Google Update - The PPC Conspiracy Theory

baldie · 27-01-04

Morning,

I've been reading the posts on this forum for a while and this is my first post so first of all apologies if it makes no sense (bit like google results then

)

I currently own a shopping site and was pretty badly hit by the latest google results, a colleague also has a more established shopping site and seems to have gone up the rankings (mainly because many other sites have been wiped), we have spent the last couple of days trying to work out the reasons why and comparing results etc etc, each time we come up with an answer another pages blows that theory away. The only reason I can think that his site is still there is thats its a PR6 and mines a PR5.

Anyway back to the theory, Google wants more and more people to use PPC to increase revenue, Google has gone to many companies (or vice versa) who have said we do not want you to list our site in the free listings via affiliates for certain keywords. I give you an example, I have a page for "Maplin Electronics" which ranks highly and still does, the same page also ranked highly for "Maplin", the "maplin" listing has now dissappeared. This has happened on many pages, the "PREMIUM" keyword has gone i.e. the brand name, but the 2/3 word keyphrase stays. So how about Google then says we will still let people advertise on PPC for the premium word and we give you the company a % of the PPC??? This giving the company money and google shedloads. Another example Excel Airways, last week was full of affiliates, now the top 2 are the actual company and the next page(s) are just information about the company (some relevant, some not).

I also had a few pages that took advantage of common mis spelling of company names, these have also dissappeared, whereas my colleague who has maybe put the misspelling into a page once has ended up top of the pile. Has the company banned that misspelling and his site has just been overlooked (for now)??

Northern Monkey · 27-01-04

Baldie seems to have a point, I had a Britannia Airways page and that has gone from 8th in the rankings to nowhere, the page is still listed on Google but must be near the bottom

getvisible · 27-01-04

if this theory holds shouldn't we be looking at product type seo rather than merchant name?

I've never targeted company name in affili seo but your theory does have some credence. Anyone else have similar findings?

adigaskell · 27-01-04

The problem with these kinds of threads is that no one (perhaps understandably) gives the urls of the sites affected. There might well be a perfectly valid reason for sites dropping. Equally the reverse might be true as well.

We all think that our sites deserve to be number 1 for a keyword but others might think our sites are ****e and of no interest to anyone

The point I'm trying to make is that these kinds of threads and theories could go round and round because we are each being very subjective about how good our own sites are and how they deserve to be ranking well.

baldie · 27-01-04

I think that as SEO's we look at things in our own way, a bit selfish for obvious reasons. As an example if you were searching for info on a Sony KV28FX66 TV would you really want to search through 20 - 30 shops? You might just want info and not buy it.

I think they (Google) are maybe trying to list the actual site first and then add sites with info on the company or product. Bad news maybe for us but good for Google and its PPC programme.

Still not all doom and gloom, just a challenge!

matbennett · 27-01-04

One problem with the name theory is that it isn't just identifiable brands that have been hit.

Our two biggest drops have been "gold jewellery" and "silver jewellery" for which we have been position one and two for months. I don't think that we appear at all under these terms now, although one of our sites still does very well on slight variants on this.

baldie · 27-01-04

Bet it would help your site now though if you used PPC?

UKOffer · 27-01-04

Quote:

Originally posted by getvisible
if this theory holds shouldn't we be looking at product type seo rather than merchant name?

I've never targeted company name in affili seo but your theory does have some credence. Anyone else have similar findings?

Yes, quite by accident I used to be number two for a major two word UK brand. I'm now nowhere in the first three pages, I gave up looking after that.

Kieron

sticky · 27-01-04

For people who have optimized pages for companies names I have a little theory. For example do a search for Dream Direct in Mr.G. The 7th entry down has an entry which is in chinese/japenese what ever...the only mention of dream direct is in the title itself. That page is only a PR3 but the actual site is a PR6 which is what I think has got it up there. I have found a fair few other examples of where it has seemed to picked up sites with a decent homepage of PR6 even though the PR of the actual page found in the search is low..any thoughts?

baldie · 27-01-04

Sticky, you're the man........ Good work!!!

http://www.seoinc.com/seo-newsletter...ml#Google-NEWS

sticky · 27-01-04

this seems to apply for products ie. gold jewellery, silver jewellery, valetines day gifts etc. SO the key to this is get loads of quality links to your homepage