Re: Search engine promotions

From: Michael Martinez <Michael_at_xenite.org>
Date: Wed 21 Feb 2001 11:47:55 -0600

PRAMOD KUMAR <pramod_at_hwr.bhel.co.in> WROTE:

> > Take for example I have a more content rich page, it
> > is listed on search engines and it has a higher ranking.
> > A website owner purchases ranking and placed ahead .
> > Do you think that user of the search engines will be
> > benefited?

TO WHICH LINDA ROCCO <GUMMYLUMP_at_aol.com> REPLIED:

>Well, let's take that argument into the real
>world...When you look for and find any company in the
>Yellow Pages, who says that they are the one best
>suited to your needs? They pay for that Yellow Pages ad
>when others cannot afford it, haven't thought of it,
>or just don't feel like it. Maybe anothe company that
>isn't in the Yellow Pages would be best for you. Maybe
>you want to exclusively visit businesses that do not
>advertise and do not spend money to get you to visit
>them? Which ones want your business more and are
>working (and spending) to get it?

I recognize that there is a significant time lag between
the digest and postings. But I feel it cannot be iterated
enough that the Internet is not the equivalent of a
shopping mall. A search service may elect to make
itself little more than a yellow page directory for
commercial Web sites. At the very least, they'd have
a better shot at making a profit. But most Web surfers
are NOT looking to buy things.

Right now there are certain science fiction categories
which have been spammed out on various search engines
(not the directories, not yet) by booksellers, poster
sellers, and CD sellers. The people looking for content
have to bypass the top 2-3 listings to get to what they
are looking for. Naive surfers will no doubt be suckered
into clicking on the sales sites. And, of course, any
savvy surfer who does want to buy something but
is unsure of where to find it should be able to just
search for something on, say, Altavista, and find a
commercial site selling SOMETHING.

On the other hand, large content sites (including my
own) threaten to dominate relatively small topics because
many of our pages may turn up for relevant phrases.
Altavista clusters page results from domains to
minimize this problem but unfortunately they don't
cluster sub-domains. Whereas commercial sub-domains
may actually have differentiated content, non-commercial
Web sites with lots of sub-domains are often pushing the
same material.

That's a bit off-topic, but people are looking for content
most of the time, not for things to buy.


Science Fiction and Fantasy info_at_xenite.org
    Visualizing Middle-earth, a book for all Tolkien fans
        http://www.xenite.org/



Received on Wed Feb 21 2001 - 11:47:55 CST