| |
| |
|
SEO Articles |
|
|
|
Google, Yahoo!, Pandoras Box And The Lottery
In the fall of 1990, the musical group Snap had a monster number one hit record called, "I've Got The Power." Nowadays, a search engine and a directory (AKA) Google and Yahoo!--number one and number two respectively, have "the power," and we handed it to them on a silver platter. The aforementioned search engine and directory are the two biggest players in the multi billion dollar pay-for-search industry. Our stubborn and foolish reliance on search engines have helped to open up a "Pandora's Box" of greed, arrogance and theft. Yahoo! Express is a perfect example of all three of those evils! Check out their terms: "Please keep in mind that payment does not automatically guarantee inclusion in the directory, site placement, or site commentary. As with all sites suggested to us, final judgement remains solely with Yahoo! editors. Yahoo! Express Guarantees All Yahoo! Express submissions will be evaluated within seven business days. You will receive an email response within seven business days, stating whether your entry is accepted or declined. (If your entry is denied, you will be told why.) The Cost of Yahoo! Express Yahoo! Express requires a US $299.00 non-refundable, recurring annual fee per submission, or US $600.00 non-refundable, recurring annual fee for submissions offering adult content and/or services. Yahoo! Express does not guarantee a listing in the Yahoo! directory, nor does it guarantee the type of placement or description that your site will receive if accepted. Please read our Yahoo! Express Terms of Service to review the terms and conditions of Yahoo! Express." I mean, think about this for a second. You pay $300 to $600 to get listed in their directory, and they tell you they can't guarantee your website will be listed. And by the way, if your website is rejected, we'll just keep your money! Why does Yahoo! do that? Because like "lambs going to slaughter," we allow them to! Here's another example of greed, arrogance and theft? Check out this statement from Google: "We are exposed to the risk of fraudulent clicks on our ads. We have regularly paid refunds related to fraudulent clicks and expect to do so in the future. If we are unable to stop this fraudulent activity, these refunds may increase. If we find new evidence of past fraudulent clicks, we may have to issue refunds retroactively of amounts previously paid to our Google Network members." Now, I don't know about you, but I for one refuse to believe that bunch of poppycock about Google being powerless to stop click fraud. The problem is, there's no incentive for them to stop it. It really doesn't matter to Google how many times someone fraudulently clicks on your ad. Why should it? It doesn't affect their pocketbook. They still get their money either way! And they don't even have to worry about processing an avalanche of refunds, because many of their advertisers don't even know how to analyze their log files. Therefore, they have no idea how much money they're losing. So, they just keep right on replenishing their pay-per-click accounts, foolishly hoping to catch "lightning in a bottle!" Why isn't Google doing more to prevent click fraud? I don't know exactly, but I have a couple of theories. First of all, Google's advertisers haven't expressed the necessary outrage to effect change. Secondly, I believe Google has looked at the bottom line and determined, it's actually a lot more cost effective to issue a few refunds than to develop the technology to eliminate click fraud. Otherwise, Google would have stepped up to the plate like a true leader and said something similar to this ficticious statement: "Nothing is more important to us than our customers. They helped make us who we are today, and we will not let them down. We are determined to meet and defeat click fraud head on--no matter how how long it takes or how much it ultimately costs!" By not issuing the above statement or something along those lines, Google revealed its true colors! In my article, "The Truth About Search Engines: Playing A Game You Can't Win," I compared the odds of getting a high ranking in the search engines akin to winning the lottery. This is what I wrote: "If you go strictly by the numbers, Yahoo!, MSN and Google are the "Big 3" of search engines and directories. Between them, they index millions and millions of pages in their directories. Although Google claims to index over 4 billion. However, that's a subject for another day. The point is, out of all those millions and millions of pages, there's room for only a very few websites at the top of the results pages. That means, if you go strictly by the number of indexed web pages in their directories, you have a better chance of winning the lottery, than getting high enough in the results pages to where it's going to make a significant difference in your traffic. That's not my opinion, it's a fact!" After that article was published, you should have seen some of the e-mails I received from angry SEO experts, telling me I didn't know what I was talking about, and writing something like that was reprehensible and irresponsible journalism! Irresponsible journalism. Really? As the saying goes, "the proof is in the pudding." So, I'm going to let my readers do the math: According to a recent study by Inktomi and NEC Research, there are currently over two billion websites on the Internet. Google, Yahoo and MSN are considered the "Big 3" of search engines and directories. In other words, those three generate the majority of traffic. Now, we all know the top 10 is considered prime real estate, with regard to the search engines. Studies have shown that if you're website is listed outside of the top 10 spots, there's a significant drop-off in traffic. Unfortunately, there are only a total of thirty top 10 spots among the "Big 3." Are you still with me so far? There are only thirty available top 10 spots, and an estimated two billion websites on the Internet. You do the math! Thirty and two billion sure sound like lottery odds to me. What do you think? About The Author Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net. Visit his website at: http://www.lets-make-money.net
MORE RESOURCES:
SEO - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Improve Search Engine Rankings - The Real Deal! Ok, here's the deal, follow these steps and shoot me if your rankings doesn't improve. I know that there's been so many articles on how to improve your search engine rankings but most of them are either incomplete or untrue. Using Google Thanks to a unique algorithm that produces most relevant results to any given query, Google has become, indisputably, the best search engine on the Internet. On the last count, Google has indexed over 4 billion pages and tackles around 200 million searches a day! A cluster of 100 thousand servers are used to store, crunch and spew out the query results with lightning speed that you are so accustomed to see. 5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program for Your Website These days with millions of websites out there, you need a way to get noticed. When your company website is ranked highly in the major search engines, customers from all over the world can find your front door. Free Search Engine Advertising: 10 Secret Ways To Indirectly Race To The Top Of Search Engines Do you have a website that has little or no rankings in the major Search Engines: Yahoo. Msn, Aol, Netscape, Alltheweb and Google?Are you making little or no sales because you're getting little or no traffics?Welcome to the club. Search Engine Updates vs. SEO Webmasters always anxiously wait for a search engine update. Those who rank well want to see their sites get even better. Playing in Googlebots Sandbox with Slurp, Teoma, & MSNbot - Spiders Display Differing Personalities There has been endless webmaster speculation and worry about the so-called "Google Sandbox" - the indexing time delay for new domain names - rumored to last for at least 45 days from the date of first "discovery" by Googlebot. This recognized listing delay came to be called the "Google Sandbox effect. Search Engine Indexing - 3 Strategies Guaranteed to Skyrocket Your Success In order to design a website that performs well with the search engines, it is very important to give the search engines what they want. You'll want to find out what search engines index and what they do not in order to have your pages returned as a result. Why SEO Will Make or Break You, Part 1 Today's article is about the wonders of SEO. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. All About Links -- Interview With Link Building Expert , Bob Gladstein Julia: Welcome Bob. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions about link building. Search Engine Optimization - A Must As you surf the web take a look around at many of the sites you see. Do you notice anything that seems strange? Well, let me point it out to you. 13 Tips For Good Search Engine Placements When used properly in combination with other basic search engine tactics, these tips can help to dramatically improve your placement with the search engines and increase the traffic to your web site.1. SEO = Search Engine Optimization, tips on successful page ranking One of the key things to remember when developing your web-site presence is to always evaluate your competition. See what's working for them; how they market their products and services, and even evaluate their KEYWORD and DISCRIPTION tags. SEO Expert Guide - Ongoing Monitoring of Results (part 9/10) In the Guide, you have, so far, learnt how to plan for and execute a search engine optimization and promotion strategy. However, this is not a one-off process, but an ongoing and iterative process, where you tweak and refine towards ever better ranking. Optimizing Your Website Search Engine Optimization, optimizing your website for it to be visible in the search results of a search engine's query or in a search result of a directory.Basically, SEO is a marketing strategy for your site. Yahoos Back! I was all set to write an article predicting the future of search engines, when Yahoo dropped Google and replaced it with its own engine. Now that's big news. SEO Quickstart - 3 Things You can Do to Improve Search Engine Rankings Right Now Increasing your search engine rankings should certainly be one of your main goals if you are looking to increase your targeted traffic. The reason for this is if you improve your search engine rankings, you'll increase the amount of visitors your website receives, and when you increase traffic to your site you are going to increase customers and sales. London Bombings and Number Patterns Firstly, let me say that I am sure all our thoughts went out to the victims, their families and friends of these bombings, and other incidents where innocent people lose their lives. Secondly, an SEO ezine is not the place to debate the rights and wrongs of such events. More Hits are Good for My Website - A Myth You Should Avoid I hear this all the time. "I can get you listed on 100,000 websites for $29. Google Ranking WITHOUT Ever Submitting To Google! A while back, I read an article that explained how to get a good google rating without ever submitting your site to their submission forms. Like you, I was kind of shocked by this statement so I decided to give it a try. Do Not Ever Link to a Site Without Doing This First! Links are a crucial part of attaining high search rankings, but you must be very careful about to whom you link. I'm going to help you develop a simple link strategy for your website that will help you decide which sites to link to so you're making your way up the search engine rankings and not accidentally hurling yourself backwards.
|
| Home | Sitemap | Forums | Contact Us | Advertise |
| © 2006 SEO Articles. A Real Web Talk Presentation. Network Sites : Index Rated Directory | SEO Care Directory | Humour Inc. | Free Mobile Ringtones | A1hosts | SEO Blog the four required words |
