| LED Digest 2255: A Cure for Click Fraud? |
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A poster today may have found the cure for click fraud, and it's right there in Google's system already. There is a fascinating discussion on usability and search, the meta tag thread continues, and much more. ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. September 27, 2006 Issue no. 2255 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Meta Tags (and More) ==-- ~ Steve Pronger "Back when the Internet was steam powered, someone thought [keywords were] a good idea." --== Click Fraud [was: Dropping PPC] ==-- ~ Renee Kennedy "I'm probably going to get an earful for this one...but I just have to say it..." --== Small Biz Sites ==-- ~ Mark Whitman "...since this project is dead I'll give an example." --== Usability and Search ==-- ~ Nathan Holley "[SEO/M is] first and foremost about marketing, not scholarship." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Emails with Just Keywords ==-- ~ John Brumage ~ Robert Bass ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Steve Pronger Subject: Meta-tags > It's long past time to stop wasting energy on that tag and > I hope you'll both spend your energies elsewhere in the > future. It's old news that keyword tags are worthless. - Mike Banks Valentine, LED 2252 > A lot of people say this. Where is the actual proof? > The more times some people say it the truer it is? - David Spahr, LED 2254 In the name of science I've just removed the meta keywords tag (which has been there unchanged for years) from my site. Anyone else game enough to join me in this little experiment? One would assume that if the effect was dramatic, or even measurable, then replacing them would reverse the effect, no? I'll keep you posted. Let's step back from the "prove it" mentality for a moment and look at this logically. We all know there are MANY factors in Google's algorithm (I've read over 100) and that each of those factors are given a certain amount of weight. So, what is the meta keywords tag? It's code, written by YOU, which no human visitor to your site will ever read. You can put whatever keywords you like in this code, but it's YOU saying what YOUR site is about. Back when the Internet was steam powered, someone probably thought that creating this code was a good idea. After all, how would these new-fangled things called search engines know what keywords to rank your site for unless YOU told them what they were. But search engines are no longer steam powered. How much weight would this tag have now? How much should it have? OK, what about the meta description tag? Still written by you, but least the engines use this tag, sometimes but not always, in the SERPs. So real humans get to read this description and decide if they should click through to your site. Logically, it would be given far more weight than the keywords tag. The page title? This is almost always the clickable link in the SERPs and visitors see it at the top of the browser window. Obviously important. Headings? Definitely. Links? Yep. How about the body text? This is the meat and potatoes of what your site is about. Obviously a search engine will look at how often a keyword is repeated in your visible, readable text. But they are much more sophisticated these days. They look at other words to determine if they support and are related to your keywords. They call this "latent semantic indexing": http://www.seobook.com/archives/000657.shtml But, all this content and coding is still created by you. All very well, the search engines say, but what do OTHER people say about your site? How do we (search engines) know we can trust your site if all the data we collected on your site was provided by YOU, and we are well aware that you have a vested interest in us ranking your site highly, just as we have a vested interest in providing a positive search experience for our users. Here's a clue. How is it that this site: http://www.robotsmovie.com/ outranks this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics for the keyword "robots"? Meta tags? Doesn't have any. Doesn't even have any text. One big graphic. Do you think it has something to do with links? Do I use the meta keywords tag on new sites? Sure. Maybe 4 or 5 words. It takes 10 seconds. Why not. But if I was advising someone on how to improve rankings on a non-performing site I'd be advising to focus on factors which clearly have the most effect. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Renee Kennedy Subject: Click Fraud [was: Dropping PPC] I'm probably going to get an earful for this one... but I just have to say it... After reading the article on PPC fraud in Business Week, the answer seems clear to me. The familiar thread of that article was that the fraudsters would set up sites where they run google or yahoo ads, then hire people or install programs to continually click on those ads, thus making lots of money on fraudulent clicks. However, Google offers "site-targeting." Google's definition: "Site targeting lets Adwords advertisers choose individual sites in the Google content network where they'd like their ads to appear." I don't have access to the Yahoo interface, but I'd assume they offer something similar. Advertisers need to watch their campaigns and choose sites carefully. Kind of like "Buyer Beware." PPC is not something that you can just turn on and walk away from. But, in order to maximize ROI, you have to watch campaigns, anyway. Not saying that Google and Yahoo shouldn't do more to combat the problem, but in the meantime, advertisers have to watch what they're doing. Or am I simplifying this problem? Renee Kennedy -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mark Whitman Subject: Small biz search > ... a site should be targeted to a specific purpose > and sometimes demographic group. Using graphics > only and Flash only has gotten excellent results > when used for the purpose of being viral marketing > tools. - Mark Whitman, LED 2252 > While I can appreciate your statements it's somewhat clear > you have not worked with a lot of the big guys on the web. - Rick Gortatowsky, LED 2254 What has that got to do with anything? Viral marketing puts much more emphasis on strategy and creativity than you'd find on a traditional (cliche) "big guys on the web" site. When you hit on something that people can't wait to point their friends or business associates to and that something relates to a specific product or site membership, or newsletter subscription, or another website that sells a variety of products, or whatever, then ultimately you've tapped into an income stream. An income stream that doesn't reply on the SE gods, PPC rip-offs, affiliate marketers, or anything else that punches big holes in your ROI. Viral marketing can even eliminate the need for any online marketing at all. I don't normally provide "how to" advice to potential competitors but since this project is dead I'll give an example. A partner of mine found a lost soul who wanted to have her own adult website. Now who in their right mind would want to step into that incredibly competitive world? My partner and I were totally inexperienced in anything regarding the adult entertainment biz. We were theoretically doomed from the start. I knew we'd only succeed if we did something unique and could promote virally. I decided to target truckers as a demographic group because that's a large enough group and best of all they're on their CB radios every day yakking away and they congregate daily at easily accessible locations. I don't want to get specific in terms of what our "hook" was but we had a way of generating a huge amount of interest instantly. By word of mouth alone we quickly had an army of truckers who wanted to be involved, wanted to promote the project, or just wanted to subscribe. We also caught the attention, through the adult entertainment grapevine, of some very high profile producers of adult websites and DVDs who *approached us* to advertise with us. We didn't even have a site up yet! The project died before it got off the ground however, for a variety of reasons, but the point is that tapping into a network that had great viral marketing potential we were able to generate an amazing amount of interest on multiple levels before we even had a website up. Strategy and creativity makes money, you don't have to sit around trying to copy what "the big guys on the web" are doing (or work for them). M.Whitman -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Nathan Holley Subject: Usability and Search > Search encompasses a wide variety of behaviors, and it is rarely > a linear process. I wrote an article about it earlier this year.. - Shari Thurow, LED 2254 Good points, Shari. The article does a fine job of describing what most of us are probably intuitively aware of: search is non-linear. Search behavior is as varied as personality type, and encompasses all sorts of practices relevant to information retrieval (a fancy phrase for what I like to call "search"). Call them what you will - berry picking, pogo sticking, eye scanning, finger jumping, banana picking, yadda yadda yadda - they're simply labels for a small slice of the "ways to search" pie. One important reminder here is that, while I commend Shari and other professionals for their efforts to raise search to a higher level, we must remember first and foremost it is about marketing, not scholarship. Surely, the most relevant results should always be displayed for a given query. That's the goal for the search engines. But is that always the goal for the search consultant? Not necessarily. You want your client right up there in the results! And sure, they have quality content, they've done things right, their site is usable... but you get my point. The point is, much of information retrieval in this arena (the business arena) is about marketing, as Shari's experience with the large pet supply store illustrates (it's in her article referenced above). Pure info retrieval, like library science, has nothing to do with marketing, but only with delivering as accurately as possible the most relevant result to the searcher. Therefore, there's a disconnect here between academics and SEO/M. What I love about this thread is that it focuses on the unifying elements of search (SEO/M for lack of better terminology) and usability, Web development, design, copywriting, and more. My basic philosophy about SEO/M, for anyone who cares, is that it's really only one aspect of usability as a whole. If you start from there, building a Web site begins on a solid foundation. Then all the pieces of the pie - copywriting, Web dev and design, etc fit together. > ... few usability professionals truly recognize how important > querying behavior can and should be accounted for. Great point. Some people click only on sponsored links. I know one guy who immediately heads to page 8 or 9 of the search results, intentionally bypassing the top 7+ pages of listings. I've watched people pull up a search result and display classic berry picking behavior, other times I've seen relevant (juicy) results completely bypassed because of hurried and impatient clicking. Search behavior is varied - there's no end to it, and you can't always predict it. Therefore, getting top listings and choosing PPC campaigns wisely will always be a good solution if you're focused on ROI. KISS - keep it simple, stupid. This isn't rocket science. That's the other part of SEO/M that needs to be addressed: it's an essential (even basic) part of building a Web site. Yes, I know, I'm traveling back onto previously covered ground here. In a nutshell, how I feel about SEO/M is that while it's a simple process, many sites can benefit from professional (*ethical*) expertise. But in the end, it's accessible enough for anyone. Don't let the fancy-talk deter you, because fancy tactics are not necessary in this field. Those of us who do this stuff daily, and spend far too much time online, need to get some perspective. SEO/M and usability (and yes, querying behavior) are basic concepts that can be mastered quickly by nearly anyone. Nathan Holley ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: John "Zeke" Brumage Subject: Keyword emails > Lately, I have been receiving spam emails [consisting > of just] a whole bunch of words (I think they are keywords) > that don't make sense... I am wondering how the > spammer will find this useful to send. - Thomas Yoon, LED 2253 These emails are computer generated, the words you see are not "keywords" but rather random words intended to fool spam catching software. The actual advertising is carried by a graphic, which you may not have seen, either because you have images turned off in your email, the spammer's program was broken, or the images were in a "live" server, which was shut down because the spam linked image was discovered. John Brumage Disco Legend Zeke -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Robert Bass Subject: Keyword emails Just a codicil, these type of emails are sent out by spammers to build a mailing list of people who will open any email, whether they recognize the sender or not. The spammer gets a return receipt showing who opened, or didn't open, the email and from there he builds his list. If you want to be sure you end up on dozens of totally unsolicited spammer lists, just open one of them and watch how it grows exponentially as the spammers both use your name and sell it to others! Robert Bass www.jewelex.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Persistence is a strong will. Obstinance is a strong won't." - Anon. |
