Its occurring at an alarming rate and its occurring globally. Its changing the way in which we use the internet to advertise our services and buy our services and its not good. Its not good for the business owner and its certainly not good for the consumer.
I started to notice this new trend rearing its ugly head about 3 years ago. However on analysing newcomer Bings search results – it became immediately apparent that this is a much bigger problem than anyone could have possibly imagined.
A decade ago Google revolutionised the internet, ensuring more accurate and relevant results. And it was great – so long Alta Vista and Dog Pile – relevancy was finally here. Googles algorithms were complex, using a careful balance of on-page and off-page SEO making it difficult for the cyber spammer to get their website on page 1. A well-indexed library, with Google as the very astute librarian who kept her house very much in order.
But now it seems that Microsoft has decided to create its own search engine (again - refering to failed MSN search). They call it Bing – the decision engine. Now Im not entirely sure how it is the ‘decision engine’ – but not by, it seems, providing even more relevant results.
CHANGING THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB
What Bing is actually doing (or at least at the time of writing) is providing results which are heavily weighted towards page titles and domain names. Google of course uses these as well – but these are not the primary factors in relevancy for Google. This is method being used by Bing is dramatically changing the way people are buying domain names and therefore the way in which search engines results look.
The effect is not good. And, since Microsoft is heavily advertising Bing and Bing is being thrown at the consumer pre-installed in new Windows based machines, people are being forced to optimise to meet Bings criteria rather than their customers.
Try these examples in Bing:
EXAMPLE 1 http://www.bing.com/search?q=corporate+video+production+uk&go=&form=QBRE&filt=all&qs=n&sk=
At the time of writing, in the results on page 1 are the following websites:
• www.corporate-video-productions.co.uk
• www.corporate-video-production.co.uk
• www.corporate-video-production-uk.co.uk
• www.corporatevideouk.co.uk
EXAMPLE 2 http://www.bing.com/search?q=landscape+gardener&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-18
At the time of writing, in the results on page 1 are the following websites:
• landscape-gardener.com
• www.thelandscapegardeners.co.uk
• www.landscape-gardeners-directory.co.uk
• www.landscape-gardeners-rms.co.uk
• www.landscape-gardeners.org.uk
For both examples about half of the results were displayed on page 1 because the URL had the keyphrase in it. Number and quality of backlinks, on page SEO etc did not appear to factor in these results. One can only presume that if another 5 domains were launched with more variations of the keyphrases – that would complete the top 10 results?
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
A URL does not determine better relevancy. It just means that someone bought that URL. So why is Bing providing us with results that look like this? There could be longer established companies/websites with a brand name that are being pushed down the results pages because their URL isn’t keyword spammed.
As a consumer, Im not being given the right information to make an informed decision. From a website owner and a business owners point of view, there are the following issues to consider:
a) Domain sitting
This is selecting all popular key phrases (there are plenty of tools out there that do this) – registering these as domain names and selling them on at extortionate rates.
Example – I looked for the domain www.video-production.co.uk. It wasn’t available to buy yet there was no website associated with it. So I enquired and it was for sale. At the time of writing they wanted ?3000 (three thousand GBP). This was just for the URL – no website development, no SEO, no backlinks, no associated pagerank – simply the URL. This is worrying.
b) Loss of customers
Those who got there early with a URL closest to their best keyphrase wins!
When there is no real brand associated with a product, consumers will simply go with the first site they come across. Websites will be considered just as equal to the next in the list.
c) Identity Crisis
There is no way that individuals and businesses will be able to develop a brand if this continues. And that’s the biggest shame of all. The search engine results pages wil be a long list of keyphrases, samey description tags and if typing in a URL directly - a very slight mistype means that they get your competitor instead of you!
The search engines just need to put a stop to this now. The internet is rapidly changing shape and its starting to ruin to the results. Can you imagine if your local library looked like this. Every book with more or less the same title?
ITS NOT TOO LATE! Join the fight to bring back brands, variation, creativity - and good healthy competition. Bring back good SEO!
Help keep the internet a wonderful exciting place.
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