A little bird passed me a rumor today that I can neither confirm or deny, but it's certainly worthy of discussion. The theory goes - when launching a new site, buying a significant quantity of AdWords/AdSense for the site is a good way to tell Google the site isn't spam and avoid long waits in the sandbox.
Here's my take on this:
- There is some logic in the idea that a site buying search advertising will not be, at the least, a low-grade, scraper style site
- Getting a new site approved with AdWords means that a quality rater is supposedly giving a manual review - perhaps this helps with sandboxing
- The logic that runs counter says that sandboxing is Google's way of preventing new sites from getting free traffic, thus forcing them to buy listings
While running some searches to investigate the phenomenon, I stumbled on what appears to be some new query refinements in the area of real estate:
Chicago Condos Search at Google
Note the location, property type, listing type and "remember this location" features offered. When I performed this search , I wasn't logged in, so any searcher should be able to get these results. Oddly enough, when I pasted the URL from IE into Firefox, I no longer saw the refinement options. I went ahead and selected "for sale" and clicked "Go" and was brought to these results in Google Base:
Google' Base Listings of Chicago Condos for Sale
So - two subjects to discuss... Do you think buying AdWords from Google can help a site escape sandboxing AND what's your opinion of the query refinement for real estate - can Google Base dominate real estate searches?
Hey Rand,
I can tell you that this is not the case, I have a new site that I released and spending 10’s of thousands of dollars a month. Still got a new site penalty of some sort.
Aaron Shear
Rand,
Your bird's tip may be correct today but it I don't believe that it has been in place more than a couple of months. I've launched several sites within the last year that had about a $500 a month AdWords spend each, all have been plagued by the sandbox until links age. Perhaps a greater monthly spend would have had more of an impact. Just my 2 cents.
ScottW
"I don´t believe your bird."
What Jojo said. No.
Love your new facial hair, Matt, it's very Morgan Spurlock :)
I'm not sure about what Jojo said - it's not evil to have a quality checker manually review sites that spend at Adwords, and the overlap with manual reviews for possible spam-checking is there, so...
I suppose it's my job to leak rumors, and yours to quash them. As always, your input is greatly appreciated. Wish you could have made it to Seattle tonight!
Yah, wish I could have made it too--I've never been to Washington state. Morgan Spurlock is from West Virginia, so that's just a few hollers from Kentucky.. :)
Any little birds tell you what Google's strategy is for real estate specifically? I am trying to position something in that industry that I hope to make Google-proof (and that actually integrates Google base).
Right now their product (housing at Google Base) seems like an afterthought.
Well, I have been watching a competitor site since early this year. He started off with zero page rank sometime around March. One thing I noticed was his huge spend on adwords. He is a shopping.com affliate and is advertising what seems every possible category.
I just did a test on how many backlinks this site has and it only has 60ish. I do know it gets 50million page views a month because they use the Premium Adsense service. Saying that, they now have a PR of 6 on the main page and on many of the category/subcategory pages. How is that possible?
The rumor the little bird shared might be true. But I think there are other things involved, like the rumors that when you spend a lot of money with Adwords and drive lots of traffic for Adsense then page rank goes up. I know this rumor applies for one of my sites.
So my question to all the experts here: Google claims it does not give incentives to those who are big spenders or drive lots of traffic (adsense) if so, then why this case and what about all the other sites observing the same thing? Why doesn't Google just come out and say "spend an ungodly amount of money and/or drive lots of traffic and we will reward you!".
They don't say it because it is not true.
Hi EGOL,
I find that hard to accept if many seo and other related communities are complaining about the same topic. I myself noticed this before even reading up on other sites. Early on, when I noticed some strange things happening, I predicted that Adwords users might get better pagerank for popular pages visited once clicked through onto the site. For example, if someone has an ad for the keywords "tripod" and if a good percentage of those visitors end up on a subcategory within the landing page main url (like xyz.com/tripods/manfrotto) then that page is "useful" then google does something or another to grant higher PR. Many seo folks said this is not possible but I have months of data collected that shows googlebot following users who come in from Adwords, and the pages that got a lot of traffic, ended up with a decent pagerank. Now, saying all of this, around 97% of all traffic was generated through adwords. Very few links were around and those that were were not linked to this popular pages which ended up with decent pagerank.
Ironically, I have adsense on those pages too. I might be a bit vague here but I think you get where I am going. Google, in my experience, does give an edge for Adwords and Adsense users. I noticed it before I even read up on it, so there was no "bad" influence so to speak.
This is my story. Not to mention the one I already posted on, which went from pagerank 0 to 6 in literally 4 months, with very few backlinks. Now, what is even more intersting, the company that owns this site I am speaking of is a major SEM company in Germany and is known to already have a special relationship with Google as they spend A LOT of money with them - as a company not as a individual site.
While I am talking about Germany, did any of you know that Google gives 15% discount to SEM companies in Western Europe? Overture does as well. I have spoken to lots of companies in the US that didn't beleive me. If you call an Adword rep up and ask about it they are clueless. So, where is this leading? As a "company" you spend big big dollars Google does favors, like give 15% off your monthy budget as a company. I beg someone to differ with that as I have statements to show my discount! :)
Hi Adscape,
I understand your points. As a business owner myself, I definitly "Don't Like" when other companies eat into my bottom line.
Butt.... It is consumer demand that is pushing Google's development, just like it pushed Microsoft.
The great thing is, if people dont like it they can just switch search engines. But, then how long do you think its going to take for Yahoo and MSN to start doing the same things.
This is the basis of Capitalism. We cant escape it, as a company or as a consumer. It is what it is.
Capitalism has its issues but I would prefer it anyday over any other system. In another system I wouldnt even be able to start my own businesses that compete. I wouldnt have that choice.
As for our directory style sites, we do quite a bit to add unique content to them. For obvious reasons, if the site content isnt quality or unique, they wouldnt produce money for very long.
One more interesting note: It is Google, and the free organic traffic that they deliver, that enabled my sites to make money in the first place.. My calling them evil for taking some of that traffic for their own gain, seams to be a little off-base...
Rob Stevens: Believe me, we're trying. We've got interviews with restaurant/bar owners, other local 'celebrities', pdf menus/scans, 360 tours, daily editorials, fully-featured flash commercials, etc... And we're adding new stuff all the time.
Jarrod: "Several hundred" directory-style sites is quite a bit. Do you offer more personalized articles/editorials/reviews, etc? Or more of a dynamic directly-only style sites...?
Google's definitely Evil. If they had it their way, Google would BE the internet.
I understand the point that as a user, you want the information without having to dig. But to me, this direction seems a little "microsoftish" in that the very source we rely on for the majority of our traffic from is in the process of building functionality so as to take it away...
I would say you are probably correct in that rumor. It makes sense as the basis for income for Google are ads. Google may say they don't do this but I think this is a well thought out approach you have about the way they would evaluate a newer site using AdWords.
I believe that Google Base will not only dominate real estate, but several very specific niches as well. In this sense, I believe that Google can be a best-friend/worst-enemy situation.
For example, I run a entertainment-related website for in the Twin Cities area - SotanLIFE. We are constantly trying to rank well for things like "Music", "Movies", "Happy Hour", etc. However, what is the point in trying to rank well when Google is going to spit the information out to the user before it lists it's SERPS?
To further this example, we'll take a google search for "movie showtimes in minneapolis". Just above all of it's normal results, Google has a little link "Showtimes for Minneapolis, MN" with a link to google.com/movies, where you can search for movies by zip code, read/write reviews, etc.
This is great for the average user, but it almost makes me take a step back and ask myself what the point in trying to rank for these terms are if Google is just going to give the user this information right off the bat in the first place.
Same thing can be said of a search for "resaurants in minneapolis" - Up above all of the rest of the search results is a link to Google Maps/Local... so the user is essentially staying in Google the whole time.
Like I said, nice and convenient for the average user, but difficult for the website owners such as myself that are trying to build an authoritative niche in these areas... Just my two cents.
You know what this means? You have to offer more than just the information. You need to generate unique content related to this niche to survive. You have to "add value".
So what can you do? Offer reviews of the restaurants, interviews with the owners, digital scans of the menus ... something no one else is doing.
Same thing with movies, you'll need offer reviews, trailers, cost comparisons, tips to get cheap tickets, etc.
Did the "little bird" tell you how significant the purchase needs to be?
Sadly, no.. But I'll see if they want to contribute anonymously. :)
Searchinnovation,
On a positive note:
We have several hundred directory style sites that focus on city keywords for specific keywords like real estate,bars etc..
We have had them up for about 2 years now, and were worried about Google local integrating information at the top of the keywords, and the effect it would have on traffic.
The good news is that we still receive a significant amount of traffic, even on keywords that have Google local information showing at the top of the page.
I really cant say that I saw a reduction in traffic once Google Local started being integrated, but its tough to say considering that at that time those sites were still aging and growing in traffic. So any loss in traffic from integrated Google Local results might have just been offset by our sites natural growth..
So basically, I think Google Local Integration and Integration of Google Base, might have a negative effect on traffic from organic rankings for certain keywords, but it definitly will not eliminate the traffic all together.
Heck the loss in traffic may even be offset by the fact that more people start using Google for local searches, due to the new functionality.
J
1. Google Base Results in the SERPs are nothing new. We will see at the top of the SERPs a lot more vertical search recommendatins in the future. 2. I don´t believe your bird. Seems really "evil" to me. To evil even for Google 2006. Google is no nice guy, but surely not a "mafioso". Am I overreacting? No, that would be the start of buying into the SERPs.
Jojo,
I guess the question is "who is it evil too?"
It can be considered evil to competing companies, but for searchers this is a wonderful thing.
I know that when I do a search I would much rather have information directly delivered to me, rather then having to keep digging to find the same info.
And the reality of it is, Google base is open for any company to submit product too. Some of the companies that may initially loose traffic to the integration, will learn to submit their feeds directly to Google Base, in order to regain some of that traffic.
As a company who has sites that are being hurt by this new functionality, It definitly sucks. But I dont "Hate the player". I would do exactly the same thing if I was in their shoes. It's an awesome business move, and as a stockholder, this is the kind of stuff I want to see more of.
J
I would definitly subscribe to the theory that if a site spends a significant amount of money in adwords that it may help in moving it out of the sandbox quicker.
It's for the same reason I know registering your domain for a long period of time (>10 years), is beneficial.
Cheap scraper sites are probably not going to spend $70 bucks on domain registration. Just like they are probably not going to spend hundreds of dollars in adwords.
There are some exceptions, but I know that on my personal scraper sites, even $100 dollars would be cost prohibitive.
As for the new real estate functionality, I say right on! Good stuff. We will be seeing this for a lot of products/services in the future. I have a few customers that are very worried about the combo of Google Base and Integrated Search Results.