| LED Digest 2035: The Google Sandbox Enigma |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. October 12, 2005 Issue #2035 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The Google Sandbox Effect ==-- ~ Donald Nelson "I just did an interesting experiment which leads me to believe that it certainly exists." ~ James Miller "The URL doesn't suggest photographs..." --== SEO is Dead ==-- ~ Aaron Wall "I am not so certain I can agree with Ken's recent posts..." ~ Michael Martinez "Optimization will always [provide] the search engines with content that ranks well." --== What's Wrong with DMOZ ==-- ~ A Brantley "I have applied several times and rejected several times." ~ William Ernest Waites "In fact, the open directory seems to be the closed directory." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== How Much Content to Give Away? ==-- ~ Richard Graham ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Donald Nelson Subject: Google sandbox > Have a bit of a dillema here. I've read in some places > that the Google sandbox doesn't really exist and I wanted > to hear more opinions on this. - Claudiu Spulber, LED 2033 Dear All, In LED 2033 Cladiu Spulber asked for opinions on the Google Sandbox. I just did an interesting experiment which leads me to believe that it certainly exists. In July of 2004 I published a website presenting an ebook, and this site has never gotten high rankings in Google till this very day, despite excellent rankings in MSN and Yahoo for important keyword phrases related to the ebook (a primer on losing weight with yoga). This one-year drought does not prove that the Sandbox exists because the main page of the ebook sales site may contain some optimization elements that the Google algorithm doesn't like. Then, I went further. I published an almost exact replica of the ebook sales page as a file on another domain -- a domain that has been established for several years. This same page, placed on another domain, now appears on the first and second pages of google search results for phrases like yoga weight loss exercises, yoga weight loss program, etc. This is all happened within three weeks. The sandbox exists. Some people say it only lasts six months. I have recorded more than a year on one website. Some people say it takes 18 months. How to get out? One of my client sites escaped the sandbox in one year and I think that it may have been due to getting listed in DMOZ (Open Directory Project -- www.dmoz.org). However, DMOZ is almost as troublesome as the Sandox! Sincerely, Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: James Miller Subject: Google sandbox > I've been Google sandboxed since May 25th... the Sandbox > effect in the last couple of weeks has taken effect in a strange > way with most pages sandboxed but a handful are not. > http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/sitemap.htm - Jonathan Webb, LED 2034 As an ex-pilot with over a thousand hours and lots of photos taken that way, I took a look out of interest at the Webb Aviation site. This is a curious one, in that everything seems to be done right. But at Jonathan says images search works better than text. I can only suggest one of two things for this behaviour :- The URL doesn't suggest photographs. I have a feeling that Google now takes account of this in the weighting for a search. This may be because in some searches like for a hotel, the useless consolidation sites seem to get all the hits, when you really want the actual hotel itself. Aerial photography seems to be a very competitive business and with my control engineer / statisticians hat on, it could be that a couple of searches will propel pages you up the list and a dormant period will send you back down. What would I do? Use a URL with photographs in it. I liked the football stadium photos. Why not put an advert in the program at say Wigan and see what happens? I say Wigan as its much more ephemeral and fans might like a memento of their stay in the Premiership. Do you have aerial photos of Haydock Park? Phone the racecourse and ask if you can exhibit some in the bar! Racecourses are always very accommodating to anything that their patrons might like. Art of all forms has always been sold at race meetings. Hope this helps. James Miller Daisy Analysis: www.daisy.co.uk ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Aaron Wall Subject: SEO is dead I am not so certain I can agree with Ken's recent posts. To me it seems like the real message he thinks everyone is missing is the sales pitch deep inside the post. I can't agree that he can personally control the spider visits, re-visits, indexing, and ranking for over 10,000 sites. He may have that many customers (or host that many sites), but he does not control the search spiders. They run on their own crawl schedules. If he is artifically trying to control and bait those spiders across a network of 10,000 sites well then that is NOT working WITH the engines. I too could post that with the obvious trends in search my book is 5 years ahead of it's time and that SEO will be defined by whatever I say, but it would be naive. Quotes like "SBI! actually sells itself." would have a bit more credibility if they were not part of self promotional posts. Aaron Wall http://www.seobook.com/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: SEO is dead Ken Evoy continues to push his multi-level marketing service in the guise of informed discussion about whether SEO is dead or dying. I'm not interested in being a SiteSell affiliate. Nor are many other people. As long as there are search engines, regardless of how intelligent they are, and as long as there are ways to earn money on the Internet, or desires to gain traffic to Web sites, there will be demand for search engine optimization. Optimization will always address the need for providing the search engines with content that ranks well. Old style search spammers who created thousands of gibberish doorway pages that ranked well (and which, sadly, still rank well in many searches) will find other ways of getting new content to the top. As we recently saw, the preference for well-organized linked lists at Google was abused extensively by spammers who ran thousands of SpamAd sites that featured pay-per-click ads over scraped or otherwise automatically generated content (that was not gibberish). Frankly, the more people who respond to Ken's thinly disguised promotional pitches for his multi-level marketing program, the more promotion he gets. I don't normally respond to Ken, but this whole "SEO is dead" thing is just a stunt. And, yes, Ken, I read past the headline. I'm sorry I did. Let's move on, folks. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ------- new post - new topic ------- From: A Brantley Subject: DMOZ > So I gave up, and to this day the category has no editor. > It boggles me. Do they want editors or not? - Scott Wang, LED 2034 I know what you mean. I have applied several times and rejected several times. I was told that I "didn't have enough experience". I guess running a local bbs with ftp connections via address (not url), then running an auction site for 5 years, an ecommerce site for 6, a directory, a classifieds and a hosting company are not experience. I asked what would qualify as experience and received no reply. A Brantley ------- new post - same topic ------- From: William Ernest Waites Subject: The Trouble with DMOZ > If you asked for a recomendation on a book about war > and the librarian mentioned every book ever written > about war going back to the Iliad, would that make you happy? - Michael Motherwell, LED 2034 I don't want to pick at this argument because the point is not to fault one another's points, but rather to bring some sense to DMOZ. This example, however, illustrates the problem, in my opinion. If you look at the way DMOZ is organized, a request for a "parody on war" would take you to some choices, choosing among those would take you to more narrow choices, choosing from those would take you to even more narrow choices, etc. It is common in my experience to drill down six or seven levels while seeking a site that deals with a subject. At that level, with just a handful of options, the editor shouldn't be saying that you don't need to know about Site B, because Site A covers most of the same information. (In fact, like fingerprints and snowflakes, no two sites are exactly the same.) Case in point: The site in question (aboutsanibel.com) is a one page site that offers advice on things to see and do on Sanibel Island in Florida. It carries no ads and no one pays to be on it. But it does describe and include links to things to see and do on Sanibel Island, things that a person contemplating a trip to Sanibel might not know about and that might help that person make a decision about whether or not to visit and what activities to spend time on while there. So if you go to recreation> travel > guides and directories> North America> United States> By State> Florida, you will be six levels deep in DMOZ and you will find just six, count 'em, six listings, none of which deals with Sanibel, all of which are statewide. Except for a sub-cat for Jacksonville Metro - which appears ot have no entries. You still will not find a site written by a local to help people with information and links about the subject. If you did a search for the term Sanibel Island, you would get 38 links listing in order : a grocery store, a campground guide, a birding site (shown twice), a golf & tennis club, a hotel, a fish recipe, information about a lighthouse, a personal chef, a vacation rental firm, a boating instruction company, a jeweler, a magazine, a regional directory, a wedding comsultant, a company selling prints, a conservation foundation, a chamber of commerce guide, a real estate company, the local water utility, a real estate company, a fishing charter, a wildlife society, the same birding guide repeated, a condo rental firm, a web designer, a vacation rental company, an international conservation group, a golf course, a motel, more about the lighthouse, a condo rental, a real estate company, a regional beach guide, a motel, a condo rental owner, a real estate company, a regional vacation planning center, a restaurant operator, Maybe one of these duplicates the local material on the aboutsanibel.com site. But real estate companies are duplicated repetitively and the same birding site is actually listed twice. This is not an earth-shaking problem for me. But I am a little Quixotic and I search logic in a world where there doesn't seem to be any. In fact, the open directory seems to be the closed directory PS: You also will find the ubiquitous "Become an Editor" ad/link. And we know where that ends up. Sincerely, William Ernest Waites, Eyewriter ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Richard Graham Subject: How much content to give away Hello, It was good to hear Ken Envoy's views about giving the search engines great content. My question for other LEDers is: "How much great content do you give away?". For a consultant or hard product vendor then I can see how giving away extra info leads to sales. But what happens when your product is the very information that makes great content for websites? Where and how do you draw the line and ask for payments? Ideally I'd love to give all my stuff away ( I went to all the trouble of making it so want people to use it!), but advertising isn't going to pay the development costs any time soon! Be genki, Richard Graham http://www.genkimaths.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe." - Johann von Goethe |
