Sep
20
2011
Online Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By rachelt | No comments yet

Google’s Imperfect Algorithm: How Bogus Reviews by EDriven Concepts Are Ranking Despite Logic

As any modicum of research might tell you, EDriven Concepts is a company that’s seen a growing number of consumer complaints and negative reviews all over the Internet. In order to counteract this mounting negativity surrounding its brand, EDriven Concepts has begun posting bogus reviews and testimonials across multiple accounts on a handful of prominent blog sites. (To learn about these efforts in more detail, read this article about EDriven Concepts written by fellow industry experts.) Unfortunately, the fact that all of the low-quality, duplicate content posted by EDriven Concepts is actually ranking on Google reveals a major flaw in the algorithm that Google is using.

Implemented under the moniker “Panda,” Google’s new algorithm is intended to give Google users a more satisfactory search experience. By implementing this update, Google hopes to provide searchers with relevant results and useful content. The two primary goals of the Panda update are:

  1. To weed out low-quality, keyword-saturated pages
  2. To promote pages with unique, high-quality content

According to a post from February 2011 on the Official Google Blog, “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.”

Obviously, EDriven Concepts’s practice of falsifying and duplicating reviews via multiple blog accounts is akin to copying content from other Web sites. Moreover, the majority of these bogus reviews are given the title, “is edriven concepts a scam,” which leads curious searchers to read a fictitious review that ultimately has nothing to do with whether the company is a scam. It goes without saying that such content is “not very useful.” In addition, the company is even associated with the URL http://rankshore.com, which has  content exclusively about EDriven Concepts and no mention whatsoever of a company named “Rankshore.” This is a transparent attempt on the part of EDriven Concepts to deceive average Google users and lead them to irrelevant, substandard content.

With all of this considered, one would assume that the basic tenets of Google’s new algorithm and operational guidelines would keep EDriven Concepts’s inferior, misleading, and duplicate blog posts from ranking favorably. However, the opposite has happened.

Somehow, all of the pages and blog posts propagated by EDriven Concepts have managed to achieve high rankings on Google’s search results. In other words, there is a major flaw in Google’s new algorithm that is promoting sites with low-quality, duplicate content despite its very own set of guidelines.

What’s especially problematic about this flaw?

  • Fraudulent reviews are outranking other important, relevant Web sites regarding EDriven Concepts.
  • Pages containing valid warnings about the EDriven Concepts scam are being pushed back to Page 2 of Google’s results. These are pages that could actually prove beneficial to users seeking objective information.
  • One particular site containing valuable audio samples of recorded phone calls proving the fraudulent activity of EDriven Concepts is even being outranked by these phony blog entries.

Unfortunately, because Google is the final authority, there’s nothing we can do to change the fact that EDriven Concepts’s forged, duplicate content is ranking. All we can do is alert Google users to this issue so that they will be more diligent in sifting through their search results in the future, and hope these flaws will be corrected as more versions of Panda are rolled out over time.

Nov
12
2010
Online Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By alex | No comments yet

Why things move SLOWER online than in the real world

Sounds counter-intuitive I know but I find that so many folks don’t get this that I need to explain why what you think is a “long time” is not what Google thinks is a “long time.” Ultimately, a day or week to Google is just a blink of an eye.

Building a website, launching it, and then promoting it online is not analogous to putting up a billboard or putting an ad in the yellow pages. A much more accurate analogy would be the following three examples:

  1. Building, launching and promoting a website.
  2. Starting a new yellow page directory, printing it, and then getting people to switch to it from their current YP provider.
  3. Buying a plot of land, erecting a tower for your billboard, then plastering your message onto it.

You see the difference? What most people forget is that the DISTRIBUTION is not already setup when you advertise online. Sure the vehicle is there, but there’s no set distribution channel. If you call the billboard company, then just slap your ad onto their existing structure. If you call the YP company, they will just print your ad on one of the pages and send it out along with the rest of the books that they were already going to send out.

When you sign up with an SEO, that person/company has to start from scratch. S/He has to build (or rebuild) the site, then push it out to as many places online as he/she can to get eyeballs in front of it.

I find that many business owners think that since they can put an ad in the newspaper and have it into circulation within the next week that the online space works the same way. Even though electrons move much faster than paper, the online space can require a much longer time horizon to measure success. Unlike a newspaper or similar medium, what matters most online is the trending. Are you moving in the right direction or not? If not, make a change, wait, and then ask the question again. If you are, great, but then don’t give up before you allow enough time to let the trend take you where you want to go.

When you have to measure movement in the rankings the most common time frame I use is a month. That means a minimum of three months to IDENTIFY a trend. Then you need another 2-3 months to make the changes and begin tracking the new trend if needed. That puts you at 6 months and you may or may not have solved the original issue.

Oct
14
2010
Local SEO, Online Advertising, Search Engine Marketing (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By alex | No comments yet

The 4 Branches of Google

There’s a very common misconception that I want to take just a moment to completely squash. Many of the small business owners I talk to believe that the rankings in one part of Google affect the others. For example they believe that ranking well in the sponsored results will affect their ranking in the organics or in the maps. This is completely and totally NOT true.

Yellow = Sponsored (Paid) Results
Red = Maps Results
Green = Organic (Natural) Results

Google SERP w/ Colors

Imagine what would happen if Google allowed the top ranking listings in the sponsored results to also rank well in the organics by default. Just imagine the outcry that would result and rightfully so. If they did this, they would essentially be allowing a pay-for-play in the organics. This would not only anger a lot of folks but it would drive searchers elsewhere because they would eventually discover that the results are not as relevant as they could be.

Here’s the really important thing to remember. To rank well in Google’s separate sections (maps, organic, paid) you have to rank well in each one separately. One does not affect the other. Within Google, each of these sections is controlled by a separate department. Just like the sales department in your company cannot pay bills because that’s the job of the accounts payable department, the same delineations exist in Google, Inc. The sponsored listing department doesn’t deal with organics, and the organics department doesn’t deal with the maps results. This is why you have to work your way to the top of each section individually. Here’s a graphic to help you understand:

Illustration of the 4 separate departments of google

Notice that the anti-spam department (headed by Matt Cutts) is over all three other departments? This is VERY important to remember. While you have to get to the top of each section individually, you can be penalized on all three at the same time! Matt’s department can rain down punishment from above, causing your rankings in all three sections to plummet. You can even be expelled from all three!

What I want you to remember, above all else, is that bad behavior in one area can get you whacked from all areas. If you spam the map listings, you can find yourself dealing with a -40 penalty in the organics, or paying higher amounts for your clicks in the sponsored results. If you’re shopping for an online marketing company to help you, make sure they are a white hat only shop. Any company that deals in the darker side of SEO can cause you serious damage. It’s not necessary to be a shadow-lurking black hatter to get to the top of Google. You can do it through 100% Google-approved methods.

I highly recommend playing within the guidelines Google defines.

Oct
12
2010
Online Advertising By alex | No comments yet

Outrank.com – Sketchy Scam? You decide.

I received a call from a friend of mine (Tom) who happens to be an attorney in Albany NY. He told me about a strange call he got from someone who was apparently from Outrank.com. As I understand it, the guy was getting upset about the fact that Tom had pocket-dialed him and was then threatening legal action because of it. Of course Tom then informed him that he was speaking with an attorney, and he quickly backed away from this approach.

Anyway, the strangeness of the interaction caused Tom to ring me both to share a laugh and to see if I knew anything about this Outrank.com company. I did not but did some digging. It didn’t take long until I’d found some red flags. A simple Google search for “outrank.com scam” produced about 25,000 interesting results.

It seems that this company has also done business under the “Clicksmart” name as well as “Profit Fuel” so if you don’t find enough for “Outrank.com” try those. Here are some of the highlights:

Oct
12
2010
Local SEO, Online Advertising By alex | No comments yet

Google Will Never Call You – Update

I previously posted about how Google will never call you. I just want to post a quick update to inform everyone that they now might, but it will be for a specific reason.

Google has long been trying to find a way to monetize the organic and map results. The problem is that they cannot do a pay-for-play scheme because they’ll lose searchers to less corrupt search engines. What they are now doing though is verifying some of the maps listings with a phone call and during that phone call trying to sell you on a $25/month “tag” that can be added to draw attention to your listing.

It’s up to you to decide if that’s worth it, but for the record, they now WILL call you but it will not be to push some sort of ranking product. That will NEVER happen due to conflict of interest problems that would result.

Oct
6
2010
Online Advertising, Search Engine Marketing (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By admin | No comments yet

Sometimes you get what you pay for

Every now and then I come across an online marketing company who is offering the moon and the stars for just $49/mo or something similar. I always look at it and ask, “Really, $49/mo?” I follow that up with the question of, “Who are they paying and what country do they live in?”

Here’s the long and short of this one. If they only charge $50/mo and they have to pay for overhead, salaries, insurance, worker’s comp, social security, blah blah blah…how the heck can they do that for just $50/mo?

The answer is India. In all likelihood they are sending the work overseas and paying $1/hr for the labor. That raises another question, “What kind of quality content are you getting from Indian workers writing copy in English for an American audience?” Ever call tech support and get an Indian? How’d you enjoy that experience? Would you hire that person to do your English term paper for you?

If you’re thinking of hiring a super-low cost vendor like I’ve mentioned, just think about your business and how far you can get with $50. Remember that while you’ve been programmed to think that Internet = Free, there is real labor cost associated with advertising online. Copy has to be written, sites have to be set up, tech support may have to occur, and customer service can be critical.

Make sure you ask that vendor if they outsource overseas before you jump in bed with them.

Sep
30
2010
Email Marketing, Online Advertising, Search Engine Marketing (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By alex | No comments yet

“Page 1 of Google, Guaranteed!” Why you should run away…

I received another spammy email from someone claiming they could put me on page 1 of Google. That someone was “Alexa Marin” at irevmarketing@aol.com. Here’s how the email read:

Your BUSINESS can be on the front page of Google today before you pay for anyting.

Attention Business Owners!

*******************************************************************************************************************

Reply with your NAME and PHONE NUMBER and a Google expert will contact you to explain our trial offer. We put you
on the front page of Google before you must purchase your marketing solution.

*******************************************************************************************************************

WE PUT YOU ON PAGE #1 OF GOOGLE INSTANTLY AND GUARANTEE CUSTOMERS!!

_______________REPLY WITH NAME AND PHONE NUMBER FOR A FREE DEMO.________________

Our package includes:

 1. THE MOST AGGRESSIVE SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING SYSTEM IN THE WORLD  WITH FRONT PAGE PLACEMENT ON GOOGLE, YAHOO AND BING.
 2. Guaranteed amount of people sent to you every month that need your service.
 3. Website development. (if needed)
 4. Monthly visitor tracking and anylitics systems.
 5. Free online Yellow Pages listing.

Unfortunately, these types of emails are not uncommon. First of all “anyting” and “anylitics” are not real words, but let’s move on to the meat and potatoes of the issues here:

  1. Who controls which pages are ranked on page 1 of Google? Answer: Google.
  2. Who controls whether or not your business get’s customers? Answer: The prospective customers (visitors to site).
  3. Who gives out the title of  “Google Expert” and what must be done to attain it” Answer: No one, this is a self-given title with nothing to back it up.
  4. Who give out the title of “The most aggressive search engine marketing system in the world”? Answer: See #3
  5. Who controls the “Guaranteed amount of people sent to you every month that need your service.” Answer: The “people” (aka visitors)

How many times in those 5 questions was the answer “Alexa Marin” or “irevmarketing”? Obviously zero times because Alexa and irevmarketing have absolutely no direct control of any of those things. Does the guarantee make any sense to you? Hopefully you see that it’s total nonsense to guarantee things that are completely outside of your control.

Other things you should consider:

  1. Is the claim: “Your BUSINESS can be on the front page of Google today before you pay for anything.” based on SEO or PPC? Answer: I don’t know but it would have to be PPC to have any credibility whatsoever. If that’s the case, it costs money to put “your business” on the front page of Google so are they in the business of losing money?
  2. Do you really want an “aggressive” marketing system? Answer: Probably not. Google tends to penalize things that would commonly be called “aggressive.”
  3. Can this be true? “We are one of only 4 companies that are certified adwords resellers.” Answer: Hell NO! Read this post and see if you agree that this is just ridiculous

OK so these three items clearly show that this is a scam and a half. Combine that with the first 5 items and the fact that the email was spammed out to begin with and I think it’s pretty clear that you should run away from anything like this.

Of course, if you disagree, I’ve got some really affordable, insiders-only deals on ocean-front property in Colorado that you should take advantage of…

Aug
21
2009
Online Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By alex | No comments yet

Evaluate the Evaluators

In my last post I talked about researching online advertising companies that you might be considering doing business with. I’d like to expand just a bit on this point and point out that it’s important to evaluate the evaluators.

I intercepted a ridiculous spam email from an eLocal rep to one of my clients that had the following paragraph near the bottom:

The Top 10 Local Search Company Award is given to the best companies offering local search optimization services. This year’s winners stand out among an increasing number of high-quality companies and prove to be the leaders with outstanding contribution to the local search realm. eLocal is proud to say that we are in the top 10 of promotionmworld.com

First of all, if you’re going to link to something in a sales letter, don’t typo the link (note the “m” in the second link). Anyway, we expect that from these people. You can read more on eLocal’s lack of professionalism here.

More importantly, let’s think about who promotionworld.com is. How credible is their opinion of a site? I didn’t know but I decided to compare their review of eLocal to the Better Business Bureau to see if they were in agreement. The BBB gives eLocal a rating of D. I’ll let you decide who is more credible in this match up…

Promotion World states that it selects the top 10 for their list based on the following:

“The Top 10 Local Search Company Awards are based on the offered services, package diversity, customer support, new products and services, feedback, website popularity, and overall performance of the selected companies.”

Then I decided to test the “customer support” and “feedback” aspects by seeing what the popular opinion was for eLocal. I performed a simple search in Google for “eLocal scam” to see what would come back. It looks like there’s no shortage of disparaging comments out there from people that have either been clients of eLocal or even employees of eLocal.

By now my conclusion is starting to form, and it’s not good news for Promotion World. The moral of this story is to evaluate the evaluators. Many sites that provide rankings of companies within a category will allow those companies to buy their way into the rankings. Make sure you corroborate the information you find on a company with at least a few other sources because while there are reputable resources out there, there’s no shortage of shady sites that care only about lining their pockets and not at all about helping you stay protected.

To be clear, I have no idea if there is a pay-for-play scenario here. eLocal may not have even done anything to be ranked here…I honestly have no insight into that situation. This post is meant only to illustrate the larger problem, not necessarily to single out eLocal and/or Promotion World.

Jul
24
2009
Online Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By alex | 1 comment

Easy Way to Research Companies Thru Google

There are plenty of companies out there that are willing to take your money and give you nothing in return. The hard part is being able to tell the good from the bad BEFORE you sign up. One thing you can try is to look the business up on the Better Business Bureau’s website. The challenge there is that their search feature really stinks.

Here’s an easy way to get the info you need by using Google instead:

  1. Go to Google
  2. Search for “company name site:bbb.org” (use the real company name, and no quotes)

You should get a list of results with the top one being the detail page for that company in the BBB’s site. Of course, if the company is not a BBB member, you won’t find this but that should tell you something about that company in and of itself.

Here’s an example – eLocal Listing. I’ve had countless tales told to me from customers of bad experiences with these guys, so I decided to look them up. I went to Google and typed in “elocal site:bbb.org” and found a link to this page all about elocal’s BBB info.

Not surprisingly, they get a pretty low score. Next time you want to do business with a company, do a quick search in Google with that “site:” modifier and see what you can pull up!

Jun
25
2009
Online Advertising, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By alex | 10 comments

Google Will Never Call You – Wisdek

This one is probably the single most offensive call I’ve heard. While the call I’ve previously mentioned as #2 on my list has more offenses per minute, this one is just the most blatantly dishonest conversation I’ve heard.

Getting right to the point…the Wisdek sales rep is asked, point- blank, “You’re calling me from Google?” and he replies with one word, “Yes.”

Listen Here

For this offense, Wisdek ranks on the top of my list of dishonest service providers!

UPDATE: The rules have changed a little. Please check out this update.

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