Here's the deal: I build links. I build a lot of them - tens of thousands every month.
How do I do this? I create fun online quizzes and then provide HTML code with quiz scores that bloggers and website owners can embed on their own sites. A good example is this widget, which tells you if you talk too much in your blog, or this one, which tests your ability to survive on the moon. You take the quiz, I give you some HTML code that displays your score, and you embed a snippet of HTML code in your blog. In addition to a link to the quiz, I also add a link to my dating site with the anchor text of my choice. This was how I managed to get JustSayHi ranked for keywords such as "Free Online Dating" and "Online Dating." The link is not hidden using CSS or Javascript, we leave it in plain view so that users can remove it if they wish (and many do).
Some of you might remember I left SEOmoz last year to join up with JustSayHi with the intention of creating the world's biggest, baddest free online dating site. Using these quizzes, I had a creative way to rank our site for competitive keywords in an industry that is primarily dominated by paid links, directory spam, and other greyish-black SEO tactics. We ranked #1 for online dating, free online dating, and numerous other very competitive terms. We were averaging over 2,000 new members a day and passed the 500,000 member mark.
Oops.
Shortly thereafter, we made a godzilla-turd-sized mistake. JustSayHi's parent company, Next Internet, acquired a bunch of payday loan and education lead-gen websites (around Q4 2007) which are among the hundreds of domains in their portfolio. They saw the success we were having with our SEO efforts and asked us to help promote a few of their sites. We started putting links to those sites instead of dating links in our quiz/widget HTML code. We soon ranked for competitive keywords such as "Cash Advance," "Payday Loans," and a few EDU lead generation terms. Our success led to Google receiving a number of spam complaints along with some unfavorable press in the Guardian that referred to me as genius/fiend. The consequence of all of this is that we were penalized by Google. We no longer ranked for "Free Online Dating" and other dating related keywords. In fact, we no longer even rank for very brand-specific keywords such as "JustSayHi". In short, we had been completely banned from search results.
As soon as we discovered that we had been penalized, we immediately filed a reconsideration request. Matt Cutts got involved in the case personally, but after a couple of emails, the penalty was not lifted. The basis for the penalty was:
- We cross-promoted other websites with our widget/quizzes on JustSayHi
- The other domains we promoted were in very spammy sectors and had duplicate content issues
- JustSayHi had some paid links/inclusions in our link profiles (these were prior to my arrival, but nonetheless are part of our history)
- Our reconsideration request was truthful but not as forthcoming as it might have been. We were asked to list all the spammy domains, and I only listed the two we had promoted with the quizzes, not the entire network which was owned by a separate company. In our defense, we knew very little about these domains (their history, how many there actually were, etc), but we should have done our homework.
There was no doubt that we'd screwed up royally - the question was what could we do about it. We couldn't ask everyone to take down those links, we couldn't undo the damage done to JustSayHi's reputation after dabbling in those spammy sectors, and we couldn't get reincluded in the search results.
A clean start
We decided it would be best to register a new domain and essentially start from scratch. This time, though, we'd be as 100% squeaky clean as we could and do our best to stay within Google's guidelines. We needed a new design anyway, so we figured we'd create a fresh brand and identity, a change which would be communicated to both our users and to the outside world as soon as the new site was ready. It would afford us the opportunity to improve the features of the site, as well as giving us a fresh start with Google.
We decided to create OnePlusYou (screenshot here)- an upgraded version of JustSayHi that we would migrate all of our users into. JustSayHi had been around for several years and by creating a new site our brand equity and domain age be lost, but it was better than not being ranked at all. The development and transition of OnePlusYou would take quite a bit of time, however, so prior to launching the OnePlusYou dating portal, we figured we'd get a head start on our link building. We launched a set of new widgets that included only links to OnePlusYou.com with the anchor text "Free Online Dating" and set out to repeat the success we enjoyed prior to JustSayHi getting penalized.
We truly believed this method of link-building was white-hat, provided we made an obvious note to our users that the widget contained a keyword-rich link (which they could optionally remove if they wished), and that keyword was relevant to our site. It had worked well in the past. Lots of other sites are successful with the same strategy and we thought Google had publicly given it the green light when they told the Guardian:
"Widgets that are distributed with a link back to the site that created the widget are fine," it says. "However, going a step further and selling links to third parties is against our quality guidelines. Sites that employ or distribute such widgets may risk losing rankings.
A few weeks later we heard word from Google regarding OnePlusYou, stating it was "the same off-topic widget tricks all over again on another site" and that our new site could suffer the same fate as JustSayHi.com. This was the first communication we'd heard from Google that adding a keyword-rich link from a widget to our own site was an ultra-mega-Google-NO-NO.
We promptly changed the links in our widget code from this:
Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating
To this:
Created by OnePlusYou
We are striving to stay white hat with all of our efforts, but doing so requires that we are able to draw the line between white hat link bait -- which Google publicly encourages -- and a black hat, "off-topic widget trick." Is it white hat to add keyword-rich links to embeddable widget code? Is it only okay if those widgets are on-topic? In other words, could we use this method of link-building if the quizzes themselves were about online dating?
If that's the case, is ALL off-topic linkbaiting not ok? For instance, if I wrote a linkbait blog post that was featured on Digg or Reddit that had nothing to do with online dating but generated authoritative backlinks, is that against the guidelines? Where does Google draw the line? Jane touched on this shortly after the Guardian article came out with this post about search engines regulating linkbait.
We understand why we were penalized in the first place. We now recognize that our reconsideration request should have been more forthcoming. We have learned that Google considers the behavior of the site owner along with the particular site under review. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much we can do other than plead our case and pledge to be 100% whitehat in the future.
We don't know if there is a resolution to the JustSayHi penalty or what the likelihood is that OnePlusYou will be hit with a penalty when we launch. We have been holding off on launching OnePlusYou until we have clarity around our link-building tactics and whether the JustSayHi penalty is permanent. I ended up building more than 500,000 links using these quizzes and widgets, so I can't exactly issue a recall notice for all those bloggers and website owners to take them down.
Imho the reason google doesn't like this kind of activity is because you're too good at it. It's that simple. Jeremy Luebke hit the nail on the head when he said:
If you do it too well then Google is going to slap you down. And you did it pretty well ;-)
There is of course the whole payday loans and reinclusion request saga which I don't know the full details of so can't really comment but to go so far as to say that launching widgets which link back to the right content with the right anchor text is spammy is insane.
What about if you'd called your new site "One Plus You Online Dating" and you used that as your anchor text. Would that be ok?
Well said, Tom.
Also, there are plenty of high-profile, off-topic linkbait efforts that have been pretty successful. Dave Dugdale's Rentvine "paid links debate video" certainly comes to mind. It's not a widget, but it's SO off-topic that I am surprised it didn't raise a few eyebrows in Mountain View (Greg Boser certainly raised his own eyebrow when he commented on the panel immediately following the video).
This case certainly looks like a witch hunt to me, but I am hoping that Matt Cutts can clearly state G's guidelines with respect to anchor text, domains, linkbait, and widgets in a future post so we will know what is truly white hat.
Matt Inman, thanks for keeping us updated on your whereabouts and endeavors.
Are you drunk David? Then there would be no room for maneuver.
;)
good idea - but it seems that next google will go after widget linking after the whole paid links saga.
let me get this right - you cant buy links - check
no point geting links for directories since most of them got devalued - check
you cant exchange links - check
you cant use anchor text after spending oodles of hours thinking of ways to get anchor text via widgets - check
so how exactly do you get humans to link using correct anchor text- seeing that the majority would neatly type up the url and link via that?
spam the forums and blog comments that do not have no follow - I spend a lot of time each day cleaning them out....
Matt,
May I suggest that as a means of keeping Google off your back, that you start implementing boring and shitty link bainting tactics that garner very little, if any links?
I think if you could simply establish yourself as a bit of a failure, you would be much more successful with Google. ;)
Sean
You all have no idea how refreshing is to hear this discussion out in the open. For the past few months my co-workers and I have been reeling, debating, and stressing from the google penalty. A lot of what everyone is saying here is mimicking the internal conversations we've been having, and I really appreciate everyone chipping in.
@Matt Cutts: regarding Jeremy's post about zombie quizzes that are promoting Ultrasound technician schools, I agree that those links aren't particularly helpful and trying to defend that would be quite a stretch. But suppose the zombie quiz was promoting dating related keywords and was hosted on our dating website - it's off-topic but it comes back to that same question of knowing where the line is drawn.
In regards to invisible hit counters, the key difference there is that their links are hidden in <noscript> tags, while ours are out in the open. We also make an obvious note to the user that the badge HTML contains a keyword-rich link. Which brings me to my next point..
A somewhat bitchin idea: What if by default we remove the keyword-rich link from the badge HTML, but we have a checkbox next to it that says "Include a link to OnePlusyou - free online dating," with a brief explanation about how we're a small company who uses quizzes to get the word out about our site, and if you want to help us out you can opt to have extra HTML included in the badge that promotes our dating portal. If the user opts in then then it's editorially chosen, right?
Passes the sniff test for me...
Edited for mangled html. Ironically.
Me too.
Jeff - just a quick bug I found: I have the words <noscript> in the comment above and when I click "edit comment" it only renders the comment box up until the noscript tag occurs and then it gets cut off.
Clearly the programmer who wrote the comment system is dumber than a sack of hammers.
Clearly. :)
Emall a bug report to sitesupport.
Matt, you have no idea how refreshing it is to see you posting on the moz again! Hope there is more to come!
Also, I really like the idea of opting to promote the company that is supplying you with the content. This isn't that much different from any opensource contributor asking to keep his Amazon id in the wordpress plugin you just installed. It doesn't hurt to ask, and has much less backlash than if you don't.
Edit: My spleling sucks.
Actually I never made the point about being helpful. I mearly stated that the widget link traingle "quiz<->affiliate site<->user" was going to lead to this exact scenario.
I personally believe if a payday loan site has an unbuntu zombie quiz, it is very relevent for that quiz to point back to the originating sites where users can also take the quiz.
I love the new idea about asking to add a link. I would link the widget itself back directly to the quiz, and the extra link be the optional one.
And I love the fact that my idea for an Ubuntu Zombie quiz now seems to be the linkbait equivalent of red/blue widgets. Where do I collect my links?
And by default, have the check box checked off and they can opt to uncheck it - just like filling out a form and they automatically check "add me to email list for promo offers" and you have to uncheck...
Precisley what I was thinking as I read this! Opt-in widgets that make linking to your site in the 'correct manner' (as referenced above) easy to do, even by ordinary users. There's no subterfuge and no question about whether the party intended to link to you. Brilliant, indeed.
And the blackhat club gets bigger.... and the waters get murkier and murkier.... if you're an SEO, you're a black hat. Only those who don't know what SEO is are the white hats.... Don't try to rank high on purpose....if you do then you've broken a google guideline...
Google's first priority is their customer base. They need to make sure they don't allow things that are clearly a violation of their policy to get away with it. They don't trust Oatmeal at this point because of his past. That's their call to make. It's Oatmeal's job to figure out a way to deal with the damage that was done. He tried the direct approach with Google but it appears his wrongful ways won't be forgiven. So, he has to resort to some desperation to keep 70% of his search referral traffic.
Bad situation on both sides, but very interesting to us as readers. ;-)
Brent D. Payne
One of the best main SEOmoz Blog posts in a while (and there have been some damn good ones lately).
I have very little to add to the "Is Google right?" debate. I think most people have raised all the right questions.
I do think that as soon as someone becomes effective enough to make link building scalable to the point that links are being given that don't necessarily represent an honest-to-goodness editorial recommendation - Google will punish it.
And once you remove links given for off-topic content - you are taking a lot of stuff off the table.
But my biggest comment is to Matt Inman - I think it is an incredible effort to walk away from all that brand loyalty and to migrate all of your subscribers over to a new site. And to make that kind of decision - you should be commended.
This kind of thing - no matter how well executed - always comes with some attrition.
What is interesting is - that you're moving in part because you fell in the rankings and therefore were at a disadvantage of finding new subscribers.
But since most of your current subscribers aren't searching for you - it seems kind of like a Catch-22. Or something similar to it.
Maybe there is a way to keep one site with all of its subscribers and just have it so members on the new site are able to search for dates in either site?
Either way - I think you're a genius.
But my biggest comment is to Matt Inman - I think it is an incredible effort to walk away from all that brand loyalty and to migrate all of your subscribers over to a new site.
In my experience, I have friends who are on loads of dating sites - they are quite fickle and loyalty isnt one of the strong points. they want to meet people, and care less about the brand, as long as the site meets their needs.
But again, I could be reffering to a tainted sample - my friends are hardly normal - they use Facebook as a dating site too *sigh*
Rishil, yeah - you're right. I guess I was talking more along the lines of any kind of membership site.
I suppose with dating you go where the hotties go.
...which is obviously What's Up Annapolis.
:D
The thing that really bothers me about moving to a new site isn't so much that we have to change our brand and possibly tarnish our reputation (although that sucks, too), but that we're losing all that domain authority that we'd built over the past year with white-hat link building. Half a million links are basically going down the drain.
It's their index . . . you did some things as an informed SEO that weren't really right and when you came clean you didn't come completely clean. If Matt won't let you back in then you'll have to resort to something else to stay in their index.
I say all this with utmost respect because you accomplished something that very few SEOs can do. Unfortunately, someone pushed you too far and you let them do it. Part of being an SEO is standing your ground when people are trying to push you too far. We've all made judgment mistakes in the past (see my long post below for my personal errors), yours was just of greater magnitude than most and thus of greater consequence.
I am so sorry you are in this situation. I can't imagine it. Plus, I am sure that you would have serious job problems had you not done it.
I feel for ya.
Brent D. Payne
Either way - I think you're a genius.
I was just thinking the same thing about Oatmeal yesterday. He is the developer guru, designer, link baiter... great content creator... just wow... The Michael Jordan of Tech hehe
I think it is ridiculous that Google penalized them the second time around. They made helpful widgets that people liked. They then offered the code to post the widget scores on each person own website. They clearly could delete the link if they wanted to, some do some don’t. When the people don’t they are opting in and choosing to offer that link on their website. Where is the black hat here? Where is the deception? Where are the rules being broken here?
So if OnePlusYou.com was Called FreeOnlineDating.com then adding that text in the anchor would be OK?
Funniest sentence award: "Don't try to rank high on purpose....if you do then you've broken a google guideline..."
Nice one Jim.
That's not the point now. Now it is a manual review and it is being held to a higher standard than if it had only been handled by the algorithm. It's became human at this point and Matt knows Oatmeal and knows that Oatmeal knew what he was doing and didn't fully come clean when given the chance.
That's the difference here. We are held to a higher standard in a manual review process than the algorithm can possibly determine. Had he stayed under the radar, he'd still be rolling in PR but it went too far and now it's in a different league.
I'd give the guy another shot but Matt may not.
Brent D. Payne
He didnt come clean the second time around? And what exactly does he need to come cean on? He is marketing his website for gods sake.
And that wasn't the problem. The problem arose when he started putting spammy links in the widgets not when he was putting on-topic good links in the widgets.
process probably went something like this
1. Widgets on topic links.
2. Massive success
3. Boss says, "Hey, we should do that for this new business we have to that has nothing to do with our widgets but has more cash in our pockets. Oatmeal, go do it for these too." Oatmeal responds, "Um, I don't think that is a good idea." Boss says, "Excuse me? Go do it." Oatmeal says, "Um . . . okay if you say so."
4. Widgets with off topic spammy links go out.
5. Gobs of people report them as spam.
6. Gobs more people report them as spam.
7. Google escalates internally until it gets to a group that Matt Cutts touches and Matt Cutts recognizes the name and freaks out that Oatmeal would do such a thing.
8. Matt loses all trust in Oatmeal and decides to start eating waffles for breakfast instead.
9. Penalties cripple Oatmeal and Oatmeal's boss says, "What happened? Oatmeal you got us into this mess, go get us out!"
10. Oatmeal says, "Okay boss, then we need to tell them EXACTLY what happened." Boss says, "Just tell them what they already know they don't need to know everything."
11. Matt Cutts madly types away on his computer pulling an all-nighter finding all the different things that Oatmeal's widgets have done.
12. Matt later reads Oatmeal's reinclusion request and blows a gasket when he discovers that Oatmeal didn't tell "the whole truth and nothin' but the truth."
It's an emotional issue now. Oatmeal needs to appeal to Matt's emotion, an emotion of complete distrust and who knows what else.
That's my take on this . . .
Brent D. Payne
This issue is tricky, mostly cause it's a moral one. I take the Zombie Apocalypse quiz, like it, and decide to promote my score by adding the badge to my MySpace page. As far as Google is concerned, the way this works, me adding the badge is a "vote" by me for the Zombie Apocalypse, not necessarily a vote for "free online dating." Adding the link to justsayhi.com with the text "free online dating" wasn't the intention of the user when they added the widget, even if the link is there for them to see. And you can't assume a level of understanding with the general web market that they're savvy enough to remove the offending <a> tag.
I completely agree. If the widget is onpoint to the linkback . . . then no harm no foul and I doubt Google would have ever flagged it. But that line was crossed.
I haven't ate all day (though I have had 3 Mt. Dews) and it is 11pm here. I am going to get some grub. Really interesting article and discussion here though.
Brent D. Payne
Fluxx,
How is your above example different from a commercial website creating a mini-site and 301'ing all the links back to the main site?
How is that goofy site about dancing elves (Elf Yourself?) related to OfficeMax? People that linked to this site probably didn't realize they were linking (or intend to link) to a page that would eventually direct them to an office supplies store. As far as I know, OfficeMax didn't get penalized for anything.
Or am I misunderstanding something here?
Because it's the commercial website that is doing the creating. And it's also cause office max is the one creating the elf site. They're in control of the message and they know exactly who they're "voting" for. With widgets, you're letting people do the work for you.
With widgets I put on my blog, I'm choosing to "vote" for the zombie apocalypse, not necessarily online dating. I may not even notice the link or know what that link means. It certainly wasn't part of my intention for why I'm placing the bag.
Either it's okay to link from widgets to the sites that created them with competitive anchor text or it's not. If it isn't this simple, then Matt Inman's properties, no matter what they are, are still being unfairly punished. If someone from Google wishes to say, "anchor text from this type of linkbait should always be unoptimised, such as the name of the site," then we'd have something to work with. And I can update our numerous tips and guides about linkbait and viral content, which make no mention of possible penalties.
But wouldn't we run into the problem Tom was talking about above? Wouldn't some enterprising young whippersnapper simply call his website "One Plus You Online Dating, LLC" ?
Then it would be "you must nofollow all widgets"
That seems like the solution Google is likely to choose. I would if I were them. It's simplest... however, that gives an unfair double standards to digg article linkbait...
Without a doubt: Tom's point was really good. That reminds me of companies who named themselves AA1 Car Rentals (etc) so as to be listed first in the phone book. Penalising for that sort of naming would be like the phone book coming along and saying, "you can't do that."
Until that time, I'd like to know:
But Aaron, you're obviously right. It's unlikely they'd let us know one way or the other.
A better way to have accomplished almost as much power and not nearly the criticism from Google would have been to have a link like this . . .
https://online-dating.justsayhi.com/widgets
the landing page would have talked about the widgets they make, how the user can embed more widgets if they like, and then, of course, chat it up about why justsayhi.com is a killer 'online dating' service that offers . . . blah blah blah
The user would have been served and it would have stayed totally white hat. Matt would have never seen complaints about it and it would have stayed with lower ranked people at Google that would have let it go with no problems.
My two cents . . .
Brent D. Payne
"That's right! We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
They like to keep it as vauge as possible...that way when they find someone knocking out links left and right like Matt was, then they can go back and call it bad.
I'd curse but I'm already grounded...
Ultimately, Google cares about one thing: providing relevant results to their customers. And for a long time now, a lot of what makes a site "relevant" is how many links they have to it. So I don't think it's surprising to anyone that Matt (and others) have are great social engineers and are able to get people to link to them by creating widgets that spread their links around. But does having 1/2 a million links from widgets make you more relevant? Probably not, but Google hasn't figured out a good way to tell that.
So it's really more an issue with how well Google values relevancy in the face of people engineering the system. Google will figure it out eventually.
Ultimately, from Google's point of view, it comes down to people being more relevant for a keyword by engineering the system with only widgets, rather than actually being more relevant. When people do that, stuff like this happens.
Completely agree Fluxx . . . Oatmeal still has a job to do now though. How does he get his 70% of search referrals back if he burnt his bridge with Google?
Brent D. Payne
Fluxx,
I think I might change that quote to "Ultimately, Google cares about one thing: providing relevant, non-commerical results that don't compete with Adsense (i.e. Wikipedia, .edu's, etc.), to their customers.
Let's face it - the less commercial results at the top of the SERPS, the happier (and more profitable), Google is.
Let's face it - the less commercial results at the top of the SERPS, the happier (and more profitable), Google is.
Its funny how a lot of people forget that google is a business - and that their shareholders look at the bottom line before they see how relevant ther SERP results are.
1. I am thankful for the platform they provide to businesses to sell their products.
2. I am VERY unhappy when they throw the relevance argument in the face of trademark abuse.
3. I am very unhappy when they penalise people who put genuine effort into their work like oatmeal has done.
from Matt cutts response below - he highlights "Our reconsideration request was truthful but not as forthcoming as it might have been."
Well Oatmeal was reffering to paid links "In our defense, we knew very little about these domains (their history, how many there actually were, etc), but we should have done our homework. "
Well so they decided to reformulate their strategy after admitting that maybe they werent aware how many spammy links they got and NOT get links from spam domains.
So how does that make it "the same off-topic widget tricks all over again on another site" Off topic or not - the method is to provide a resource that website owners like to put up on their site - which they appreciate by linking back to the site that built the widget.
Is the issue the anchor text or the links? What does the link on the widget have to do with the relevance?
Would you ban 1000's of sites if they link back to wordpress because the link to wordpress is using the anchor text "content management system"? (or better still would you ban WP if that happened?)
Sometimes a bit of clarity goes a long way.
I'd like to see the look on the Guardian's SEO's face when he starts seeing referring traffic for the search query "godzilla turd sized mistake."
Given the Guardian's reputation for spelling errors, their SEO might not be as surprised as we'd think!
Grauniad FWT.
Exactly - they'd be looking for traffic from "godzilla trud szed mistkae"
Banning the sites linked from Oatmeal's Widgets is really excellent Google*
I'm in the process of building a viral widget myself targeting the pet industry, and i'm linking it to my biggest competitor in the loans sector. I should have him banned before the 6 O'clock news.
*Note, wrap sarcasm tags around first sentence.
In all seriousness Google, how are you going to know if these Widget backlinks are created to promote a site or to trash it by a competitor?
I could make a widget and host it on a different IP and different Whois details to bolster my rankings and claim it was done by my competitor to take me out when Google tanks me.
Or vise-versa, register a domain in my competitors name and throw hidden links at him in Widgets to take him out. Not all webmasters are clued up on SEO, i know many who have a strong and profitable business that wouldn't even know how to go about determining their backlink count. However taking them out of Google would ruin not just their business but also their lives.
This has no doubt hurt JustSayHi a lot, and sure Oatmeal is a really smart guy who has the ability to bounce back.. But not everyone has this ability.
For the love of God Matt, aren't the algo's smart enough to just "devalue" links in situations such as this instead of wiping the floor with the site? If anything this would be +1 for Google because people manipulating the SERP's won't be aware they are toiling away at something that is not effective.
Thanks for the transparency on this post. It's a fascinating peek behind the curtain of a genius fiend's toolkit, LOL.
Your right Linda, I think we all forget the great transparency we are all getting here.
Linda,
I second your comment and am glad that you made the observation and statement regarding Matt Inman's generosity in sharing a very difficult challenge in a rather detailed and humbling manner.
It's noteworthy to understand that simply revealing the mechanics of his widget link-baiting tactics, in the scope of things, is simply one small element of his success, and the "true genius" as it were, is Matt's incredible knack in developing extremely creative quizzes that aim dead center at striking a chord that compels his target audience to act in the manner he wishes - in boatloads.
Hats off to you Matt. Truly remarkable stuff.
You post about widgets while I am hiking through a desert!!! Arghhh.
I have like two seconds to write this, here we go.
Widgets have to follow the guidelines too. Relevant links are okay on widgets just like they are okay on websites.
I will be speaking on this very issue at WidgetWebExpo in New York in a session called "Widgets and SEO"
The quizzes, are spam with the intention of manipulating a websites value to a search engine.
Matt your route with this is....
interact via quizzes... get links.. do well in search engines... get customers...
Using widgets and those very same quiz type tatics would be fine if your route was....
interact via quizzes... get customers via direct traffic.
That simple change of thought is the answer.
You already have the power to use quizzes and get people to use badges. Sweet!
Now use that power to interact with your desired customers directly.
Sorry this is short, I have better clearer things to say and I will try to get in touch with you Matt when I can.
Direct traffic works! really. I have millions of visits from clean, topical links in gadgets.
Widgets are not a magic bullet for links.
They are a way to get your product in front of your targeted customers.
Big difference.
PS - Hello everyone, I am still alive and no rattlesnakes have eaten me. I am about 150 miles up the trail.
I saw your commenting in my email and that was the first thing I thought... hey aren't you camping in the wilderness
step away from the blackberry
Patrick - thanks for the quick reply. I hope you're doing well on your crazy hiking adventure - try not to get beaver-fever :)
Matt apart from the Google impact how are the sites doing in Yahoo and Microsoft... guessing they are okay with it
MS we don't rank for anything, but in y! we're still doing really well.
LOL - only widgets could get Patrick off the mountain, even if for a moment. Hope you get a chance to write a post on the subject (or someone liveblogs your presentation).
Happy Trails, man! Hope to see you in Seattle.
This could be like some kind of SEO Bible quote or something. Or maybe a Chinese proverb.
OK then by feedthebot logic all link baiting is not allowed.
Yeah but the conversion rate for traffic for a person coming via a search engine I'm sure is MUCH higher than someone bored and tinkering with a widget game...
Wow, I was very against using widget links to promote third party sites like payday loans but to get an email from Google saying that links back to the widget source is against the rules is a bad idea on Google part.
Did Google even OK the "Created by OnePlusYou" links? Sounds like theya re taking a stance against any use of links in widgets despite the fact that they themselves have GCSE search box widgets that link back to their site.
Google is determined to make any scalable link building process blackhat. It won't be long before all off topic linkbait, including articles, is considered linkspam.
Reading through all the great comments, I still can't figure one thing out: "Who decides what's relevant and helpful?" If you make it clear to a webmaster that the widget contains a link to a certain site and the webmaster still thinks that's a great widget to use and credit the creator, who is entitled to argue the helpfullness and relevance of the link?
As the matter of fact, this is not manipulating the rankings, these are links based on the quality of the content (in this case, content=widget), so I see this as a completely legimate technique (if legimeate link building as a phrase makes any sense at all).
If content = chiropractor site & widget = Ubuntu Zombies who *heart* Apple q= how the **** is that relevant?
Creativity does not always = relevance; just ask the TV ad industry
Doesn't mean I agree with the ban, but it's the question that is causing all the problems.
What's exactly relevance? The word is too vague to base any algorithm on it... Again, who tells what's relevant and what's not?
Your example is a bit extreme... I was talking in general, not just about the case...
@ ann:
"What's relevance? And who tells what's relevant and what's not?"
reminds me of a Supreme Court decision around regulating what they thought was "unsavory" content:
In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart tried to explain "hard-core" pornography, or what is obscene, by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be [pornography]... but I know it when I see it... "
i think that's about as much of a response as we can ever expect from google....
Ciaran - I agree that your example seems not relevant for any sensible definition of relevant. The problem is that (part of) Google's definition of relevant is defined by links - for which it is 'relevant'. I'm wondering if the link graph model / page rank model is not irretrievably broken. The more links that are not 'counted' the more distorted the model becomes. The perfect example here is wiki links that send loads of traffic (hence contributing to the underlying probabilistic view of pagerank) but are nofollowed so are not contributing to algorithmic pagerank...
My main problem with this entire situation is that while relevance has been a contentious point regarding linkbait for quite some time, we were always led to believe that irrelevance wasn't frowned upon. Maybe it wouldn't help as much, but you'd never be banned or penalised for linking to a student loans company with a quiz about what your coffee preference says about your personality.
I believe that soon, if not right now, all the irrelevant linkbait in the world won't make much of a positive difference, especially after this public debate. I've always encouraged the idea of creating relevant linkbait: it's more difficult, but most worthwhile things are.
However, in as much as funny SEO videos don't make you a better doctor, neither do funny doctor videos. Text, links, etc would display many of the right keywords and signs of relevance, but in the end, the content would be no indication of the quality of the business. Determining relevance at that sort of level would / will be an impressive accomplishment on the part of search engines.
In closing, I am using IE7 at a family member's house and thus the comment box is in the wrong part of the screen and I can't see the comment to which I was replying anymore. It also won't drag down. Thus I'm not sure what my original point was. But I have learned one thing: we need to fix the comments in IE, and I'm scared to download Firefox after watching the circus that was Danny and Rand's site review at SMX Sydney.
cutting through the rethoric as usual Jane... I too thought irrelevance was not frowned upon just not scored as high...
guess we really don't need standards just the ever shifting rules of the game Google sets
"Ubuntu Zombies who *heart* Apple"
hahah...oh my that is brilliant.
So when can we expect the widget & can I have some of the links?
I think beer commercials doting hot women should be cut down in air time because the girls aren't relevent to beer in a literal sense... At least that seems to be Google's logic...
I think I found the problem here! If we take a look at Matt's SEOmoz profile we find the following: "Oatmeal's favorite thing about SEO: making google my bitch"...
Relevancy? Well is it relevant for SEOmoz to rank for "oatmeal"??
Your point... so good, it almost hurts.
@Jane
On the other hand, the last time my daughter asked for "Oatmeal", I said "I'm sorry honey, he's busy building links". ;)
LOL! Thanks Sean. ;-)
Man it took a long time to get to the bottom of this page. I like oatmeal's last idea. Nothing spammy about politely asking people to give you a link right? I believe the Widget Standards Committee would endorse this method.
This is really sad - decision of Google may be governed by their own interest but decision of Matt and other people from JustSayHi to actually move to a new domain due to so called Google penalty has disastrous consequences - not only for SEOs but for all businesses in general.
You cannot govern your business decisions based on some other company that doesn't give crap about your business.
Will it makes sense for Cadbury to change its name if Walmart decides to ban Cadbury because they are being very successful in getting out there?
Or, Do you recommend BMW should have changed its name when Google decided to blacklist them?
If above argument is absurd, so is JustSayHi's decision.
Key is to diversify - you have 500,000 registered users and you are brilliant at creating creative and unique widgets. They are over 500,000 backlinks, so you have created a significant brand for yourself.
You should be thinking about what alternate sources of traffic can be used to grow your website -
1) Should you buy other dating sites?
2) Should you be partnering with sites where they get teen traffic and drive referral traffic to yourself?
3) How can you personalize the site and experience and use email as a marketing tool to drive another 10 million users?
I am sure if you have 10 million users, Google will re-index you and not only re-index, most of the bloody googlers will be on your site finding dating partners.
4) Get on Oprah/TV shows and reach larger audience.
5) Do you have a product to sell - if so, build a big affiliate channel.
6) If you have a revenue, do SEM - Google will definitely take your money then.
7) Have banner ads on every bloody property on the web - ever seen Chevrolet ads or, classmates.com or, amazon.com
8) Keep going until you have > 10M users and you are in top 100 websites. Then, file for re-inclusion.
Again, I personally feel that JustSayHi's approach to move to a new domain instead of finding alternate source of traffic and grow their websites is a very short sighted approach.
Sorry to be too harsh !!!
Rajat
PS:I am not condoning spamming but I am not in favor of changing businesses for sake of Google either.
I accept that it's Google's index and as such they have the ultimate power to decide who to index and who not to, BUT with such power comes responsibility.
My view would be that Google have a responsibility to be more transparent - if we accept that they have the right to make the rules, then they must accept that it is their responsibility to make the rules as clear and transparent as possible.
It seems very unfair to smackdown a site for 'being evil' if they have not adequately explained what 'evil' is.
I also think that it's worrying that they are talking about dealing out a further smackdown to a new site - essentially on the basis of past behaviour. Particularly when it seems to me that they still haven't provided a clear enough definition of what the rules are.
Great debate :)
BUT with such power comes responsibility.
spiderman spiderman, my friendly neighbourhood... oh wait. oops.
Hannah you are right, responsibility is key - its just that they see their need to disclose different to what the SEO world does.
BUT with such power comes responsibility.
spiderman spiderman, my friendly neighbourhood... oh wait. oops.
Hannah you are right, responsibility is key - its just that they see their need to disclose different to what the SEO world does.
I know, but the reference just seemed sooooo appropriate :)
Why not Truth, Justice and the American Way....
is far more overly Geeky
Don't fret about the Spider Man analogy.
Matt Cutts has actually used the spiderman analogy before, as he did during this interview I taped at Pubcon last year.
I also used it in a piece about a year ago on whether Google is Too Powerful
I think that generally widgets are, by their very nature, likely to be irrelevant.
I feel that Matt (who I think deserves serious kudos for coming over hear and trying to respond, even if I don't really buy the response) is between the proverbial rock & a hard place when it comes to linkbait; whether of the widget variety or otherwise.
As soon as you get into the world of creative marketing, you are probably moving away from relevance. You're kind of moving into the world of brand advertising.
I've heard that there's a nifty tag called the meta keyword; that might be a good thing for Google to base its rekevance assessment on. Just a thought.
SEO Woman
I think the question of how related the widget is to online dating is an interesting point and part of what we need deliniation from Google about. Is the issue the anchor text, the viral nature of the widgets or the degree to which the quizzes are about online dating.
The current site that ranks #1 for Online Dating is OK cupid. They use quizzes & widgets and are far more aggressive about adding links with anchors. I created a comparison between the OnePlusYou & OK Cupid badge/widgets.
Compare Widgets
While I respect the cynics who say that Google won't make clear rules because they want to smack down anyone who is too successful (I make that argument myself) I think that the Google Spam team is essentially isolated from commercial considerations. They are true believers and their job is actually easier when the rules are spelled out.
PS. Full Disclosure, OnePlusYou is one of my clients. I was hired after this episode to assist with IA and analytics, but I have been involved in the recent reinclusion discussions.
What last comment and then I'm hopefully done.
Matt - I like how you came along and made an awesome post to get lots of Mozpoints to put a (probably brief) pause in Sean's climbing through the SEOmoz rankings.
I know you're probably long since removed from caring about your rankings and moz points - but I like seeing Sean have to work at it.
And if I know him even a litle - I think he likes the challenge as well.
LOL, Sean is an animal but I think SEOSmarty is the one to watch out for . . . she hasn't been on SEOmoz very long and she is climbing the SEOmoz ranks very quickly!!
Heads up Sean!
Payne
hehe... nah, I am out of the competition :) at some point I figured I didn't have time for work because of this game. Now I am mostly reading without commenting...
I'm still confused.
We are postulating about link relevency, yet how relelvent is a MySpace feeder site's widgets that rank for Werewolves (noting misspell), <a href="https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENZZ268&q=what+species+of+warewolf+are+you+%28pics%29&btnG=Search">what species of warewolf are you</a> and it ranks #4 for "Warewolf". So just MySpace quiz sites can use this type of linkbait, and how relevant is it truly? Is it really more relevant than Oatmeal's? This is getting to be totally subjective. Where is the objectivity?
That a "currency convertor widget" is (semantically and contentwise) more relevant to a financial website than a dating website is clear. But what I don't understand is that Matt does not like widgets with offtopic links on one hand, but on the other hand promotes offtopic linkbaiting on his own blog (David Klein's story on: https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/whitehat-seo-tips-for-bloggers/). So, where's that invisible line that we shouldn't cross?
berti - this has always been my point.
PANIC! WE'RE ALL DOOMED! OHNOZ! ;)
I was just submitting a reinclusion request and ran across this line of text:
Yup. As Jim and others mentioned above, Google thinks we're all spammers.
However, there was an obvious error. I have corrected it below:
EDIT: Go see for yourself: Google Reconsideration Request
Well said.
evidence of good faith = pray
We may need to provide more evidence than whom, exactly? I'm willing to bet that anyone who knows how to get as far as filing a reinclusion request is at least aware of what SEO is. I wonder who these people are who don't have to provide "more evidence of good faith," whatever that may be.
Good to hear from you Matt.
I think you're biggest mistake was getting your tactics published. If your didn't talk about it in a blog post, or get covered by that news site, I think you're still be ranking today.
Oh yeah, the payday loan thing was bad too. :-)
Anyways, you're a rockstar so you'll figure something new out.
Thanks David. I agree that the biggest mistake was going after those spammy payday loan keywords. it was my first and last foray into eating spam-sandwiches.
Truthfully, I didn't blog very much about my tactics, I tried to keep it on the DL (for the most part). Most of the negative press stemmed from a blogger at the Guardian who got upset when a payday loan link was embedded in the widget code HTML.
And I think that the Guardian thing is the whole reason that this has carried on so long. One of the most read papers (by the media/tech sector) in one of Google's most important markets? And they won't let it go? Who'd a thunk it?
Google is a business. They will do whatever it takes to protect their business model. That means not allowing anyone to manipulate their results. If scalable methods for ranking in organic searches exist (think paid links/networks) Google will move to stop them. Organic placement has a much greater ROI so successful, scalable methods divert budgets away from paid advertising. Those are the only rules.
It's all about staying under the radar.
Sure they are free to do what they want. It is their SERP and their website, but this is what confuses the hell out of website owners. When one is allowed to get away with such things and one is not.
New title for this post:
SEOmoz Gone Wild
I don't even remember what we are talking about now.
I have not created a widget myself for over a year because I thought that Google had all ready devalued links from widgets.
Judging from Oatmeal's post - I was wrong.
If you put yourself in Matt Cutt's shoes, does he pull down the widget algo lever all the way to the floor now?
Or does Mr. Cutts create an algo to detect what makes a relevant widget link?
I hope Mr. Cutts picks the last choice.
Matt is passionate about spam and if you get busted doing something you shouldn't and you knew better when you did it . . . may god (and the devil) have mercy on you.
There is a big difference between an honest mistake and knowing damn well what you were doing when you did it. It's a matter of trust in the future activities.
Ignorance isn't bliss but it's much easier to forgive if someone didn't know what they were doing was wrong. Clearly Oatmeal has significant background in SEO and significant understanding of what he was doing.
I see Google's point. Oatmeal just has to find a way to come up with a solution to regain the 70% of search engine referral traffic he lost. This probably means doing something a bit desperate if his direct approach with Google didn't work.
It's a slippery slope . . . and a bad situation to be in. I feel for Oatmeal.
"Our reconsideration request was truthful but not as forthcoming as it might have been."
I'll just highlight this point. If your reconsideration request gets a personal reply from me, it's safe to assume that I'm paying close attention to that situation. If that's the case, I recommend being very careful to be clear when communicating.
A reconsideration request that is technically true but leaves out what we consider to be vital details comes across to us as "Maybe they don't know about these other domains, so let's not mention them." That's why we recommend to provide as much information as possible when requesting reconsideration.
That doesn't answer the question about what is acceptable widget use and what isn't. Any chance we can get that clarified?
Jeremy, I'll try to post on that at some point, but clearly some widgets are less helpful than others. When you wrote about this back in January: https://www.xuru.com/linkbait-gone-spam/ , I think you made a pretty good point that "Find Ultrasound technician schools near you" with the link going to https://www.medical-assistant-training-schools.org/ultrasounddiagnosticschools.htm is not that helpful, and that a zombie apocalypse widget has very to do with payday loans. If you were trying to promote your ultrasound technician school, you probably wouldn't think it was fair if a competing site ranked highly only on the basis of widgets.
And Loren at https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-loves-transparent-links-hit-counter-spam/5615/ made another really good point when he called up people that had installed widgets and asked them if they knew that they were linking in such a way. One person replied "I had no idea - I looked for a free counter and placed it on the site - how did you find out that it linked to jerks?… I have removed the counter from my site including (I hope) all the html they provided to paste on my site for the counter, thank you for pointing this out."
Are you suggesting that Google places a level of value on the "helpfulness" of widgets as it relates to the site it is being linked to?
I guess what they are saying is - "stop getting shed loads of links for being clever"
I agree... slow and steady is not the best approach but may just be the Google approach... do anything that is viral, smart and has big impact quickly on Google and they may see it as a potential threat to the purity of the algorithm and just drop you
as a one on one case the plusyou effort should not have been penalized on its own... so once you take the step over the line you seem to be forever doomed
Sean,
Probably not in their algorithm. But by the time you are getting a manual review by Matt Cutts himself . . . hell, yeah. The goal is to never let it get that far.
Brent D. Payne
I wonder how this "helpfulness" is algorithmically calculated...
a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down.
I thinks its the Marry Poppins Algo.
another great insight... I used to own a chimney sweep company... maybe I will get a boost from Mary
It sounds like being a smart and ethical marketer does not pay off as far as Google is concerned. And unlike the real world can it be surmised that search engineers are Google are trying to remove the elements of logic that allow competition to be uneven?
It sounds like a load of huey to me.
Thank you, that post will be helpful.
I personally have no problem with widgets / badges linking back to the originating site, no matter what type of site it is. If someone takes a quiz on a Payday loan site and then want to host the badge which points back to where their own users can also take the same quiz, yes I do think that is helpful irregaurdless if it's a zombie quiz or a money management quiz. It is my opinion that technique should be fine. The linking to a third party site is where I see the problem.
I don't think a competitor not feeling his competition is fair should be part of the conversation when talking about spam fighting.
"I don't think a competitor not feeling his competition is fair should be part of the conversation when talking about spam fighting."
I agreed with your comment until this part... The whole point of Google is to give all the sites a fair shot at getting a top position in the SERPS and in this case, a superior dating site could have been pushed down due to a gimmick... In the end, it would turn into a widget war for top ranks across the board... This was not, I'm sure, how Google originally intended ranking to be factored - by the viral success of each site's widget schemes!
I think you really need to keep that relativity in the link myself. If you are using a quizz on a dating site in the widget and it links to a loans site that is just bad wether link 'strength' is brought into it or not.
That comes down to userability, yes the maker of the software deserves backlinks for things like 'widget creator' etc but no way a user should be clicking a link from there and getting a loan site.
Thats just not the expected outcome for the viewer and therefore shouldnt have any benefits on the dating site unless linking back to something relevant.
That still leaves enough choices. to link clearly back to 'widget creator' or to another quizz site or indeed to another dating site. (and still more reletive options)
I know relevance can sometimes be conjecture but sometimes they cleary are not.
Yes utilise these tools and linkbait but use them in the right way so that both receiver is actually deserving of them and the user might appreciate it. (usually those two thinsg go hand in hand)
Matt, with the greatest respect in the world, this is rubbish.
As soon as you praised a chiropractor who created some linkbait based around SEO, you left the door open for off-topic linkbait which I think, as Rand certainly knows, is a cryummy way of judging relevance for SERPs.
Now Danny would probably point out that the SEO links are unlikely to help the chiro rank for back pain, in which case your advice is likely to encourage people to do things that aren't actually going to be of benefit. Either way it doesn't really help.
I really appreciate that you aren't an official spokesperson when you write on your blog, and that you give up huge amounts of time to help webmasters, but think that in this area you really can't have your cake & eat it too. Either off-topic linkbait is fine, or it's not.
Cheers
Edited for typos. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Either off-topic linkbait is fine, or it's not.
Can the court please rule?
Quite the contrary. The site-wide authority gained from a high number of links provides a strong foundation for a site to rank for any term they wish:
(i.e. SEOmoz ranking for "Oatmeal" and a gazillion other terms that havew nothing to do with SEO)
I tend to agree, but in Sydney Danny disagreed with me (& Rand) when this point was raised in a discussion on this very subject (it's a bit of a bug-bear of mine)
writing controversial articles seems to be a good way of getting links... when will they be considered linkbait and have the same fate?
Here's one to chew on... don't really need ranking for that blog
https://www.smart-keywords.com/
I've been thinking about my comment a lot, and have decided that I was slightly OTT. Calling Matt's comments rubbish, whilst pretty mild, was still slightly disrespectful considering the fact that he took the time to come over here.
This doesn't mean that I have in any way changed my mind with regards to the fact that this is a mess which, in many ways, is unfortunately down to some advice that Matt has given in the past, just that there was no need for me to act like a spoilt child. Sorry Matt - no disrespect intended.
That's all really, carry on.
ciaran, I dont think anyone disrespects Matt - we are all aware that he doesnt actually make the policies there - but I guess most people get wound up (including me) when he gives a bit of a vague response - and not one directly to the real question being asked.
On the other hand he did an excellent job of getting Gabs question answered last week...
"A reconsideration request that is technically true but leaves out what we consider to be vital details comes across to us as "Maybe they don't know about these other domains, so let's not mention them."
And just as equally, what about a reconsideration request that leaves out what you think are vital details but the webmaster in question has no idea about.
Maybe people would try and slide things by, but a permanent ban in this case seems undeserved. It's not like JustSayHi wasn't relevant for online dating. Or did e-harmony start complaining ;)
eHarmony doesn't need Google... they're index by God!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Clark_Warren
WOW! How did he get into wikipedia? Oatmeal should be in wiki hehe
I guess what I don't understand - and what Google/Matt doesn't seems to have answered is - "How can it possibly be that a free online dating related widget with backlink anchor text "Free Online Dating", is "the same off-topic widget tricks all over again on another site".This sounds like more of a witch hunt than a fair assessment of ethical link building tactics.
Clearly, Matt Inman has been super-effective to the tremendous benefit of SEOmoz, JustSayHi, and many other sites; with highly relevant link baiting tactics that have previously been deemed acceptable.
What gives here? Am I missing something?
I think the only part you're missing is that the new widgets in question are not online dating related (https://www.oneplusyou.com/q). That at least explains the "off-topic" part.
That said, I still think OnePlusYou is being punished unfairly. There's nothing inherently wrong with publishing something off-topic. (Hello, cat posts. *cough*)
Plus, the new widget code includes disclosure:
Please Note: The HTML code above contains a link to OnePlusYou's homepage that looks like this: Created by OnePlusYou
@seowoman - I gotcha. I guess where I disagree with Google is that these widgets are "social oriented" and although not directly related to online dating, they certainly fall within the social realm and the kind of light-hearted and fun content you might find in that sector.
Brilliant point! Well if you look at it THAT WAY, his widgets ARE quite on topic...
Edit: Especially if you consider seeing a zombie movie or beating up 5 year olds to be a fun first date idea that is free ahhaa
Matt since you are now subscribed to the comment cause you commented - can you kind of shed some light on the issue above?
Are we not allowed to used anchor text when baiting via widgets?
I loved the idea when you wrote about linkbait, but it seems Matts company is being penalised for what we though was honest to goodness white hat seo...
In other words, if you get busted for doing something, come completely clean. Honesty and trust is way more important to the gods at Google that are thinking about letting you go to the Google Dance again. Assume they know everything you did.
Payne
"Honesty and trust is more important to the gods at google"?!
I'd agree with this statement, in that honesty is the best policy and transparency and white hat is the way to go. And that honesty from us might be important to Google - but its a two way street...
Because: When a company becomes the size and power of Google (monopoly?) There will be some honest people there (matt!) but there is a temptation to sometimes think as gods ("I work for google" or "i'm smarter than u" or "i know the real deal") and thus angered by anything that contradicts them or is seen to ignore them (blackhat/greyhat/re-using the widgets). Thus an unwillingness to compromise online - then again scalability of rules doesnt allow much flexibility on this.
Following the interesting article on Google + Expedia and my own experiences with large companies on the web, trust and honesty can quickly get thrown out of the nearest airlock when dealing with big companies and million $ budgets (or the potential for them) and from both sides of the equation.
I'm not saying Google's Evil - unlike some - as I think they're a good company overall, I just think they could provide some more guidance to us to avoid mistakes such as the above.
PS this is not a bash at google.
But regarding the widgets in question, i think anything in the industry of payday loands, dating etc. HAS to be whiter than white due to the sheer volume of spam in that industry.
And the sheer volume of links and success of the widgets could of been seen as spam - afterall like any game of poker you need to know when to walk away from the table :)
Also if one of the sistercompanies in a portfolio asked for links of that nature i'd of said "tough sheep" as it risks my zone of responsibiliy.
honesty and trust.... this is business forget about those being in the equation
I'm sad to hear you feel that way. I can't disagree with that more... Unless, of course, you are inferring that these are rare qualities the you practice but see too many leave behind...? Personally, I think honesty is a great business tactic... And should be used by all...
Did you have any way of tracking how many people did the quiz and then added the widget? If so, what was the average rate?
I doubt anyone would go through the trouble of coding that... the proof is in the rankings...
There are so many shades of gray to this issue, that is why this post is so interesting.
My guess is nothing new will be added to the Webmaster Guidelines, you will just have to listen very carefully to how Matt Cutts words his post on this subject in the future.
That is what makes this SEO stuff so much fun for me - it is a moving target that keeps you guessing (kinda like my favorite show Lost).
Matt Cutts is to SEO and Webmastering what Ben Bernanke is to the U.S. Financial Markets. Every little word is parsed and interpreted until people read into it what they want to read into it.
Matt Cutts as the SEO chairman of the Google Open Market Committee. I love it.
Sorry, Matt, you know I have a lot of respect for you, but I think you have just been given a nickname that will stick.
What do you think, Mozers, it he "Mr. Chairman"?
hmm if its a moving target, the best way to shoot is to aim just in front (depending on speed) and SEO & Google move fast, so no wonder its tricky to get SEO White and not too grey or black hat!
I have to admit, for awhile I was sorta jealous of your widget wizardry. Now, it seems like maybe slow and steady wins the race? I do think Google is penalizing your second site unfairly. I hope they'll re-think that.
You know what i hate about this whole mass commenting. Cutts makes his usual superficial comment that really does not answer a heck a lot (especially the question by Oatmeal about if the second dating site will be hit or not). Anyhow my point is 80 people respond. 60 of them are classic SEO Death threats (exaggeration) to Cutts and 20 of them are legit questions. Just ask the legit questions instead of dropping 11 thumb downs like a firing squad so the man would bother to come back with some kind of a feedback instead of dropping meaningless bomb shells and running away
I get what you're saying, but honestly, I think Matt C. can take far worse than what we're dishing out here. This is practically a tea party.
All kidding aside, this whole situation stinks of United States antitrust violation, and from my perspective exposes Google to a potential class action lawsuit.
Google is arbtitrarily making inconsistent and biased judgements - to the benefit of some and detriment of others.
Collectively there are hundred of millions and perhaps billions of dollars at stake. This is not an issue isolated to online dating, but rather one that traverses a wide range of companies, industries and geographies.
Lest anyone think I'm being overly dramatic here; I have seen companies lose significant lawsuits for far lesser offenses (i.e. Intel vs AMD), and can assure you that just because it's Google's business, doesn't mean they have the right to act with prejudice in favor of bigger Adsense spending customers like Match, eHarmony, etc., to the harsh and unfair detriment of others like Matt Inman & Co, that have discovered and fairly exploited other more efficient means of garnering traffic, business transactions and ultimately - revenue and profit. The time will soon come when Google will need to defend these types of actions in the court of law.
Personally, I'd be shocked to see Matt Cutts comment again on this thread in any meaningful manner for this very reason.
"Google is arbtitrarily making inconsistent and biased judgements - to the benefit of some and detriment of others."
Spot on. The unspoken yet clear common thread in most of the comments on this post is the underlying assumption that somehow Google is or should be honest and honorable in its dealings. Perhaps this is because it is always taking the moral high ground with the rest of us. But is it a resonable assumption? Consider:
- Google's loyalty is utlimately to its shareholders, and not to anyone else
- Google's purpose in life is to create shareholder value, not to help people find things. Helping people find things is only relevant to the extent that it promotes shareholder value. Naturally, helping people find paying customers of Google will boost shareholder value more than helping them find what they are looking for.
- There is a pattern of identifying both individuals and corporations (rather than domains) that represent a threat to this objective, and penalizing them permanently. Clearly Google is prepared to abuse its monopoly position in an effort to impede the success of any person or company that threatens its shareholder value.
- When Google disables an AdSense account, they do not reveal why they did so and they keep all the money. Even the money that may have been earned before the alleged and unspecified offense.
- When Google slaps an AdWords account, it is the account, not the ads or landing pages that get slapped. I know of a perfect A/B case where identical ads to the same landing pages had minimum bids of $0.50 and $5 on two different accounts. It is clear that the slapped account had a lingering penaly despite Google support's insistence that only the quality score counted in the minimum bid.
These do not sound like the actions of a squeaky clean honorable company.
As for antitrust, Google represents a far greater danger to everyone than Microsoft ever did, yet how often do you hear the words "monopoly", "abuse" or "antitrust" associated with them? It is as though everyone accepts that they own the Internet, there is nothing we can do about it, and besides who really cares?
Fantastic Response. I have been thinking this same thought everytime I hear somebody say:
"It's Google's index, they can do what they want with it."
In fact, they can do what they want with it clear up until the point that they run afoul of anti-trust regulators.
Wow -
What a great thread. I should be working but I can't stop reading. Matt, I've been following your widget mastery since July of 2007, right around the time mingle2.com landed on page 1. I was blown away, and felt a little jealous at times, too.
With your skills; the ability to write code, design, write copy - skills that often require a team to do what you can do alone, I'm sure you'll bounce back. I look forward to seeing what is next.
Wow, it's a good thing Google doesn't own the Internet or anything. /sarcasm
With a stroke of one-way communicative genius, Google can ruin your financial life and drive you into Bankruptcy. I see it happen all of the time. Companies coming to me, panicked. Their 20 employee business just got penalized from Google for 'unknown' reasons and as usual, Google gives no response.
Never thought I'd say this about the 'dont be evil folks' but Google needs to be BROKEN UP and DISMANTLED.
No one company should have such power over people's lives.
Google does.
I have been testing a new video editing technique and thought it would be fun to apply a little focus on this blog post with my latest video spoof on off-topic link bait.
So the basic question still goes unanswered. Why would you be penalized the second time? I agree with what others have said. If you admit you did wrong, but have found a viable option for gaining traffic all the while allowing the users to remove those links where is the harm?
I agree with the thought that Matt (oatmeal) found away to do things better than Google would like us to be able to do. It's like Google is saying "We want you to expand your engineering but don't do something that we can't monitor."It worries me that a purely subjective thing like if this widget is relevant to my site can be determined by Google. Isn't one of the points of a widget to gain traffic from a non traditional source? What about widgets that live on sites like youtube? Those widgets couldn't possibly relate to each aspect of a social site.
Excellent discussion, but its 1 am here on the east coast.
Another point that I dont think is very clear is that Googe is simply not that good at catching this kind of stuff unless it is clearly broght to their attention as in Inman's case. That is why this mythical double standard seems to exist where some sites get away with it and other dont.
I think in Google's eyes they would like no one to do it, but it is just to hard to catch everyone.
Sorry I am late to this very interesting party . . .
This is what I would do if you can't beg for Google's forgiveness and get a second chance and you still want to make the site a success . . .
Keep your current site live. Setup a seperate company, domain, IP block, and I'd go as far to keep your AdWords and all other Google account information seperate (for future proofing reasons, not necessarily today).
Then I'd change the privacy policy on your site, send out a letter to your users and give them a good reason why you are starting a sister site--the truth is always the cleanest. Include that their information will be searchable on the other site and that the other site will be searching the information on the current site. It's a bit of a mess brand identity-wise but it's better than the alternative. But I am a guy that has worked for 3 companies now that have multiple online identities, so grain of salt perhaps.
You'll have to pick a different domain than what you have just told Google about and I'd keep my mouth shut about what it is in public forums because it is obvious that Google is irritated as hell at you. Keep in mind that Google doesn't have to do anything. They pick and choose who is and isn't in their index. If Matt doesn't feel this is passing the Google Quality bar then . . . so be it. I get a kick out of people that think Google MUST include them. No they don't. They don't have to include anyone in THEIR index.
It'll take Google quite a while to find your new domain as being associated with your old one and if they do, have another site ready to pop-up and do a lather-rinse-repeat.
Is my suggestion black-hat? I call it survival in the Google index at this point. You pissed them off (rightfully so in my opinion) and now they don't want you in their index (not necessarily rightfully so, but 100% their call to make). So, out of necessity you are getting more black hat to stay alive in their index. This is what happens when one search engine owns 70% of search referral traffic. People get desperate when they get banned.
Whatever you do though, keep your customers first and STOP listening to whichever boss it was that told you to do the spammy links in your widgets.
BTW, I did something similiar with Amazon.com with their UGC content a few years back. (I can generate tens of thousands of product reveiws in minutes and they look very legite unless you look at all of them at once.) I am still BEGGING for reinclusion in their Amazon Associates program. I lost $60K per year (a lot when you only put an hour or so a week into it) and totally screwed up my business plan for LyricVault.com considering the entire site was built for Amazon's affiliate program. The funniest thing about all of it is that nobody at Amazon complained when I did the exact same thing on other sites back in 2001 and got them ranking #1 - #3 for nearly every digital camera on the market and consistantly #1 for the flash memory that went in those cameras. They were singing praises about me in company wide meetings. Funny how things change though when they are the tool versus the recipient. ;-)
BlackHat is a drug . . . be VERY careful and respect it. You just got an MIP . . . that will stick with you forever now.
Brent D. Payne
Nevermind... I almost let myself get drawn into this...
I love how I got thumbs down for editing my post and deciding not to get involved. For the record, people like those who thumbed it down are the biggest reason our industry is so ass backwards and CLUELESS at times.
I don't know who gave you thumbs down for it, but after reading the page alll the way down to your comment, I laughed because I understood completely.
And yes, you got a thumbs up even though your original was gone.
on the plus side, rae, you now have 14 thumbs up by my count right now on these 2 comments alone. with 4 thumbs down that gives you a total of 10 thumbs up for basically saying nothing.
it must be your charm!
To be fair I think one of the down-thumbs was from me and was a result of not paying attention whilst browsing & clicking through the comments - which tends to back up your backwards/clueless argument, so I'll shut up now.
please get involved... I will listen to you
I feel this headline is a bit misleading. Not all widgets are evil.
Look... If it feels like you're doing the wrong thing... it probably is. Let's stop kidding ourselves. That's the reason why my ScratchBack widget was designed both nofollow and javascript on purpose, 6 months before anyone from Google came out admitting a penalty on text link gaming.
This is a great post, but I think there's some confusion from this... that if your site, "XYZFarmFresh" sells "apples" online, and you use the appropiate keyword, "apples" in your anchor text, then why would this be unacceptable to Google?
This could lead to "XYZFarmFresh", using a domain such as "ILoveApples.com", just to use the "apples" anchor text... which has the implication to lead to far more spammy domains full of trickery.
No?
I think the problem Google has with the widgets is that they are completely off topic from online dating, but contain the online dating keyword in them.
If you sell "apples", build an apple widget, and link to your apple site using apple keywords, I think you are okay.
It is when you sell apples, build a pear widget, and link to your apple site using apple keywords that Google begins to take notice.
They want the anchor text of the links actually related to the nature of the link. I don't believe they mind so much that the widget is off-topic, but don't want you getting topic-related links based on it. The keywords of your link should be about the topic of the linkbait or the name of your site for Google to approve.
I completely agree!
Brent D. Payne
Yeah and goofy elves are relevant to Office Max.
As Calamier posted, this is a very popular post yet not a single comment from Rand.
I'm curious about what he would have to say regarding this subject.
Where in the world is Rand? :)
He's in australia or new zealand right now, I think.
The three of us are still in New Zealand. He's been reading this (as have I, obviously) but I think he's waiting until he has some time on his hands before he gives us his views on the subject.
Did you bring me back some Vegemite?
I have two jars of Marmite, but I guess you don't want any of that :)
lol... not quite the same
auckland - in some museum ;)
edit for spelling.
Taking bets on rands stance anyone?
Also, not meaning to point you out or anything rebecca but we haven't heard from you either... Also, sarah...it'd be interesting to see how something like this would hold if google were succeptable to some kind of authority on who they keep in their index and who they ban. For example, according to the 'laws' and 'guidelines' currently set forth, logically who do you think would win?
I personally think google's guidelines are FAR to vaugue to even believe they would be explainable.
Disclaimer : I do not suffer under the delusion that this will ever happen.
In a nutshell:
It's a dating site, for christ's sake. What's the problem with zombie, ninja, teenage mutant ninja turtles, whatever widgets for a dating site? I'm a proponent for relevant link bait, but it's not like a mortgage refinancing site or a government site is churning this "off topic" stuff out. Yeah, the payday loan stuff was shady but Matt's since come clean and is trying to start anew with a brand new, non-shady site. For Google to preemptively penalize the new site right off the bat is bullshit.
Rebecca,
I love that you say what you mean and do it with conviction. I really respect that about you.
I may not 100% agree with you but you still got a thumbs up from me.
Brent D. Payne
Not to restate the obvious, but yeah - I think that is the right way to sum it up:
Shame on Matt for trying to cross-link to spam. Lesson learned. We get that.
But the question (to Google) that remains is:
Why on earth is he being preemptively punished on a completely different site where he is being straight up honest about everything and no cross-spamming has occurred?
Is it:
a) because it is off-topic since dating seldom involves being a human shield or surviving on the moon
b) because it is placing links in the widgets unbeknown to the webmasters
c) because he is now on some kind of SEO black list and every future endeavor will be scrutinized more than it would be if he had never erred
d) any, all, and none of the above because Google doesn't want anyone to be able to figure it out
This - to me - seems like a sure case where a firm guideline should be available.
Thanks for the support everyone.
I wanted to clarify one point because I have seen it misinterpretted from Oatmeal's post and I think the nuance is important.
OnePlusYou has not been "Banned" by Google and we can't say for sure they have been penalized. The new site hasn't actually been launched and the spiders haven't been allowed in. There is nothing at the moment for it to rank for.
What Matt said (during a JustSayHi reinclusion discussion) is that he observed the link building activity for OnePlusYou and regarded the widgets as "the same off-topic widget tricks all over again on another site". He suggested that this is evidence of black hat intent.
We have subsequently gone to great lengths to explain the motivation behind OnePlusYou. We do not have any evidence either way as to a Google decision to penalize the new site or whether the explanation about the white hat intent was persuasive.
Agreed! I really think it's almost like a myspace site, google wouldn't penalize myspace for it, and it really is a similar concept.
Rebecca, I agree wholeheartedly.
Two years ago I was reluctantly thrust back into the dating scene after many years.
I personally believe that having a prospective significant other take these tests is paramount to understanding whether they are compatible with you or not.
For example, I wouldn't want my girlfriend giving me a hissy fit if I didn't hesitate to clobber her obviously zombified mother over the head with a baseball bat. It may just be an unscientific litmus test, and call me crazy, but if a girl I'm interested in dating has a zombie apocalypse score of under 28% - thanks, but no thanks.
Same thing if her dead body can satisfy the appetite of more than 11 cannibals. Take that junk in the trunk elsewhere sweetie.
Are you gonna date a guy that can't beat up more than thirteen 5 year olds at once? I don't think so. You know what I'm talking about...
thumbed up for the coffee spill on my desk. :)
seanmag FTW!
Bravo! Very well put :-)
I think you should be recieving a paycheck from SEOmoz.org. If you aren't by now, that's a crime. You add SO MUCH to this blog I swear!
"For Google to preemptively penalize the new site right off the bat is bullshit."
EXACTLY!
I could careless about the first site. They should have been banned, but to demote the second is the real issue for me.
"I ended up building more than 500,000 links using these quizzes and widgets, so I can't exactly issue a recall notice for all those bloggers and website owners to take them down."
What about writing a small crawler to crawl all the inbound links and remove ones falling under the conditions you set? This method is usually used to fight against fake 301 perm redirects that happen daily in mass quantities.
Thanks for the cool and informative post!
Beck
Does this mean that Google may penalize your site if you promote another site on a banner or widget you distrubute to others?
Also what if you use site A to distribute a banner with text links that point to site B and has site B's logo?
Since when did "off topic" or "not helpful" become the definition of "black hat?" Traditionally words similar in meaning to "overt deception" were intrinsically tied to the definition of black hat and spam. If he did not buy the link with cash directly, spam the link, or hack the link into the site or somehow trick the installer in an obvious way, then why call it "black hat?"
What is a "paid link?" Why will the spam never stop?
Last year I addressed this issue on our blog. https://www.adworkz.com/blog/matt-cutts-endorses-paid-link-building/
Ask yourself this question: "What is the internet?" The obvious might come to mind but the internet is not even 1% made up of un-selfserving link voters who are just going around vetting who is worthy of a link or not. That is a naive approach to thinking about the internet. IMO 99% of the entire internet is made up of self-serving sites with commercial intent. The social masses who make up the bulk of the social content are there for self-serving reasons as well. Everything is done with manipulation in mind because that is the basics of human psychology.
If you retweet someone's tweet, is it really out of idealogical self-less purism that you did that for their benefit or is it because you will benefit from it in some way? If you friend someone on Facebook or reshare/like their status update are you doing that out of pure selflessness. Any action taken with the intent of ranking is considered manipulation "spam" according to Stanford professors and other expert spam scientists.
The problem with that definition is it ignores the fact that almost all human interaction is inherently manipulative. Simple example: I have 3 kids who need discipline from time to time. When administered, that is manipulation. It is manipulation as well when I reward them for good behavior. Just because something is maneuvering things in your favor does not make it wrong. It comes down to "how" the manipulation is done. Do I beat my kids? No! But my actions would squarely fall within the definition of "manipulation." That can't be the deciding factor of whether something is spam or not.
manipulate - To move, arrange or operate something using the hands; To influence, manage, direct, control or tamper with something to one’s own advantage; (medicine) To handle and move a body part, either as an examination or for a therapeutic purposehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/manipulate
So the defining issue is "devious intent through deception." Did Oatmeal use any css or javascript tricks to hide the link? Did he lie to the user and say there would be no links? Did he falsely promise them something to leave the link in? Did he lie about the nature of the link? Did he use any form of "deception" that reaches the level of "devious" or "malice?" Can you really assume those who install the link don't look to see how it works on their site/profile, etc. and decide whether or not to take it out once they see the link? Are you kidding me?
I argue that it was not "SPAM" as some here seem to define it as. Every day I see hacked sites, devious WordPress plugins and themes. Scraper and popular aggregator sites rule with there "stolen" content. I see spam bots constantly. I see things that are far more fitting to be define as "spam" then "off topic" voluntary installed links. Until these massive threats are dealt with Google is wasting their time on gulping down the camel while trying to strain the nat.
As a matter of fact, given the circumstances Google is in with the massive flood of completely fraudulent websites profiting from Google directly, this type of link should not be considered a problem to begin with. IMO it is utterly ridiculous for millions of people to be defrauded yearly through their use of Google SERPS to have Google spending all this time and energy trying to define "manipulation" to the umpteen millionth degree while threats exist that could cause their company to fail. Oatmeal getting a "Legit" website ranked with "off topic" link sources is the least of their problems! Wake up and smell the Chinese lead attacks!
P.S. Google should stop infecting the world with porn addiction by showing porn in their image SERPs. Even with strict search turned on, Google, Bing, and Yahoo image and video SERPs currently are the largest single threat to my kids that I have come in contact with. There is more potential harm there then the chances of them getting abducted or molested. When will Google stop selling porn to children in exchange for user profile tracking? Talk about "spam!"
P.S.S. I like Google. Hope this is taken the right way. I really like Android also. :)
This is great info and all, but I think the real question is, how do you PROMOTE these quiz pages?
Do you use facebook ads to get them rolling until they go viral? Pay for a twitter blast to someone that has thousands of followers? What?
This is a great technique, but I wasted 4 straight days making this widget and it just never took off, because I didn't really know how to promote it afterwards
https://www.puffweb.com/calc/smokecalc.html
This was published like 5 years ago but it's still relevant today, but these types of links lost their value, since you need plenty of anchors to rank today.
This is such an interesting article that poses a lot of questions and truly delves into the complexities of widgets and its interplay with SEO. I wrote about widgets as well, but it is interesting to read from another perspective, especially when the article is written from a personal experience in such a comprehensive manner: https://www.searchdecoder.com/widget-marketing-tips/
Google can say all they want that this is wrong but here we are Dec 2011 and they STILL reward the sites that do it, leaving white hat G-believers in the mud.
Google is powerless! Rather than improve the ranking algorithm, they worked hand-filtering, to see all this at a standstill. Google produces maps, tools and browsers, and forgot about the search engine.
ps.
sorry for my english
I agree 100% with pavkam google should educate webmaster in a obviuse way. So site like online dating sites don't go behind the logic.
Ya, I'm months behind! Matt this is some awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!
It seems there is always a new trick to get a head in SEO even in the comeptitive niche such as online dating sites
To be honest I both agree with Google that this is black hat and coupled with the other black hat stuff it certainly warrants penalty.
But it is a bit hypocritical in my view as I have seen many other sites implement such techniques including an MBA site which creates off topic infograhics purely to build links. They rank well and receive no apparent penalty.
Different treatment for different companies.
wow, thank you for the information, its very intriguing
Does this rank as the most comments ever on a seomoz post?
I don't know... lets add another to the toal just in case :)
It's a shot across the bow of the SEO industry, meant to spread through the SEO community & scare away new widgeteers and slow down existing ones. Like the RIAA lawsuits are less about enforcement than they are about spreading a scary message to potential pirates via the media ...
I disagree with that comparison.
Heh, I was just oming back to erase that comment but you got here first. I don't totally repudiate my comment but I just got to the firefox tab I had open with the Guardian article in it - and yeah, THAt was the trigger more than anything I'm sure.
From reading the conversation and article I honestly think this is lax discipline on googles part for not establishing clear guidelines and enforcing them accordingly.
Additionally, i really don't think this is an isolated incident, it just happens to be someone who is very public about it.
When you come up with an on topic widget that your subscribers want to pass around (with or without keyword rich links), google will let the links count.
Well no in this case they are not letting them count metapilot.
Well in this case, the subscribers/members aren't the ones promoting the widget. To be promoted or passed around by the dating service members would mean that widget was relevant and that it show up, for the most part, on sites that the dating service members knew about, frequented, or in some way had a relationship with.
So Google tracks whether the person embedding the widget is looking for love? Wow, please tell me more of this amazing technology. Do they call it DateRank?
Seriously though - should a link to Amazon only count if I have an acct with them? And how exactly is anyone meant to track that?
I would think that with Google doing what Google does so well-- finding, tracking, and organizing thematic relevance--it would have no problem recognizing that the link footprint of a more member-promoted widget looked substantially more theme related than it would in the other case. Google doesn't have to know that they're members of the service, just that the widgets tend to be on more theme-related sites and recieve signals that the widgets are adding value to the theme.
Now that's a slightly more realistic statement than suggesting that it would look at whether members were spreading it (as your first comment suggested). And it would suggest a goodly amount of relevance on the widget's part.
However...(recaps all previous comments)
Wait a minute. How do you know the JustSayHi members aren't promoting the widget? Do you have access to their member database? Their analytics? Why would you assume something like that?
Just a wild guess here, but I'd be willing to bet that a hefty percentage of JustSayHi's community has a MySpace page. Considering that eleventy billion trillion people have a MySpace page, it's statistically likely. And that's exactly where I would slap a Zombie Apocalypse widget.
Off topic : I think you could make a website called "matt-cutts-comments-here.com" and actually get him to comment, could probably make fortune500 in 90 days.
Matt,
Great to hear from you, bro! Sorry to hear that a lot of your hard and inspired work got canned by G, but thanks for sharing your hard-learned lesson.
Good post Matt (Oatmeal),
I will have to agree with Tom_C above comment:
davidmihn - you are right my paid links video had nothing to do with my rental industry. It sounds like Google/Matt is cracking down on this more.
I guess it is time to stop making the silly movies.
I have changed my ways (if Matt Cutts is listening), go to my blog and watch some education videos I have just created that are relevant to my industry.
I am sure this new topic of widgets gone wild will be discuss at lenght at the next SMX conference. Should be an interesting discussion.
Hey Dave, good to see you on here. I think your video was frickin' hilarious & I am all for creativity getting rewarded. I just happen to think that Matt Inman's quizzes are equally creative from an entertainment standpoint & if they link back with good anchor text, so be it.
I would hate for Google to stifle creativity (and I'm sure they don't necessarily intend to). But there should be a way for their algorithm to give an extra bonus to linkbait that is creative AND relevant.
This is already ranked #6 for most popular seomoz post, and is probably on track to steal the #1 spot.
Noooooo! He'll usurp my "Don't spam me" post! *frantically assembles a mass thumb-down brigade*
That was really enjoyable to read.
Hey everyone - one last little thing: I'm leaving on an overseas trip tomorrow morning so I won't be very responsive on email until I get settled. If anyone emails me or comments here and I don't get back to you right away, that's why.
It seems to me that Google's policy is clear, if we keep in mind their basic rule a link should help SERPs only if the link can be seen as an endorsement. Someone who manually links to your dating site from their blog post about dating is an endorsement. But someone who posts a unrelated widget on their site that links to a dating site, regardless of what the anchor text is, can not reasonably be seen as endorsing the dating web site. The "linker" may not even notice that the widget includes a link at the bottom.
If the widget was about dating, and its contents closely mirrored the sort of content found on the dating web site, then it would be reasonable to construe the link from the widget as an endorsement of the content on the web site.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me. No bad intent here but off-topic linkbait is effectively the same as selling links: It's an attempt to manipulate rankings beyond what's relevant.
In the case of the payday loans, I agree with you - not convinced that the fun quizzes are off-topic for a dating site, however.
Good stuff.
The only thing I'd be concerned about with using WidgetBait (I love the term) is that it might be considered by google as a kind of Black Hat. I don't really know for sure, though.
My general rule of thumb is that if an activity to raise, let's say the number of inbound links to your site, doesn't add specific value to a visitor on the web, it might be considered Black Hat.
("Black Hat" means tricks to fool search engines to make a site look more important or "bigger" than it is, but that add value to anyone but the owner of the website that gets the raised estimation. But you probably know that. I just thought I'd mention it).
I wonder does anyone know for sure if Google frowns on WidgetBait or not. I've heard of BMW (maybe BMWUSA.com?) getting blacklisted by Google because they engaged in Black Hat activities. Another example was SEOinc.com that got knocked dow a few pegs for such behavior. At least, that was what I heard.
Just a thought.
Liam ScanlanSiteLeads.net
If Google's goal is to provide the most relevant results to its users, why would they want this site to rank?
It was a clever trick to get all those links to the site with that anchor text, but the bottom line is that these links are in no way a "vote" of authority, relevancy or anything pertaining to the dating site.
As a Google user, I would much rather see results with natural links based on great content than a site with links based on an irrelevant widget.
Without going over the whole thing again, this is kind of the point. When Google employees encourage medical practicioners to create vidoes of SEO conferences in order to garner links, who the hell knows what relevance means?
But don't you see the difference between putting up an unrelated video on a site that gets natural links from what they are doing here?
Putting up a video (or any content) in an attempt to garner links is linkbait. Any links that this linkbait gets is based on the merit of the actual Web page. This is not the case here.
Making a quiz widget that links back to "online dating" is basically link buying. Instead of money being exchanged, use of the quiz is bartered for a text link. Unlike your example of medical practitioners' linkbait, in no way do the links garnered from this widget act as an endorsement of the online dating site.
If you want to argue about the relevancy of the medical example linkbait links, thats a whole other topic.
I'm sure this post will get more thumbs down from SEOs, but if people took off their SEO hats for a second, surely they would understand Google's position. If not, I guess we can all keep beating our heads against the wall, trying to work against the SEs rather than with them.
Chris - thumbs up (from me at least) for your explanation of your POV. I still disagree though (to a point - see below) but think that you've provided the best explanation of this.
Wow - this sock puppet video is cool. I'm going to link to it (this implies no recommendation of the back pain services the site advertises)
Wow - this zombie test on this dating site is awesome. I'm going to add a badge to my site to show how much I liked it (this implies blah blah blah)
Most people don't know HOW to link, so adding a badge is not that different to them. The loans stuff? Not so much. I never said it was, although I still think a lot of this is pure semantics.
Anyway, I tend to think we've probably exhausted this by now..
Thanks for the fair response. I agree that everyone in this thread has probably exhausted this subject.
"Making a quiz widget that links back to "online dating" is basically link buying. Instead of money being exchanged, use of the quiz is bartered for a text link"
What? OK so then by that thought a exchange of knowledge for a reference link is also like paid links? This is getting ridiculous. He is marketing his website folks
"What? OK so then by that thought a exchange of knowledge for a reference link is also like paid links?"
Well, no. If the link actually points to the reference where knowledge is being exchanged, then (obviously) I see nothing wrong with that.
If however you want to "reward" someone for creating something of value by providing a link to a completely unrelated web site, I don't agree. I just don't think the Web should work like that... and neither does Google.
Well thankfully people can link who they please and that is truly how the internet works.
Actually, thumbs up from me also.
This is a very important distinction - and you point it out perfectly.
It's interesting to note that after 200+ comments - some value add stuff can still seep through.
Well done.
Thank for the reply, Vin.
"We started putting links to those sites instead of dating links in our quiz/widget HTML code."
This is not an accurate account of what Mingle2/JustSayHi was doing with the badges. Planting invisible links using an invisible div tag which were not viewable to the innocent bloggers who were placing the badges on their sites ... this is worth a search engine ban and something which I really am very disappointed to see that was carried out by the parties involved.
Code :
<a id="mingle2_badge" href="https://www.justsayhi.com/bb/html_quiz" style="display: block; background:url(https://assets.justsayhi.com/badges/552/387/html_elements.ci6g05ky3f.jpg) no-repeat top left; height: 147px; width: 335px; text-decoration: none; color: #fff;"><strong id="mingle2_badge_score" style="display: block; padding-left: 125px; padding-top: 44px; font-weight: normal; font-family: Times New Roman, Arial; font-size: 45px;">4</strong></a><div>
<small>Looking for <a href="https://www.cashadvance1500.com">payday loans</a>?</small></div>
In this case, you were placing parasite links on these sites. You were using the same blackhat invisible linking techniques that SEOmoz, Google and the rest of the 'white hat' search marketing industry warns against, hiding links in text.
Furthermore, the problem here is not links in widgets. Or irrelevant links in widgets. As Matt pointed out, the issue as to why JustSayHi cannot be trusted is because it taking advantage of unknowing publishers by planting invisible AND spammy links on their sites ... NOT YOURS ... which were indexed by Google. This is one step short of hacking.
Those are not invisible links, Loren. I used CSS to position the background image on the badge and then I'd overlay the score on top of that. For the example you cited I'm using a JPEG as a background image on a link tag, and then for the anchor text I'm using the number 4 - which in this case is the number of HTML elements you could name in five minutes. I did this so I wouldn't have to use PHP GD on the back-end to generate badges. Instead, I could just use CSS background images and then overlay a score on top.
The "payday loans" keyword at the bottom of the badge code isn't hidden - either in the markup or in the rendered version.
BTW, thanks for coming clean on this.
Before that Guardian piece and the Shoemoney post there were a lot of emails flying back and forth between search marketers who could not believe that this dirtywork was being done by Mongle2/JustSayHi ... and requests by many (some with personal agendas) to out the practice.
No need to point the finger and hopefully more can be learnt from how Google continues to monitor widget linking.
Loren do you feel hey should havew be banned/demoted he second time?
I think your example code is missing the part that hides the links...