Google's double standards?

yukon

Banned 14 years ago

Every web page I own has Ads above the fold.

Related thread: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...you-think.html

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MikeFriedman

14 years ago

Nowhere do they say NO ads above the fold.

They are fine with paid links. They are against links that attempt to manipulate PR.

dmoz.org and dir.yahoo.com hardly qualify as link farms.

As for the news thing, they have no problem with syndication.

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sparrow 14 years ago

either way they don't want us to scrape their content but they made a living scraping everyone else's content

Google has always had a double standard
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gearmonkey

14 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Nowhere do they say NO ads above the fold.

Mhmmm, guess it depends how you interpret it:

”We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.”

Source : Matt Cutts: Google Changes Algorithm to Penalize Sites That “Don

They make it extremely vague. Maybe they don't mind a small 468x60 nofollow (non-affiliate e.g, cj.com, amazon) banner in the header?

Google offers a tool to help determine : Browser Size

They are fine with paid links. They are against links that attempt to manipulate PR.

As I already mentioned in the OP, dir.yahoo.com and prweb.com are paid and they pass PR.

dmoz.org and dir.yahoo.com hardly qualify as link farms.

You pay money to "certain" dmoz editors, you get a dofollow link in their directory.... sure it is a 'link farm'. Yahoo charges $299 to give you a dofollow link in their paid directory.

As for the news thing, they have no problem with syndication.

As I stated in the OP this is only true if it is noindex or use the canonical tag and Google news does not employ that standard for their "syndication".

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MikeFriedman

14 years ago

There is nothing difficult to interpret. Google is fine with ads above the fold. They just do not want to see so many ads that it pushes all the content below the fold.

dir.yahoo.com and prweb.com are paid. They do pass PR. However, they are not part of a scheme to sculpt PR.

Sorry, but Google nor most people see Dmoz or Yahoo as link farms. If you want to interpret it differently, fine. However, Google has nothing to gain by advocating those sites versus other link directories or link farms for that matter. So not sure there is any kind of real double standard there. Dmoz and Yahoo are not properties of Google.

As for the syndication, most sites syndicating news articles are not using canonical tags, and I know of none that are noindexing the articles. They seem to rank just fine though.

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gearmonkey

14 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

There is nothing difficult to interpret. Google is fine with ads above the fold. They just do not want to see so many ads that it pushes all the content below the fold.

If they are fine with it then why do they talk about it? And make a tool to help people? If Joe Shcmoe's website looks like the screenshot that I embeded in the OP, where you see 75% ads and 25% content, that might be an issue. Why are websites with less than 75% ads showing above the fold having issues? Google does...

dir.yahoo.com and prweb.com are paid. They do pass PR. However, they are not part of a scheme to sculpt PR.

As long as they are, in fact, dofollow, they are sculpting PR.

Sorry, but Google nor most people see Dmoz or Yahoo as link farms. If you want to interpret it differently, fine. However, Google has nothing to gain by advocating those sites versus other link directories or link farms for that matter. So not sure there is any kind of real double standard there. Dmoz and Yahoo are not properties of Google.

The difference is they have a "brand name". Lets say Joe Shmoe from nowhere Iowa wanted to create a web directory and charged $75 to guarantees a review within 24 hrs... he's automatically "black hat" in Google's eyes. Yet Yahoo can do this = double standard.

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

As for the syndication, most sites syndicating news articles are not using canonical tags, and I know of none that are noindexing the articles. They seem to rank just fine though.

I know lots that are. And for no rhyme or reason, some scrappers outrank the original source. In fact SEOmoz did a test on this and I found it to be an interesting read. Post-Panda, Your Original Content is Being Outranked by Scrapers & Partners | SEOmoz

EDIT:

just food for thought, if PRweb.com and dir.yahoo.com both went nofollow for every OBL link they are promoting next week, I wonder how many people would jump ship? I really doubt many would pay $299 to YAHOO for a nofollow link and PRweb would lose a lot of potential sales.

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yukon

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

I know lots that are. And for no rhyme or reason, some scrappers outrank the original source. In fact SEOmoz did a test on this and I found it to be an interesting read. Post-Panda, Your Original Content is Being Outranked by Scrapers & Partners | SEOmoz

Hey gearmonkey, I'm not trying to pick on you but that Moz post is one of the biggest conspiracy theories I've ever seen regarding SEO.

Moz acts like scraper sites weren't invented until Panda came along.

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gearmonkey

14 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Hey gearmonkey, I'm not trying to pick on you but that Moz post is one of the biggest conspiracy theories I've ever seen regarding SEO.

Moz acts like scraper sites weren't invented until Panda came along.

Take it for what its worth. I found that post when I was trying to figure out why scrappers where outranking my guitar blog. My guitar blog was found in "Omitted" search results while being #1 on Bing, Yahoo, Yandex and etc...

My guitar blog has over 1,000 backlinks and is 5 years old.. and my brand is well known in the guitar community.

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yukon

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

Take it for what its worth. I found that post when I was trying to figure out why scrappers where outranking my guitar blog. My guitar blog was found in "Omitted" search results while being #1 on Bing, Yahoo, Yandex and etc...

My guitar blog has over 1,000 backlinks and is 5 years old.. and my brand is well known in the guitar community.

That sounds like Supplemental SERPs, are your page titles unique?

Example, these are not the same things when it comes to Supplemental SERPs:

<title>Unique page title - site wide keyword</title>
<title>Site wide keyword - Unique page title</title>

If you have the same keyword 1st in the page title, over multiple pages, Google will sometimes dump some of the pages into Supplemntal SERPs.

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MikeFriedman

14 years ago

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

If they are fine with it then why do they talk about it? And make a tool to help people? If Joe Shcmoe's website looks like the screenshot that I embeded in the OP, where you see 75% ads and 25% content, that might be an issue. Why are websites with less than 75% ads showing above the fold having issues? Google does...

I do think there is a big difference between Adwords listings compared Adsense listings and other advertising though. Google can control what ads are showing for a given search. They have no control on other websites what is showing. For their search results, the Adwords listings are generally very relevant to the search performed.

You can find tons of websites that are loaded with junk ads that have nothing to do with the content of the site.

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gearmonkey

14 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

I do think there is a big difference between Adwords listings compared Adsense listings and other advertising though. Google can control what ads are showing for a given search. They have no control on other websites what is showing. For their search results, the Adwords listings are generally very relevant to the search performed.

You can find tons of websites that are loaded with junk ads that have nothing to do with the content of the site.

I'm with you, but why is Google talking about "above the fold" instead of "related ads"? I also know what you mean about websites that are consumed with ads **cough**ezinearticles**cough**

Most people's listings are showing on PR 0 pages, so I don't think it would impact their business at all.

I just pulled up a random page on Yahoo Directory (geared towards my niche) and see it is a PR6 page. The OBLs on that page are dofollow.
dir.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/

...

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MikeFriedman

14 years ago

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

I'm with you, but why is Google talking about "above the fold" instead of "related ads"? I also know what you mean about websites that are consumed with ads **cough**ezinearticles**cough**

It would be too hard for them to manage "related ads". Pretty tough to ensure that ads, especially banner ads, are related to the content of the site.

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

I just pulled up a random page on Yahoo Directory (geared towards my niche) and see it is a PR6 page. The OBLs on that page are dofollow.
dir.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/

...

Yeah, and take a look at the listings on that page... MTV, Rolling Stone, VH1, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame... Don't worry, neither you or your competitors are going to get a link there.

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gearmonkey

14 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Yeah, and take a look at the listings on that page... MTV, Rolling Stone, VH1, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame... Don't worry, neither you or your competitors are going to get a link there.

You are right about that. The page my website would go on is only a PR3. But still... that's a PR3 backlink on one of the most authority websites found on the internet. Though I would never pay $299 for it.

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yukon Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

I also know what you mean about websites that are consumed with ads **cough**ezinearticles**cough**.

Lol at EZA, that site is the mother of all affiliate link spammers. I counted 66 affiliate links (not Ad blocks) on a single article page.

I'm sure the majority of their income comes from the 2 Ad blocks top/center of each page.
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MikeFriedman

14 years ago

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

just food for thought, if PRweb.com and dir.yahoo.com both went nofollow for every OBL link they are promoting next week, I wonder how many people would jump ship? I really doubt many would pay $299 to YAHOO for a nofollow link and PRweb would lose a lot of potential sales.

Most people's listings are showing on PR 0 pages, so I don't think it would impact their business at all.

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paulgl

14 years ago

Nothing said, #1-4 has ever been said by google in context of what is said here.

#1. Google NEVER said you cannot have ads above the fold. Big myth.

#2. Google NEVER said not to have paid links. What they said was, if they find you buying links to raise PR....

#3. Yahoo directory and DMOZ are not link farms.

#4. Complete misquoting of google on "duplicate content" to begin with.
They do NOT hate duplicate content. Perhaps you have never read that
google always says they are under no obligation to follow any such tags
and NEVER to rely on those 100% of the time. There are REAL,
much better ways of doing such things. And they have full-blown
tutorials, how-to guides, blog posts, help forums, etc. to help
people out.

You people just read some SEO-guru's misquoting of someone elses
misquoting. News feeds, syndication, scraping, and other things, are done correctly
by many sites. And yes, google tells you how they want you to do it!

Too many people seem to want to make a living out of misquoting google.
Then their followers fail, and blame google. That's the real double standard.

Anyone who allows google to run, manipulate, and control their so-called
business, does not have a real business.

We don't want anyone telling me how to run our businesses. Why are we so
quick to tell google how to run theirs?

Paul

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Mike Anthony

14 years ago

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

Please feel free to add to the list

I'll play

Shutting Down BMR and then letting Fiverr sellers sell toolbar PR7 and PR8 links on sites that don't even have half the linkjuice claimed.

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tansks

14 years ago

They don't allow you to add images/arrows beside the ads years ago, but now they added it on their own.

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tech84

14 years ago

Originally Posted by tansks

They don't allow you to add images/arrows beside the ads years ago, but now they added it on their own.

its because the intent of (the webmaster) placing arrows pointing to the ad would be to tell the visitors to click those ads,

the arrows inside the adsense itself is not designed and does not look in anyway that tells the visitors to click those ads.

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yukon

Banned 14 years ago

Originally Posted by tech84

its because the intent of (the webmaster) placing arrows pointing to the ad would be to tell the visitors to click those ads,

the arrows inside the adsense itself is not designed and does not look in anyway that tells the visitors to click those ads.

What other purpose could an arrow possibly serve besides trying to boost CTR?

Google is defiantly a hypocrite when it comes to arrows & Ads, not that I'm complaining (lol).

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tech84

14 years ago

1. Ads above the fold

they did not mean NO ads above the fold, Google never said that. it's the matter of having too much ads above the fold, where the actual content is already buried under because of too many ads. Having "Too much ads" can be different from webmaster to webmaster but generally if you have to scroll down the page in order to see the actual content because of too many ads above the fold, this falls under that category.

2. They NEVER said not to have paid links, they even acknowledged that this is part of the internet's economy. It's those links manipulated to pass PR is what they are after, and also that's why they advice to place a "nofollow" on those links.

3. DMOZ and YAHOO directory are not link farms.

4. I cannot really say anything on this matter because this should fall under simply having common sense.

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brettb

14 years ago

No arrows besides/on ads?

I'm actually pleased they did this, as I'm pretty sure my revenue has increased as a result.

But as for double standards - European lawmakers will have Google's ass on a plate soon enough, you only have to search for credit cards or other competitive stuff to see what's going on. Asshat American lawmakers couldn't find anything wrong with Google Search so I can only assume that the lobbyists have your lawmakers in their pocket.

I should have saved my evidence that my site was delisted and replaced with a BlogSpot blog containing my stolen content. That was 100% proof that Google are favouring their own content over our content. I'll have a hunt around for more examples, and if any of the sites should have AdSense on, then I'll post my evidence to the EU anti-trust department.

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GeorgR.

14 years ago

Double Standard:

Go on "Google Shopping", enter whatever, say "Nvidia Geforce Graphics Card"

Click on "Why These Products?"

Products and offers that match your query. Google is compensated by some of these merchants. Payment is one of several factors used to rank these results.

No paid links...yeah right....

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MikeFriedman

14 years ago

Originally Posted by superman1231

Yes google is stupid and something that google bans people for is making ads seems not like ads... the really slight colour change between the ads and the search results is extremely hard to tell....

If you cannot see the obvious difference between the tones, it's because of your monitor settings. Turn up the contrast and they stick out like a sore thumb.

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

Double Standard:

Go on "Google Shopping", enter whatever, say "Nvidia Geforce Graphics Card"

Click on "Why These Products?"

No paid links...yeah right....

And once again, they have never said no paid links.

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Mike Anthony 14 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

And once again, they have never said no paid links.

Come on Mike. Whats the difference? You rank a site highly because you get payment or someone else buys links to rank highly? The only difference is that Google does not need to pay for links it can just directly put sites higher in the line of sight that pay them to do so

google has definitely said no system in which you manipulate the search engine rankings by paying for links is allowed and yet they manipulate where things appear on the search results page based on cash. Total hypocrisy and notices of ads means nothing. I've watched people who are not deeply involved with the internet or SEO and they do click on those links because they are at the top without noticing that they are ads.
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