Google update... going after EMD's

[seemly]

SEO will always be measurable for as long as search rankings exist. If they actually mean 'unguessable', then yes of course - the whole point is to make it as unguessable as possible.

But what if you interpreted the word wrong, and it was in fact meant to be as it is written - completely "un-measurable" and random in its nature?

What if in the long term organic results no longer existed? Which leads me to your next paragraph:

Larger paid ads - inevitable for any popular website. I think Google's ads are far less intrusive than Facebook's now, especially on mobile. If you read The Google Story, there's a great section on how Google actually became successful because they based their model on usefulness of results rather than cramming everything full of ads the way AOL et al did, and developed a pretty innovative ad system.

Instead of reading it as "larger paid ads", how about reading it as the first 1 page (maybe eventually pages 2 and 3) consist of solely adwords? Is that such a hard thing to envisage? An impossibility? Sounds entirely plausible to me.

Especially if users find that the most relevant results returned always tend to be the ones with the cream coloured background, enforcing a habit of clicking those ads rather than the organic results anyway?

In time, this would give Google (artificial) "statistical proof" that organic results simply do not provide the relevancy to the users search queries, paving the way for the whole of page 1 (2 and 3) to display only adwords?

Not that you can answer these questions, but it does seem a plausible game plan from Google, as it would benefit their coffers.

 

[Blossom]

But what if you interpreted the word wrong, and it was in fact meant to be as it is written - completely "un-measurable" and random in its nature?

Taking it directly, you can 'measure' your SEO by your search engine position (regardless of whether it's organic or paid, because of Quality Score factors).

It would benefit no one being completely random. Everything has been geared towards things going the other way - personalised Google account results, personalised local results, personalised Google+ results. If anything the idea is to make search specific to the person using it, rather than assuming that all things are of equal value/importance to all people. That gives a better experience, and is one of the reasons why I believe Google's focus is on user experience before money.

Instead of reading it as "larger paid ads", how about reading it as the first 1 page (maybe eventually pages 2 and 3) consist of solely adwords? Is that such a hard thing to envisage? An impossibility? Sounds entirely plausible to me.

Especially if users find that the most relevant results returned always tend to be the ones with the cream coloured background, enforcing a habit of clicking those ads rather than the organic results anyway?

In time, this would give Google (artificial) "statistical proof" that organic results simply do not provide the relevancy to the users search queries, paving the way for the whole of page 1 (2 and 3) to display only adwords?

Not that you can answer these questions, but it does seem a plausible game plan from Google, as it would benefit their coffers.

I find it difficult to believe it would actually happen, but it's quite interesting to consider as a possible theory, because like you say, there's a chance it could happen.

I think Google would find themselves opening a can of worms, especially in regards to fair trading practices within the EU. It would also be interesting to see how many people would voluntarily stop using Google in protest if it did happen - that would make a nice poll.

Of course, it would be a blessing in disguise for the long term - if you're relying on loyal, returning traffic and other things like social media and real-world advertising, and spending less time worrying about SEO, then your site will be all the better for it. It's just marketing it in the first place that would be very difficult. It would make a great double-bluff by Google if they did do it, because the web would be much better off spam-wise for it. Obviously there are huge drawbacks too! :S

 

[Ashton]

Was chilling at bottom of page 1 - Didn't get hit too hard. Did nothing and was waiting for dust to settle. Boom, page 7 .

It's an interesting game we play!

 

[addz123]

I'm turning white hat and diversifying both traffic and my income.

I think blackhat/greyhat SEO is officially dead and so is any form of short term SEO or any businesses 100% reliant on SEO.

 

[Ashton]

@Addz,

Whilst I agree with diversification, I don't agree with white hat being the only future - I wish you luck but you won't be able to compete in the majority of niches by purely white hat.

 

[addz123]

@Addz,

Whilst I agree with diversification, I don't agree with white hat being the only future - I wish you luck but you won't be able to compete in the majority of niches by purely white hat.

I think in the majority of niches, affiliates, greyhats and blackhats have been decimated by recent updates (yes I fall into that category too).

Even if affiliates havn't had their businesses destroyed, I think that many SEO affiliates will fail to adapt and will get hit by further updates that make the risks from their business untenable. These updates look strategically executed to destroy affiliates - hence waiting 5 months for a Penguin refresh with seemingly no recoveries (only strong, real businesses that don't rely on SEO can survive these sorts of events).

While I agree there are certain industries where white hat simply doesn't work, I have seen plenty of sites ranking very well with hardly any links by delivering solid content for users (e.g. bingo). Their risks from SEO updates are much lower too which makes every £1k revenue worth more then the equivalent from black hat revenue. For example, a white hat business making £5k/month will now be worth much more then a black hat business earning twice or even four times that amount.

Affiliate sites (even good quality on premium domains) are struggling to fetch 12+ months income nowadays. This makes the investments into the market less valuable. The average gambling affiliate site is getting around 8 months income. A year ago 20 months income would have been the norm.

On the other hand, white hat investments are more stable, more liquid and will have much higher sell-on value.

In my opinion, anyone who has the finance behind them to invest in long term white hat SEO campaigns, user friendly sites (with income from non-SEO sources) is going to be a big winner in 2013.

 

[Jamie101]

Never knew google now tells you your IP address directly. I've noticed that they are starting to do more and more things over the last year or so though.

Here's an interesting thought. What's to stop Google from listing out voucher codes for certain sites and so on. Eg. I search for "Asos discount codes" and then google lists all the codes that are currently available so that I'll never have to leave Google to get what I want.

That must be a scary thought for anyone that owns a large discount code site?

 

[Ashton]

I think in the majority of niches, affiliates, greyhats and blackhats have been decimated by recent updates.

True, but from my limited experience their space has mainly been filled by other affiliate sites (Often much worse!)

I think that many SEO affiliates will fail to adapt and will get hit by further updates that make the risks from their business untenable.

I agree most will fail to adapt, but that doesn't mean you're forced to be white hat, in fact lots of white hat sites have been hit too. As with the business being untenable, this depends on the business itself. On whether the business runs one core site, or multiple independent sites which offers security in numbers.

These updates look strategically executed to destroy affiliates.

It does seem that way, but as I said - There are plenty of sites occupying the space that are affiliate sites. Whilst they may be targeting affiliate sites (especially those that add no value) they will never truly pin down exactly what an affiliate site is. As google adapts, as will good SEOs - Adapt or die!

I have seen plenty of sites ranking very well with hardly any links by delivering solid content for users (e.g. bingo).

I have been approached by bingo sites who have asked to buy in blog post links - This is from people who already rank competitively. I doubt many competitive sites backlink profiles would stand up to scrutiny and come out white hat. However I do agree with you and would add that having uninteresting content is worse for your site than having no regular content. Also agree on the value point - White hat will be more stable etc, however it's dependant on how much time and or funds you have to put behind a project.

In my opinion, anyone who has the finance behind them to invest in long term white hat SEO campaigns, user friendly sites (with income from non-SEO sources) is going to be a big winner in 2013.

I wouldn't say 2013, maybe 2014/15 - I think that anyone who has a goal of under a year to success is going to meet issues. Perhaps they will succeed before a year, but to aim for it and set it as a target / requirement to continue would be very silly (in my opinion).

Maybe a sort of analogy, some people source the best materials at the highest cost / time and make it the most secure. Others just want to build a quick house which isn't secure.

I would definitely agree - Those with the finance / time should invest in long term success. Some people just can't afford (time or money) to do so, and grey hat provides an easier route. Also I think greyhat done properly is pretty secure.

What's to stop Google from listing out voucher codes for certain sites and so on.... a scary thought for anyone that owns a large discount code site?

Nothing at all - That's just the tip of the iceberg - Take a look at the SERPs for 'Credit Cards' - 'Bank Accounts' - 'car insurance'

Google will consistently be moving to increase their profits and they will look at what sites are successful and how to create a google version of it. Google product comparison came after kelkoo / price runner sites. Google car insurance after confused.com etc. However I think the best attitude to take is to accept the day by day - I'm not angry / mad that my earnings were killed over night. Just grateful for what I have made.

 

[archibel]

Nothing at all - That's just the tip of the iceberg - Take a look at the SERPs for 'Credit Cards' - 'Bank Accounts' - 'car insurance'

Just done the 'credit cards' search - I can't believe how much the result is biased towards the Google listing with it's large images taking up almost 1/3rd of my screen.

Surely giving their own search result such a unfair advantage over the competition with its bright images will land them in hot water...if not from regulators maybe from advertisers. But I guess they've done the calcluations and get more income from selling leads then selling advertising to money supermarket etc.

Google has failed at pretty much everything other than Search so I can understand why they are focusing on wringing as much cash out as possible...it's easy and very lucrative.

So yes, watch out Autotrader, Voucher Sites, Online Estate Agents and pretty much any other online business which makes significant amounts of money.

 

[dashu1]

Just done the 'credit cards' search - I can't believe how much the result is biased towards the Google listing with it's large images taking up almost 1/3rd of my screen.

Surely giving their own search result such a unfair advantage over the competition with its bright images will land them in hot water...if not from regulators maybe from advertisers. But I guess they've done the calcluations and get more income from selling leads then selling advertising to money supermarket etc.

Google has failed at pretty much everything other than Search so I can understand why they are focusing on wringing as much cash out as possible...it's easy and very lucrative.

So yes, watch out Autotrader, Voucher Sites, Online Estate Agents and pretty much any other online business which makes significant amounts of money.

I read an interesting piece about this that did a bit of maths, and actually they'd make more money (certainly in the US anyway because of the way auto insurance, etc works over there and the way their market is structured - plus they don't use comparison sites) from adwords (since it's got such a high CPC) than by commission on sales from their own comparison engine.

If you think about how much they'll get per sale, and how many clicks it will take to get a sale, against earning money for every click whether a sale results or not, it isn't surprising.

So this model also may be a failure for them, and as you say it'll piss off their customers too who will see them as wanting all of the pie and the crumbs as well just for themselves.

Anyway they bought beat that quote, a UK company, and seem to be testing it predominantly over here, possibly because it won't work in the states.

 

[namdas]

I have always wondered why a search engine couldn't or wouldn't slap skimlinks on their organic results. Doesn't Google own Viglink, a competitor?

 

[Ashton]

I think you're wrong regarding the money point Dashu - The 'sponsored' box is below the existing adverts, I think they are just adding to the money they are currently making by pushing down the organics and putting in their comparison.

@Namdas - Viglink aren't owned by Google but they did get investment through Google Ventures.

 

[dashu1]

I think you're wrong regarding the money point Dashu - The 'sponsored' box is below the existing adverts, I think they are just adding to the money they are currently making by pushing down the organics and putting in their comparison.

@Namdas - Viglink aren't owned by Google but they did get investment through Google Ventures.

They paid £37.7 million for beat that quote - that's a very expensive way to push the organics down when they could have just added an adwords result or 2 to the top.

You should have a look for the article, you can't argue with the maths.

 

[Ashton]

This one? http://www.seobook.com/google-car-insurance

Maths is sound but there is a significant amount of guess work, I doubt they would significantly cannibalise their ad revenue due to the nature of advert clickers (the advert clickers will click the ads before going on to google) I would say they damage the organic listings far more than the ads.

Also it doesn't account for the actions of those which it fails to convert (it uses a figure of 10% of conversion - What happens to that 90%? Many will go back to the search results and try again, potentially hitting an ad).

Has other comments on regulation and expertise that are just off... Google have the legal power to meet regulation and google's expertise in conversion optimisation is second to none.

With regards to that - I would expect them to have greater than 10% conversion as well. They are experts in this and the strength of googles' brand will also aid significantly.


£37.7 million is not very much to google - As per that article they did it for knowledge acquisition. Clearly google see the strength of comparison sites and want to emulate it. I wouldn't doubt google moving this to the US pending its success in the UK (time will tell!)

 

[jezz]

Maths is sound but there is a significant amount of guess work, I doubt they would significantly cannibalise their ad revenue due to the nature of advert clickers (the advert clickers will click the ads before going on to google) I would say they damage the organic listings far more than the ads.

Absolutely, if they follow the model used for their credit card comparison it will be placed below Adwords listings in a great big block with images.

When I search that term I only see 1.5 organic listings above the fold, if three ads were to show in the top slot then there would be no organic above the fold.

Even if they do cannibalise the PPC they can in theory still make more money that way.

PPC buyers for "compare xyz" are affiliates, they are able to buy Google traffic and sell it on for a profit implying Google could earn more by cutting out this layer and taking comission directly from the merchants.

The only real barrier that I see is that their services are dreadful compared to other companies, I mean compare their credit card service to the other big players, its vastly inferior IMO, which comes back to the reason for them buying Beat That Quote being cited as experise in the comparison sector.

I dont know why people thing Google are so great a conversion optimisation, I dont rate a single service they have produced in this respect.

 

[jezz]

I believe Google's focus is on user experience before money.

Do you think the removal of host crowding was "for the user"?

Host crowding was tested on users a few years ago, people said they preferred it, it was implemented on that basis.

It has now been rolled back as part of a wider agenda to incrase CTR on PPC ads.

I saw an interesting question posed recently, it was aimed at Barry Schwartz or Danny Sullivan both of whome were getting flamed for sucking up to Cutts (The presence of Cutts sells tickets at Dannys events etc...) which went along the lines of:

"ask google how they increased clicks on adwords by 40% with the same volume of traffic after Penguin"

Think about that... same volume of traffic, 40% up on adwords, down by a similar amount on organic, so either PPC got a lot better, or organic got a lot worse.

Of course its a loaded question because everyone knows Penguin was about removing sites with commercial intent from organic search.... supposedly for the benifit of users searching with commercial intent.

 

[addz123]

One of my EMD sites came back yesterday from the original update after being relegated to no where.

Havn't made any changes to the site. Maybe Google's been tweaking algo a little bit?

 

[retired_member26]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-google-could-disappear-5-172220950.html

 

[addz123]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-google-could-disappear-5-172220950.html

I always thought mobile would be a massive, massive earner for Google.

1. The PC market has stopped growing. I think there's something like 2-3x more smart phones (including tablets) then personal computers, if I remember Steve Jobs talking about this correctly. The smart phone market is also growing at an accelerating rate.

2. I read the CPCs and clicks on mobile devices were higher and worth more because users are less picky and more likely to stay on a page download or buy something from that page (rather then browsing and comparing deals on different windows like on a desktop).

3. The ads on Google mobile seem to take up 80% of the screen. I only see 1 organic search result above the fold, if that. Also, if you only see the sponsored ads above the fold then that means they don't stand out in comparison to the non-coloured organic ads, which means they arn't differentiated from organic results as much.

 

[dashu1]

Has anyone else noticed that the content keywords (i.e. the keywords Google sees your site as being relevant for) in webmasters tools has changed on affected sites?

One of mine was ranking on page 1 for (say) phrase X Y Z, and in webmasters tools the words X, Y, & Z were all up there in the top 4 major keywords for the site.

Now just Y remains in that list, the others have vanished.

X & Y were in the domain name along with some superfluous other words.

The title, contained X, Y, & Z.

Backlinks always contained Y, but not always X or Z.

It's almost as though they've looked at it, determined that you can create 4 or 5 high volume search phrases from the domain and title, compared to backlinks, & then decided which word appears to be the prominent one in those phrases (i.e. it appears in all/most of them) and chopped out the rest.

Or rather stopped the site from being relevant for those combinations of phrases by removing it from the index for various of those words.

I only have 1 site that's been affected so can't compare across my own sites.