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Originally Posted by u-Bob
(Post 18909058)
As an 'outsider', someone who isn't privy to Google's internal secrets, there is no way to prove what works and what doesn't. There's no way to prove doing x will hurt you and doing y won't hurt you.
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I disagree. Google sets out it's webmaster guidelines. Following it's guidelines will ensure that you don't get slapped with a penalty in the SERPs that it serves up. It's also possible through testing to come up with strategies that will help your results. After all everything in what we do online can be measured with metrics and end results.
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You're up against a black box. You don't know what kind of data Google collects how they use it. There's no way to prove the existence of a causal connection between doing Z and getting A or B as a ranking. At best you can point out some kind of correlation.
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Of course. Google isn't about to release a road map for gaming the system, but it does make statements clearly outlining the things it disapproves of. Avoiding doing those things will ensure they don't penalize you.
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That's a logical fallacy. The fact that site X uses service Y does not prove that using service Y hurts you or won't hurt you.
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It does go down to trust however. Large mainstream companies use Raven Tools and by definition use Google Analytics, Webmaster tools and AdSense. Somewhere along the line the decision has been made that using these tools provides benefit. I know from personal experience that using these reporting tools has not hurt me. Your mileage may vary.
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I couldn't care less what Google's guidelines are. Google's not some almighty God we should worship or beg for guidance. Google's a company. A company that wants to make money. A company that offers (free) services and information in order to attract traffic and then tries to monetize that traffic. Guess what I do? I run a business. I want to make money. I offer (free) services and information in order to attract traffic. I then try to monetize that traffic.
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I agree, however Google's webmaster guidelines are generally good practice irrespective of whether Google wrote them or not. Things like not having too many ads above the fold, not running sites as spam link sinks, ensuring that a sensible linking and site structure is maintained all add to user experience. If you want to keep your visitors, monetize them and gain their trust then all these things that Google ask you to do help in that respect. The Google webmaster guidelines wont hurt you at all.
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Google's not my friend. Google's a competitor. A competitor with a lot more resources and capital than me. A competitor that doesn't give a shit about me or my business.
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Be that as it may, I'm yet to see traffic that converts better than targeted SE traffic. As Google is the major provider of SE traffic it's probably a good idea to ensure you don't get horribly slapped by them.
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Why does Google encourage webmasters to focus on 'good quality content'? Because they scrape and use that content as part of their business model.
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So what is the alternative ? A world without search engines ?
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Of course I'm smart enough to understand that I can benefit from the way Google uses the free services I offer. I'm also smart enough to understand that if a significant part of my income comes from Google, I'm in a vulnerable position. I therefor try to minimize that risk. How? By hiding as much as I can about what I'm doing from my competitors (including Google). After all, isn't Google doing exactly the same? They keep most of their inner workings a secret. They have their own disinformation agent. etc
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That's your prerogative, nobody forces you to use Google's tools. My contention is, however, that using them doesn't necessarily hurt you unless you're doing things that are bad practice anyway.
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I get the impression your opinion about the matter is based on 2 assumptions:
1. That all sites that are promoted using seo tactics that violate Google's guidelines are not useful to visitors. (not enjoyable for users to visit).
2. That webmasters who don't violate Google's guidelines have nothing to fear from Google.
Make no mistake about it. Google doesn't give a shit about your site. They don't give a shit about your income. They care about THEIR income, not yours.
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Sites that don't follow Google's best practices usually have some negative effect to surfers. The most common example is a site boosted in ranking because of spam links. The site itself may be wonderfully enjoyable, unfortunately all those spammy sites that link to it are not. There is a cost somewhere and the cost is that the web is larger than it needs to be in order to house spammy links. I could go on with more examples but you get my drift.
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How is Google supposed to know that your site is desirable and of value to the surfer. That is purely subjective. There's no such thing as an objective measure of usefulness. Google makes a guess about how many users have already displayed certain signs that they found a site to be useful to them. With billions of pages out there and Google only displaying a very limited amount of them to its users, I'd be insane if I didn't put any information out there that could be interepreted by Google as a sign of confidence in my sites.
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Google has many signals it can use to tell if your site is likely to be desirable. Some include bounce messages to end users asking people who bounce quickly back to the SERPs if they want to block a site. Social signals, time on site and traffic signals, page layout algorithms, semantic text algorithms the list goes on.
I have two points. Firstly I don't think following Google's webmaster guidelines can do anything else other than help you in the SE results and secondly that using Google's tools if you do follow their guidelines shouldn't hurt you. I find their tools useful, you may not and that's your choice.
