Breaking news: People use SEO on Google

Charlie – “Mahalo is a search engine that’s edited by real people.”
Lisa – “Does that slow it down?”

Dr Mumbo’s 3rd theory might be right.

It’s like watching your parents talk about the interweb. Bing is the number 2 search engine in the same way Espanyol is the no 2 football club in Barcelona.

Manipulation on the interwebs? Didn’t see that coming.

I’ll take what’s behind Dr. Mumbo’s door number a).

I don’t think #2 is it… I questioned Charlie as to whether he had actually chatted to any SEOs prior to the story, and he replied that he had chatted to SEOs, search engines and other sources… so obviously *some* thought went into the piece.

I’m thinking it is (a) but the presenters are from 1998?…

“Does that slow it down?” It is not like people are sitting at their computers sending you results as you ask…

Also the issue with Google’s search results was news on the internet about 3 weeks ago (if not longer)…

Oh sorry, when I tuned in this morning I thought they mustn’t have been showing the Today show. All I saw was a very bad comedian falling flat on his face and thought it had to be a repeat of “Ben Elton: Live from Planet Earth”.

I hope he doesn’t actually get paid for these “expert commentaries”. The cane toad I ran over this morning on the way to work would be more up-to-date and more credible.

Good grief……

Good grief…

Good grief…

Good grief… Very funny stuff.

Again, good grief…

As for Dr Mumbo’s theories, I’m torn between (a) and (c).

Oh, what a cynical bunch. I’m sure there are many people who have no knowledge of the effort that goes into SEO, so it would be an interesting item for them.

This has to be one of the worst miss informed segments I have ever seen! did this guy even take the time to do some research? His recommendations such even more then his segment too!! To say Traffic and time spent on site is one of the key ranking factors and pretty much nothing else is a joke.

Please Today shot get up to date it is not 1996 any more!!!

I think you need to connect to interawebz to Facespace first, and then download a new modem? Let me put my coffee in the coffee cup holder on my IBM Compatible PC while I think about this some more.

There’s a 6:47 in the morning now?

That’s pretty incisive – are they talking at ad:tech this week?

And they forgot to mention Bing-gate.

http://www.urbandictionary.com.....=bing-gate

I HaZ SEO

Wasn’t very accurate though was it? “Search engine rankings are a combination of two things : the traffic to your website, and the links from other websites to your website” (or words to that effect)? Well no actually.

They’re a function of the content on the pages of your website (that’s indexed by Google’s spider) and the inbound links. In theory (leaving aside what Google might know about amount of traffic going to specific websites based on SERP clicks and Google Analytics data) the AMOUNT of traffic to your website doesn’t have any impact on the ranking of results because Google couldn’t know how much traffic goes there.

Was a pretty wishy-washy piece .. even considering it was designed to try and make things clear to people who don’t know much about this interweb/pipes thingy. A so-called Technology Editor should be a little more up-to-speed than this really. Perhaps Charlie Brown is showing the limitations of his previous role as the lead character in a childrens’ comic strip?

The Today Show is aimed at the middling classes: this would have been very insightful for them. Charlie should have declared the link between Channel Nine and Bing, but otherwise it is a valid concept for Today’s audience, though it was poorly put together. I’m going for Option B.

Oh .. and I did love the “does that slow it down” question. Would have loved the answer to be …

“yes indeed, sometimes search results take up to a week to appear as the humans answering the questions complete their research … on Google”!

i actually thought he skipped a bit of detail given the audience is mostly the unemployed and old peoples homes

I couldn’t help but cringe when I saw this…I vote for (a)!

Are we really that surprised to see Channel 9 dressing up cross promotions like this?

help, I just “fell off the internet”

Ah…, good grief!

Don’t forget of, course, that Nine and Microsoft (maker of Bing) are in a joint venture in the ninemsn website. One of its biggest competitors is Google. Would the story have appeared had it been about Bing’s results? Somehow I doubt it.

Bwahahahahahaha…

Good grief…

Though I guess a lot of people wouldn’t know this… just a pity it was dumbed down to the point of being not terribly educational.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha… Ah the interweb… got to love it.

As mentioned above-Good Grief

Vote – A and C. Brilliant!

How embarrassing. Thank you for confirming why I avoid these morning TV shows (and many other TV shows that air on 7, 9 and 10) like the plague.

Please don’t forget that an awful lot of people have no idea what SEO is.

An awful lot of people don’t know the difference between a web browser and a search engine, and couldn’t tell you which of these they are using if they are sitting right in front of their computer.

I think the segment was aimed at those kind of people, so cut it a bit of slack.

It did smack of last-second filler to me.

Charlie Brown knows peanuts about technology

Bing is much better than Mahalo, as they have genetically modified spider monkeys powered by uranium enriched bananas checking their search results…

I get what they were trying to say, most people who watch this show would have no idea about SEO’s, and I have no problem with them dumbing it down, just get the basic information right.

And dont forget to mention the conflict of interest in relation to the spider monkeys at Bing…

This is their next feature, this is hard hitting stuff, should be on ACA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqxLmLUT-qc

It may be that most people who watch this show would have little idea about what SEO is and how it is supposed to work. The problem is they would have even LESS idea after having watched (and even re-watched) the segment

Waht a bunch of holier-than-thou whiners. I best most of you are still at Uni and think you’re super cool. I mean, let’s get into real tech speak with the Today Show audience…you know, the demographic that the show aims for is Young 20-something nerds, right? (rolls eyes)….

Take a look at Charlie Browns own website “Cyber Shack” and the on site SEO, taking 5 minutes to check up, I found many issues and this guy claims to be a Tech Guru????

– Multiple use of 302’s – not advisable for SEO.
– Internal pages use Cyber Shack at the front of the title tag – Not advisable.
– No use of H1’s – Good for Keyword targeting.
– No real use of Alt Tags – Good for Google image search.
– Many internal pages use the same title tags – Cross site duplicate content issues.
– No use of XML site map – advisable for indexing.
– No use of meta data on site, descriptions advisable.

A bunch more issues too really I think he needs some SEO training 😉

Hmmm, perhaps Charlie should have checked out our latest Power Retail SEO Special Report before his segment!

http://www.powerretail.com.au/special-report/

I understand this is a big news story on YouTwitFace

Yep, it is fair that the audience may not know what SEO is, and from that POV it’s irrelevant what Charlie Brown knows or doesn’t know (as long as he seems smarter than Wilko, and that’s painfully clear).

I don’t reckon that’s the issue.

It’s that the whole presentation (the visuals, the tone, the format, everything) points the viewer to alternatives og Google without:

a) dare I say it – declaring that the show/channel have commercial interests in the top presented alternative and,
b) saying that the manipulation of Google results by those SEO “people” can also affect the other search engines on the list.

So what he is effectively saying is that Google goes into your site and
has a snoop(y) around?

James

I note on your site you say there are over 200 ranking factors for SEO. The segment was 2.30 minutes long. Were you hoping for an “I’ve Been Everywhere Man” version of SEO? …:o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI

@Hazza

I’m pretty sure that isn’t the point.

As lost as it may be – I think the points are;
1) Someone commentating who doesn’t know much
2) The line of questioning implying Google are fixing their results (even if the answers make sure nothing libellous is happening)
3) Making it sound like Google is the only one open to manipulation (optimisation – potatoe/potatoe)

etc

As for Uni – sadly not…..

So Yahoo doesn’t rate a mention? Well, I suppose, that’s because it’s aligned to Channel 7.

@Hazza

The least he could have done is say the top 5 or 10 ranking factors and quoted a reputable study at least and then referred SEO professionals in a dodgy sense, it is easy to convey this information in say 2 minutes and make it easy to understand for any one. Sure enough their are many people in corporate SEO who find the whole segment laughable. Looking at the traffic of Cyber Shack I see it has taken a dive :S

The guy clearly is not a expert on SEO, if he does know some factors he may only know the basics.

My guess is we will see small business’s think wow links and traffic are all I need, instantly go buy a bunch of dodgy links and fake traffic and see their sites banned.

In terms of other quality search engines he could have mentioned Blekko?

Oh holy crap – wtf? Where do they get this Gawd awful incorrect rubbish? C9 just take a look at my site or give me a call next time and save yourself the embarrassment!

Actually don’t – not at 6.45 in the morning anyway…

I feel sorry for Charlie.

This smack of a researcher not preparing a segment properly.

They should have briefed the presenter better on some intelligent questions.

i LOVE it. very very funny stuff to watch. where did they find this guy. lol.

I cant even bring myself to watch this. Cringing just reading the comments.

I am extremely

He should have just told the host to type the above into Google Moogle when Google Suggest is active – they could have whirled away 30 seconds and laughed away, happily…………. 😉

I vote for (c), definitely!

I have to say, the worst thing about this type of segment is that the audience went out of it with even LESS idea than they had when they went in – way better briefing of the Interviewer definitely and Charlie could have done with some much better and more insightful answers.

The audience probably aren’t well informed on the subject, doesn’t mean that you go ahead and totally misinform them!!!

Is it ok to tell a blind person that apples are blue just because they don’t know any better?
If such a show has the audacity to peddle such misinformation as gospel, can you just imagine how many times you’ve been duped by them without you even realising?
If they say it on TV, it must be true right?

@James

Remember the segment was about if Google was fixing the numbers, not about SEO per se. I did find it weird there was no mention of Yahoo when it comes to search engine.

What this thread of comments proves is that no matter what he said, nobody would have been happy. If he was to incorporate everything everybody wanted here the segment would have run for 20 minutes.

Maybe you should pitch an SEO segment to the Today Show?

traffic a factor in rankings? send in the clickbots lol

That is so funny I am thinking…

I think 9 found out about this SEO stuff in 98 ( ok good reporting back then perhaps), then on this particular morning a story item fell through at the last minute so they searched (no pun intended) the interweb on bing and it served up this junk on its SERP. Need I say more

I agree that the segment is a little too complex for the audience. Also wonder why they’d really care. I don’t think there was anything wrong with what CB said at a high level.

And really, other than SEO ‘professionals’ who else really cares about SEO?

I can see why the segment aired – Bing is about to launch in Aus and they’re just priming themselves.

And they didn’t mention manipulation in other search engines cause it’s irrelevant when Google owns over 90% of search.

@ JJ – dude, Bing launched quite a while a ago I think you’ll find. They even “paid” people to use it as part of their launch campaign.

Simon – ‘you’ll think you’ll FIND’ huh? nice

They haven’t actually officially launched. BWM has recently been awarded that task.
If I’m wrong it’s probably because I Binged it

or BMF rather (blame Bing)

I thought Bing launched in ’09 here – maybe everyone has a different definition of ‘launch’?

http://apcmag.com/microsoft-to.....gcomau.htm

and recently ‘launched’ their Visual Search after the ‘launch’ of Search History before that? According to the Bing Australia blog anyway?

http://www.bing.com/community/.....fault.aspx

We spent 5k on SEO’s to get top of google. Bought google ad words for relevant words for http://www.PetProductsHere.com.au

We launched http://www.yappingmad.com.au Did no google and even hid the site for a few days. Got more from a bonus 30 second spot mid dawn on Melbourne digital channel GEM than the google seo crap!

Okay slight exaggeration but we did get 10 sales out that one ad. Nothing so far from google. Think we will stay with TV. Campaign Starts next week.

Yes

@aidan & simon

You obviously haven’t noticed but Bing hasn’t “officially” launched in Australia. It’s still a Beta product.

It officially “launches” – as every other piece of software does – when it loses it’s beta status.

@R. Mugobme if you paid 5k for SEO and your not getting anywhere, time to try someone else. Of course I don’t know your sites history — for all I know you could be a client who expects to rank on the 1st page of Google for ‘pet products’ within 3 months.

I would say next time, choose your SEO provider more carefully. Just because a few operators don’t deliver, doesn’t mean others don’t. =]

Having heard so many bad things about this video, I finally watched it. What’s the problem? I see absolutely nothing wrong with any of it. It explains something about Search Engines to people who barely know.

@JJ

“And really, other than SEO ‘professionals’ who else really cares about SEO?”

Ummm…let me think:

ppl who run a business
ppl who own a website
ppl who like other ppl to visit their website
ppl who like their website to convert visitors to customers
ppl who like their business to make money

Hardly anyone I guess.

Thanks Charlie for slamming an entire industry with misinformed commentary based on thinly disguised product placement. Disgraceful.

This guy works for Ninemsn so of couyrse he’s going to put Google in a badseat, he doesnt actually know what he’s talking about, I run SEO and SEM campaigns on Bing , Google NIneMsn and Yahoo 80% come from GOOGLE , and itsrelivant based on the content and rates that the site recieves

What a absoulte dud….traffic to your website & other website links….Got no Idea.

Need to do a course in SEM & SEO mate before you talk Sh*T!!!

Hilarious! Love hearing morons speaking with authority on a topic about which they know nothing.

We have two websites. Both selling exactly the same thing. One has had a significant investment in SEO google adwords etc. The whole site was set up by leading site providers in the industry and designed to grab traffic from anyone searching for the products. The other is basically a landing page for the first site. It wasn’t even visible by google to start with. We advertised the landing page with a very small TV schedule. 95% of the traffic comes via the landing page and the landing with no SEO support is higher in the rankings than the SEOed to bejesus master site.

In the words of Pauline Hanson please explain.

@ R Mugombe – leading site providers in the industry huh? I doubt that! The company you hired may know how to build website but the application of SEO is something different. Me thinks you were sold a lemon with this “leading site provider”.

@ Mike… It’s amazing the number of people who have said that and then said give me 5k and I will put it right for you. Forget it. TV is working at getting people directly on to my site. If I wait until we get to the top of google for even a handful of our products out of the 4000 we sell then I will be bankrupt. I was dubious about SEO hence testing both options. So far SEO after four months is delivering at best 5% of the visitors. And they seem to be competitors not shoppers. TV is delivering people who want to buy my products and not showing them my competitors.

The thing with SEO is that it’s like taking your product and every single one of your competitors; or even remotely similar competition and sticking them right next to you on the same shelf. Then every so often someone at google changes the rules on who gets to be at eye level. This means that once we are all indoctrinated to going to google to find what we want Google will decide who wins. Me thinks he with the biggest cheque book. Apologies to those of you who have never seen a cheque book. It’s how we used to do business before Mr Orwell started spinning in his grave. The eventual victory of multi national controlled consumerism is with us.

@R Mugombe – Over 90% of the 150k UBs to our site each month is generated by natural search. 95% of that comes from Google. You don’t need a cheque book – just a bit of knowledge and good writing skills with strong calls to action.

Sadly though, I do concur with your consumerism statement. all the more reason then – if you want to get ahead you must learn how to play the game.

@ Mike I concur on the playing the game but like all serious gamesand particularly this one. The winners will be the real pro’s. So I don’t think my cheque book has enough stubs in it to play with the pro’s via SEO. We sell retail product so pushing people directly to the site is our only option. TV does that job for us. SEO doesn’t.