Do no evil, but do hijack search terms
Last week Google announced it was restructuring its business and creating a new parent company Alphabet – which was welcomed by some in the industry.
But the restructure was not good news for small business Alphabet Signs in Pennsylvania, Dr Mumbo’s go-to source of changeable building, sidewalk and portable signs in the tri-state area.
How does he know this? Well the good folks at Alphabet Signs used the power of presumably Google to contact him to complain about the impact Google’s latest move is having on their search traffic.
Sean Masters, IT manager for Alphabet Signs, wrote: “Since Monday’s announcement, Google has been taking our traffic and racking up our Google Adwords bill with people searching for their new name.”
He’s not kidding Masters also contacted the Huffington Post whose tech editor Damon Beres took up the Alphabet Sign’s plight.
The data shows Alphabet Signs’s traffic is down most than 30 per cent in a week and keywords like “Alphabet Post” no longer working as the people searching that phrase appear to be more interested in posts about Google’s Alphabet rather than sign posts from Alphabet Signs.
“I’m really curious to see if you’ve heard of this affecting anyone else like it’s affecting us… we can’t be the only “Alphabetters” getting hit.”
Presumably they aren’t, but Dr Mumbo isn’t sure there’s much he can do, from Australia, beyond linking to the Alphabet Signs website (click here) and hoping that it improves their Google ranking…
