Google and Text Link Advertising

This is an interesting issue, and I’m sure it’s only going to become bigger.

Google created the text link market by placing value on text links for search results.

Google competes directly with websites who sell text links with their Adwords/Adsense services.

Punishing sites that sell text links will be viewed as anti-competitive by unfriendly people in the DOJ.

It will certainly drive the text link market deeper underground, and you’ll see less of the list of links under a “sponsors” heading.

I also predict it will make owners of popular websites less willing to trade links, and even less willing to freely link to sites of value.

More web marketers will see the buying of links for the value of the traffic rather than the PageRank.

Some websites will get hit with the text link selling penalty even though they don’t sell text links.

Amusing list of the day

Yea, I know, it’s link bait and I’m falling for it.  But, hey, at least I’m not making the rich richer, this blog seems rather new and not on the ‘A’ list (joking!).  Scott Hieferman makes a list of 50 reasons people don’t use your website.  It includes such gems as “It solves a problem they don’t have” and “They’ve never heard of it.”  It’s a good laugh, if you’ve got a spare thirty-eight seconds (which is how long it took me to read it).  Kudos to Seth for leading me to it.

An answer from Matt Cutts

Well, to my surprise Matt Cutts did take the time to answer my question to him.  His answer to my question was about half way down the list in this post.  I’ll quote the full answer here along with the question.

Q: “Why do you focus your attention so much on SEOs and not at webmasters who make actual quality websites?”
A: I think that’s an issue I have personally, because I spend so much of my time looking at spam. Lots of other people focus on helping general webmasters, like the Sitemaps team, for example. I have started to do “SEO Advice” posts instead of just “SEO Mistakes” posts, but you’re right: I personally could use a reminder to keep focusing on the sites that make quality content and how to pull those sites up, not just how to counter sites that cheat. Thanks for bringing that up.

I noticed at least one other person has taken interest in this.

My Question to Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts requested questions today on his blog.  I think my question will make him uncomfortable, and he’ll ignore it, but heck he made himself a public figure and sometimes that’s not meant to be comfortable.  This is something that’s always bugged me about him.  My question?  Matt, why do you focus all of your energy (in public) on working with SEOs and don’t pay any much attention at all to the wider webmaster community?

Matt seems to enjoy going to events like Pubcon and SES, and rubbing elbows with people like Barry Schwartz and Jim Boykin,
give interviews to people like Aaron Wall and the SEO Rockstars.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those guys, they’re all top of the line.  But, it begs the question, do you have to be a top of the line SEO to get Matt’s attention?

I do have a point, other than picking on Matt.  I do suppose that spending time with SEO folks does help him stay up to date on the latest tricks, if that’s really his goal.  However, it seems to me that much of what he’s trying to do is to help educate webmasters on how to build their websites to be successful in Google’s search results.  Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know, but I’m thinking that a little bit of effort outside of the SEO community would go a long way.  I see far more potential from novice webmasters putting great content out on the web, but blundering when it comes to SEO.  These types are far more receptive to direction and guidence from someone like Mr. Cutts than are the hardened SEOs.

So, how about it Matt?  Why not spend some time with real webmasters at a place like Sitepoint’s Forums.

Class Action on Google to Cease Anti-Competitive Behavior

I just saw this posted.  Seems a company called KinderStart thinks that Google has banned it.  The company is suing for damages, of course, but also seeks to get class action status on behalf of all websites that have been banned by Google.  The remedy sought is to provide more transparancy regarding why websites are banned by the search engine, and to require Google to send notification to those banned along with an explanation of how to get themselves un-banned.

Social Marketing at its Best : Drunk Driving

I love this one. Forget stupid television ads, radio spots, newspaper ads that nobodys sees and so on. This is something people will notice.

Cheers out to Nedra Weinreich, I found this on her blog.

FastCompany Predicts Doom for Professional Bloggers

In a sarcastic clip, FastCompany predicts the career as professional blogger to be nothing more than a flash in the pan.  Scoffing at actually getting paid to “write snarky comments” FastCompany compares professional bloggers with several other career paths that they see being phased out within the next decade.

A Forum makes the Fast 50

FatWallet, a site I’ve visited from time to time, has made the Fast 50. Certainly gives owners of smaller forums a goal to aspire to.  Not that I’ll ever get there, mind you.
Kudos to Revenews.com for pointing this out.

Google Bowling

It had to happen, someone come out with a good article about it.  Google Bowling is NOT a topic that’s going to make Internet Marketing a more pleasant topic.  It’s one of those times when I think that this guy should just shut up, the less people that know the better.  I first started hearing about it last fall, and even managed to bowl one of my own sites right out of the SERPs.  Yes, I believe it works, but no I’d not be one to use it against a competitor.  Since I’ve known about it, though, I have made changes in the way I’ve been marketing my sites.  I’m focusing any of my sites that get more than 50% of the traffic from Google, to other traffic sources.  I can’t count on my competition to not Bowl against me, not that there’d be many that could manage it, that is.  But, even if I’m never the victim of Google Bowling, or anything like it, the eggs all in one basket theory still applies.  Google Bowling just magnifies it.

Maine finds PPC

This is an interesting blog post about the Maine Office of Tourism and their bull in a china shop like blundering into the world of Search Engine Marketing. To be fair, I think at least half of the blame goes to companies like Google for making Adwords so difficult for the advertisers to understand. While it may make perfect sense for the Maine Office of Tourism to promote Maine using PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, the author of this blog, Lance Dutson, points out that the end result of their efforts is to drive the pricing up for legitimate Maine businesses. It brings the question to mind, if someone is searching at a place like Google for the terms “maine accomodations” one would suppose that they’re already intending a trip to Maine. Thus, is it really an effective use of the Office of Tourism’s budget to bid on those keywords? If they really wanted a return for their buck, perhaps they should advertise on keyword such as “new hampshire accomodations” and try to poach some tourists from their neighbors. The other part of Mr. Dutson’s complaint is that the Office of Tourism, by using a firm that really does not understand the basics of PPC advertising, their ads appear on keywords such as “Bangor Maine plumbing” which they really have no business doing. So, not only do resorts, hotels, inns and such in Maine have to compete with the Office of Tourism, but so does Paul the plumber in Bangor. Kudos out to Threadwatch for leading me to this post.

Please read in the comments, Thomas McCartin from the firm that manages the Maine Office of Tourism’s PPC campaign was kind enough to post his side of this interesting story.

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