I just got back from a web development seminar and a few companies mentioned the problem of Google manipulating their search results in order to maximise their profit rather than give most appropriate search results to the user. For example this flora company has spent a lot of money and time SEO-ing their website. This was quality SEO done by professionals... For the last two years they have been ranking first for a number of competitive keywords. They were then contacted by Google offering an advertisement deal (Sponsored listings etc). They flora company was getting enough natural SE traffic so they refused Google's offer. The next day their SERPs were dropped. Their main keyword ended up on page 5. A bunch of other companies had similar stories. It also seems like a bunch of web professionals are now moving from Google to other SEs as well. Quite sick actually...
I don't buy it. I have heard many people complain of stories like this, but have yet to see anything first hand. Usually the people/organizations telling stories like this "forget" to mention that they were cloaking their homepage and creating doorway pages (or something along those lines). If you can offer more details, perhaps you could convince me. Otherwise, I don't buy it.
Hmmm, sounds plausible there are many stories on the net with similar circumstances. The problem with the serps is that they don't work anything like they used to for example I rank 7 for the keyword merc 190 and its mentioned once in my page, the meta or title isn't targetted at it, so how the hec does it come up with its important and relevant when it isn't.
I doubt this is true, Google could lose a lot of respect and money by doing this. This is just one of those here say things, like "This girl at a school my friend goes to ate pop rocks and drink pop and exploded!. Its all nonsense
probably an issue that is meant to get bad impression on Google. I don't think Google is contacting anyone for a deal, but I do think that someone tried to contact Google for a deal.
It is possible that google will contact to a person or a company for a deal if they like the product or site, or if the site is popular. Remember he says "For the last two years they have been ranking first for a number of competitive keywords." Well, it is easy to noticed if your site is listed in #1. Why google bought the youtube? It is because youtube is popular and google can earn money through them.
I cant really see any point an them people gathering up to complain about SERP drops after refusing Google's offers if that was not true. Believe it or not i was there and I'm just telling you what iv heard.
I call bullshit. Traffic that comes from organic search results are (I'm being generous) 75% from google, 24% Yahoo, and 1% everything else. In my experience, if you are doing well for a keyword/phrase in google, the other search engines follow suit. Why would I concentrate SEO (or PPC for that matter) on other engines that no-one uses? Sure, I can make my site's SERPs preform well on other SE's, but I can't make internet users use the other search engines! If someone can figure out how, gimme a call!
Oh let me rephrase myself a little bit. Using as in personally use a search engine to fine specific information. For example Ask will most likely give you more appropriate results for scientific searches. I don't mean SEO or marketing of any kind.
People love to gather and complain (just look around these forums) - people need to vent - and if they can pass the blame for having an unsuccessful website, thats an added bonus. I've heard complaints like this before and it often comes from people that don't want to find fault in their own practices - so they look for them in Google. They see a causation that fits with what they want to believe and they dont look for more realistic solutions. Furthermore, when has anyone heard of Google contacting a company directly to sell their ads. I don't think they even have a PPC management service available - I was under the impression that Google will just tell you that you have to do it yourself or go through an "adwords qualified company." I'm not saying these individuals are liars, but here's a more likely tale of what happened: Company X was contacted by an Ad Agency (not google) trying to sell them ads on google. The company X person didn't totally understand the conversation or misunderstood, and mistook the ad agency as a representative from Google. Because of the call, the company X person decides to check their rankings in Google (something they haven't done for 15 months) and realizes they don't rank anywhere... now the company X person's imagination runs wild and they start blaming Google.
For a start Google dont "contact" you unless your gunna make google money and you have a 7 or 8 price tag on your website - sorry dont buy it
WARNING: Conspiracy theory alert: Maybe the "SEO Professionals" they hired originally were wanting to be hired again, so they created the whole scenario?
And it's been around since the inception of Adwords. Wasn't there an article about this in Forbes a few years ago?
I'm not sure. Seems to be lots of complaints and speculation so how many are truly founded is hard to determine. Truth is Google has really been up to some very strange things lately and they are remaining silent hoping it will just blow over. Something like this leaks out it only fuels doubts about the integrity of Google. >>>http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139174-c,google/article.html
to a consumers, these are all crap. if u dun like the terms, take ur business elsewhere.. or fight google~
That's a dumb article- IMO! I really hate when reputable publications quote "Joe Blogger" or loony people from forums. ie, Uh..for the same reason I have this message displayed each time I login to my Adwords accounts: I'm no Google cheerleader by any means... but sorry, I just don't think they're that stupid!
Google admitted the screen shot was legit and if you read the article, it would appear this was an inside job. It appears someone from inside Google sent out the screen shot so it has nothing to do with G being stupid. All I'm saying is with all the weird things going on with Google this just adds the the speculation that something is amiss with their raking system.