Google Search: Clutching at Elephant Parts?
June 3, 2020
The DarkCyber research team finds Google search endlessly fascinating. The group is less interested in the relevance of the results and increasingly interested in the manipulations of data. The line between objective results and weaponized results is a thin one. Figuring out what is occurring, the intent of changes in data presentation, and the actions of stakeholders like SEO (search engine optimization) professionals is similar to the behaviors we documented in our Dark Web research. (We summarized some of our data in “Dark Web Notebook. Information about that monograph is available at this link.) Our radar beeped when one of the team identified a certified SEO expert who identified himself as a “hustler.” This is street jargon for a person with behaviors which may be perceived as illegal or quasi illegal.
Consider this Reddit post from Antihero. The focus of Antihero’s attention was a search for mattress. The result returned about 761 million results. However, the first page of search results — that is the one that 95 percent of those using Google view — is entirely ads. To support the argument, Antihero includes a screen shot of the page which indeed is entirely “pay to play” content. Yep, ads, infomercials in text form, carnival barkers who get that prime real estate by paying off the entertainment company managing the event. To sum up, Google is not good.
Now consider this post from a company which depends on Google for indexing and pointing to its content. “Panda and the Death of SEO PR” explains that Google is doing an outstanding job of filtering certain content from its search results. The idea is that bogus news releases which can be output after registering for free news release services is filtered. Plus the changes in search since 2013 have made it more difficult for outputters to put certain content on Web pages which are then indexed by Google and made available to the world. To sum up, Google is good.
Let’s step back. Google is in the business of selling ads. The ad business is different from those halcyon days when Google was furiously litigating with Yahoo about certain similarities between Google’s fledgling ad service and Yahoo’s ad system and method. Google ended up inking a deal; Yahoo went back into its purple jack in the box; and the pay to play approach to “objective” search become the de facto standard in the US and then elsewhere.
When a Web site is not indexed, the webmaster or 23 year old political science major reinvented while living in mom and dad’s basement needs traffic. What are the choices?
- Create content and hope that tweets, Facebook posts, and links in LinkedIn generate hundreds of thousands of page views. Google’s algorithms and ad sales professionals monitor such traffic anomalies. A spike could mean a customer with money to spend. With more than 35 billion Web pages in the online indexes, generating a spike is possible, but it is difficult to achieve. That path is called “organic search.” The idea is that clicks flow from the video, the content, or the image posted. Organic search operates on the magnet principle. Good content pulls traffic. Yes, that happens.
- Buy ads. This approach does work. Amazon, Facebook, Google, and others operate search systems and match ads to user interests. For product traffic, Amazon is emerging as the big dog running in front of the Bezos bulldozer to chase small animals off the trail. Facebook — despite its somewhat unstable political and social position — can deliver person centric ads. Google is the champion of free Web search on the desktop and on mobile devices. If you want traffic, you buy and ad. The ad produces traffic. There is chatter that buying ads has other upsides as well, but those are a subject for a future post.
Now back to the Reddit post. Those who buy ads for content related to mattresses and pay the most appear on the results page in Antihero’s online article.
And what about the eRelease “Google is wonderful” post? It is valid, particularly for Google partners and organizations which have an opportunity to participate in the Google ecosystem.
Net net: When organic traffic doesn’t work, one can work with a Google partner who can provide content distribution and a glide path for ad sales. When one grabs part of an elephant, even when one has one’s eyes open and one is wearing rubber boots and a rubber apron, it is difficult to see what you near.
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2020
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
