Do You Want to Prevail on Google? Watch the Cheesy Stuff
If you want to win on Google, heed its warning.
May 31, 2013
Sure, every online publisher wants to earn money from advertising these days. Note the emphasis on the word, “earn.” But there are ways to do right and ways to do it wrong.
As a publisher of what is designed to be thought leadership here on The Biz Coach, perhaps you can imagine how I felt on Monday, May 20, 2013 when the following email arrived:
Hello,
I am Kyle with Clear Web Solutions. My company represents a leading provider of online degrees. They would like to purchase ad space on your site’s page, www.bizcoachinfo.com/archives/8426.
Ideally, we’d like to mention our client in a sentence on your site, which would link to our client’s site. We could pay you via PayPal for your time and efforts as soon as an agreement is made.
Please let me know if you are interested so we can discuss the details. Thanks for your time and consideration.
Kyle
Advertising Representative
Clear Web Solutions
www.clearwebsolutions.org
Not to be self righteous, but I had an immediate reaction of disgust. Someone wants me to mention his client with a link to his site for pay? Really?
On the same day, here was my annoyed response:
Hi Kyle:
If I understand you correctly, you and www.clearwebsolutions.org want to insert a paid-sentence with a link to you as a product advertisement in a Biz Coach article, 10 Key Differences between Leaders and Managers?
Well, I can see why you inquired – data shows the article is perennially one of the most-requested and trusted business-coaching articles on Google. But your request is ironic.
A leader would neither make such a request nor would allow such a sinister-advertising approach. Not only is your request insulting and immoral, it would result in a violation of Federal Trade Commission blogging rules. Find another occupation before I report you and your company, and before it’s too late for your career.
Terry Corbell
Publisher
The abhorrent inquiry from Clear Web Solutions was certainly not the first of its type to be received here. There have been other insulting requests, which is why I once wrote this article: Is the FTC’s Blogger-Payola Crackdown Working?
Candidly, I had forgotten about them. But I was reminded of them today when I spotted a WebProNews article by Chris Crum entitled, “Google Warns: You Better Adequately Disclose Paid Content.”
It was a reminder to heed Google’s policies on ethics.
“Google’s Matt Cutts has been talking about the subject a lot lately, so if your site offers any advertorial content, you better make sure you’re doing it the right way, under Google’s guidance, or you just might find yourself slapped with a harsh penalty independent of any black and white animal-named algorithms,” writes Mr. Crum.
Amen.
“Earlier this month, Cutts put out a video talking about a bunch of big SEO-related changes Google is working on, and that webmasters could expect to see over the coming months,” adds Mr. Crum. “The video discussed the most recent Penguin update, which we’ve already seen take effect.”
Again quoting Mr. Cutts, Mr. Crum warned about advertorials and native advertising.
“Now, Cutts has a new video talking for five minutes specifically about Google’s policies on advertorials and native advertising,” he explains. “Yes, they’re taking this seriously, so you should too, if you’re at all concerned about your Google rankings.”
Mr. Crum’s article linked to a second video warning that advertorials need to be properly disclosed if you want to avoid Google’s wrath.
There’s more.
“In case you’re still not convinced that Google is cracking down on this stuff, a couple weeks ago, Cutts tweeted that Google had just took action on thousands of linksellers,” Mr Crum warns.
See the original WebProNews article for more details.
From the Coach’s Corner, see these resource links:
- Google insights – 23 key questions about your Web site
- Secrets for Attracting, Keeping Readers on Your Blog
- 12 Tips to Develop the Best Content for a Top-Rated Blog
“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”
-Potter Stewart
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Some Modern-Day Contradictions on Independence Day
July 4, 2012
It was 236 years ago today that 57 brave men created the American republic by signing an historic document. Their constituents, if you will, were 3 million people in 13 colonies. The declaration signers wanted freedom from tyranny – and from the British military that wanted to arrest them for sedition and treason.
Today, the Fourth of July is a holiday of festivities and fireworks for Americans. However, too few Americans appreciate the risks of those 57 men who signed the Declaration of Independence – making freedom possible for all us.
That’s underscored by disturbing results national survey released this week by arguably the nation’s most accurate pollster – Rasmussen Reports.
Respondents were queried whether they agreed with this principle, “governments derive their only just powers from the consent of the governed.”
An irony: It was shocking to read that only 70 of Americans – who live in freedom – agree government gets its authority from the will of the people. Thirteen percent did not agree. Seventeen percent were undecided.
A second irony: Google’s Fourth of July doodle spells out the words: “This Land Was Made for You and Me,” in paying tribute to the inspiring Woody Guthrie tune.
Positioned under the doodle is this statement: “Celebrate freedom. Support a free and open Internet.”
To be sure, this is a patriotic concept.
Further, Susan Molinari, Google’s vice president of public policy and government affairs for the Americas, blogs: “We’ve only just begun to see what a free and open Internet can do for people and for the freedom we cherish.”
Both statements are meaningful, but Google’s declarations about freedom are representative of at least three contradictions:
- Google’s spying – capturing of personal information of Internet WIFI users via its street view car. The search engine has faced heavy criticism and penalties worldwide for its so-called inadvertent massive collection of personal data.
- Its CEO, Larry Page, attacked Facebook’s user-data practices in an interview with Charlie Rose.
- Then, on the eve of the 2012 Day of Independence, there’s a rather disturbing WebProNews headline: “Google Shopping Incites 2nd Amendment Row by Removing Guns from Search.”
Google’s announcement:
“We do not allow the promotion or sale of weapons and any related products such as ammunitions or accessory kits on Google Shopping,” the Google Shopping Team wrote. “In order to comply with our new policies, please remove any weapon-related products from your data feed and then re-submit your feed in the Merchant Center.”
Naturally, Google is drawing fire from consumers and merchants. Proponents of the 2nd Amendment have launched a petition drive – it demands Google “not interfere with our 2nd amendment rights…”
Yes, it disturbs me even though I’ve never been a gun owner. My philosophy is deep rooted. I have an elderly father who is a longtime Democrat and who opposes capital punishment – he also is a veteran, a longtime gun owner, a staunch believer in the right to bear arms, and patriotic supporter of the Declaration of Independence.
Google is hugely successful and has prompted Bing and Yahoo to become better. The competition is fun to watch.
But Google’s behavior is also prompting me to rethink my previous defenses of the search giant:
Google has drawn fire from Associated Press and other media firms because it publishes news headlines to their stories. This means Google is, in reality, a media company.
Studies consistently show the media is biased in favor of liberals. Simply Google the key words, “liberal media bias,” and you’ll see 2,130,000 search results.
With a dominant search market share, Google has a responsibility to practice what it preaches with honesty, objectivity and accuracy.
Therefore, Google appears disingenuous and self-serving when it campaigns for freedom – meanwhile, with the perception that it violates the rights of millions of its users. If Bing and Yahoo stay the course, Google will justifiably face loss in its market share.
…The land of the free and home of the brave…I’m just sayin’.
(Disclosure: This Biz Coach portal uses Google AdSense.)
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a pertinent Fourth of July topic:
Do We Really Honor the Declaration of Independence?
“The basis of a democratic state is liberty.”
-Aristotle
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
5 Factors to Get Peak Google Results for Your Web Site – Study
What do top Web sites have in common? According to an authoritative study, successful sites produce a high number of Facebook and Twitter messages, but the sites minimize the volume of ads on its pages.
Those are the salient lessons from a 2012 study by Searchmetrics, a search and social analytics firm.
Leading brands also have an inherent competitive edge in search results, says Searchmetrics.
The study examined the results for 300,000 Web sites and 10,000 keywords to determine the relationships that lead to strong Google rankings. The connections between the sites and keywords were determined using a process known as “Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.” Charles Edward Spearman was an English psychologist (1863-1945), who was recognized for his success in statistics and factor analysis.
Searchmetric’s five salient conclusions:
- Social media signals show extremely high correlation: social signals from Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are frequently associated with good rankings in Google’s index. This is interesting in particular for the UK, which hasn’t had such a strong correlation with social signals up to this point.
- Too much advertising is detrimental: for the first time we are seeing sites with too many advertisements struggling to rank well. However, the problem correlates only to AdSense adblockers.
- Backlinks are still important but quantity is not the only important thing: even though the number of backlinks is still the most powerful factor, links with stop words and ‘nofollow’ should also be included in the link-mix.
- Brands leverage classic SEO signals: apparently pages with strong brands do not need be as concerned with the areas of title tags, headings etc. According to our figures, this group operates under different rules.
- Keyword domains still frequently attract top results: despite all the rumors to the contrary, keyword domains are still alive and well and are often in the top rankings.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related resource links:
- Checklist: 14 Strategies to Rock on Google
- Web Site ‘Priming’ – 6 Tips That Will Help You Succeed
- How Small Businesses Can Capitalize on Cyber Strategies for Profit
- Tips, Plus Why it’s Never Too Early to Plan for Q4 E-commerce
- Best Practices to Optimize Your Brand, Manage Your Web Reputation
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks.
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
SEO: Strategic Primer for a No.1 Rated Blog
For a popular blog, you must understand the process — important basics in search engine optimization (SEO). If you’ve been blogging for awhile, you know success doesn’t keep come automatically. SEO is arduous work.
You must have a strategic blogging goal. Is it to promote your business or e-commerce? A consultancy? Is it an advertising business model?
Whatever you decide, there are certain SEO tips to keep in mind.
They include:
Keywords. Decide your keyword niche, and in what categories you want to be found. Pay special attention to key words, as they are the first step in determining whether you are successful. If properly implemented in search engine optimization, they will help determine when your site appears when users are looking for content. Insert them throughout your text, but don’t go overboard. Use 10 or fewer key words for each topic.
Page headers and titles. The words you use in page headers and titles will be the first read by the spiders and users of your site. So, first impressions are important in describing the value of your pages. Short action verbs should be included.
Bots and spiders. Spiders are important to your success because they crawl your site to view your content and collect data. The spiders determine what pages appear on search engines when users are surfing for a topic.
Ostensibly, the most-sophisticated is Googlebot, which looks for your new and updated pages. Google uses an algorithmic process.
It’s helpful to understand Google’s reasoning for best Web site rankings and how to be optimized for Bing (in some ways, my sense is that bing is more logical). If time constraints prevent you from mastering both, focus on Google because of its 66-percent market-share dominance. If you’re successful on Google, chances are you rank well on Bing and Yahoo. Above all, quality of content rules – Google speaks out about frequency vs. value.
Sitemap. You can improve your odds for success with a Sitemap, which is a list of pages on your site. That’s to insure Googlebot and other spiders can detect your links on pages.
Google says Sitemaps support your cause, if:
- Your site has dynamic content.
- Your site has pages that aren’t easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process—for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or images.
- Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn’t well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
- Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.
Images. Many people believe images are helpful to make a site interesting to users. That’s true. But they can’t also hurt you, if they’re not inserted properly. You see, spiders can’t detect images. Spiders can read a text description on your images, if you insert an ALT tag.
Flash pages are hip and attract users, but they serve no purpose in maximizing the impact of crawling spiders.
Videos are good. As you might expect, videos continue to surge in popularity.
Format. Keep your site’s format simple. Make sure it downloads fast, keep in mind Google’s continuing quest to increase page speeds because in SEO, your site’s download speed matters to Google. Update content frequently. But don’t insert multiple topics on a page; instead insert links to other pages. Links from one page to others helps your time-spent-viewing. The longer you keep a user on your site, the better off you’ll be.
It’s preferable to make the blog part of your Web site – don’t separate the two. Otherwise, you’ll have to work twice as hard to make sure both rank well. Further, search engines don’t like even the appearance of duplication.
Links. With one caveat, encourage other sites to link to yours. However, make certain the inbound links have a higher Google page rank than your site. If you can persuade a bonafide reporter to insert a link to your site from an authoritative media site – congratulations. If you need tips, here’s how to leverage the news media.
Another strategy is to submit press releases to online press release firms. Some are free, but again check their Google page rank. Quality of links is paramount. Always avoid weak links to you.
Minimize the number of your outbound links. Your site will be penalized.
Social Media. If you want a strong business brand, leverage these social mediums: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Bear in mind these tips aren’t all-inclusive. But if you put them to use, you’re on your way. Good luck.
From the Coach’s Corner, note achieving strong results on Google is now easier with social networking. Here are 25 best practices for better business writing.
“…the time has come to ask yourselves does your blog suck … and what are you doing to change it?”
- Michael Gray
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Internet Marketing Lessons from Santorum’s Failed Campaign
Rick Santorum has indicated his interest in running for the nation’s highest office again in 2016. Without even considering his political views, he doesn’t have a prayer unless he makes some marketing changes.
Unintentionally, Mr. Santorum’s unsuccessful presidential campaign — with inadequate branding – provided business with Internet marketing lessons.
Perhaps you noticed the inflammatory results in searching the Web for him. When you searched for “Santorum,” the deprecating site of “spreadingsantorum.com” was first on Google, Bing and Yahoo. For curious voters interested in the campaign, it’s was an especially disappointing search. The site is no longer ranked No. 1 for the keyword, Santorum, thanks to Wikipedia, but it’s still in the top 5.
The derogatory site was created in 2003 by a part owner of The Stranger publication in Seattle, who was annoyed by then-Sen. Santorum’s comment about a U.S. Supreme court ruling that was favored by the gay community.
Understandably, Mr. Santorum complained to Google about the rankings – after all there are precedents. Indeed, it can be argued that Google could do something about it.
You might recall Google penalized the derogatory monkey-face depictions of Michelle Obama. There are countless security examples from when Google and the other search engines have issued a warning about a Web site when it believes a site is a security risk to users.
Until and unless Google and the other search engines take corrective measures, the Santorum campaign should have focused on what it could control.
However, the campaign failed to use best practices in Internet marketing.
Its salient shortcomings:
- Failure to use SEO techniques
- A call to action without giving the right incentives – branding and value propositions
- Poor organization – lack of preparedness
Failure to use SEO
As a result of his strong showing from largely grass roots efforts, Mr. Santorum’s campaign attracted an unprecedented number of voters who were curious about him. They could find the right site easier when they search using the key words, “Rick Santorum.” But if they searched using “Santorum,” they get the derogatory site.
In effect, however, the campaign allowed Mr. Santorum to become a victim of political sabotage sans common SEO procedures.
Yes, the Santorum campaign had options to effectively to eliminate the adverse impact of the sarcastic site. Curiously, “spreadingsantorum.com” only has a Google page rank of 5. That wasn’t insurmountable for the Santorum campaign, if it employed proper SEO techniques, and understood how to win on Google.
Hint: If you can win on Google, you will on the other search engines, too.
So learn the five factors to get peak Google results, how Google details its new reasoning for best Web site rankings, and understand the 23 key questions Google has about your Web site.
As for the Santorum campaign, it needed to develop and focus on one site – just one site dedicated to the candidate. But it mistakenly directed Internet users to a donation form – one of two duplicate content sites (supportricksantorum.com and ricksantorum.com).
Premature call to action
The Santorum donation site set a poor example by only asking for money. There were no stellar branding and value propositions. Visitors weren’t readily able to learn anything about him – neither his policy positions nor his background.
All of this meant the right sites showed up twice – but they were below the fold on Google.
Moreover, duplicate content hurt the cause. Two different domain names containing similar content defeated the purpose. The two sites effectively insured his Web presence was diluted – the search engines don’t know which was paramount for users.
Poor organization – lack of preparedness
With such a confusing marketing approach, the campaign inadvertently sent two unintended signals.
Firstly, it showed poor organization and lack of preparedness — note the verbiage in this Santorum tweet:
“Your great support has caused some unexpected downtime on our website! You can still support us at our temp page: ricksantorum.com”
Because the campaign instituted some redirects – the tweet sent people to the donation site. That’s a violation of best practices in marketing – never assume the voter has enough incentives before you ask for a vote or beg for donations.
Secondly, such strategies — unbranded donation page and desperate-looking tweets — left users with the impression that he’d fail because he was desperate for donations.
Further, as an example of over-reaching, the campaign constantly changed the tag line that appeared on the search engines. The candidate needed to be consistently repetitive with his branding and Web presence. Aside from the duplication issue and failure to install the donation page in one site, he needed to attract thousands of new links from good Web sites.
Whether he realized or not, failure to take such precautions adversely impacted his credibility as a viable candidate. After all, even if he could have won his party’s nomination, he would have faced a Democrat who long ago demonstrated extraordinary Internet expertise.
Good Internet marketing lessons for business from Mr. Santorum.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a checklist: 14 strategies to rock on Google.
Additionally, for more resources see this portal’s Marketing and Tech archives, which are packed with solutions.
“Don’t blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.”
-John D. Rockefeller
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Google Details its Reasoning for Best Web Site Rankings
The world’s most popular search engine has released detailed information on how it evaluates and ranks Web sites. Released in November 2011, the information is still critical for domain success.
Ordinarily, for proprietary reasons, Google is a bit guarded when discussing its algorithm processes. But a blog post by engineer Matt Cutts was unusually informative.
It’s fair to say Google has been forthcoming about its search ranking methodology, such as reported previously on this portal in Google insights – 23 key questions about your Web site and Google’s continuing quest to increase page speeds.
Research companies routinely peg the search engine’s market share at 66 percent or more in the U.S., and higher around the world.
One wonders whether the new transparency is the result of the FTC probe of Google. My sense is that the FTC Probe isn’t warranted in Google’s business practices.
Google’s dominance has actually improved user experiences on other search engines. It forced Bing, for example, to make enlightened innovations.
From the Coach’s Corner, for Internet success, here are more resource links:
- 10 Tips to Optimize Your Web Site for Higher Sales
- Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet
- Best Practices to Optimize Your Brand, Manage Your Web Reputation
- The Key to Internet Dominance: Think Integration
“Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world.”
-Sergey Brin
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Checklist: 14 Strategies to Rock on Google
Periodic changes in Google’s search criteria and algorithms have indeed hurt many Web sites. But it’s possible to bullet-proof your site’s prominence on Google by taking 14 precautions, which is worth your time and energy.
Google has perennially owned about a 66 percent search-market share in the U.S. and a 90 percent share worldwide. Combined, Bing and Yahoo have about 30 percent in the U.S. Most of the other search engines are also powered by Google.
Now, there’s talk that Google might bid for Yahoo, which would mean another double-digit increase in market share. (True, such a merger would be impacted by the Yahoo-Microsoft search partnership. The implication: Google would then have to buy out Microsoft for the remainder of the 10-year Yahoo-Microsoft partnership.)
So, obviously, it will behoove you to take full advantage of strategies to maximize your presence on Google.
Here’s a checklist:
- Make frequent changes on your home page. But be sure it’s all about quality and relevance to Internet users.
- For content marketing, regularly blog about relevant topics (see Google Speaks Out About Frequency vs. Value).
- Interact with your target audience using the salient social mediums: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. Here are 8 Tips to Optimize Sales with Social Media, But Beware of a Red Flag.
- Be very careful about what you post – keep it professional and on business. Don’t assume that your professional profile can be separate from your personal life. Did I say be careful?
- Be aware that Google is influenced by links from the news media, quality online press releases distributed by authoritative firms, and other sites with a strong Google page rank (PR).
- Be careful about your other links. Do not allow weak Google PR pages to link to you. Minimize your links to other sites, as Google will perceive you as being manipulative.
- Make certain your profile or bio is professional and consistent throughout. Use the same picture.
- Insert relevant videos.
- Check your Internet reputation on a frequent business. Here are Best Practices to Optimize Your Brand, Manage Your Web Reputation.
- If you have employees, develop and implement a social media policy regarding your business reputation.
- Change your passwords frequently – make sure they’re strong. 6. Separate business and your personal life. Avoid posting compromising photos, text or videos.
- Accelerate your site’s download speed, which is important. See Google’s Continuing Quest to Increase Page Speeds and In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google.
- Understand what matters to Google – see Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site.
- Despite what you might read, pay close attention to your use of meta tags and key words. They will influence Google and the other search engines.
By the way, don’t be fooled by the incessant hype about Facebook. Your Web site and prominence on Google will always be more important than what you do on Facebook. (See Winners and Losers in Facebook’s Invasion of Google’s Turf.)
My only regret about Google: That it hasn’t found a way to restart its real-time feature with Twitter. If you use the 14 recommended strategies, and if Google and Twitter get back together for real-time results, you’ll really rock.
Oh, here’s more good news — surprise — these strategies work on Yahoo and Bing, too.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are two more resource links:
- 10 Tips to Optimize Your Web Site for Higher Sales
- Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet
“The only thing Google has failed to do, so far, is fail.”
-John Battelle
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Google’s Continuing Quest to Increase Page Speeds
Nov. 5, 2012
You might want to check out a Google service. Google has been very concerned about page download speed to help it maintain its image as a search engine. So much so that in July 2011 they offered Web site owners a limited time offer.
It appears the offer is still available.
For higher performance, Google offered to complimentarily evaluate Web sites for download speed. They also offered to give out a new code that will made sites faster for enhanced user enjoyment.
This process enhanced Web sites; prominence on the No. 1 search engine, and it enabled Google to operate at a faster rate for users.
Google’s goal is to enable sites to download more quickly by as much as 60 percent.
“Page Speed Service fetches content from your servers, rewrites your pages by applying web performance best practices and serves them to end users via Google’s servers across the globe,” according to Google.
“The extent of speed up depends on a variety of factors such as content on your pages, browser, geographic location of access, bandwidth, etc.,” Google explained.
On its page-speed service page, Google also provided a link for publishers to test their site’s speed. Most tests took less than five minutes.
“The test involves rendering your website on the selected browser by directly visiting your site, and repeating the same test by proxying your site through Page Speed Service,” Google said at the time.
You can still test your site at Page Speed Service.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are resource links to help your site’s Google presence:
- In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google
- Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site
- The Key to Internet Dominance: Think Integration
“The Internet is the Viagra of big business.”
-Jack Welch
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Was FTC Probe Warranted in Google’s Business Practices?
Updated Nov. 16, 2012
Over objections of a consumer advocacy, a federal judge approved that $22.5 million fine of Google. This resulted from Google’s settlement with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in August 2012.
Google was charged with bypassing privacy settings on Apple software. This allowed Google to show personalized advertisements by tracking surfers’ online movements. It was a violation of Google’s deal with the FTC involving its former Buzz service.
So, instead of solving important budgetary and other policy issues, Congress has launched an investigation in Google’s privacy policies.
In other ways, Uncle Sam has set itself up as the digital-age czar. You’ll recall the Microsoft antitrust case in which it averted a breakup. Only this time it’s the FTC instead of the U.S. Department of Justice persecuting Google.
Google has been targeted because it has acquired enemies en route to its huge Internet success with free services. Adversaries include cable and telecom companies, competing advertising firms, content and media publishers. Oh, let’s not forget Microsoft.
The software giant is chagrined, in part, because Google has overwhelmed it despite entering search in 1998 – after Microsoft’s MSN. MSN failed as most of us initially used AOL or Yahoo. Now, two thirds of Internet users prefer Google.
Ironically, the purpose of antitrust suits is to protect millions of consumers – not competitors. History shows two large companies faced with antitrust suits – AT&T and Microsoft – became sidetracked, which hurt businesses and consumers. More on that later.
European Union competitors have also targeted Google. The French firm, 1plusV, has complained about Google’s AdSense. That’s because AdSense prevented 1plusV from advertising its legal search engine from 2006 to 2010. Others include an Italian case, and Microsoft going abroad to complain.
AT&T breakup
Antitrust actions have long intrigued me. A Hollywood script-like drama was building for months in 1974. Finally, the intrigue was over. On Nov.21, 1974, the Justice Department filed the biggest antitrust case in history as it sought the breakup of AT&T. The legal war lasted nearly eight years.
The government argued that the vertically integrated company, which provided both long distance and local services, was a monopoly and caused unfair competition. AT&T’s long-distance rates had been subsidizing the local residential service rates. AT&T was forced to break up its Bell system of local-exchange telephone companies so that it could go into the computer business.
This was heady stuff for me as a young journalist, as it followed the end of the Vietnam War and Watergate. The economy was in bad shape, even a few years after President Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls. Middle East oil shortages exacerbated inflation. The lines at the gas stations were sometimes very long.
All the case did was to accelerate the company’s demise. Such legal action drains company resources. They become distracted, which hurts consumers who no longer benefit. Indeed, AT&T could no longer innovate.
AT&T’s looming divestiture coincided with changes in how the TV and radio networks distributed their news and other programs to affiliate stations. Before the AT&T breakup, TV broadcasters used the company’s microwave relay and coaxial cable systems. Radio networks used the company’s “leased lines.” New satellites, Satcom 1 and Westar 1, provided competition with higher audio and video quality with lower costs.
Many stations, however, still had contracts with AT&T or they didn’t have big enough budgets to buy expensive earth stations in order to get the network feeds. I worked at two such stations, including one owned by the legendary Dick Clark.
Microsoft’s antitrust precedent – and a disclosure
Many analysts have noted that this FTC-Google issue is, of course, reminiscent of Microsoft’s war with the Justice Department. The federal antitrust lawsuit lasted from the 1990s to the early part of the 21st century. Microsoft finally emerged from government oversight in May of 2011.
Although I empathized with Microsoft, I understood firsthand why the company was sued. Microsoft’s legal department was very busy.
Disclosure:
In 1992, I purchased a firm, MSN – Marketing Services Northwest. The financial and human resources needs of my new clients prompted me to expand my consulting services. Three years later, to reflect my services, I updated the firm’s name to MSN – Management Services Northwest. I spent a small fortune on branding and collateral materials. Then, considering its software/digital age dominance, Microsoft entered the search-engine competition rather late with its MSN. As my business exploded, I neglected to fully protect my company’s name.
Unexpectedly, I encountered two issues with Microsoft:
- The company apparently used the MSN moniker without any regard to precedent (mine).
- MSN had accounting problems and its customers mistakenly telephoned my firm nonstop, 24/7 to complain.
When I contacted Microsoft about my two concerns, I was marginalized. A company employee told me: “Join the crowd…this would be lawsuit du jour.” Frustrated, I contacted two noted attorneys who empathized but declined to take my case. They knew we’d be outgunned by Microsoft’s vast resources. In the late 1990s, I was stuck with a big tab for new collateral and marketing.
However, I freely admit Microsoft’s behavior was a factor in my strategic planning. Thankfully, it included becoming a news media columnist – a full-circle return to my career roots.
A few years later, when I was the Biz Coach columnist on Belo Web sites, cybercrime regularly raised its ugly head. I wrote that Microsoft was not performing adequately in security. Like AT&T, it seemed as though Microsoft failed to innovate – it was not using best practices in security.
However, a decade after the legal war, it’s worth noting that Microsoft is now serious about security and is better serving business and consumers. The company provides a free service, Microsoft Security Essentials. It does a credible job of providing real-time protection against viruses, spyware, and other malicious invaders.
FTC’s antitrust allegations against Google
The FTC is investigating whether Google is an abusive monopoly – a predator that unfairly exploits competition and is harmful to the public interest in its search-advertising business.
Not only do Internet users count on Google in 66 percent of all search results, the search giant helps in comparison shopping, e-mails, mapping and travel. It’s also in mobile phones, television and videos.
Competitors – such as Expedia, TripAdvisor and Microsoft – allege Google is disingenuous. Microsoft, in particular, has been rather vocal. The competitors claim Google directs Internet users to its own interests and basically hides competitors’ links – at the expense of its rivals.
This is Google’s second hassle with the FTC. You might recall Google agreed to settle FTC complaints of deceptive practices and violations of consumers’ privacy after it launched Google Buzz, a social network, in 2010. Google was also accused of lying about its treatment of European Union (EU) users’ personal information – in violation of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor privacy framework. For the next two decades, Google will have to submit to privacy audits.
“When companies make privacy pledges, they need to honor them,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz on the agency’s Web site. “This is a tough settlement that ensures that Google will honor its commitments to consumers and build strong privacy protections into all of its operations.”
Meantime, of course, Google took another shot at success in social networking with Google+, which connects its users – a direct challenge to Facebook.
Google’s initial response to FTC probe
A Google blog post stated “it’s still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are.” Google also said “our success has led to greater scrutiny.”
The search giant asserted that the majority of complaints stem from disgruntled competitors who feel angst over inferior search rankings.
“Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow,” the company said in its blog post.
“We make hundreds of changes to our algorithms every year to improve your search experience,” it added. “Not every website can come out at the top of the page, or even appear on the first page of our search results.”
Conclusion
Yes, Google is aggressive and innovative. It adapts to consumer preferences. It hasn’t behaved perfectly, but all businesses are aggressive if they want to survive.
During all those months when Microsoft was in its advertising-search merger talks with Yahoo – their quest to overtake Google – no one complained about the two companies’ prospects in ganging up on Google to achieve search dominance. In fact, I recall many times when using Yahoo, I wanted to search on Bing, but Yahoo refused to let me. A popup question appeared – asking me if I really wanted to leave Yahoo for Bing. It was annoying and Yahoo’s defensiveness was a sign that it was desperate. But I wasn’t going to complain to the FTC.
Has Google been a monopolistic predator operating against the public interest? No. I have found Google to be innovative, responsive, and transparent about its goal to be known for relevant content. It provides a bevy of blogs and videos to help publishers.
Furthermore, its success forced Bing to become more innovative. My sense is that Bing now competes well with Google in delivering relevant results. That means Yahoo does, too. The three account for 96 percent of Internet-search market share. As a result, all Internet users have benefited.
The Internet has become so big and so fast, what makes the federal government qualified to be the final arbiter of what services should be made available to consumers? Why not let the markets be the final say?
Google’s success is largely from developing a unique algorithm system that’s enabled it to become the most popular among Internet users. Without giving too much information to spammers and cybercriminals, Google has been transparent by frequently providing tips to publishers on how to succeed for better rankings. (Read further for six links to articles on how to succeed on Google.)
The Internet competition has benefited consumers and businesses, alike. We’re all benefiting from Google’s leadership. The complainers need to stop whining. It would be more productive for them to better satisfy their customers – by analyzing their companies’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then, innovate for the benefit of Internet users. That’s how I dealt with the adversity from MSN, and it’s why Google triumphs over its competitors.
Let’s hope the antitrust settlements don’t distract Google from its mission. Millions of consumers will be hurt.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are resource links for Internet success:
- 12 Tips to Develop the Best Content for a Top-Rated Blog
- Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site
- 10 Tips to Optimize Your Web Site for Higher Sales
- Google Speaks Out About Frequency vs. Value
- Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet
- In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google
“Your brand is created out of customer contact and the experience your customers have of you.”
-Stelios Haji-Ioannou
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site
Google has unveiled more vital information about what it considers important for Web site ranking. Without divulging proprietary information, Google emphasized it’s all about value – quality for Internet users. In other words, there are no shortcuts for success.
There’s been a lot of buzz about Google’s algorithm updates, and how they affect Internet sites. Many sites have benefited and others haven’t fared well in their Google ranking. Well, Google has made it clear what it considers important.
“Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or signals,” wrote Amit Singhal on the Google Webmaster Central blog.
“Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year,” the spokesperson explained. In fact, since we launched Panda, we’ve rolled out over a dozen additional tweaks to our ranking algorithms, and some sites have incorrectly assumed that changes in their rankings were related to Panda.”
“Search is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users,” wrote Mr. Singhal.
“Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find ‘high-quality’ sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content,” he added. “The recent ‘Panda’ change tackles the difficult task of algorithmically assessing website quality.”
He indicated that Web site publishers will benefit by evaluating its page or article quality by asking specific questions – the type of questions that Google asks to analyze a site’s quality.
Here are the questions:
1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?
2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
6. Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
7. Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
8. Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
9. How much quality control is done on content?
10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?
11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
12. Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
13. Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
14. For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
15. Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
16. Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
17. Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
18. Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
19. Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
20. Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
21. Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
22. Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
23. Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
“We’ve been hearing from many of you that you want more guidance on what you can do to improve your rankings on Google, particularly if you think you’ve been impacted by the Panda update,” added Mr. Singhal. “We encourage you to keep questions like the ones above in mind as you focus on developing high-quality content rather than trying to optimize for any particular Google algorithm.”
Mr. Singhal also indicated a site’s rankings can be affected by “low-quality content” or “low-quality pages” on just some portions of a site.
“We’re continuing to work on additional algorithmic iterations to help webmasters operating high-quality sites get more traffic from search,” he added. “As you continue to improve your sites, rather than focusing on one particular algorithmic tweak, we encourage you to ask yourself the same sorts of questions we ask when looking at the big picture.”
My sense about Google’s announcement: Amen. It confirms that value counts. There are no shortcuts for ranking success – only high quality content on a frequent basis to complement your other search-engine optimization strategies.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you want to stay current with Google’s webmaster updates, see: Webmaster Help Forum – Google.
This portal’s Marketing/Sales and Tech sections also contain strategic Internet tips.
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
- Francis Bacon
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.