Q: Do people Google on Ask?

A: Looking at our logs, people do seem to google on Ask.com. They type in “google” and go to Google. They also do this with Yahoo, eBay, Amazon etc. So you may find that you Yahoo on Google, eBay on Yahoo, and even Amazon on Amazon.

Found via SearchNewz.

MG

Sure, they no doubt spend a load on PPC and it could very will be killing off a reasonable source of business for you, but hey – it’s not like you’re all short of a buck or two now is it?

SEO agencies are responsible for spam.  Well, not all of them – there are a lot of good agencies out there.  But why should they be tarred with the same brush as other agencies who pimp dodgy, outdated techniques?  And why should their clients be the ones who suffer, not only losing money paying for this crap service, but losing business when you ban them?

So here’s the idea – get together, agree on a SEO agency spam list and completely kill them from your index so they can’t tout more business. Hey, they are basically selling ways of getting round your guidelines anyway so you’ll be better off getting rid of them (and I’m sure a few managed PPC accounts ain’t worth soiling your organic index).

So a client site gets banned.  They check some SEO forums to find out why and people tell them they’ve been naughty.  Or more accurately, their agency have been naughty.  So what can they do?  Nothing.  Not a damn thing.  They’ve just lost a shitload of money because search engines don’t disclose a lot of info about organic rankings.  Or they’ve been sold by a glossy sales pitch. 

Why not create an agency spam report feature?  Limit submissions to comments from sites who have been banned.  Ask for evidence (consultancy documents, invoices, etc) and ban the agency.  Simple.  The agency will find it very difficult to get more business without search engine listings for their own site and as such, less people will have their businesses hurt, and SERP’s will be all minty fresh and clean!

Search engines need to take more responsibilty for this industry that they (allbeit, unintentionally) have created.  Get your shit together.  More regulation is needed and right now, search engines are in the best position to do it.  Start hitting the spammers where it hurts.

MG

I am starting to like Ask a little more now – the results used to be very cluttered to look at but things are a lot more Google-esque now and there aren’t quite so many adverts.

I like the “narrow your search” features – something similar to what I think Google will be wanting to achieve with Google Coop.

That all said, the results for “how to talk to girls” (one of the refined searches) on Ask, sucked.  Couple of forum type pages with little or no information.  Top result was a page about what not to do.  Several pages were selling a book or something (the same site, different domains, both listed) – the rest of the top 10 wasn’t too relevant.

MG

Firstly that TV advertising doesn’t appear to have had any impact on traffic figures on Ask (and that the removal of Jeeves had a larger impact), also noting that TV advertising didn’t have much impact on MSN (search) traffic last year.

Secondly – the data has a webmaster bias (due to the fact that webmasters / SEOs are primary users of the toolbar – perhaps more so in the West though).

Surely the second observation skews the first?  TV advertising isn’t targeted at webmasters or SEOs – it’s targeted at end users, who are largely oblivious to the issues and drama surrounding the search industry.  With this in mind, Alexa traffic data isn’t likely to reflect the impact of traditional marketing campaigns at all.

Also noted in comments (and indeed on many forums, blogs and other sites over the years) – Alexa data is generally mince at the best of times and ain’t really worth the paper it’s printed on.

MG