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Avatar Went Hot: April 21, 2008 - 9:12 am
Posted By: johnandrews 80 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.johnon.com)
Category: Google SEO
"We have a deal with GoDaddy that if you sign on with GoDaddy you're automatically registered with [Google] Webmaster Tools" and more from Matt Cutts, live from San Francisco.
10 Comments     

Comments

from Kalena 80 days ago #
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Damn, what happened to do no evil? GoDaddy are seriously evil

from sza 79 days ago #
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I increasingly believe webmasters shouldn't read or listen to Matt Cutts.

There's this false assumption that you will hear valuable nuggets from the insider so you should watch his every step.

But what the guy usually says is

  • part common sense (no new information whatsoever; picking the low-hanging fruit)
  • part demagogy (take some extreme negative examples to discredit a practice; refer to user experience only when it helps Google's argument)
  • part veiled intimidation (says nothing specific against, but ends it with "I wouldn't do it...")
  • part obfuscation and blurring the lines ("rank higher than they deserve", WTF, I thought it's Google ranking them?)
It's certainly possible there's something of value now and then in what he says but it's buried in such an amount of noise that on the whole, it does more to disrupt the discussion and advance Google's interests than help webmasters.

from Jill 79 days ago #
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Interesting stuff, thanks John. I think we've heard most of that before from him, but nice to have it all in one place for reference.

from johnandrews 79 days ago #
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@Jill: I guess I missed where Matt stated that GoDaddy and Google shared registrant info. Can you point me to it? I also appreciate that he stated unequivocably that keyword match domains impact search ranking. Obviously I knew that but never knew Matt had confirmed it.

from Jill 79 days ago #
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Hmm...I definitely heard that godaddy thing before, will try and dig it up for you.

[Added] Yeah, it was back in Nov. when it was announced.  See the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

from keywords 78 days ago # - show/hide this comment
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So now Matt Cutts has confirmed what became obvious to me about 2 years ago:

http://blogs.openforum.com/2008/04/18/linking-search-conversation-and-your-site/#comment-1070

LOL!!

:D nmw

from johnandrews 76 days ago #
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@Jill thanks for the webmastercentral link, but I was thinking you meant it had been covered in SEO world. That's an interesting presentation on that announcement post, in the way it glosses over the potential importance of this change:

"Go Daddy users...can launch Google Webmaster Tools directly from their hosting account. And Go Daddy makes the ... creation process faster by adding the site, verifying the site, and submitting Sitemaps on behalf of hosting customers."

By my read that's far from explaining that GoDaddy gives Google the email address, IP address, or other WHOIS-correlating information at time of registration. Do they? We kind of rely on SEO forums and blogs to talk up these "announcements" from our industry perspective. In the comments of that post, I see

...you're correct that our GoDaddy integration creates a new Google account for you, associated with your GoDaddy account. We chose not to integrate with your pre-existing Google Account because that would involve exposing your personal Google username and password to GoDaddy.

So the SEO in me wonders, what does GoDaddy reveal to Google during this process? Since we've seen Google impart intent upon webmasters based on their publicly available registration data (e.g. considering other owned sites used in judging a webmaster intent), this becomes important to an SEO where it doesn't have general appeal (and doesn't need to be in an announcement, especially an announcement from Google).

I also wonder about that automatically generated Google account, already verified, tied to your domain w/sitemap integration and business data, which I as webmaster may not chose to use/manage/trust... yet it's out there anyway... I don't generally choose to run my businesses so loosely.

from clickfire 76 days ago #
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John, I was worried when I read this yesterday so I asked Godaddy:

"...we do not share any personal information with Google. Any domain contact information, regardless of whether its private or public, is not shared with Google."


Thanks for bringing this up as I think it would have serious implications for SEOs if true.

from Jill 73 days ago #
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@Jill thanks for the webmastercentral link, but I was thinking you meant it had been covered in SEO world.
It was:
http://www.google.com/search?q=godaddy+google+webmaster+tools

from johnandrews 72 days ago #
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Ok Jill, so I see your reply and I have to do still more work to keep this Sphinn thread meaningful. Once again it seems to end deceptively.

Your reply above was a link to Google search for "godaddy google webmaster tools". Why you offered a google search result page as an answer to my question confuses me. I asked if it had been discussed in SEO world, and you say "it was" and send a Google search?

So I looked at that SERP. The first results are just godaddy and google blogs announcing the partnership, etc. When I get down to what people consider "SEO" sites, I see:

  • SearchEngineRoundTable simply repeating the news... no SEO insights nor discussion

  • MarketingPilgrim: same deal.. just repeating the Press Release news bits

  • SeachEngineJournal: again, just repeating the same "news"


When I got part way down page 2 of the SERP I gave up... I had not seen any genuine SEO discussion of the issue. So thanks for that "answer"??

I think your reply is typical of much of the SEO space these days... make an assertion and make it sound authorittative but.. where's the beef?

@clickfire thanks for that feedback. Not everyone is keen on signing on to Google's services without consideration. I raise the questions precisely because I feel they should be asked and discussed. Of course take one verbal response to one customer for what it is worth, but it is good to hear that was the response.


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