Google & The Infinite SEO-PPC Loop
Posted October 23, 2009 , trackbackA while back, we had a meltdown about some really awful Google Local and Google Map results. We were clearly not the only ones complaining - in fact, here’s a good article from Danny Sullivan speaking to Sergey Brin about the problems with Google maps and local.
Can you tell I’m about to complain about Google again? Yes here it comes. Matt Cutts, are you listening?
The infinite SEO-PPC loop
I did a Google search for “things to do in Rome” and noticed the #1 natural result was for TripAdvisor. Fair enough, they’re a massive site with many pages of content. They tend to rank well for many searches. Nothing strange about this.
Then I looked at Google’s description of the TripAdvisor page. Sometimes Google displays the page’s meta description. Sometimes Google displays random content from the page, especially if the page content is more relevant to the search query.
My Google search for “things to do in Rome”
In this case I was surprised - to say the least - to see our own website (Viator.com) listed in the page description. Now Viator and TripAdvisor are erstwhile competitors. I would never expect us to have any content on the TripAdvisor page to Rome. So how did that content get there?
Click over and behold! TripAdvisor is publishing Google PPC ads on its Rome page (nothing wrong with that), and Viator.com is paying for a Google PPC ad about things to do in Rome (nothing wrong with that).
So what’s my problem? Well, here’s the thing - Google is essentially using the advertisement Viator has paid for (including the ad copy we wrote, highly targeted to Rome) as part of the scrape of content on this TripAdvisor page.
The Viator PPC ad, which Google is displaying in its natural search results
Think about it - TripAdvisor is winning in 2 ways. First of all, they’re making money from Viator and other advertisers whenever people click on the ads. Fair enough, that’s what ads are for. However TripAdvisor is also getting an SEO boost from Viator (and other advertisers which are listed in the page description). The ad we created is being included in Google’s scrape of the page content, and Google is giving credit to TripAdvisor for having such fantastically taregted content (which Viator created!!) on its page. Annoying.
We write a targeted ad about something. And Google uses that content to boost the SEO result of the site it appears on.
That ain’t right!
It means that Google is allowing publishers of its PPC ads to benefit from the ad copy they publish, which is provided by its paying advertisers. This is not how it’s meant to work. Google should not be using AdSense PPC ad copy to influence its own natural search results.
Let me put that more plainly - Google (the search engine) should know better than to use Google (the advertiser) as a factor in its search results. It’s the kind of thing Google would consider spammy and dangerous if another advertiser was doing it. So how come Google gets away with it? Google might say the ad content is not being factored into the SEO rank, but only being displayed since the ad content is so clearly relevant to the search query. But that’s a bogus argument. If it’s being displayed as part of the natural search results, everybody and their mother will assume the page in question is relevant for the search query.
And in this case, the most relevant thing about “things to do in Rome” on that page is (according to Google) Viator.com’s very own ad!! At best, Google is just being sloppy about what content to show in its natural results. At worst, Google is allowing TripAdvisor to channel natural search users to a page where the most relevant content is - lo and behold! - a Google PPC ad, in the hopes users will click on it (thereby making money for both the advertiser and Google).
So Google, which is it?
If you know of other examples like this, let me know. I’m curious what - if anything - Google will do about this.
-Scott McNeely
Post script: Since this was posted, we’ve had an anonymous tipster explain what’s really happening. Alex Bainbridge also wrote a useful blog post about this. It seems this is a TripAdvisor SEO tactic — they’re using the AdSense API to grab targeted ad copy and then embed that in the html of the page. This is then crawled by googlebot, which ’sees’ the ad copy as part of the page content. Clever. But wrong. And TripAdvisor ought to be punished.
Maybe not, you say, if this practice is not outlawed by the Google AdSense terms & conditions. Well, I’m not bothering to check. Because whether or not it is outlawed, it should be outlawed. Google, how can you possibly defend this SEO tactic? It’s spammy, pure and simple, and you should not let websites do it.
Google - just imagine if every single AdSense publisher on the planet used this same tactic. It would quickly make a laughing-stock of your natural search results.
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