Trouble with Google as the source of traffic

[wraith808]

I saw the thread about the page rank for DoCo a little earlier today, and if not for that, then this article from Coding Horror would have passed me by.

There are a few interesting quotes from this... my favorite being:

I've been told many times that Google isn't a monopoly, but they apparently play one on the internet. You are perfectly free to switch to whichever non-viable alternative web search engine you want at any time. Just breathe in that sweet freedom, folks.

but followed closely by a less comic, but more disturbing one...

But last year, something strange happened: the content syndicators began to regularly outrank us in Google for our own content.

There are some really strange things going on with Google's page rank system...

Thoughts?

[Renegade]

Countless sites that pirate content from MSDN outrank MSDN. They have Google ads. Microsoft doesn't.

I think that's clear enough.

Putting Google ads on your site is the best SEO you can possibly do.

[f0dder]

Putting Google ads on your site is the best SEO you can possibly do.

[Bamse]

Page rank is not so important and according to Google never was. They have said they look at 200+ parameters when ranking sites but of course no details. Most of what has ever been written or said about this stuff is speculative by nature.

Google Ads = high ranking is obviously not correct. Many that go from no ads to ads will probably see better seo results. Not because of the ads, might steer some people away!, but because they optimize a not-optimized site. That often follows implementation of ads, increased awareness of keywords for example.

May be check Matt Cutts blog http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ he is head of SEO thingys at Google. If he clear his throat 1000s ears are wiggling

A site can get ripped off any ranking if TOS is pissed on, including adsense so may be that dude should complain to Google.

I recently saw a video of "SEO in 2010" by seomoz (I think). He said Google is aware of dirty tricks (related to paid ads, buying domain with high ranking and use them, from what I remember) and are starting to clean up, will increase effort the next 1-2 years - what he said. That not every data/result is valid is of course true. Complain! They have forums for this and his site is "important" enough to get some notice, eh clicks

This is my idea of SEO importance http://powazek.com/posts/2090 - tabloids the web but still interesting to follow both white and black hats.

[app103]

Countless sites that pirate content from MSDN outrank MSDN. They have Google ads. Microsoft doesn't.

I think that's clear enough.

Putting Google ads on your site is the best SEO you can possibly do.

Complete and total bull! That's not how they outrank everyone else. There are a lot of dirty tricks one can do to get better ranking and a few things you can do to sites that pirate your content to push them down, out, or at least cut off the income they are making off your stuff.

You find a site pirating your content and they have Adsense on it, do the following:

• Click the Google logo on the ad and select the option to report your stolen content. If they get enough dings against their account, they will get cut off from earning by Google.
• Send Google a DMCA taketown notice to get their listing pulled off the search results.
• Send a DMCA takedown notice to their web host.
• Send a DMCA taketown notice to their domain name registrar.

Microsoft isn't doing this, which is why the content thieves are outranking them.

[Bamse]

Yep, the only power SEO people (or high percentage of them) have respect for is Googles ban-hammer. If the guy has a convincing case and we assume Google "listens" now they failed policing,  it will be game over for them. Would be interesting to see if he would get anywhere by complaining. If you look at their forums for these matters getting stripped naked by Google is not uncommon. Typically X owner is all ??? Don't know if they have stats showing how much they wipe out or list of actions they take, probably not. Might not be too impressive!