[AznHisoka]

Yes, it's VERY disturbing, no question about it. Matt can sound all helpful, and cuddly, and oxytocin-inducing all he wants, but he's basically stepping in and helping 1 site over another, when the whole process should NOT favor anyone. There are lots of webmasters out there that do stupid stuff like override a robots.txt accidentally, yet I don't see Matt sending them an email, asking them to check up on it.. Come'n... this is lame!

[jfoster]

What do you think should happen in this scenario? Matt Cutts is aware that a reasonably high-profile site is not being indexed properly. Should he just ignore that?

I think it's particularly good that this is being done publicly, too. There's billions of sites out there and Google can't provide this for all of them, but since they're doing it publicly others can learn from it and know how to address it.

If Matt was artificially boosting HN's ranking that would be disturbing, but they're fixing an indexing issue.

[apetresc]

Are you kidding? Matt is basically a superhero who helps anyone he can find. He's solved problems for people complaining on Twitter, on Google+, he hosts regular video office hours when anyone can come to him with problems, etc. It may be the first time YOU'VE seen him rush in to help someone, but this is Matt Cutts' standard MO.

[AznHisoka]

No, he's not a super hero.. and no he doesn't help everyone that asks for it. I've brought up many issues over the years to him via Twitter, blog comments, emails, etc, and none of them.. count them.. ZERO have been addressed by him. He just gives preferential treatment to those sites that make a lot of noise, and might give Google or Google's quality team a lot of negative press. That's all he does. I've even brought up 100% apparent, clear spammy sites and he doesn't respond, and doesn't do anything about them. They're still there.

Lots of folks here like to give Matt Cutts this aura of an angel, or some sort of saint. Those who have known his actions over the past 5-10 years know better. Just ask guys like Aaron Wall and Rand. Matt Cutts is just a pawn that is there to do damage control for Google. That's all he is.

[Matt_Cutts]

Hi AznHisoka. A lot of people send me spam reports, and I'm happy to pass them on. But normally we investigate the spam reports without sending back specific feedback of what action we took in response.

P.S. Just curious--is this the same AznHisoka from BlackHat World, the "Blackhat SEO forum"? http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/members/137345-azn...

[AgentConundrum]

> normally we investigate the spam reports without sending back specific feedback of what action we took in response

I understand why you have to do this, but I wish there was at least some transparency regarding confirmation that an issue has at least been looked at, as opposed to just filed as a spam report.

I've only reported one issue to Google before, and the site in question, though incredibly obviously bad, is still the top link on the SERP for the business.

Specifically, there's a pizza place here in Halifax, NS that looks like it didn't renew it's domain in time, and some people are squatting it with an old copy of the site plus their own spammy links. The site[1] displays a copy of the site from 2008 or so, with a banner on the top which reads:

> To previous domain owner: We bought this domain after expiration so it's not our fault that you lost it. We put old content for this domain only to avoid losing good quality of it from SEO point of view. If it's a problem for you contact us ASAP!

I reported it to Google months ago and never heard a word about it, but today when I search for the business name - which I'd imagine a lot of people do when looking for menus, phone numbers, etc. - the "compromised" site still ranks first on the SERP[2]. I wonder how many people even notice the banner telling customers that <jedi>this is not the page you're looking for</jedi>.

[1] http://jessys.ca

[2] https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jessys%20piz...

[code_duck]

If it is, apparently the person in question doesn't enjoy the Blackhat World forum very much, having made one post total.

[Matt_Cutts]

And yet AznHisoka still seems to have time to recommend a colon cleansing product on Yahoo Answers to lots of different people: http://answers.yahoo.com/activity?show=EYIYH5R8aa :)

[code_duck]

There's no hiding from Matt Cutts!

[adamsc]

Oh noes; Matt Cuts is going to think BHW is just spammers - siiigh

[rayz0r]

Oh snap :D

[Tichy]

Google should simply deliver the best results, no matter what algorithm they use to do so.

[orijing]

If that were truly their goal, their ads would never be the useful, because if they were the best results, they would be duplicates of the organic search results (hence useless). Or, if they weren't the best results, then the best results are in the organic search.

Clearly that's not the case, as advertising makes 99% of their revenues.

[tonfa]

If you're looking to buy shoes, why should the organic results for [your favorite model] (likely wikipedia, the brand website, etc.) be better than ads?

[orijing]

That's exactly my point. I was responding to the parent's suggestion that "Google should simply deliver the best results, no matter what algorithm they use to do so." In the scenario you describe, the best results would be the stores (for example) where you would buy those shoes.

Remember, organic doesn't have to mean non-commercial. In fact, if I search for best buy, the first organic result is bestbuy.com

[tonfa]

It is obvious that the best organic result for a nav query like [best buy] is bestbuy.com. The issue is with queries like [some product], should it show amazon first? or bestbuy? or some local reseller?

[zem]

the point of ads is not to be maximally useful, it's to maximise some function of (usefulness to you, profitability to the advertiser).

[orijing]

Of course that's the point. Again, I was responding to the parent ("Google should simply deliver the best results, no matter what algorithm they use to do so"), which I understood to be what results Google should choose to show. Perhaps I misunderstood his meaning for "best", but "best" in this context to me means the result that's most likely to satisfy the user.

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that ads are subject to a whole different objective function. I'm saying that if the best results were already in the organic, then the ads would either be redundant (for the user) or otherwise less useful than the organic (by definition, really).

[zem]

yep, i was just pointing out that the ads being less useful than the organic result was pretty much by definition.