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0 pointsjacquesm15y ago0 comments

> Your comment about Google though, they have to keep the trust of the users and the web as a whole. If they were to game their system for their own gain (that is artificially influence results to improve their own standings) and people found out or could prove it, Google would be in trouble.

Don't tell me you really believe that all those sites that happen to be google affiliated really have that much standing in their algorithmic view of the web. Google has been artificially inflating the ranking of their own site for a long long time.

For instance, not that I'm in the habit of searching for celebrities, but type in paris hilton in the google search bar.

The first result is a link to google images, followed by half a page of sample images from images.google.com, followed by wikipedia (ok, that's a good one) and then a bunch of youtube stuff.

I'm sure they're all 'relevant results' but I highly doubt those image links are really the most relevant results on the subject.

The wikipedia link should have been #1, the images and youtube results probably don't even belong on the first page (unless you search for 'images').

This sort of thing will happen with a great many subjects, but with a high frequency query like 'paris hilton' the effect must be enormous.

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6 comments · 3 top-level

btmorex15y ago· 2 in thread

I'm not Google fan, but I don't believe that they special case "affiliated" sites in search results. That would be an idiotic move on their part. Possibly undermine their cash cow (search) to boost marginal sources of revenue?

Honestly, your claim sounds like most conspiracy theories. It completely falls apart when you assume the participants are even mildly logical and rational.

jacquesmOP15y ago

http://www.google.com/search?q=nike+zoom+rotational

Shows a whole pile of results from 'google shopping' for me.

Are those really the top results?

nostrademons15y ago

Here's what's going on there: Google figures, from your query, that your intent is probably shopping. And those are the top 4 results from the shopping corpus. If you click on the "Shopping results for..." link, you can see the full shopping corpus.

I don't really know how the product corpus works, but AFAIK Google is not being paid anything for those results. They're compiled from a bunch of commercial sites across the web. Google gets paid when you click on the ads, which are clearly marked at the top and right hand column.

nostrademons15y ago· 1 in thread

Here's your chance to make it better: what are the queries that turn up too many Made-For-Adsense pages, and what results should they be returning instead?

trevelyan15y ago

Well... in my field about half of the top sites which are returned for the query "Learn Chinese" (or something similar) are thinly-disguided AdSense spam or content-free marketing landing pages of little use to anyone actually hoping to learn Chinese. They exist almost exclusively to serve AdSense. Sample URLS: elanguageschool.net, clearchinese.com, instantspeakchinese.com, minmm.com, mychineselearning.com. Or try pretty much any site on page #2.

My own Chinese learning site is Popup Chinese (http://popupchinese.com). We have fantastic testimonials, tens of thousands of users, and links from tons of places, but we're still invisible in Google after more than two years. The Skritter (http://skritter.com) guys (who post here occasionally) should also be listed far above where they are - they've got a great product and it's insane that they're drowned out by this sort of flotsam. Ditto for NCIKU.com.

Everyone I know in our industry views Google with complete cynicism. Quality sites that won't play black hat SEO are at a major disadvantage to much spammier marketing sites and link-farms. All that being said, it is nice to see someone at Google is at least asking the question seriously. And given what you are up against... good luck.

chapel15y ago

Being a master at your own system doesn't mean they are artificially influencing it. It is hard to avoid, and I don't doubt that they know more and use it to their advantage, but I don't think they are doing it in a way that impacts their competitors like you think.

Search for 'search engine' or 'engines' and you will find that Google isn't the first, in fact it is 4th and isn't to the main page but to their custom search engine. There are other cases where this exists, but I guess it isn't the best example just a simple one.

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