piloSEO » Google

Offensive and Fraudulent PR from Google

Mark Pilatowski — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:24:02 +0000

Yesterday was a huge day on the Internets especially for those of us in search. Early in the morning Danny Sullivan published an article in which Google engineers stated that Bing was cheating and copying their search results. Most of the article seems to be fairly compelling and on the surface it makes Bing look bad. That is unless you know even just a little bit about how search engines work. Google framed it so the average person, who knows next to nothing about search engines, would believe that Bing is simply copying their results and putting them in Bing. This is a brilliant PR move especially when you release the results of your “test” on the day that Bing has their Search Summit. It’s brilliant when it comes to the PR, for the general public, but dishonest, childish, and downright lame to those who know a little about how search engines work. Hell, anyone who understands the scientific method knows that this “experiment” was faulty from the beginning. I’m sure Google expected to be celebrated for discovering what Bing was doing and that happened in some cases but much of the response was how childish and disingenuous Google was being. Most of the search industry felt the same way, Google was wrong and their test was joke.

Why The Test Was Faulty and Disingenuous

Almost immediately the Search Engine Land article was being shared and discussed. At first people were railing against Bing but when digging into the tide turned. See Google attempted to misinform the public about the true nature of the results. You see, Bing did not copy Google results. They simply used Bing toolbar data as a signal in their ranking algorithm. Google is well aware of this because they are doing the same exact thing with their toolbar data. It’s probably a fairly small element but Google set the test up in a way that would make the signal much more important. This made the test totally faulty and purposefully dishonest. Google engineers knew exactly what they were doing so they could reach the conclusion they already had in mind. So what they did is manually altered their results so that certain pages ranked for nonsense keywords that had little to no coverage in Google or Bing. They then went home and searched for these words in Google via the Bing toolbar in IE where they encountered the results they placed their manually. When they clicked on those results data was sent to Bing signaling that these pages might be relevant for the nonsense searches. They also “conveniently” used fairly strong domains in the fake test to ensure that other ranking signals were passed which also helped these pages rank. So in the end Bing did not copy results but used the fraudulent clickstream data passed through the Bing toolbar along with the other strong ranking signals passed by the pages in question to rank those pages. This is actually fairly smart and I would be totally shocked if Google was not doing the same thing. The funny thing is that Google really didn’t promote the fact that these so called copied results only happened in around 7-9% of their tests.

Industry Insiders Respond to the Google Lies

Bing responded to this fairly quickly, through their blog. As the day wore on more and more search people responded to Google and the overwhelming response was that Google was childish and totally dishonest. Brett Tabke was an entertaining Twitter read as were Michael Gray and others. Matt Cutts continued to offer his best Baghdad Bob impression while holding the water for Google’s latest PR offensive. In the end most who are familiar with the search industry felt that Google was dishonest in their methodology and simply doing this to cut down Bing while employing the same methods themselves. It was an interesting day and it will be fun to see how this plays out in the coming days but it has really lowered my respect for Google. They look whiny, childish, and completely dishonest. And with that I will leave you with some Twitter fun that was had in response to this “controversy”.

Google Whining

More Google Whining

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Google Trends Manipulation: A Lesson for Old Media?

Mark Pilatowski — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:10:07 +0000

Everyone is aware that the Internet has changed the way that people consume content. In the past the fastest news sources were radio and TV while the in depth analysis and reporting was left up to newspapers who obviously had limitations on how quickly they could disseminate their content. The Internet has turned the news and content distribution model upside down. Internet users expect news to be delivered in near real time and they have a proliferation of sources they can access for that content. We are no longer forced to depend on our local newspaper or news station for the latest news or content and that means that they are competing with a wider group of content producers for eyeballs and ultimately advertising dollars. This has obviously created financial difficulties for a wide range of traditional content producers and many traditional news publishers are dying. Instead of trying to develop creative solutions many of these publishers have taken to suing Google and other silly efforts to try to regain their monopolistic status. Some of the newer publishers are utilizing the tools and services available to drive more visitors to their sites. One interesting method is the manipulation of Google Trends which is being employed the Alex Jones network of sites.

Manipulating Google Trends is Fairly Simple

Google Hot Search Manipulation

Basically Alex Jones is asking his readers and listeners to go to Google en masse and search for a specific keyword phrase. What this does pushes the search phrase to the top of the Google hot searches list which in turn increases demand as other people conduct their own searches on the phrase after seeing it show up as a hot search. According to his bio at Infowars.com, Alex Jones is an “Internationally recognized veteran broadcaster, documentary filmmaker, and investigative journalist”. According to others he is nothing more than a conspiracy theorist. I’m not going to get into an argument about who or what Alex Jones is because I just don’t have the time to do so. Instead I want to look at the efficacy of the use of Google Trends manipulation by his team at Prison Planet and other sites. If you take a look at this search you can see the number of attempts that have been made to influence the hot searches feature at Google Trends. Here are some specific examples of stories that have been pushed to the top of Google Trends Hot Searches, there is even a Google is Evil hot search. The idea is incredibly simple in that it is nothing more than asking fans and advocates to go to Google and search for a specific keyword phrase. Since Alex Jones has multiple websites, a radio show, and a TV show he is able to send his message through a variety of sources and get thousands of users to search for the specific keyword phrase. This forces the phrase to the top of the Google Trends Hot Searches which then draws more visitors to the content after they see the phrase at the top of Google Trends. Pretty simple but is it beneficial?

What is the Impact of This Manipulation?

Without the ability to view the analytics or ad revenue it’s hard to say what the impact is. I have to believe that there is a positive benefit from this effort though. It really is low cost and low effort on the part of Alex and his teams since his fans and followers are doing all of the work. It’s actually a fairly ingenious way to utilize multiple media outlets including traditional media, publisher websites, and social media. Instead of siloing each medium he is utilizing the power of his network and then leveraging his rabid fan base to do all of the work. The traffic will probably drive some ad revenue to the sites he owns but I have to believe the real goal is to drive additional subscriptions to his sites, the radio show, his TV show, and also to sell more of his DVDs. I’m sure a good portion of people who visit his sites after seeing at the top of hot searches are interested in the type of content he is developing and therefore more likely to pay for more access to his content. I could be totally wrong but he is not dumb and if it didn’t benefit him in some way I’m sure he would try something else. The fact that he continues to use this method leads me to believe it is bringing in some additional revenue.

This is the type of thing that will help content producers survive in the current conditions. It’s not enough to rely on advertiser $$$. Ads can serve as supplemental revenue but it will take more than that to remain competitive. By utilizing a variety of media and the power of the crowd to drive visibility and new users to extremely niche content (that many acolytes will gladly pay an additional fee to access) Alex is able to do what many of the big publishers have so far been unable to do. Instead of hanging on to their old business models these publishers and content producers could learn a lot from the low cost and low effort method being used here to increase revenue. Again, I could be totally wrong and I’m really not sure that manipulating Google Trends is having a huge impact on the revenue he is bring in but it’s a unique approach to getting more visibility by using both traditional and new media and social outreach.

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Google Wants to Control Your Brain

Mark Pilatowski — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:01:07 +0000

My latest post about Google Instant their desire to control your thoughts and how you search is up at Searchviews.

China v Google Not About Free Speech

Mark Pilatowski — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:37:53 +0000

“Don’t be Evil”. It is fairly well known that Don’t be evil is Google’s informal corporate motto. It looks great and gives everyone that sees it a warm and fuzzy feeling that this huge corporation that essentially tracks everything you do online is like a friendly neighbor. Google still has a pretty good reputation as far as corporations go. Unlike Microsoft, the general public still seems to trust Google and truly believe that they are a force for good in the world. Those who have had direct experience with the Google borg, like online marketers, SEOs, AdSense, publishers, etc. have a much different view of Google than do most people. In my experience Google is no different than every other for profit corporation. They are neither good nor evil but they are solely focused on increasing their revenue and profits. That’s why they went to China and agreed to censor search results. They saw the opportunity that was available in China and felt that the free speech wasn’t as important as that extra money that the China market could add to their bottom line.

Intellectual Property Trumps Free Speech

Google happily censored their results and cashed those checks from China until they found out that their IP was compromised. Apparently the Gmail accounts of prominent Chinese human rights proponents were hacked and in the process some of Google’s IP was accessed as well. All of the sudden Google was vehemently against censoring their results in China and they became huge proponents of free speech. Blogs and news sites all across the Internet celebrated Google’s righteousness and spoke glowingly about their defense of free speech across the world. Chinese citizens even jumped on the bandwagon and began laying flowers at the Google China offices like one would do at a funeral. Lost in the celebration of Google’s refusal to censor results was the fact that they had no problem doing it until their intellectual property was compromised. It was only then that they became the “don’t be evil” defender of free speech and civil rights. I don’t hate Google, although I feel they have too much power and control, but I have a hard time heaping praise on an entity that profits from censorship and defends free speech only when they have been harmed.

Google not evil but they are not free speech heroes either

Google is just another monopoly for profit corporation. They are focused on improving their bottom line. If censoring the results in China or anywhere else adds to that they will gladly do it. Just like many other organizations they are beholden to their stockholders and they need to continue to grow and increase revenue. Google may imply that they are different but the fact is that they saw a huge opportunity in China and willingly compromised their results in order to increase their profitability. It wasn’t until their IP was compromised that they became “free speech” activists and “martyrs”. I have a feeling that many other “evil” corporations would do the same thing. So in the end Google gets to come out looking like they care about the rights of the Chinese people but the fact is they are just upset because their rights had been violated and they didn’t like it. Now maybe they know how we all feel sometimes?

Big Brother Google Knows Best

Mark Pilatowski — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:21:22 +0000

Matt Cutts recent video on why pages disallowed by Robots.txt still appear in Google’s index is the latest display of Google’s arrogance. When you break it down he is saying that Google doesn’t care what you tell them, they are going to do what they want with your site. To get them to follow your Robots.txt directives you will have to jump through some additional hoops.

Rationalizing with Technicalities

I know that he is technically correct in that Robots.txt only tells crawlers what not to crawl and Google is not actually crawling the blocked pages. Matt explains that they are not actually “crawling” the blocked pages but instead are simply indexing them without actually seeing them. This brings up another issue related to search quality but I digress. The problem is that most webmasters place pages in their Robots.txt because they don’t want them crawled or indexed. By indexing blocked pages Google is violating the webmaster’s trust and intentions for the site. Google can essentially destroy a business for violating its guidelines but they have no issues violating the guidelines set by webmasters on how robots interact with their site.

Adhering to Google’s Whims

Obviously if you want Google traffic you have to play the game. Some may be willing to go the cat and mouse blackhat route while most will simply try to follow Google’s ever changing rules and whims. That also means that you have to watch out for Google deciding to ignore how you want your site to be accessed. So if you have your Robots.txt set to block certain pages make sure you add the Robots Meta Tag and set it to Noindex so Google does not violate your wishes by indexing blocked pages. Who knows how long they will actually follow the Robots Meta Tag directives but they claim to do it now. That could change tomorrow or even be patently false right now as Mr. Cutts has been known to say one thing when the reality is completely different. And always remember, Google knows better than you and if you just do what they tell you to do everything will be OK.

Google Kitchen Sink Results

Mark Pilatowski — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:37:52 +0000

I am well aware of the fact that Google is always experimenting with their SERPs. I have seen many different formats and types of results show up for different search queries but I have never seen a SERP with everything at the bottom of the page. Has anyone else seen this before. This SERP has Local Search in the middle of the page, which is not uncommon, but it also has News Search, Shopping Search, Book Search , and Blog Search Results all stuffed into the bottom of the page. Check it out, click on the picture to see the full screen version.

Google Kitchen Sink

Google Results Getting Uglier

I’m wondering if this is something that others have seen (maybe it is old news) or if Google is looking to make their SERPs even more cluttered and messy going forward? With the Sponsored Listings showing up closer to organic and the inclusion of every type of result Google has available this page is looking cluttered and really trending toward the problems with older search engines. Let’s hope this is just a test and that they avoid cluttering the SERPs with text blobs like this going forward.

Google Interest-Based Advertising & SEO

Mark Pilatowski — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:13:05 +0000

Google just announced that they will be serving “interest-based advertising” to users by placing a cookie in your browser when you visit a Google partner or a Google site YouTube. This cookie will track the type of sites you visit and then use this data to determine what your interests are. With this data they believe they will be able to serve you content network ads that are more targeted and aligned with your interests. They also allow users to choose their interests as well as opt-out of the service. I will leave the privacy issues to others and I am sure it will be a hot topic in some circles. Instead I want to explore the potential SEO implications of interest based advertising.

Could Google Incorporate Interest Based Advertising Data Into Organic Search Results?

I am not sure how difficult it would be to incorporate the data into the organic SERPs but I am fairly certain that it is possible to do so. Google has provided personalized results to users logged into a Google account by tracking the sites they visit and attempting to provide search results that are similar to those sites. The fairly recent roll out of SearchWiki, which allows users to alter their own results and comment on sites in the SERPs, has furthered their personalization efforts. Interest based advertising data has the potential to create even more personalized results to all users even those who don’t have a Google account. This could be done by gathering data from the browser cookies and serving results based on the users interests. I have not seen many people talking about this but the potential to so is there and it aligns with their effort to provide personalized results perfectly.

Twisting the Knife Into the Barely Breathing Ranking Report

If Google were to begin incorporating the data gathered through the interest-based cookies it would strike another blow against the ranking report. We eschewed ranking reports as an SEO metric a while ago and instead report on meaningful metrics like relevant traffic, conversions, and real ROI metrics. Some SEOs still rely on ranking reports as a way to show that they are providing a useful service but with the rise of personalized results ranking reports are less useful and in many cases totally misleading. What I see as number 1 can be vastly different than what Web Position Gold sees and the client could be seeing yet another result. Personalized results are still somewhat limited because they tend to rely on users to be signed into their Google account. But if Google brings interest-based advertising cookie data into organic search they could provide personalized results to a much larger audience (those who don’t opt out). In fact since they allow user input they could provide results that align with exactly what the user tells them they like. IMO this would put the final nail in the ranking report coffin and it can’t come soon enough.

Just Conjecture…Right Now

At this point the idea that Google would incorporate interest-based data into the organic SERPs is just conjecture on my part. Nothing they have released has even hinted that they would do this but Google is not always totally forthcoming about what they are doing in the organic results. Will they do it? Who knows but I believe they have the potential to and if they believe that it would be useful to their users or their bottom line they will find a way to make it happen.

Google SearchWiki…Benign or Nefarious?

Mark Pilatowski — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:35:35 +0000

As many are probably aware Google launched SearchWiki, which allows Google account holders to alter their search results. For those who are not yet aware it basically works like a social news site like Digg in that you can vote up certain results, remove others, and add comments. If you vote a listing up or remove a listing from the results the SERPs change when you are logged into your Google account. These new SERPs are only visible to you BUT if you comment by leaving a note other Google account members will be able to view what you and others have written. Seems fairly innocuous and really just another step towards personalization of the search results. Of course, it also gives Google another access point into your personal data but I will leave that discussion alone for now. To learn more about how Google SearchWIki works take a look at the video.

Is this just a fun tool which allows users to personalize their search results?

On the surface it seems that way and I would venture to guess that it probably is benign right now. My concern is what Google is going to do with the data they collect going forward. The Google Webmaster Help Groups have already had some discussion about the possible implications of SearchWiki. The two things that concern me are 1. Google will compile the data they receive and attempt to include it in their ranking algorithm and 2. Shady SEOs will do exactly what John Honeck mentioned and use the results to trick clients.

Would Google actually incorporate SearchWiki into their algorithm?

Would Google incorporate SearchWiki into their algorithm? My initial guess would be no BUT they have made some questionable decisions and I am not sure that they would not test the results. That would certainly leave this open to abuse by some shady individuals who could easily employ an army of spammers to carpet bomb the results to push their results up (or push the competition down). Obviously, Google engineers have already considered this which is why the votes will only show up for each users Google account. But if they believe they can develop a way to incorporate this data without the spam (which is of course going to be impossible) they may give it a shot. Another issue would be that they would manually review certain results that tend to see a lot of activity. This might be good or bad depending on whether the votes are legitimate or a negative SEO attempt.

Shady SEOs duping clients IS a big concern

Now the second issue of shady SEOs using this to show their clients performance improvements is more of concern in the near term. When this went live we actually had a discussion about this and then I saw John talking about it too so it is something that should be considered. This is a realistic concern and provides yet another opportunity for the spam brigade to make SEOs look bad. I can see some of the shadier SEO firms taking the steps to create a Google account for their clients and show them “improved” results by voting the sites up in the results. Knowledgeable clients won’t fall for it but there are still far too many businesses whose representatives don’t know a thing about SEO and they could easily be duped. This is something that Google needs to consider and address. It is also another reason for those who are hiring SEOs to eschew ranking reports and measure traffic and conversion improvements instead.

I am on the fence

Right now I am not really concerned or excited about SearchWiki. It does not really affect our SEO service and I see it as fairly innocuous. I do have some concerns about the implications going forward if it ends up catching on. I am also even more concerned about the amount of data that Google is able to track as they add more features like this. At this point I am going to keep an eye on SearchWiki and see if it is being abused or included in the algorithm. Until they I will probably just ignore it.

Google Provides Insights into the Presidential Debate

Mark Pilatowski — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:41:36 +0000

The Googleblog is offering some great insights into what Americans were searching on during and after the last presidential debate. This information provides great insights into what issues people are interested. This information would have a greater impact for politicians than any poll or survey that the major media likes to push out to everyone. Polls and surveys require some intrusion and can be much more filtered by user bias. Search data like this is much less biased and it gets to the core issues that the voters care about.

This could be huge if used correctly

Maybe this will lead to a politician who uses this data and actually focuses on the issues instead of the current mess we have. It would be a refreshing change it that were to happen but I imagine it will take a while for them to catch on and start utilizing the great resource that search data provides.