News Source: http://www.fathomseo.com
Published: Aug 21, 2008 - 04:40 pm
Story Found By: Mes927 1267 Days ago
Category: Domaining
16 Comments
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News Source: http://www.fathomseo.com
Published: Aug 21, 2008 - 04:40 pm
Story Found By: Mes927 1267 Days ago
Category: Domaining
16 Comments
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Comments
I think this is naive and uninformed argument, and definitely not Sphinn worthy. The author suggests that publishing more than one site in a market is "domain name gaming", even when the sites are clearly unique :...come across one competitor dominating the search results with multiple domains for one keyphrase. I call this practice "Domain Name Gaming"...a different coding & design structure and modify the on-page content so it’s not duplicated across your domains."That’s naive. He’s entitled to his opinion:"My advice on this topic is to focus your efforts on building relevant and quality content on one domain" but that’s all it is... one person’s opinion.Search engines control the serps, not seos or clients. Winners work hard to win. You’re not entitled to rank. So if you can’t come up with a competitive SEO strategy or don’t want to do hard work, or if your client can’t afford to compete, boo hoo wah wah but puhleeeeze stop wrapping your excuses in an "ethical" argument.Sorry but I’m tired of the whining and excuses getting passed along as legitimate complaints.
Two people have Desphunn and commented with their reasoning.1 person says this is information that reg Sphinn users would already know.The other provides debate, adding ’SEs control the SERPs not SEOs or clients.’To me, the post is Sphinn worthy because of the debate potential. Discussion.The post material deals with an angle that is not clear enough to assume anything in any direction. Yes, if used to put rearranged semi-duplicate content into the SERPs for the mere goal of manipulating SEs, then many factors become apparent.1. Will the dups be written with a change of writing style? 2. Will the designs fluctuate..offering more appeal in a way that stimulates higher conversion to a call to action?3. Will it be used for unethical purposes? (the ’end’ call to action..is it safe? Is it useful? etc)There are many questions we could ask ourselves at this point. Ethics vs lack of? It depends upon what it’s used for. In and of itself is not unethical in my opinion.Is repeated posts found in Sphinn every single day? It most certainly is. Are the battered/tattered/beaten posts any less useful? Some say yes. Some no.One of the Desphinners suggests the regular traffic/readers in Sphinn are all knowing of sorts.What about the marketing newcomers? Are they not also part of the traffic/readers? My father was one of the smartest people I had ever known. (he passed)...He was certified with a book label genius IQ. (crazy as a bed bug but highly intelligent..haha..it runs in the family?)But one thing I can say wth certainty. The simpler things eluded him. We should never assume what others know or do not know, just because we may have forgotten where we came from.PS: if SEs ’controlled’ the SERPs, not SEOs, then what is the purpose of our work? Obviously, it is to manipulate rankings by way of techniques that the SEs approve of (or until caught for otherwise. haha). So, in essence, SEOs ’control’ the SERPs to a degree. Sort of like riding a horse. The horse is obviously the one in ’control’ but with the right manipulation and techniques, we ’control’ the horse.
This discussion is great! I appreciate the comments from everyone. Rather than providing a sexified list of reasons why someone should or shouldn’t do this practice (there is a lot of this on Sphinn), I tried to present both sides in a equal manner and let readers discuss their thoughts and experiences. Yes, I did include some of my own opinions which are based upon the poor quality of the SERPs I encounter as a searcher, and knowing that SEOs are more than likely the ones performing this practice and populating the top SERPs in the instances I have seen. Maybe I haven’t read enough Sphinn posts to see this issue discussed. I also posted questions for discussion and/or debate rather than simply complaining and using this as an excuse for an ethical argument.To protect my clients I did not include actual examples, but I believe the majority of the SEO Sphinn audience has seen this practice as a searcher, in a competitive analysis, or used it as a legitimate strategy to help their client.I feel the biggest issue at hand is the quality of the SERPs; and whether or not we as SEOs and content managers are helping improve them or detract from them by spamming the engines with crawler-friendly pages that human searchers find no value in.@SpostareDuro, great horse analogy!
If the sites have little value to users, the search engines that have human reviewers will eventually catch on and demote them based on their (lack of) merits. If they aren’t catching on fast enough, we can make them take notice by submitting spam reports. While the sites may not quite meet the criteria to be considered spam and removed as such, a human may still take a look around and realize that they do not deserve the top positions they currently possess.It is possible to buy up keyword rich domain names and still make users happy by creating valuable content. Taking shortcuts may work to help rank in the short-term, but once human reviewers get involved, it just doesn’t make sense in the long run.
"If the sites have little value to users, the search engines that have human reviewers will eventually catch on and demote them based on their (lack of) merits."Terrific resolve.......................in theory.
I have to say, ranking should not be the primary concern of site owners..instead providing a relevant and useful information is better..it might take you quite sometime to see the changes in your site’s popularity but it usually is for a long term.
>> My advice on this topic is to focus your efforts on building relevant and quality content on one domainTotally disagree with that. Would you put all apples in one basket? Let’s be more fun and go ask the neighborhood drug dealer if he stores all of his dope in the same place. It’s the theory of defensible income. As finicky as Google is I don’t trust them to go and totally change their rules and tank a site.I won’t even go as far as saying this is gaming the search engines. Providing multiple options for users or targeting a different demograph on different domains is good practive in my opinion.As far as ethics, that’s fairly irrelevant. It’s not our jobs to make Google return the most relevant results, and I for one am not going to help them out by submitting spam reports considering their double standards for everyone.If I can get the top 10 I’ll do it everytime. As long as the users is getting something relevant then this isn’t against any guidelines anywhere. And as far as Google "catching" you doing this...that isn’t going to happen unless your a total clutz.
@ TheMadHat - Providing multiple options for users and targeting different demos is a great practice if it provides value to the end user.My post was sparked by instances I have seen that provide little to no value to a search audience.Here’s an analogy, maybe not the best... but would you rather own and maintain a well-built mansion that will be in your family for generations and is a huge asset, or own and maintain a ton of small rental properties that need constant improvements to meet the needs of the renters, and could get torn down to make way for something bigger and better?If you disagree with putting all apples in one basket then why aren’t the masses and all of the biggest online corporations performing the practice of multiple domains?If it’s not our job to help Google improve the quality of their results then why do Google reps ask SEOs at conferences to help submit spam reports and provide feedback? At least that what I gathered from the last conference I attended.Maybe you are right about Google not changing their rules, but in order for them to provide the best search results I can’t help but think they’ll need to take this practice into consideration at some point.
>> If you disagree with putting all apples in one basket then why aren’t the masses and all of the biggest online corporations performing the practice of multiple domains?Since I don’t have time to go through the many many examples, here’s two off the top of my head: From SEO Book: bankrateTicketmaster owns Ticketsnow, which sells the same exact inventory.Ebay owns StubHub, which sells tickets on both sites.Do some name registrant scraping and you’ll see how much "big" companies actually do this.As for your analogy, I’d rather own the mansion and the houses. I never said you shouldn’t have a solid primary domain, but having multiple niche sites selling the same thing is good diversification.
My opinion has been changed. The OP is right... I see plenty of spammy mutliple domains polluting the SERPs now and I’ve started reporting them to Google as of tonight. I honestly had no idea.Aason, I know you gave examples but I bet you spent hours coming up with them, because all I could find were those. No more. Honest and sincere businesses represent on a single defining domain, as it should be. They don’t play spammy games like this Domain Name Game thing. Banking is a pretty serious industry, so I’m thinking maybe bankrate bought those other sites and hasn’t 301’d them yet? I’ll put one of my moniotrs onto it, and report back when they catch up. Anyway it’s settled so we can move along now. No need to fire up the troops any more than we have to.
If it’s not our job to help Google improve the quality of their results then why do Google reps ask SEOs at conferences to help submit spam reports and provide feedback?So the simple fact that I’m asking you to send me a thousand dollars will magically make it your job to send me the money... Quite a twisted reasoning.
@John....LMAO.
@aaron: I look forward to meeting you at ThinkTank.
The author doesn’t share anything particularly valuable the avg sphinner wouldn’t know.
I added a comment to explain why I desphinned this
I think this is bad advice, and explained in my comment.