When is Google going to sort their act out?

[SearchEngineRescue]

I work with a couple of clients in the finance and debt area.  I've been doing loads of work examining the link profiles of the commercial sites at the top of the rankings and 70% of the links I am seeing are low value directories and sites obviously built for links with multiple outgoing links to completely unrelated sources!  When I examine the other links their isn't enough value in them to outweigh what looks to me like very obvious and spammy low quality link building.

Why can't Google see what I'm seeing - it's so obvious?  I know there are multiple factors at play but links like these should offer no value or get a site penalised (isn't that what Google tell us) but these sites still seem to be ranking because of them rather than despite them!

[SearchEngineRescue]

OK.  Thanks for your time.

[MBayes]

Above my pay grade I think.

[SearchEngineRescue]

Yes I agree.  They certainly have a size issue.  Balancing the value of things across that many web pages is only going to throw up more issues than solutions.  So are they facing a losing battle with the growing size and complexity of the web and with balancing commercialness and neutrality in a way that makes it impossible to implement changes that will clean the results but jeopardise relationships with paying customers?

[MBayes]

I think Google has an almost impossible task, that being to determine the quality of over a trillion web pages (and of course growing) using technology to do it, which is the only possible tactic they could use.

Looking at their recent moves, I think they are trying to get the user communities to help determine the quality of sites through the 1 + button, and the move to recognize social media signals ( and the Chrome browser changes).

I think that Google would like to reflect a non capitalistic, democratic  ranking system, with safe guards for the new and smaller pages.  Like our government was set up to do. And I think they are moving that direction.

The problems with this goes to the human condition.  There are many who will always try and take advantage of a system (because we are capitalists at heart and that brings out the best and the worst in entities) and that Google is trying to find the balance between a capitalistic approach and a democratic approach. I don't think they can.

Ultimately the rankings are, in general today, controlled by money. Those entities that have money to spend on SEO and Internet Marketing are rewarded based on how wisely they spend that money.  The results are not all that different than the old world Yellow page model. Big money, big advertisement,. first page. Limited budget,and you better find other ways to promote your service/product.

Even with the new changes, the 1+ and all that, lots of smart people will still be looking for ways to take advantage of them, and will undoubtedly find a few ways.

So all we can do, is decide what we are individually, and what tactics we will use to

to represent the side of the fence we choose to stand on.

( Bring in theme music here)

[SearchEngineRescue]

Thanks for your response.

I know there are multiple factors at play and for these clients we are doing social media work, PPC and email campaigns.

I'm really just surprised at often I'm seeing sites with spammy link profiles appear in the top ten when better quality sites with better (but maybe fewer) links appear further down.  I starting to suspect that Google are finding it impossible to write in parameters to the algorithm which deal with sites like these without devaluing legitimate sites.

What do you think?

[MBayes]

We all get to "deal" with these type situations from time to time. Your question is of course impossible to answer, but I would say you are putting all your eggs in the back link basket. If you are faced with a competitor who has a zillion low quality links, you may need to look for other traffic opportunities.  SEO is ultimately about getting quality traffic to your clients site. If your client see's it as nothing more than a rankings competition, you are in deep trouble.

Using the new opportunities in Social media , as well as searching out and finding the best quality links, and building highly creative on site content ( Tips, Calculators, Cartoons, Educational video, Forums , contests)  may go alot further than building links 24 hours a day.

I feel your frustration,  we all do.

[MBayes]

We all get to "deal" with these type situations from time to time. Your question is of course impossible to answer, but I would say you are putting all your eggs in the back link basket. If you are faced with a competitor who has a zillion low quality links, you may need to look for other traffic opportunities.  SEO is ultimately about getting quality traffic to your clients site. If your client see's it as nothing more than a rankings competition, you are in deep trouble.

Using the new opportunities in Social media , as well as searching out and finding the best quality links, and building highly creative on site content ( Tips, Calculators, Cartoons, Educational video, Forums , contests)  may go alot further than building links 24 hours a day.

I feel your frustration,  we all do.

[RyanKent]

Google definitely has opportunities for improvement. They acknowledge their weaknesses and adjust their algorithms on a regular basis.

Often the sites we see at the top are only there for a short time period. The majority of the spam sites I have been looking at lately disappear in 4-6 weeks.

Also, there are widely varying definitions as to what is spam, and what sites should rank. Earlier today another member felt a site should not rank as #1 and was spam. When I reviewed the site it seems to me the page earned it's ranking and it appropriately placed in SERP based on the competition. http://www.seomoz.org/q/fishy-rank-1-google-algorithm-bug

The best we can do is learn as much as possible about how Google works, then use that knowledge to improve rankings for our sites and those of our clients. We can also report spam sites, but be careful about reporting sites as spam which are not. Matt Cutts shared  the reporting account is given a sort of credit rating when they report spam. Those accounts which make false spam reports are discounted on future reports.

[EGOL]

I know.  Finance and debt are really difficult areas to compete.

I would try to attack it with content that professors and university departments would be willing to link to.... but the problem with that is that they don't want to link to a site with an obvious commercial purpose.

[SearchEngineRescue]

Hi EGOL

Yes I agree and you would think that is the case but they are ranking at the top for reasonably competitive terms and better sites are already finding it hard to compete with them.

I'm totally up for the challenge but that's not really my point.  This is not an isolated example I see sites using these practices ranking high for a range of keywords in Google.  I can't write algorithms but I know the things I would be looking for if I did and these sites would be obvious to me.  I can't believe that Google don't know and can't do anything - so what's happening then?

Thanks.

[EGOL]

If these sites have such spammy link profiles then they should be really easy to beat!