The end of search rankings??

[russellt]

I got my hair cut today. Apropos of nothing, the barber happened to mention his latest money-making scheme(apart from cutting hair), which brought into sharp relief the challenge which we, as independent accommodation providers, face in marketing our properties.

The barber has signed up for an ‘investment’ scheme which, to me, sounds like a Ponzi scheme(pyramid). He pays money into a pot, and in return for a pre-defined return on investment, he is tasked with clicking on a prescribed number of online advertising links every 24 hours. The clicks are meaningless to him because he is not interested in the products being advertised, but of course those clicks alter the search engine rankings of the advertiser, who has paid an advertising agency to recruit people like the barber.

As the scheme is an affiliate scheme, the barber is recruiting more ‘clickers’ around the world, and gets ‘paid’ each time he recruits a clicker. Each clicker can, in turn, set up his/her own affiliate scheme,………… and so on, ad nauseum.

I suppose I vaguely knew this was happening, but had never taken the time to consider fully it’s immorality or disingenuity. The conversation made me realise that, as more clickers and affiliates are recruited, only the advertisers with the deepest pockets will achieve page 1 or 2 in the search engine rankings. And for us, the cost of commissions and subscriptions can only grow as the listing sites we advertise through seek to feed machines like this.

Are there any visionaries amongst us who can see where this leads? Do we reach the point where the buying public realise they are being duped, and look for an alternative to the search engine rank?

What could that alternative look like

[FelicityA]

What a horrific tale. I knew this went on but had no idea the extent of the organisation and that people would actually be 'investing' in such a dishonest scheme. And he had no shame I suppose as he told you!?

[Essar]

"That's barbers for you!"

[kevsboredagain]

Are there any visionaries amongst us who can see where this leads?

Carpal tunnel syndrome

[Moliere]

Are there any visionaries amongst us who can see where this leads?

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Mols

[russellt]

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Fingers crossed!

FelicityA - There was no shame. He views it as an opportunity for his family members, who live in an internet-connected but less affluent part of the world, to earn a western income by clicking a mouse button. Difficult to argue with that.

I now know of 2 such schemes. I presume there are many more. I just don't know where it might go from here. The sad thing is that it is the major manufacturers and service providers who are actively and knowingly funding this. Consumers are being duped.

[Kirigiwi]

Do advertising clicks effect Google search ranking though? Seems to me it's the business owners paying for the advertising that are being duped here.

I have heard of schemes like this for increasing Facebook likes too.

[russellt]

Do advertising clicks effect Google search ranking though?

Pretty sure they do. That's the secretive world of Google relevancy signals. Eg, one piece of current SEO advice is to add a keyword into the URL query string. The implication of that advice is that, when someone clicks on the URL, the query string has been designed to more positively affect its relevancy on Google's page ranking algorithms.

Therefore, the belief is that clicking a link does affect page ranking.

Your point about the role of the search engines is relevant though. Do Google et al recognise that their rankings are being manipulated like this? Will they do anything to stop it, or are they happy to take their cut? .... allegedly.

[AndrewH]

I see what russellt's barber is doing to earn some extra money, but what I can't understand is whom it is who benefits with an improved search position when the barber does his "clicking"?

Is the barber paid to go to a particular site and from there go on clicking on all and sundry Google adds. which appear? In which case that particular site would go up in the Google ranking, because of its phenomenal "clicking performance", but at the expense of the Google advertisers who would be shelling out for every click.

Alternatively, is the barber paid to continuously click on a particular Google add. site, to make Google think that the site is producing so much nice clicking income that it should be put to the top of page 1?

Talk about carpal tunnel syndrome! I have it in both hands and I blame LMH

[Sam V]

I clicked and found this, one of many

http://www.adclickingjobs.com/

[Nemo]

This goes way beyond my level of technical understanding but assuming the clickers are clicking on paid adverts then maybe this article explains it a little. http://resources.distilnetworks.com/h/i ... ion/181642

Page ranking outside of paid adverts are based on entirely diffferent criteria to mere clicks as far as I understand it. If your website was having large amounts of click throughs that immediately left the site, then your Google analytics would show this as your bounce rate would be horrific!

Incidentally, I never, ever click on a paid ad when searching. I always click on pages that appear below the adverts. If they are being manipulated, then clearly I'm getting hoodwinked too, but Google goes to great lengths to present searches that are relevant to us.

[Kirigiwi]

Pretty sure they do. That's the secretive world of Google relevancy signals. Eg, one piece of current SEO advice is to add a keyword into the URL query string. The implication of that advice is that, when someone clicks on the URL, the query string has been designed to more positively affect its relevancy on Google's page ranking algorithms.

Putting keywords in your urls has always been good seo practice, but my point is how the hell does Google know when somebody clicks on a link? It knows the link is there (hence keyword usefulness) but not when someone clicks. Unless it's a Google Ad, but they've always denied that Google adwords influence standard search rankings.

Given the barber paid upfront to join the scheme, it seems to me more of a hybrid ponzi scheme incorporating a neat way to scam gullible advertisers.

[russellt]

a neat way to scam gullible advertisers.

And where do the advertisers find the funds to pay for these spurious clicks? Think subscription rates and commission rates and booking fees and service fees, etc, etc.

However, maybe there is a Chinese wall between paid ads and page ranking. Who knows? Should we, in Google parlance, 'do the right thing' and give them the benefit of the doubt? Not sure we really have a choice.

[AndrewH]

I clicked and found this, one of many
http://www.adclickingjobs.com/

Now I am starting to understand. A major company employs an advertising agency to do its PR. The agency produces a lovely website for its client, but who is going to look at it? Well "Rent-a-Click" of course. The Rent-a-Click minion(s) sit at their home computers going to this website over and over again. Perhaps they search it out on Google first and then go to it, or maybe they go direct.

Does the client company know about what is going on? The company's website analytics are brilliant and show that their site is going down very well with the public. But does the company realise that their website viewers are not the least bit interested in the product or service they are offering? Surely they must know the full story and are in on it. The idea being to raise the company's Google ranking significantly.

[Cassis]

As an ironic aside, that site naturally ranks second on Google for "ad clicking jobs". I thought Google was supposed to penalise sites that stuff their page content with keywords!