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Even 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 da

Even 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 ago
While 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 ago
  This. 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 ago
    Because, 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".
    - cases 13y ago
      It's odd that you talk about snake-oil in a thread where it's already mentioned that Google will just as easily ban you even if you follow their rules. Expedia and RapGenius are the two latest examples of how easy it is to cheat the system. Meanwhile the world commerce is moving towards the Internet and Google controls 70% of that. But you don't want to come off as "spammy" so better to risk your company and follow the rules of an unresponsive search company that might or might not punish you for it.
      - jessaustin 13y ago
        ...it's already mentioned that Google will just as easily ban you even if you follow their rules. Are there examples of sites that have done no SEO, and can still point to a banning-type event in their search result ranking history? Obviously this wouldn't be a big site; it might just be a random business the marketing of which is mostly offline.
      - Shog9 13y ago
        Meanwhile the world commerce is moving towards the Internet and Google controls 70% of that. ...so you gotta do what it takes to get ahead, even if that means abusing the system and everyone else who depends on it? That's been the spammer's argument from Day 1, and it's just as crap now as it was twenty years ago. No one owes you a successful business. If the only way you can find to make money involves dumping on others, then you shouldn't be surprised when there are consequences - even if you're following the "letter of the law" while doing so.
        gress 13y ago
        What exact system are people 'abusing'?
    - camillomiller 13y ago
      Google is already a cultural monopoly. They get to decide what people see and how and when they see it. That is why this One Man Show is bullshit. It looks hypocrite or at least it shows that they take their incredible responsibility very lightly. You choose.
ris 13y ago
> Even if you use nothing but white-hat and above-board SEO strategies, you're at risk of your page getting penalized or delisted This rather suggests that what you're calling "white hat" is a slightly less white shade than you may think. After all, who exactly is defining what "above board" is here? You're talking as though Google has some kind of responsibility to you. They don't. You are not their customer. Their customer is the searcher, and they have every right to do whatever they like with their results to give what they think is the best result for the searcher. I'm getting pretty tired of this attitude (generally among "SEO" people) that Google is some sort of public property.
- guelo 13y ago
  1. The searcher is not the customer, the AdWords buyer is. For example, Expedia. 2. Once a company reaches monopoly status the government can regulate it for the public good.
  - ris 13y ago
    1. This oversimplifies the relationship. The ultimate transaction is from the AdWords customer to Google but in most cases a lot of that money will have come from Google searchers wallets. 2. Well, that's not quite right. The government can limit the actions of a monopoly to prevent abuse, but demanding arbitrary shit isn't really something that's in the statute books. One thing's for certain, the "white hat" "SEO"ers paying bloggers to write thin articles about them to increase their organic search ranking are certainly not Google's customer and they have no obligation to please them.
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  >> Even if you use nothing but white-hat and above-board SEO strategies, you're at risk of your page getting penalized or delisted > This rather suggests that what you're calling "white hat" is a slightly less white shade than you may think. After all, who exactly is defining what "above board" is here? We've had a lot of proof by vigerous assertion in this thread. I particularly like the protestation of lily-white innocence by marketers writing "great content" in "guest posts". A thousand words on "10 things to bring on your next business trip", or "5 things to ask when choosing an online university" isn't exactly Woodword & Bernstein on Watergate, Joyce's Dubliners, or even Michelin's Guide to Paris restaurants.

my_username_is_ 13y ago

While 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 ago
This. 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 ago
  Because, 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".
  - cases 13y ago
    It's odd that you talk about snake-oil in a thread where it's already mentioned that Google will just as easily ban you even if you follow their rules. Expedia and RapGenius are the two latest examples of how easy it is to cheat the system. Meanwhile the world commerce is moving towards the Internet and Google controls 70% of that. But you don't want to come off as "spammy" so better to risk your company and follow the rules of an unresponsive search company that might or might not punish you for it.
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      ...it's already mentioned that Google will just as easily ban you even if you follow their rules. Are there examples of sites that have done no SEO, and can still point to a banning-type event in their search result ranking history? Obviously this wouldn't be a big site; it might just be a random business the marketing of which is mostly offline.
    - Shog9 13y ago
      Meanwhile the world commerce is moving towards the Internet and Google controls 70% of that. ...so you gotta do what it takes to get ahead, even if that means abusing the system and everyone else who depends on it? That's been the spammer's argument from Day 1, and it's just as crap now as it was twenty years ago. No one owes you a successful business. If the only way you can find to make money involves dumping on others, then you shouldn't be surprised when there are consequences - even if you're following the "letter of the law" while doing so.
      - gress 13y ago
        What exact system are people 'abusing'?
  - camillomiller 13y ago
    Google is already a cultural monopoly. They get to decide what people see and how and when they see it. That is why this One Man Show is bullshit. It looks hypocrite or at least it shows that they take their incredible responsibility very lightly. You choose.

ris 13y ago

> Even if you use nothing but white-hat and above-board SEO strategies, you're at risk of your page getting penalized or delisted This rather suggests that what you're calling "white hat" is a slightly less white shade than you may think. After all, who exactly is defining what "above board" is here? You're talking as though Google has some kind of responsibility to you. They don't. You are not their customer. Their customer is the searcher, and they have every right to do whatever they like with their results to give what they think is the best result for the searcher. I'm getting pretty tired of this attitude (generally among "SEO" people) that Google is some sort of public property.

guelo 13y ago
1. The searcher is not the customer, the AdWords buyer is. For example, Expedia. 2. Once a company reaches monopoly status the government can regulate it for the public good.
- ris 13y ago
  1. This oversimplifies the relationship. The ultimate transaction is from the AdWords customer to Google but in most cases a lot of that money will have come from Google searchers wallets. 2. Well, that's not quite right. The government can limit the actions of a monopoly to prevent abuse, but demanding arbitrary shit isn't really something that's in the statute books. One thing's for certain, the "white hat" "SEO"ers paying bloggers to write thin articles about them to increase their organic search ranking are certainly not Google's customer and they have no obligation to please them.
bradleyjg 13y ago
>> Even if you use nothing but white-hat and above-board SEO strategies, you're at risk of your page getting penalized or delisted > This rather suggests that what you're calling "white hat" is a slightly less white shade than you may think. After all, who exactly is defining what "above board" is here? We've had a lot of proof by vigerous assertion in this thread. I particularly like the protestation of lily-white innocence by marketers writing "great content" in "guest posts". A thousand words on "10 things to bring on your next business trip", or "5 things to ask when choosing an online university" isn't exactly Woodword & Bernstein on Watergate, Joyce's Dubliners, or even Michelin's Guide to Paris restaurants.