. Ironically, Tampa is where BlueGlass was located before they went bellyup. Personally, I think articles likes these are fine for SEO. The articles are NOT PAID FOR and while the links might not be totally organic, you could certainly argue it adds some value to the post. (i.e. expedia's app is a good app for finding cheap airfare.) Google has announced several times that they are going to crack down on poor quality guest posting, and I think expedia should be a little more progressive in their anchor text (i.e. linking with a brand name, url or even not linking... but just mentioning the brand name could help their rankings.) Bottom line, Good offsite SEO today is a more polished version of this... Step 1: Create Linkable, shareable, emotionally charged content. Step 2: distribute your content socially. Step 3: Do outreach to bloggers and journalists to get exposure to their audience, and perhaps attract links... That being said, aside from the overly optimized anchor text, this is legitimate link acquisition and its what all SEOs do today... They create content and try to get distribution far and wide. These links and posts could just as easily be traffic generation strategies, not SEO strategies.
- corresation 13y agoThese links and posts could just as easily be traffic generation strategies, not SEO strategies. Are these not essentially the same thing? I understand that in the SEO business this has all been carefully nuanced, but in the general world the idea behind pagerank was that it made the web a democracy of sorts[1], where authentic, honest links organically demonstrate resources that users find most useful. That is the antithesis of "whoever can pay the most to have the most pages full of rote text created with paid links tops". [1] - I should mention that organic linking is virtually dead, so perhaps it really doesn't matter. Blogs are, by and large, dead (and the few that persist engage in a circle-link pattern that is intended to essentially keep it in the family), and they (and personal websites) accounted for the overwhelming majority of legitimately organic links. Outside of that source of links, sites like Reddit and even probably HN are overwhelmingly gamed and manipulated, because the majority of users simply don't "vote" at all, leaving the manipulators an easy course to ply. The web has been bought and paid for for several years now.
- lisp-and-seo 13y agoIt is very simple: Expedia is paying over a billion $ annually for ads, Google is giving them a buy one, get one free deal. Google is only having "SEO scheme" problems with freeloaders, like RapGenius. To site Wikipedia: "Don't be evil" was the informal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google. Key word here is was.
- dpatrick86 13y agoThis is what you get when you take the shortcut of moving away from a strict algorithmic ranking: obvious abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
- ivanbrussik 13y agohow bout we look into nenad who looks like they are really active on a "blackhat SEO forum" and gets tons of links from there. seems legit.
- arikrak 13y agoAs Google moves away from relying on pagerank, it will make such schemes less effective, and people will need to try harder to game Google.
- davemel37 13y agoI think most SEOs agree that as long as links are what connects the internet, they will be an important ranking factor.
- ecopoesis 13y agoThis isn't paid linking-- it's an affiliate/referral program. Expedia isn't paying for the link, they're paying for the conversions generated by the link. Every OTA does this, and it's how the mass of travel sites that aren't OTAs make all their money. This is all Google's fault. Most travel sites used to try to generate good content, and then buy SEM to their content and use OTA search widgets to monetize via affiliate programs. But Google decided this was search arbitrage, and stopped approving SEM landing pages that were monetized by affiliate search, so people have had to resort to text links, in the hope that someone will click and they can drop their cookie and get paid. NB: I used to work for a site that was at the time owned by Expedia.
- davemel37 13y agoGood Point. There are services like viglink, skimlinks, and others that will dynamically insert links after the content was written. I have to wonder though if these specific posts were linkbuilding posts, because of the location of the Authors. (i.e. Tampa - where copypress is, and blueglass was.)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- aptwebapps 13y agoI didn't believe that until it occurred to me that they could be using the http referrer to reward the affiliates. The links themselves don't seem to contain an affiliate identifier. Is that the case?
- ecopoesis 13y agoUsually there is an iframe that drops a cookie on Expedia's (or whoever's) domain. The usual deal is the partner gets paid on any conversions within 30 days of dropping the cookie, with the newest affiliate winning, but there are also more complicated source attribution schemes out there.
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- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- artag 13y agoMartin MacDonald's thoughts on this subject (Big Brand SEO Spam): http://webmarketingschool.com/big-brand-seo-spam/ http://webmarketingschool.com/big-brand-seo-spam/
- MichaelTieso 13y agoJust a few emails I usually get from Expedia. "In fact, the article can be about any topic related to your blog, just mentioning at some point something like “find coupon codes for Expedia”, “get some deals in Expedia”.. Do you think that would fit in? Doesn’t have to look very spammy (we don’t want that either). What do you think? About the price, how much would it be a post like this with maybe 2 links? " AND "I’m looking to place a link this week on the homepage, but can I ask when the link for expedia.co.uk expires on your site?" These are just two examples. There are plenty of these. BUT it does appear that they are now hiring quality bloggers to write on their own blog so perhaps things have changed.
- davemel37 13y agoIf this is accurate it is a very poor seo and Expedia needs to hire better folks. Why place two links? Google will barely count a second link on the same page to the same URL... I did notice that they give the blogger discretion on the link placement and anchor text so its somewhat natural...although still clearly link spam worth penalizing!
- MichaelTieso 13y agoEvery email I've gotten from Expedia has been from a different SEO company too.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- thematt 13y agoIsn't this very similar to what RapGenius just got penalized for? Only difference seems to be Expedia is not providing anything in exchange for the crappy linkbit like RG was offering to.
- putlake 13y agoYes, this is similar but more sophisticated. With RapGenius, taking action was easy because the company admitted what they were doing and all the evidence was in the open. Also, the links were clearly spammy. With these examples, the links are clearly spammy to a human but a little less detectable by a bot. And -- this is crucial -- there is no evidence yet linking these bloggers back to Expedia. Google will have to do a little more digging to figure out the nexus and analyze the quality of Expedia's backlink profile before they can slap a penalty. My guesstimate is that there's a 1 in 3 chance there will be a penalty and a 1 in 10 chance the penalty will be public.
- cowardlyanon 13y agoI used to own and run two popular travel sites and have been contacted by a third party to place Expedia links for under $400/year on both sites. Even though the third party had nothing to do with Expedia (besides emailing me the particular anchor text and URL), the fact that I was only ever contacted to put Expedia links and no other sites in the 5 years I've been running them made me think that they were Expedia shills. (this is obviously a throw away account)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gesman 13y agoGoogle is a goverment of internet. To be a good citizen is to pay taxes. You pay taxes - you have a chance. You try to avoid taxes - you get squished.
- pyb 13y agoLooks like Google might have reacted, I googled 'cheap flights' and Expedia is not on the front page.
- MrBlue 13y agoLooking forward to see how Cutts spins this.
- rch 13y agoI thought this was understood across the board. I'm interested to see how the conversation plays out though.
- ysekand 13y agoI can demonstrate that Microsoft sells links.
- syllogism 13y agoGo on then.
- searchmartin 13y agoFULL DISCLOSURE: Im an Expedia employee (inbound marketing director, covering SEO), although Im currently at the end of my notice period. (Im leaving in two weeks). Also, I worked in the B2B division, nothing to do with the consumer side that this article references. The author of the post linked above contacted me a couple of days before publishing it, to warn me that he would publish (quote: "damning evidence of expedia spam"). HOWEVER: If I wanted him to not publish it, he would "sell the post to the highest bidder". That was what prompted me to post this on my personal blog: http://webmarketingschool.com/big-brand-seo-spam/ http://webmarketingschool.com/big-brand-seo-spam/ and for the record, I told him to sling his hook reference to extorting money out of anyone in exchange for not posting stuff about their backlinks. No doubt that is why I got singled out in the article. You'll notice that at the top I get mentioned as being in charge of this stuff, then right down at the bottom, he mentions that in fact Ive got nothing to do with it. I'll let you all draw your own conclusions.
- 1337biz 13y agoConclusion: You guys are having some he-said-she-said issue that's kinda cute but doesn't change thing about the questionable Expedia tactics.
- searchmartin 13y agoWhich is in no way relevant to me, other than I worked for a different division of the same company. The only reason I got mentioned, was that I refused to pay money to not have it published, and told the author that blackmail wasnt a great idea. If someone had attempted to extort you, and were now using your name in this fashion, wouldnt you want to respond?
- walshemj 13y agoCall the police and probably record the call :-)
- blauwbilgorgel 13y agoThey singled out Abby for writing paid blog posts with targeted links. Who owns Nenad SEO? Nenad and Karine. http://askkarine.com/2013/09/12/how-find-perfect-luxury-holiday-retreat/ "Here are some of the most useful websites to help you find your ideal retreat." http://askkarine.com/2013/05/16/how-to-become-a-yoga-instructor/ "<a>Yoga instructor training</a> courses are incredibly varied and there are plenty of courses on offer, so you will need to decide what kind of course is best for you." http://askkarine.com/2012/12/29/how-to-make-money-fast-using-google-play/ "I’m an app review consultant and I wanted to know if your current version of ‘insert name of the app here’ has the capability to handle an extra 250-400 app downloads per day? Let me know so that I can begin downloading them at your convenience." "Outsource your downloads (google it, there are several providers). Rinse and Repeat, as all the fake Guru’s like to say." http://askkarine.com/2013/08/03/how-to-make-your-holiday-into-a-home/ For example, you might have started looking at <a>houses for sale in Sudan</a> because you love the hospitality of the area, but find that flights from your usual home are prohibitively expensive, which would limit your use of it." These tweets by you were enlightening too: https://twitter.com/searchmartin/status/417260215453876224 https://twitter.com/searchmartin/status/417260215453876224 And of course the intro to the very post: "After receiving a manual penalty by Google for 2 small sites (for gaming the Google PR system". I would not touch this entire fiasco with a 10-foot pole and I do not envy all involved or dragged into this.
- davidw 13y agoSEO articles often leave me with the same feeling I get when I realize I've stepped in dog poop.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- swombat 13y ago> You know all those bloggers/SEOs at MOZ giving webmasters tips and tricks on how to rank higher? Well, they never said: “Guys, you gotta do basic on-page SEO, buy quality links and you will rank higher, that’s all you need to know.” Instead they keep selling stories how their clients rank using “white hat” SEO. GrantTree is ranked pretty high against our competitors on several keywords that are important to us. This was all entirely through whitehat SEO within about a year of setting out to do it. We've just written lots of high-quality content on our blog, and then contributed genuine, original articles to other sides and got them to include a link to GrantTree or to one of our topic sub-pages (like http://granttree.co.uk/tax_credits http://granttree.co.uk/tax_credits ) in the byline. We've never bought links, nor will we ever buy links. Now, GrantTree's context is not super-competitive like, say, Expedia or RapGenius... but we do have competitors. So competing with good, well-structured content and genuine contributions to other sites does work - at least in some contexts. Also, I'm frequently on the receiving end of these "your blog/site/whatever is awesome and we'd love to publish a high-quality article on your blog and we'll even pay you for it" emails, and as far as I'm concerned they are spam. I never even bother replying to them. I'll be happy if Google nails those spammy bastards to the wall - both the paymasters and the so-called bloggers. (Note: this makes no judgement on the claim that Expedia is partaking in this)
- effn 13y agoSo you get other sites to publish your articles, but when other sites want to do the same to you, you call that spam?
- swombat 13y agoNo. People I meet on and offline ask me to write an article for them. I don't approach them. Occasionally I have written a full blown article and suddenly realised it would be better suited for another site (eg techcrunch) and approached the editor there to ask if they would like to publish that specific article, but I don't do blanket "can I write something for you". That would be highly hypocritical!
- MichaelTieso 13y ago
- jpalomaki 13y agoOnce you start giving penalties for this kind of behavior, then you open up the possibility for really black hat people using this against their competition.
- aerolite 13y agoFunny how Matt Cutts was all over the Rap Genius article on HN right after it came out and he's nowhere to be found here. Must be the millions Expedia spends on Adwords, or my cynicism, one of the two.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- alixaxel 13y agoI'm nearly halfway through and I must say this is being a very good read. Great piece of investigative journalism.
- adidash 13y agoHow is it any different from offline world of business? Seems like big businesses with resources always go that extra mile to compete with other big businesses. The small businesses are usually the collateral damage.
- ksolanki 13y agoThis and the Rap Genius stories go on to show why algorithmic search (aka Google search) is not going to last another ten years. It probably already does, but more and more Google algorithms will include lots of ifs and buts. There is definitely some room for fresh approaches to content discovery, knowledge indexing, and finding answers. New startup(s) or Google rediscovering itself?
- jigneshg 13y agojmarbach, being a part of digital marketing industry i have seen many big brands who are our direct competitor practicing these techniques and enjoying better search engine positions. I always thought why? It is getting more difficult for SMBs to promote their products and services through organic search position.
- repkor 13y agoBecause of its large inventory of information
- rivo 13y agoA friend of mine used to work for one of these paid content agencies. Her job was to set up a few Wordpress blogs a day while writers filled them with content. Apparently, among their clients were lots of large companies. It seems, though, that after Google's crackdown on duplicate/fake content etc. they had to take a massive hit in revenues. They've since let most of their employees go and have - so far not very successfully - been looking for a new business model.
- lazyjones 13y agoI'd really like to have a place where we can report those dubious "SEO companies" who are sending spam e-mails to website owners offering to write "guest posts", so they and their practices can be scrutinized better by the community and perhaps search engines. For example, slap-up-media.net spammed us today, offering to pay us to publish guest posts written by them. I'd really like to know who their clients are (but would not risk accepting their offer out of curiosity).