Whats stopping Google making its own sites and ranking them?
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Well, if it's already having problems with antitrust laws... Imagine if they ranked their own sites.
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They already do. Look at YouTube, as the biggest example, and compare it to other video serving websites.
Then look back at how Google+ came and went -- it outranked other social networks, with ease.
Their maps results have taken over the top spots, and when you go to search for directions, they're the #1 spot.
Their shopping results are the 2nd link on the search results pages.
I'm sure there are more examples, but these are the ones I came up with off the top of my head.
Then look back at how Google+ came and went -- it outranked other social networks, with ease.
Their maps results have taken over the top spots, and when you go to search for directions, they're the #1 spot.
Their shopping results are the 2nd link on the search results pages.
I'm sure there are more examples, but these are the ones I came up with off the top of my head.
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It doesn't. Different departments in Google are held responsible by other departments. For example, Google Chrome was penalized for link building by the web spam team ( see https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-penalizes-chrome/38469/ ).
In the end of the day, they still have to maintain a quality search experience. If that goes down, they'll lose marketshare. Search results that are authoritative and relevant are the best results and being biased for one's own products would hinder that. If Google ranks its own sites, it'll be shortsighted on their part.
In the end of the day, they still have to maintain a quality search experience. If that goes down, they'll lose marketshare. Search results that are authoritative and relevant are the best results and being biased for one's own products would hinder that. If Google ranks its own sites, it'll be shortsighted on their part.
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Google "penalizing" Chrome for 60 days was a cute measure but any other site that would be penalized for doing something like that would have to buy a new domain and start from scratch again. At the very least, it would be a penalty that lasted for a long time and would require a significant struggle to get back to previous standing.
They pretty much already rank their own products first as Jayk mentioned.
They pretty much already rank their own products first as Jayk mentioned.
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In the article, it said that Chrome hired a marketing firm. The firm then paid bloggers to post a video about Google Chrome and some of those blog posts had dofollow links to Chrome.
If any other company hired bloggers to post reviews and some of them added dofollow links to the company's site, it'll just be called a link building campaign -- no one would have found out.
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I'd think that Google as a whole doesn't bother (for the reasons below), but I'd wager that a ton of Google employees (especially in the search team) have massive empires or at least a site. Why wouldn't you play the very game you're creating, you know.
I'm trying to think of a good analogy here... This is kind of like asking why a God-figure doesn't incarnate into human form and stack the deck in his own favor to become the most handsome, wealthy, healthy person ever. Or like, "Why doesn't the government or banks create and sell an actual product (beyond the bullshit service they render) to build itself a ton of wealth." It doesn't need to. It controls the wealth, it siphons the wealth, and it controls the playing field itself.
Google (as some kind of singular person) doesn't need to identify high-volume, high-worth keywords to target. It already targets every single one of them and owns the top 3 spots. It has the shortest sales funnel possible. You click and they earn. They've also done things like purchase Blogger and YouTube and artificially inflate their ranking metrics, which is part of why they are seeing antitrust lawsuits. They also block out competitors, like with their mobile hardware.
The real extra money is in continued optimization and balancing between pushing their own agenda and pissing off users too much. They are just like Wikipedia in a sense. Sure, Wikipedia uses no-follow for outbound links because it's user generated. But they interlink like mad. Once you land on Wikipedia, you're likely to go on a never-ending rabbit hole adventure of learning new stuff. Google attempts to do the same.
They don't need to build a site because they scrape ALL sites. They're game is trying to use your information in a way that makes it so you never leave Google. You end up on their maps, their shopping network, their video streaming services, their social network. All populated with other people's content. Knowledge Graphs are a great example.
It's a gambit they are running on you. If you type "What is ___?" there's a large chance that the answer will appear in the SERPs itself, scraped from someone else's site. Sure, they provide an attribution link and give you traffic, but not nearly as much if the game wasn't rigged in the way it is. But are you going to ask them to not use your answer and send you some table scraps? No, because you lose money and your competitor gains money. It's your typical divide and conquer strategy.
We're also seeing stuff like CPA offers right in the SERPs for automative, travel, insurance, credit cards, etc. If they MUST give out traffic beyond Adwords (which they profit from) they'll at least try to sell a lead. And if they can't do that, there's a very high chance you end up on a site that features Adsense. They've got the entire internet on lock, they don't need to build they're own sites. We do it for them.
I don't know if employees in search, algorithm, or spam have to sign non-compete waivers or whatever, but I'd definitely be building my own sites and exploiting any inside knowledge I could. It's still the same playing field as everyone else, maybe with a hint of insider trading...
I'm trying to think of a good analogy here... This is kind of like asking why a God-figure doesn't incarnate into human form and stack the deck in his own favor to become the most handsome, wealthy, healthy person ever. Or like, "Why doesn't the government or banks create and sell an actual product (beyond the bullshit service they render) to build itself a ton of wealth." It doesn't need to. It controls the wealth, it siphons the wealth, and it controls the playing field itself.
Google (as some kind of singular person) doesn't need to identify high-volume, high-worth keywords to target. It already targets every single one of them and owns the top 3 spots. It has the shortest sales funnel possible. You click and they earn. They've also done things like purchase Blogger and YouTube and artificially inflate their ranking metrics, which is part of why they are seeing antitrust lawsuits. They also block out competitors, like with their mobile hardware.
The real extra money is in continued optimization and balancing between pushing their own agenda and pissing off users too much. They are just like Wikipedia in a sense. Sure, Wikipedia uses no-follow for outbound links because it's user generated. But they interlink like mad. Once you land on Wikipedia, you're likely to go on a never-ending rabbit hole adventure of learning new stuff. Google attempts to do the same.
They don't need to build a site because they scrape ALL sites. They're game is trying to use your information in a way that makes it so you never leave Google. You end up on their maps, their shopping network, their video streaming services, their social network. All populated with other people's content. Knowledge Graphs are a great example.
It's a gambit they are running on you. If you type "What is ___?" there's a large chance that the answer will appear in the SERPs itself, scraped from someone else's site. Sure, they provide an attribution link and give you traffic, but not nearly as much if the game wasn't rigged in the way it is. But are you going to ask them to not use your answer and send you some table scraps? No, because you lose money and your competitor gains money. It's your typical divide and conquer strategy.
We're also seeing stuff like CPA offers right in the SERPs for automative, travel, insurance, credit cards, etc. If they MUST give out traffic beyond Adwords (which they profit from) they'll at least try to sell a lead. And if they can't do that, there's a very high chance you end up on a site that features Adsense. They've got the entire internet on lock, they don't need to build they're own sites. We do it for them.
I don't know if employees in search, algorithm, or spam have to sign non-compete waivers or whatever, but I'd definitely be building my own sites and exploiting any inside knowledge I could. It's still the same playing field as everyone else, maybe with a hint of insider trading...
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As for the insiders building sites because they know the "magic": in reality how much would that actually mean in a real life example? I mean, I think we all know that to have a long term ranking property, there aren't any "shortcuts". There might be tricks to learn, but I'd wager that every single one them is grounded in having a quality site, on point on-page, great links etc.
If the ultimate trick was to have at least 100 pages with 10k words on each, with gov links pointing to every single one of them, how much different would that be for what authority sites shoot for anyway? You'd still need to do what 99% aren't willing to
If the ultimate trick was to have at least 100 pages with 10k words on each, with gov links pointing to every single one of them, how much different would that be for what authority sites shoot for anyway? You'd still need to do what 99% aren't willing to
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They do, they just don't build them the way we do. They just make it and integrate it into the search experience right at the top automatically as a 'feature' for 'user experience'.
Eg:
- they bought a flight data company, and then added flights search
- they're trying similar with rate comparison/mortgages etc (they bought a player in that industry)
- shopping results are just a 'paid inclusion shopping site' that's automatically at the top
- google local is their Yelp, Yellowpages etc... except again integrated so wherever they choose to rank it
And so on. So to answer your question absolutely nothing is stopping them, so they feel free to do exactly that even more directly than you're suggesting.
Google Ventures does invest in several 'real' sites too, but they seem to leave them to it and dish out penalties when appropriate (or for good PR... getting a penalty when you're owned by Google = lots of free press links... so when the penalty is gone... well... I'm sure they don't do that on purpose... right).
Eg:
- they bought a flight data company, and then added flights search
- they're trying similar with rate comparison/mortgages etc (they bought a player in that industry)
- shopping results are just a 'paid inclusion shopping site' that's automatically at the top
- google local is their Yelp, Yellowpages etc... except again integrated so wherever they choose to rank it
And so on. So to answer your question absolutely nothing is stopping them, so they feel free to do exactly that even more directly than you're suggesting.
Google Ventures does invest in several 'real' sites too, but they seem to leave them to it and dish out penalties when appropriate (or for good PR... getting a penalty when you're owned by Google = lots of free press links... so when the penalty is gone... well... I'm sure they don't do that on purpose... right).