54 replies to this topic

[Tomecek]

http://www.autosport...ne.php/id/49451

Should I understand

FIA take note: German carmaker BMW has been caught cheating and was disqualified by the internet's governing body, Google.

as that FIA already take note? Or do I, as non-English speaking, understood it wrong?

Anyhow, BMW cheating? They cheat here they can cheat everywhere...

[LuckyStrike1]

Didn't know Google governs the internet ...

I found this a bit funny, coming from a Google spokesperson

We cannot tolerate websites trying to manipulate search results, as we aim to provide users with relevant and objective search results.

"Google may temporarily or permanently ban any site or site authors that engage in tactics designed to distort their rankings or mislead users in order to preserve the accuracy and quality of our search results."

A bit fun considering Google is launching in China ... and puts censor in the search engine to satisfy the Chinese dictatorship. So users in China won't get any hits when searcing for "human rights" for instance. Now ... how does that work with the aim to "provide users with relevant and objective search results" or "cannot tolerate websites trying to manipulate search results"?

Google ...

[bira]

Originally posted by Tomecek
http://www.autosport...ne.php/id/49451

Should I understandas that FIA already take note? Or do I, as non-English speaking, understood it wrong?

Anyhow, BMW cheating? They cheat here they can cheat everywhere...

It's just a bit of humour, of course the German BMW website has nothing to do with the FIA or F1.

"FIA take note" is like saying, "to the attention of the FIA" - i.e., we're bring it to the attention of the FIA.

[bira]

Originally posted by LuckyStrike1
Didn't know Google governs the internet ...

Again, it was meant in jest.

Don't you hate it when you need to explain jokes?

[Garagiste]

News raised a smile and also a question - how many businesses out there don't try to manipulate search engine results? Or two questions - without getting their fingers burned like this?

[bira]

Originally posted by Garagiste
News raised a smile and also a question - how many businesses out there don't try to manipulate search engine results? Or two questions - without getting their fingers burned like this?

Well I can't think of any website I visit that would do what BMW did: it's just way too blatant. Something you'd only ever see on sleazy websites.

Sure, every website can and does optimize to improve its search ranking; but I don't think any serious website or company would deliberately manipulate it in ways that effectively result in what you give Google being different than what the user could find on that same URL.

[Tomecek]

Originally posted by bira


Again, it was meant in jest.

Don't you hate it when you need to explain jokes?

Well, indeed Sorry for misunderstanding and thanks for explanation...

I hope this cheat goes down to web designers only... even though...

[BRG]

Frankly, if I found that my website editor WASN'T trying to arrange things so as to get the maximum hits from search engines, I would get rid of her/him.

Google are just trying to rebuild their tarnished image by deflecting some odium elsewhere. An old trick - but one that still seems to be working, given that Atlas-Autosport have taken the bait!

[Tomecek]

Originally posted by bira


It's just a bit of humour, of course the German BMW website has nothing to do with the FIA or F1.

"FIA take note" is like saying, "to the attention of the FIA" - i.e., we're bring it to the attention of the FIA.

Anyhow, why I found myself little bit in doubt: I don't see nothing wrong on FIA taking note of BMW cheating actually. It seems valid to me. BMW cheating somewhere, ok let's be extra cautious this year...

[bira]

Originally posted by BRG
Frankly, if I found that my website editor WASN'T trying to arrange things so as to get the maximum hits from search engines, I would get rid of her/him.

Google are just trying to rebuild their tarnished image by deflecting some odium elsewhere. An old trick - but one that still seems to be working, given that Atlas-Autosport have taken the bait!

You've lost me there? What bait?

[tombr]

Someone at BMW will get promoted. The website is already getting "fixed" and things will be hunky dory with Google soon. In the mean time, BMW gets a lot of press and it's not bad press about recalls, striking workers, or factory closings. The public will see the name BMW but see the problem as nothing more than one of the geeks working on the web site messing up.

[Garagiste]

Well I'm no techie, so the minutiae of what they did will probably go over my head with a whooshing sound; but "way too blatant" for two years?

[bira]

Originally posted by Garagiste
Well I'm no techie, so the minutiae of what they did will probably go over my head with a whooshing sound; but "way too blatant" for two years?

Well unless someone brings it to the attention of Google, they're unlikely to discover it themselves. There are a gazilion websites out there, some do worse things and for longer, but we don't care and Google doesn't know.

Some blogger discovered what BMW was doing, and given how uncommon it is for a company this big to resort to such tricks, it became an "issue" - and when it was brought to Google's attention, I suppose they were all too happy to make an example out of BMW (although to be fair they've done the same for other websites who did similar things many times before).

It really is just an anecdote; nothing more.

[Garagiste]

Thanks for taking the time to give us your view on the story.
So, the press have picked up the wrong end of a Red Herring and proceeded to beat around the bush with it by the sounds.

[Note to those that used to inhabit Fleet St - get yourselves a grapveine section!]

[bira]

Dunno. For us, it's an anecdote. For a financial or tech newspaper/reporter, it's quite a nice story. Like I said, it is very uncommon for a reputed company such as BMW to resort to such tricks.

[BRG]

Originally posted by bira
What bait?

You've run a story that shows how upright and responsible Google is. That is nice positive publicity for them to counteracts some of the bad press that they have rightly been getting for their supine kowtowing to Chinese censorship. The behaviour of the BMW corporate website isn't even remotely a motor-sport story, but you have unwittingly been helping with some pro-Google spin.

[bira]

Originally posted by BRG
You've run a story that shows how upright and responsible Google is. That is nice positive publicity for them to counteracts some of the bad press that they have rightly been getting for their supine kowtowing to Chinese censorship. The behaviour of the BMW corporate website isn't even remotely a motor-sport story, but you have unwittingly been helping with some pro-Google spin.

I don't cover Google, for one, so I don't unwittingly or wittingly help or hinder their publicity. You are obviously on a bend about Google or whatever, but I'm the wrong port to call on.

Plus, I thought calling Google "the governing body of the internet" would have given you a clue just how seriously we take this and how supportive of Google we are...

This is a motorsport website, and we try to run stories of interest to motorsport fans. I thought it anecdotal, yet rather funny, that BMW was banned by Google. It was in the Grapevine because, well, it's not a news story for us.

Not everything has a hidden agenda, BRG.

[Garagiste]

Ah, but that is what caught my interest!
On the one hand:

it is very uncommon for a reputed company such as BMW to resort to such tricks.

but if:

There are a gazilion websites out there, some do worse things and for longer, but we don't care and Google doesn't know.

Then how do we know it's really that uncommon?
I know we're barely on topic here, and I'm not grilling you or trying to trip you up here - just one of those things that raises an eyebrow.

[xype]

Originally posted by bira
Dunno. For us, it's an anecdote. For a financial or tech newspaper/reporter, it's quite a nice story. Like I said, it is very uncommon for a reputed company such as BMW to resort to such tricks.

Heh, never underestimate the idiocy of marketing drones working for big companies.

[mach4]

This is going off-topic but I find it interesting that Google does not take similar action against other types of PageRank manipulation such as google bombing. For example, if you search for "jew" the first result is a white power nationalist anti-semitic website. All Google does in that case is put up a link to an explanation of the results.

[BRG]

Originally posted by bira
Not everything has a hidden agenda, BRG.

There's nothing hidden about it. Google may say 'Don't be evil', or whatever their company objective is, but they are now a big multinational corporation and will tend to behave like one. So when they get a thumping for something (eg. China) that damages their reputation, they will look to find some positive stories that will help to repair it. Google wants the internet community to love them but they got it badly wrong over China. However, they know that their audience will respond well to them publicly disciplining a big company like BMW for 'cheating' and that this will cast them in a good light as nice folk and allraound high-minded defenders of the values of the internet.

I am sure that, as a journalist, you know only too well that people/companies often use the media for their own ends. It is called PR and is apparently regarded by some as a respectable profession. In this case you have helped to give the story legs by repeating it, and I have helped further by indulging in this discussion!

[Mauseri]

What google it is if it won t find BMW

[MaxScelerate]

Originally posted by BRG
There's nothing hidden about it. Google may say 'Don't be evil', or whatever their company objective is, but they are now a big multinational corporation and will tend to behave like one. So when they get a thumping for something (eg. China) that damages their reputation, they will look to find some positive stories that will help to repair it. Google wants the internet community to love them but they got it badly wrong over China. However, they know that their audience will respond well to them publicly disciplining a big company like BMW for 'cheating' and that this will cast them in a good light as nice folk and allraound high-minded defenders of the values of the internet.

I am sure that, as a journalist, you know only too well that people/companies often use the media for their own ends. It is called PR and is apparently regarded by some as a respectable profession. In this case you have helped to give the story legs by repeating it, and I have helped further by indulging in this discussion!

You're wrong, me think. This most probably wasn't REUTERS material but slashdot.net or some other webgeek media reporting. Thing is, there are countless posts on webdesign forums from aspiring webmasters who's site have been 'banned' and 'deindexed' from google because G's algorythms filters out the 'black hat' techniques like 'keyword padding', 'hidden text' and such (you know, like p0rn sites adding keywords 'Disney' and 'Cendrillon' at the bottom of the page to bring some more traffic?). Some of them have been sending death treath for g*d sake, because being banned from google is, for many, the closest thing to online death. -- Well, it's these people that google wanted to inform : it's not because BMW is potentially a good customer for google (they are, after all, paying for all sort of advertisement in all sorts of media) that they wouldn't get filtered out.

You said earlier:

Frankly, if I found that my website editor WASN'T trying to arrange things so as to get the maximum hits from search engines, I would get rid of her/him.

What would you feel about your accountants today if you were one of Enron's big shots?

[BRG]

Originally posted by MaxScelerate
What would you feel about your accountants today if you were one of Enron's big shots?

It was Enron's big shots who were crooks, not the accountants (apart from the DFO of course) who were just their patsies. But that is criminal fraud - you cannot possibly equate that to getting yourself some extra publicity by manipulating a search engine.

Playing games to get your hit to the top of the Google find-list is not remtoely illegal, and I would venture to say that it isn't even particularly unethical. Any company that isn't trying to do it needs to get themselves some new marketing people fast. The idea that BMW were doing something that no-one else would ever dream of doing is completely laughable. The only thing that Google have achieved by making an example of BMW is to make sure that anyone who hadn't thought of doing this will now start. Oh, and to try to fix the China damage of course!

[ASD]

Originally posted by bira


Sure, every website can and does optimize to improve its search ranking; but I don't think any serious website or company would deliberately manipulate it in ways that effectively result in what you give Google being different than what the user could find on that same URL.

Could a F1 team backed by a tobacco sponsor manipulate things so that what appears to the public is different to what the authorities see?

[MaxScelerate]

Wel, if there was an event that got google to tank recently, it would be the 'we wont give access to our data to the NSA' thing more than China, anyway.

While we're way off topic, I'll just say the 'Google optimization' is some cliffhanger business : sure, if you push the envelope it might bring you some more clicks for a time, but then when you get delisted you'll lose around 50% of your traffic for a month or two, until you got your webhack salesman to redo the site (with possibly new tricks) and get google to re-index it. Amazon, EBay, Symantec, (heck, Atlas-Autosport too) all have good visit and conversion rate, yet they don't need to resort to blackhat technique, do they? (answer : nope, many webmasters and search-engine-optimizer make sure of that by constantly analyzing their code for inspiration).

[BRG]

Originally posted by MaxScelerate
Amazon, EBay, Symantec, (heck, Atlas-Autosport too) all have good visit and conversion rate, yet they don't need to resort to blackhat technique, do they?

And how exactly do you know for sure that they haven’t?

It would serve Amazon or E-Bay’s purpose to ensure that they come top of the Google list for their area. And guess what – Google for ‘buying books’ and Amazon is the top, Google for ‘on-line auction’ and there’s E-Bay at the top ;) – apart from Google’s sponsored links of course.

Of course, the reputation of Atlas is more than enough and no underhand activity is needed!

[squidbreath]

I have websites. Google lists my websites. Google didn't tell me they had rules for listing my sites. They just apply some logic to what they find on the internet and then present their findings in some order. If I am clever enough to understand their logic and use it to my advantage I don't consider that 'cheating'. Cheating implies there are mutually agreed on rules.

[MaxScelerate]

Yeah, I guess it's a question of what exactly the world-wide-web concept means to you. If it is just a Yellow-Pages kind of thing, then yes, getting listed as AAAAAAAAAAAAABest-Plumber-in-Town will get you lots of phone-calls. If, however, you see the web as a great library full of content, then you expect to 1)actually *see* the content (it is not black text on black background) and 2)on requesting a page for content, getting THAT very content and not some other.

Re, your example about amazon... If I search, on google or msn or whatever, for "omelette recipe" and the results come up something like - [Kraft co. - The Best Omelettes Recipes] and clicking the link brings me to a subpage from Kraft site with Omelette recipe, well that good. If it brings me to Kraft's HOMEPAGE with not a word about recipe or omelette, then I'm ****en pissed. -- That thing, called cloaking, is exactly what BMW.de has been found to do.

[MaxScelerate]

And, OK, I'm not calling for BMW to be laughed off as cheaters, it does make no sense. But it was a nice, funny story for the grapevine, wasn't it?

[Don Speekingleesh]

Originally posted by squidbreath
I have websites. Google lists my websites. Google didn't tell me they had rules for listing my sites. They just apply some logic to what they find on the internet and then present their findings in some order. If I am clever enough to understand their logic and use it to my advantage I don't consider that 'cheating'. Cheating implies there are mutually agreed on rules.

Google have rules for their index. And if you don't know them that's your problem. They're not hard to find.

http://www.google.co...guidelines.html

[baddog]

Originally posted by squidbreath
I have websites. Google lists my websites. Google didn't tell me they had rules for listing my sites. They just apply some logic to what they find on the internet and then present their findings in some order. If I am clever enough to understand their logic and use it to my advantage I don't consider that 'cheating'. Cheating implies there are mutually agreed on rules.

They do, and after all they dont ban you from anyone elses search engine just their own, which is their right.

Shaun

[tombr]

Some blogger discovered what BMW was doing...

Bira - If you are referring to the blob of Matt Cutts - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ - I believe he is actually with Google and is just giving his insider info on this. My understanding is that Google discovered it and he's just blogging it.

[bira]

Originally posted by BRG
And how exactly do you know for sure that they haven’t?

It would serve Amazon or E-Bay’s purpose to ensure that they come top of the Google list for their area. And guess what – Google for ‘buying books’ and Amazon is the top, Google for ‘on-line auction’ and there’s E-Bay at the top ;) – apart from Google’s sponsored links of course.

Of course, the reputation of Atlas is more than enough and no underhand activity is needed!

BRG, I'm sorry to ask this, but do you even have a clue what we're talking about? This isn't some obscure method. If you search for "Britney Spears" and autosport.com comes up among the first results, you gotta wonder how it got there. And the answer is ALWAYS visible. You just need to know where to look.
For example, if the text that appears in the result summary is "britney spears, britney and kevin, jennifer lopez, porn, free porn, jeniffer and britney video" - and when you click on that link, you get a picture of Mario Theissen as the top story - then, yes, I've promoted my website in an unethical way. Illegality is a question of geography but, as a by the way, in many countries it would be considered false advertising which actually is unlawful.

Finally, Google as a service provider has certain rules. You can accept them or reject them - there is a way for you to exclude your website from their results. But if their aim is to offer their users the best results for what the user is looking for, then autosport.com should come up if you're looking for Mario Theissen and not if you're looking for Britney Spears.

Searching on Google for "F1 News" brings autosport.com as the fourth result. We didn't have to do anything above and beyond simply having a website that offers exactly that - F1 news.

What BMW did, though, was use a page that ONLY the Google bot would see. A simple script that checks the visitor - if it's Google Bot, give him page X. If it's not, redirect to normal page Y.

And page X had nothing but keywords - including 42 times the word for "used cars", including used car sales, used car prices, etc. - something the official BMW website actually doesn't offer at all. So you want to tell me this is not unethical?

If that is the case, I would be interested to know what company you run. Personally, I would never do business with it.

But that's just me.

[bira]

Originally posted by tombr


Bira - If you are referring to the blob of Matt Cutts - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ - I believe he is actually with Google and is just giving his insider info on this. My understanding is that Google discovered it and he's just blogging it.

Well I saw that Matt Cutts blog mentioned in the Times website. But I thought (I might be wrong) that the BMW thing was actually discovered by http://blog.outer-court.com

[edit]

Looks like I wasn't wrong: the outer-court blog discovered it first. They wrote about BMW's antics a week ago, and they note that "After Matt Cutts hears about this, or enough people file a spam report, let’s see how long any of BMW’s pages yield top results."

[Don Speekingleesh]

Well that was the first English speaking blog to post about it. They thanked siggibecker.de for telling them about it.

[bira]

Fair enough. I only saw it when the Times reported on it today

But my point is this was not, as BRG believes, some orchastrated ploy to improve Google's PR...

[Tomecek]

Marc Hassinger, BMW Germany's spokesman, said, "Google has decided to spread this information which has created this media hype. They spread it on Saturday, a few days after the pages had been taken off. They hadn’t talked to us beforehand which we found a bit surprising." Mr Hassinger said there had been talks between BMW and Google and that he was confident the website would soon be re-included by Google.

According to Marketing Vox, to regain Google listing status, BMW may also have to disclose details of who created the doorway pages.

[V10 Fireworks]

Originally posted by bira

And page X had nothing but keywords - including 42 times the word for "used cars", including used car sales, used car prices, etc. - something the official BMW website actually doesn't offer at all. So you want to tell me this is not unethical?

I thought it was more important that Google bot finds thousands of genuine popular pages linking to a page, for it to get a high ranking? How does it work

[Don Speekingleesh]

http://www.google.com/technology/

[JohnH]

This story makes no sense because I just googled BMW and all of their sites come up right away. So if they were banned like the story says, how is this possible?

John

[baddog]

Google any terms other than explicit "BMW"..

Shaun

[HP]

Originally posted by bira


Well I can't think of any website I visit that would do what BMW did: it's just way too blatant. Something you'd only ever see on sleazy websites.

Sure, every website can and does optimize to improve its search ranking; but I don't think any serious website or company would deliberately manipulate it in ways that effectively result in what you give Google being different than what the user could find on that same URL.

You might be surprised. Some popular BB software that is used by a wide frame of companies, offers MODs and tips on how to do what BMW did.

[bira]

Originally posted by HP
You might be surprised. Some popular BB software that is used by a wide frame of companies, offers MODs and tips on how to do what BMW did.

Still not convinced. I'm thinking NY Times, Britannica.com, official websites of large corporations or famous companies (Microsoft, Renault, Ferrari, Amazon), sports websites, etc.

You want to point me to a company in the calibre of BMW that does the same thing?

[MaxScelerate]

Originally posted by HP
You might be surprised. Some popular BB software that is used by a wide frame of companies, offers MODs and tips on how to do what BMW did.

Indeed, and the support forums for these products, like those for SEO (search engine optimization) and web building, are full of small business owners who don't understand how or why all of a sudden their website has gone missing from the most popular search engine (google has simply modified its algorithms). Usually after they've paid someone who promised them easy, and fast, top ranking.

[baddog]

Originally posted by HP
You might be surprised. Some popular BB software that is used by a wide frame of companies, offers MODs and tips on how to do what BMW did.

Maybe you are not understanding what they did that made it so bad. THe things they used as search targets were not on their website at all.

Shaun

[Don Speekingleesh]

Originally posted by JohnH
This story makes no sense because I just googled BMW and all of their sites come up right away. So if they were banned like the story says, how is this possible?

John

They're back in the index now that Google is happy that all the doorway pages have been removed.

[V10 Fireworks]

Originally posted by Don Speekingleesh
http://www.google.com/technology/

I thought writing "used cars" 500 times on a page was a super-seeded method of checking the relevance to used cars? But if the page is ALSO otherwise popular and well-linked I guess it still works like that?

[MaxScelerate]

Originally posted by V10 Fireworks


I thought writing "used cars" 500 times on a page was a super-seeded method of checking the relevance to used cars?

Not if you bury it under enough semi-random text so as not to trigger the keyword-density filters of google's software (or other SE's).

[Tomecek]

Originally posted by JohnH
This story makes no sense because I just googled BMW and all of their sites come up right away. So if they were banned like the story says, how is this possible?

John

www.de was not listed yesterday yet