Search Engines and spiders are fighting a constant battle to deliver accurate and relevant results to their users. Everytime they are able to identify a practice that falsely increases website rankings and corrupts search results, they redesign their ranking formulas to clean things up - then a new scam pops up -- so what can you do???? YOU CAN HELP....READ ON.....
FIRST - let me give an example of relevant search results - let's say you want to go on vacation to Denver Colorado and you are researching information on the internet - you select a search engine, maybe google.com, and type in the search words Denver Colorado and hit the Google Search button -- the results that are returned should be general information about Denver Colorado and in this case they are - the pages of results contains city website, weather, visitor guide, Chamber of Commerce, and University of Denver.
Now, lets try a similar search on google.com by typing in Troy Michigan - a large suburb of Detroit - our results show the city website, weather - a bank website, a car dealer website, a church/temple -- although those websites are business located in Troy, Michigan, they are NOT general information about Troy, Michigan - they are results I could have expected typing in the search words - Troy Michigan bank or Troy Michigan auto dealer or Troy Michigan church -- and, I am not saying that any of the examples above used a scam or unscrupulous techniques to get on the first page of those results, but there are a lot of websites out there that do and here is what you can do when you identify them.....
IT'S YOUR WEB -- HELP CLEAN IT UP!!
Most search engines and spiders have a system available for reporting page ranking abuse -- in order to insure validity of Search Engine results, you can utilize the following contact information to report Page Rank/Spam violations and overly aggressive marketing techniques:
AltaVista: http://addurl.altavista.com/help/contact/search
Google: http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html
Inktomi: reportspam@inktomi.com
Fast: spam@fastsearch.com
Teoma: info@teoma.com
HOWEVER, when doing so, please be accurate and brief - indicate:
- the search words you used
- the website address (www.websitename.com) that you found in violation
- indicate if the site used identifiable techniques of abuse such as tiny text at the top or bottom of the page saying Attention: search engines and spiders this site is about -- if it has to be spelled out at the bottom of the page then that text is probably not within the body of the website where it should be and would normally be found and read by the spiders.
A NOTE TO WEBSITE OWNERS
If you are the local pest control company, don't sit at the computer day after day trying to get you website on the front page of the search results for your city and state word search (i.e. Troy Michigan) when you should be found by searching city state pest control (i.e. Troy Michigan pest control). You can probably find a way to get there - at least temporarily, but doing so will only frustrate many web surfers and could possibly take away valuable travel and tourism from your area.
If you employ a website marketing company, make sure they use techniques that are approved by the Search Engines. If they use techniques that are questionable or show you websites ranking in irrelevant places, DON'T BE IMPRESSED as those results are probably only temporary!
Remember, It's Your Web - You Can Help Clean it Up!
A final thought -- If you were researching a vacation and typed in Denver Colorado and the only results that came up were a pest control company, a computer repair company, local architect, dentist, women's abuse shelter and a church -- would you
a) go to another search engine?
b) think about visiting another area?
c) probably visit Denver anyway but use a travel agent?
Let me know - patti@cyberisle.com
Next Month: A look back at Naples Area web companies that have come and gone -- what they promised, what they did...and a damage assessment!
