Has Google gone anti-SEO

[SamuraiKat]

Recently read on an SEO newsletter that Google has gone anti-SEO. What the post read was that Google is starting to make Ad Words become extremely prominent above the fold, to the point of pushing organic below it.

From my laptop browser, this seems to be true. Now without going into the conversation about browser/monitor size, has anyone else witnessed this? If so, what steps are you doing to SEO your sites.

Also do you feel that SEO is still working or is this practice going away? Please share your thoughts.

[blitz20]

seo will always work, google uses 3 ad slots above the organic listing but you can tell the difference since paid listings have a different background. I always go right to the organic listing when searching since its the most relavent.

[yukon]

Nothing has changed, matter of fact I've been seeing a lot more Ads in the SERPs at the bottom of the SERP page (below the fold).

[MikeFriedman]

Nothing has changed. Google is a publicly traded stock. As such, their top priority is to maximize profits for their stockholders. SEO does not make them money. AdWords does.

And whoever wrote the post you read, just has not been paying attention. There have been some SERPs where the ads were very prominent above the fold for a very long time now. It really just depends on the advertising competition level.

[mattlaclear]

To me a bigger issue are the Google Places slots being above the fold.

[Mike Anthony]

Sounds like a blogger just wanting to stir up a little interest in their blog. Thats some old news there

[agmantz]

SEO Still Matters... Google just want to Earn Money!

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by mattlaclear

To me a bigger issue are the Google Places slots being above the fold.

That really only effects local searches though. Also, it is not hard to rank above the Google Places Listings.

The problem with Places is that recently they seemed to cut down the radius for a lot of searches. Previously if someone searched for XXXX + city, pretty much anyone with a good places listing in the entire county would show up. Now it seems to be a much tighter net and only places within a few miles are showing up.

[SamuraiKat]

It was from Search Engine News - SEO Optimization Strategies from Planet Ocean · SearchEngineNews.com I don't know how reputable they are, but it was in their PlanetOcean newsletter.

Are they are reputable website, granted its not SeoMoz. Let me know.

[paulgl]

They've always had ads above the fold. They were reserved
for the big players.

People would get a lot of "SEO" if they just read all of google's
blogs and announcements. If they did, they would understand
why google did this. It was to help out their paying customers.
Their research showed that people read web pages up and
down, not left to right or across. Using that info, people
could actually tweak their web pages accordingly. In other
words, google actually gives out SEO tips, unknowingly,
or knowingly, with almost each announcement they make.

Paul

[FrankRumbauskas]

Here's the logic behind what Google is doing:

As a for-profit business, Google is in competition with others, primarily Bing and Yahoo. In order to keep users loyal to Google, they strive to provide users with what they call a "good user experience." They define this as giving searchers the specific information they are looking for.

This is why more weight is given to big authority sites like Wikipedia, or in the B2B niche that I'm in, Forbes, Inc.com, etc. Also huge e-commerce sites like Amazon.

Google's reasoning is that if users are searching for information on a specific topic and are served up a bunch of affiliate or sales letter sites, they'll get annoyed and abandon Google for another search engine, hence their bias against affiliate sites, mini-sites, etc. They need users to stay loyal to Google, since more users equals more ad revenue. They're not "anti-affiliate" or "anti-SEO" or anything like that; they simply reason that if someone is looking for information and all they get are sites trying to sell them stuff, they won't have a good user experience.

If more people would be patient and slowly but surely build large authority sites instead of looking for the latest "get rich quick" SEO scheme, they'd be a lot happier with the results.

EXAMPLE: My AdWords blog ranks in position 7 on page 1 for "adwords blog". And what SEO did I do to the site? NOTHING! it's just a Wordpress blog, and a couple of times a week I write a new post that's useful to readers. The site is less than a year old, but by being a solid informational site, which is what Google wants, and by providing real information, which causes other authority sites to link to it, it has achieved a high SEO ranking and I haven't spent a penny on either SEO or AdWords to do it. It gets enough traffic to bring in a consistent flow of new clients and will stay on page 1 as long as I continue to add new content.

If you want to succeed with SEO then my advice is be patient, put out good solid content that both readers and Google want, and stop trying to game the system with linking schemes.

[wahidswebgarage]

Yea organic results went under the fold,but most of the experience consumers go for the organic listings.

[gauthamvit2003]

I really doubt anyone has ever read Google's philosophy. Tens things everyone in this world should know about Google stated by founders of Google. Do search for Google Philosophy keyword, one can get a clear picture on Google's real intentions after reading their philosophy.

[paulgl]

People just don't read replies.

The reason why google did it was from research.
They put ads above, and on the bottom (which
the OP forgot to mention), BECAUSE they have
learned that people scan webpages UP AND DOWN,
not left to right. They want a better return for
their paying customers... They have also found
that when people get to the bottom of a page,
they instantly think, "Where to now?" Give them
a choice.

Since google is having record profits, while both MS
and yahoo get nothing, what does that say about
the people that work for google?

If people actually took the time (*sigh*) to actually
read what google posts, they might tweak their
OWN CONTENT and ADS the same way.

You could learn a lot from google.

Paul

[Carl Brown]

Originally Posted by blitz20

seo will always work, google uses 3 ad slots above the organic listing but you can tell the difference since paid listings have a different background. I always go right to the organic listing when searching since its the most relavent.

On my browser you can barely see the color difference. Also, most "normal" people don't know those are PAID ads.

[ClaireFisher]

SEO is all that matters, and quality backlinks.

[webworm]

It is not true.Google haven't gone against SEO but it is now very strict and aware about the illegal techniques.

[FrankRumbauskas]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Since google is having record profits, while both MS
and yahoo get nothing, what does that say about
the people that work for google?

That's because MSN AdCenter that powers Bing and Yahoo ads is total rubbish. If Microsoft would get a clue and duplicate the AdWords platform, they might have a chance at cutting into Google's market share, but as it stands now, their PPC platform is crap.

[FrankRumbauskas]

Originally Posted by ClaireFisher

SEO is all that matters, and quality backlinks.

Uh-huh... I have this argument with SEO "experts" all the time. They tell me I'm "wasting" money on AdWords. Then I show them actual documentation that I spend $25,000/month on AdWords which brings me $120,000/month in revenue, and they shut up fast.

The problem with SEO is I cannot possibly target the 8,000 keywords that I target in AdWords; in addition, most of my AdWords conversions, about 80%, come from Display Network ads, which is not possible with SEO.

SEO has its place but it's only a small part of the total picture if you want access to the big money. Anyone who thinks SEO is "it" is seriously limiting their income.

[honestbizpro]

Originally Posted by FrankRumbauskas

That's because MSN AdCenter that powers Bing and Yahoo ads is total rubbish. If Microsoft would get a clue and duplicate the AdWords platform, they might have a chance at cutting into Google's market share, but as it stands now, their PPC platform is crap.

Yep agree.

And it is amazing that Facebook jumped in and blew past them as well.

[perfect]

Well, it has been like that since as far as i know. Nothing changes as said.

[ralchevd]

Originally Posted by SamuraiKat

Recently read on an SEO newsletter that Google has gone anti-SEO.

Google is not going anti-SEO - SEO is going anti-Google, which I love Crappy websites are getting outranked u mad?

The search engine is the strongest part of Google Inc. - they update their algorithms steadily.
In order to keep your website ranked well, you'll have to be WANTED by the users. Thousands of backlinks generated by crappy tools like senukex, article submitters, scrapebox, etc are starting to lose power.

[indiainternet2012]

it is not possible beacuse google earns the huge amount from SEO work so google can;t do that...

[sudhanshughij]

Google love to update it self more prominently so that it creates the required updates in its algorithms and make a proper announcement so that people aware and make a proper strategies in their works....
Its just a roomer that google become anti - SEO

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by indiainternet2012

it is not possible beacuse google earns the huge amount from SEO work so google can;t do that...

WTF? Google doesn't make a penny off of SEO.

[kfm24]

SamuraiStock,

I dont think google will ever be anti-seo they have to make money so they must show the google adwords ads I mean I have some articles I wrote, where I'm ranking first page for some pretty competitive keywords where I get alot of traffic So I know seo is not dead because I seo optimize all my articles and I get ranked for a couple of keywords

[Chris-]

Yes, Google must maximise their profit, but that will be very unlikely to ever mean only paid ads, because people using the Google search engine don't want that.

Like a magazine, they need to keep a balance between adverts, and what the reader is really there for. So organic searching and SEO will always be relevant.

Chris

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by john5764

No dear, Google has not gone anti-seo because Google earns a huge number of money from seo work. Google has some seo tools and those are the best seo tools ever.

That is just silly. Google does not earn money off of SEO nor do they have any SEO tools.

[packerfan]

There are some great lessons to be learned here if you read Paulg's responses.

Let's not forget Google has more data and better data analyzers than 99% of the organizations out there.

They don't just randomly make changes. So, common sense tells us that putting stuff above the fold is an obvious choice.

But I think the more interesting thing is that they are now place ads at the bottom of the serps as well.

Tells me 2 things.
1. More people get down there than previously expected.
2. Make damn sure you have some sort of call to action at the end of your content. It could be an ad, an opt-in box, whatever.

Again, I realize this is common sense, but we can all use Google's research to our advantage if we take the time to understand it.

For example, do you think they just chose that ugly blue link color because 'ole Larry liked blue?

Food for thought...

[Bofu2U]

Google is known because of the fact that they prepare results based on quality tiers that they determine. They do not DIRECTLY make money off organic ... actually screw that, yes they do. Just think of Google as an AdSense publisher. All of the Google SERPs are their pages, and they get paid per click.

To say that it makes nothing is just being naive and/or you're not thinking straight. However, it's been said for years that Adwords is where they make the most of their money. This is completely true. But keep in mind, that doesn't mean that adwords advertisers aren't advertising on the SERPs (aka Search) and they don't get a penny from that.

The entire reason they're known is because of the search engine. Without it, they wouldn't exactly be that much. They'd have the adsense publisher base to stand on, but the traffic would drop so dramatically there that their exposure would tank.

They stay on top by displaying "the most relevant, user-based resources they can find" for queries. That's what keeps people coming back, and clicking on ads.

However, they don't directly endorse any SEO tools as it's been said (obviously. That's like a police force telling people how to mitigate their security systems in the police station). The main goal is for them to keep traffic on the Google TLD up with all of that. Period.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by honestbizpro

Yep agree.

And it is amazing that Facebook jumped in and blew past them as well.

Because social is social. Real search is real search. People need to realize
this when talking anything about social. I, and most people, could care less
what friends, real or fake, are doing, seeing, or buying. And I'm certainly
not going to go to facebook to find any real info....seriously...

People keep talking about facebook as if it's some great thing. It's
not. 5 years ago, people would have laughed if you said myspace was
crap. 10 years ago people would have thought you were crazy if you
said that in a few years, yahoo won't matter. Same with napster,
netflix, linkedin, and on and on. The only thing that has remained constant,
is google. Constantly changing, improving, and most importantly,
making money.

Paul

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

That is just silly. Google does not earn money off of SEO nor do they have any SEO tools.

That's very true. But they do give quite a bit of great info on how to
do SEO for their results. And with analytics, they give you some good stats.

What you do with the info, is not up to google.

Now I'm ROTFLMAO, because I just realized that Mike is spot on about
not making money off of SEO. They make tons of money off of adwords
users and their advertising networks. Read: Paying customers. But it
does work hand in hand with their search results. Bad ads give a lousy
search experience. That's why many get banned from adwords, or just
have a low QS. If people kept that in mind, they would pick their
keywords, ads, negative keywords, etc. very, very carefully.

Paul

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by packerfan

Again, I realize this is common sense, but we can all use Google's research to our advantage if we take the time to understand it.

For example, do you think they just chose that ugly blue link color because 'ole Larry liked blue?

Food for thought...

Dang good post.

Okay, forgive the 3 posts in a row...I hate editing.

Paul

[packerfan]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Because social is social. Real search is real search. People need to realize
this when talking anything about social. I, and most people, could care less
what friends, real or fake, are doing, seeing, or buying. And I'm certainly
not going to go to facebook to find any real info....seriously...

People keep talking about facebook as if it's some great thing. It's
not. 5 years ago, people would have laughed if you said myspace was
crap. 10 years ago people would have thought you were crazy if you
said that in a few years, yahoo won't matter. Same with napster,
netflix, linkedin, and on and on. The only thing that has remained constant,
is google. Constantly changing, improving, and most importantly,
making money.

Paul

Netflix Crap

For $8/month I get to watch trailer park boys. It just happens to be the best show ever made for TV.

Anyway, your point is valid. But Google will likely fall at some point. Consider the dominance of Sears. Now they're an after thought.

The beauty of capatilism is it gives everyone an opportunity to do something better. Someone will come along with a search engine concept that is better than Google. It might be 50 years from now, but they will.

I'm on your side though. Search and social are two different things. One interesting thing, if Google tries to force the issue with Google+ it will likely fail. People like to share crap like their kid's christmas play on social sites. They don't typically share an article they found with how to deal with anxiety. That would mean telling all their friends they have anxiety, and we wouldn't actually want people knowing the real us.

[nickhumph]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

That is just silly. Google does not earn money off of SEO nor do they have any SEO tools.

They do have tools such as the Adwords Keyword tool and Webmaster tools that are related with SEO, but Google making money off these tools? I don't think so.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by nickhumph

They do have tools such as the Adwords Keyword tool and Webmaster tools that are related with SEO, but Google making money off these tools? I don't think so.

Ok, I could see how Webmaster tools might be considered an SEO tool.

The Keyword tool however is NOT an SEO tool put out by Google. People use it for SEO, but the only reason Google supplies it is for AdWords. If AdWords didn't exist, this tool would be gone.

[ClaireFisher]

If a person knows what they are looking for, the keyword tool can be used as a helper SEO tool. The problem is, people do not understand how to use it. They see a keyword has 100 searches and it says low competition, so they think they're on to something fabulous. Eventually, they learn how to evaluate competition and discover they were competing with authoritative sites who are ranking for the keyword. So yeah, the keyword tool is an SEO helper.