Hey BN, hit the link that says 'Repeat search with ommitted results'. And pretty please resist the urge to click on google results. :)
Rod:
If A and B simply get sorted in together relatively equally, then the only thing we have shown is that the penalties associated with redirects (which will all agree occurs) does not automatically render such efforts as "snake oil".True, but what if the tests also show no difference between the B & C scenarios? That'll be showing that it is snake oil.
First (with regard to the bold), what in the world are you talking about? As far as I am aware, we are only testing ZCs. If you are somehow manipulating ZC auto generated URLs then you are waaaay off the reservation. The reason I added my non-optimized cart was as a control against yours. If you have found a way to test BvsC you should have been upfront about it, at a minimum. Maybe you just misspoke?
Second, snake oil has its origins in American lore from the days of the Wild West. Perhaps something is lost in the lost in the translation? The term very clearly (to those of us on this side of the pond) implies intentional fraud.
Is Steve intentionally defrauding himself? Seems preposterous to me. When I used it for myself was that intentional against myself? Again silly. Basically, I'm the one who is 'intentionally defrauding' somebody since I give the strategy to my customers. But to apply the term to what I do, you must believe the element of fraud which requires 1) that you are right (on way more than the simple test we are doing here about who will get indexed first and in what order) and 2) I am a liar about having made money while using the strategy. Even if I am wrong that this strategy helped me to make money (unproven, EITHER way), you still have to say that I KNOW it played no part in my success (that deep down I believe what you believe and that I am just engaging in this experiment to build some sort of defense when I arrive at the pearly gates) and therefore I am lying to my customers when I advocate the strategy.
Anyway you cut it, the term sure feels like a passive aggressive insult. I am simply asking you avoid insulting people who happen to have reasoned opinions that differ from your own reasoned opinion.
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That out of the way, let me say AMEN! to this:
Same here actually.... I do expect the 'discussions' from here on in won't be nearly as intense as they have been... Now its really a matter of observations and recording the data... and perhaps offering suggestions/ideas as to the causes of the results we are seeing. The hard stuff is behind us.
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Hmmm. I was wondering, do you have a google webmaster account? Do you use google analytics? I think we should have recorded this information along with the XML sitemaps. The reason being is that we attributed your 8hours to index as probably being the sitemap, bit on reflection, I think one or the other of the above may be a better explanation, especially if none of the other test sites use these tools. (Just trying to cover all possibilities so we don't jump to wrong conclusions).
Aaah yes, both of my indexed sites have google webmaster accounts! And my top listing has Google Analytics, also. Sorry about that, didn't think about it, I put those listings on real sites. To use the SitemapXML mod effectively requires goowebmaster acct. When you update the xml, SE's are automagically notified of changed content (which I did not do, but BN did with his native listing). Do you have any native sites with Google webmaster that you can put in the mix?
Hmm. The more I think about it, the less I think this experiment can really prove with regard to plain vs redirect urls. There are just too many elements outside of control.
No. I disagree with myself on the significance here. Maybe the time to index is swayed by webmaster account. But why is BN's actual product listing not showing yet? By the way I do see the bad cscycles.co.uk listing now also. BN, can you confirm that you have a webmaster acct and that it is linked to your XML and that, when you updated, you notified SE's to crawl new content?
<generosity>
With regard to bad listings generated by ZC, here is a free tip for you guys (something I wasn't planning to do!): Never use the auto-generated What's New types of functionality on ZC. This is great for humans that are ACTUALLY already on your site, but damages your ability to turn SE visitors into sales (and probably rankings... happy to explain later).
What happens is the SE bot visits your URL, sees the random item, treats it as new content and lists it. So lets say the bot is indexing product A but records keywords associated with product X (which appears in a sidebox as NEW FOR JANUARY). The index gets updated with a reference to X.
When a human searches for X on an SE and finds your listing for product A (that really doesn't have anything to do with X) and cannot find whatever triggered the SE reference, three things will occur:
- The human will be annoyed not to find X when they follow the SE link. Once bitten, twice shy... many potential customers may avoid your other listings (including the real one) when they hit the back button to continue looking for X.
- SE will notice avoidance of your site in the list of returns.
- SE will register the quick use of a back button as discontent (heard that in a dream, not 100% sure... more like 60%).
If you want to promote other things, do it statically. Use banners or other things that a bot will record and that will still BE THERE when a human comes calling.
ZC unintentionally creates a bait and switch, not good for SE ranking and certainly not good for real customers. If you have a good site with good content and intelligent navigability, your customers will find your related products without need for random populating.
</generosity>
Deeper Info:
Steve's URL has .html added to the end. The reason that was done back in the day is that SE's preferred static content over dynamic. The reason for that appears above (searches for X resulting in links to A because some little formula was generating something different every time). The logic was that SE's gave preference to URLs with content that would not change frequently (especially randomly), so SEO guys appended fake URLs with static file types to fool SEs.
To clarify, SE's love new content (easiest to create with a db driven, dynamic site). But they hate being wrong (telling a searcher that info about X can be found somewhere it can't). Because of this, most SEOs believed static was preferred by SEs. And tricking SE's by appending URLs really seemed to work quite well (been there, done it, bought the soundtrack).
In those days it was extraordinary easy to outdo competition using URL redirect strategies. But SE's responded. First they began penalizing redirects, which is the origin of Rod's point of view. This was extremely painful, sent SEO's back to the drawing board.
But then SE's seem to have a change of heart. Then they began weighing URL redirects the same way they weigh meta data (comparing to content). Eventually they seemed to accept it, to the point that they published parameters (rules) on how white hat SEO's (folks with good content, not cheating the system) could participate w/o crossing the line.
Because of the new acceptance and attitude from SEs (see the Google PDF posted earlier), it is no longer necessary to append with static file types. You're not fooling anybody accept humans with that, might even receive a penalty for the deception (my guess would be minor).
I think Rod's point of view was more correct back in the day, but I'm hoping this conversation will dust off his point of view.
Is there any way to speed this up for the native links? Even mine is not showing yet and it has an incoming link from the number one listing. :(
Ok, ok. I'll be patient.
