SEO Abuse on Google?

[bingus_baby]

is there any place where I can upload these images?

That would Catbox! It's really convenient for quickly uploading images. Files in general, I believe!

[grubbyfox]

Oh, ooof it did not save the image-info in the files, so here goes

https://files.catbox.moe/wgvy57.png
^ april 2023

https://files.catbox.moe/qqdl0w.png
^ april 2023

https://files.catbox.moe/davsem.png
^ august 2023

https://files.catbox.moe/xbjs6c.png
^ august 2023

https://files.catbox.moe/vgpjd6.png
^ december 2023

https://files.catbox.moe/qbxjra.png
^ february 2023

https://files.catbox.moe/24s0gl.png
^ june 2022

https://files.catbox.moe/mpn4op.png
^ june 2022

https://files.catbox.moe/60fqe4.png
^ november 2022

https://files.catbox.moe/1tehma.png
^ october 2022

https://files.catbox.moe/ztbpzh.png
^ october  2022

the dates are relevant because this seemed to be happening a lot in 2022 - 2023. when i search the same terms now in 2024, it seems to give me much more normal results - but we'll see for how long, lol.

[bingus_baby]

Tbh I'm not quite sure what to make of a lot of those. They seem a little less "hacked websites" and more just... Google's search algorithm showing its true colors. It's definitely been getting worse over the years. I just wish we could know why!

[bingus_baby]

Final version of the video script I think! I was going to record the audio tonight, but I got a couple paragraphs in and decided it best not to, it's late at night where I live and my place is pretty echoey. I'll probably be able to knock it out tomorrow! Video assets are also coming along which is cool. I'ms are I'll make more videos after it's done, as there's still a lot to learn about Google's issues, as well as other bothersome topics I desperately need to know more about and share what I find.

Final version?

[grubbyfox]

Tbh I'm not quite sure what to make of a lot of those. They seem a little less "hacked websites" and more just... Google's search algorithm showing its true colors. It's definitely been getting worse over the years. I just wish we could know why!

oh yes they are def not hacked websites (apart from possibly the jesperpus one, that is a legit website for a vloggers cat and also sells merch).
but they're def not "1st page material" when googling very simple stuff, and the books.google crud was relentless at the time.

[Swiftpaw]

It sounds like spam to try to scam someone to me. I also don't know the details about the what and how they'll scam, but I think I know how they're getting into the results at least.

Getting good SEO in Google is actually easy if you know what you're doing, and that makes it easy to abuse. Google doesn't really have any spam filters, so if a website has a title and thousands of words of content that are utter nonsense, it will pick those up and include them in results. Titles especially, which is also why you'll see so many online shops basically put tags or search phrases in their title.

Then Google's image results are based on the alt text and titles, which are supposed to be for describing the image, but if you make the image a common search phrase then that's more likely to show in the Google image results.

I couldn't really tell you why Google removed their spam filters. My guess would be for profit, since people will still use Google even if it sucks as a search engine, so they probably don't feel like they need to put people to work improving their system.

[lianna]

I definitely noticed that Google search results went down the drain in the past couple of years when it comes to relevancy and amount of scams. When I started using DuckDuckGo regularly in like, 2018 or so, I regularly had to add on the "!g" search term to be redirected to Google to find some more relevant and obvious links than I would find on DDG. Nowadays, I never have to go to Google to find more relevant results; and if I try, they're just as shite there as they are on the Duck site.

That said, I have switched to Marginalia for all recreational web browsing a couple of months ago, and it's been really refreshing how relevant, noncommercial and plainly interesting the results are compared to major search engines.
Not only that, but also the amount of additional information about and control you get over the results. Want to find websites published before a certain date? Doable. Want to find similar websites based on where they link? One click away. Want to know the IP, hoster, location of a site? Right there. Want to know where your search term appears on the website exactly? No more guessing and CTRL+F'ing.

I still use DuckDuckGo for work and university, because I unfortunately need some of the stuff that Marginalia filters out or does not have crawled. For example, the Digital Dictionary of the German Language (DWDS) is essential for my academic work, but it doesn't show up on Marginalia at all.

On the topic of SEO abuse, there's also this interesting experiment/blog article by Danluu directly comparing the quality of results of a bunch of engines.

[worldleaderpretend]

Too tired to read through the whole thread, and i see the script somewhat covered it, but i mentioned it to my mom (she runs her business online and has a lot of experience with SEO and the like) and her take is that it's likely just websites trying to force boost their rankings in search by having more companion/external links. I think the whole network of em is definitely weird, but that's the internet :p.

edit: second thought- doesn't this happen on Pinterest a lot? it's one of the only social media apps I still use and I see photos ALL THE TIME with completely irrelevant accounts/links. They're usually to clickbait article websites, but maybe it could be for similar reasons?

[brisray]

Google may (or may not) be trying to level the playing field for everyone recently. Last November saw a major chnage in the ranking results and this month is seeing another. The SEO forums are full of what's happening.

Their main focus this time seems to be against sites that look to them to be purely or mainly AI generated. Mostly sites that are producing hundreds or thousands of pages in a short time.

I keep a loose watch on how my sites are doing in the Google Search Console. The number of impressions my sites got halved between the end of 2021 and mid 2023, but are getting back towards what they were prior to that.

[bingus_baby]

The final video is complete! I probably won't make threads about any follow up research, but I appreciate anyone who listened to my rambles throughout this thread. I did learn a lot in my research, and hope someone at google notices. Someday.

[Cobra!]

The final video is complete! I probably won't make threads about any follow up research, but I appreciate anyone who listened to my rambles throughout this thread. I did learn a lot in my research, and hope someone at google notices. Someday.

You made this?

Some sound effects make it hard to listen to what you're saying and there was a typo on a title card, but it seems good so far

[bingus_baby]

You made this?

Some sound effects make it hard to listen to what you're saying and there was a typo on a title card, but it seems good so far

Thankuuuuu!! Yeah it was all me. And the few bits that aren't were credited in the sources document. (Some graphics, music, etc.) And the sound effects being annoying was a lil on purpose lol, obnoxious vine thud sound effects are peak comedy to me. (I know not everyone agrees but it's a risk I'm willing to take for my artistic vision!) I'm glad you like it so far!