Is Google Making Life Harder For Aggregators?
-
Theres been a bunch of updates recently which have hurt aggregators:
-
Reducing the number of search results to 7 for branded search queries
-
The DMCA update which penalises those with trademark related takedown requests against them.
-
At least 2 'domain diversity' updates, the most recent last week, which seeks to reduce the ability of sites to dominate SERPS e.g. a site which may have 2 search results on page 1 now may have 1.
Plus Its commonly believed that Google favours big brands over smaller brands e.g. Marriott over examplehotelaggregator.com.
Is this a deliberate ploy against aggregators in favour of brands i.e. does Google believe a brand site is a better search result than an aggregator?
A brand site returned above an aggregator for a branded term may be seen by Google as a better fit, a better search result that should be higher. But is that true? Consumers like to see unbiased reviews and lowest prices and that isnt always available at the brand site.
Thoughts please.
-
-
If Google tried to avoid aggregators & removed 2 domain results from serps, so what will be in the results then?
-
For something a long those lines Google mixes in shopping results to try and bring the best results. But for a hotel kind of search I would much rather get the hotel itself.
-
- Reducing the number of search results to 7 for branded search queries
If a searcher typs in a branded query then there is a higher probability that his is looking for the brand and not Joe Aggregator.
- The DMCA update which penalises those with trademark related takedown requests against them.
This is good. Yes!!
- At least 2 'domain diversity' updates, the most recent last week, which seeks to reduce the ability of sites to dominate SERPS e.g. a site which may have 2 search results on page 1 now may have 1.
Enjoy this. This is actually working against the big brand.
Plus Its commonly believed that Google favours big brands over smaller brands e.g. Marriott over examplehotelaggregator.com.
Sure... most people want something trusted. They know Marriott. I you want examplehotelaggregator.com to rank then work on your brand.
Is this a deliberate ploy against aggregators in favour of brands
Only the aggregators are thinking that it is. The brands are not thinking that way and the average searcher is not thinking that way.
does Google believe a brand site is a better search result than an aggregator?
Yes.
-
This. The aggregator's big win could be fulfilling their role in the form of a media publisher and community hub, serving as a nexus for honest and objective opinions. Aggregators are a form of retailer except that the customer purchase is information exchange. When they abandon this opportunity and instead supply subjective info that doesn't put the consumer first, well, this is what makes the organic results such a polluted mess.
-
"When you do a search would you rather get the official companies or a site with a news feed or aggregation ran by a 3rd party source?"
- As I say in many cases the branded site isnt going to be your first port of call. E.g. Who buys their Wilson tennis racket from Wilson.com when you can get the same product may times cheaper elsewhere (random example, im not picking on Wilson!) and with honest reviews e.g. 'the strings on this racket are poor'?
-
I would say so. Google has been taking a lot of actions to bring back better quality results. When you do a search would you rather get the official companies or a site with a news feed or aggregation ran by a 3rd party source?
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using Google Reviews for non local business
Hi All, We are deciding on what site is best to capture reviews from customers and I'm just not sure what is the ideal option. We are a SaaS business with multiple offices in different locations but the specific geographies are not really relevant to our customers. Is it worth focusing on google reviews so that when our brand is searched there are plenty of nice shiny stars (plus maybe they can be added into adwords adverts as well...). Search volume for the keywords we don't yet rank for are not massive although still important. Alternatively should we be thinking about something like G2Crowd. None of our competitors are doing anything so there's no real need to our muscle them on a review website and I don't think our end user will visit these sites before buying but we would point to them and say 'hey, look at all these great reviews'. Finally I searched my old company recently who and just under news results were facebook reviews. Maybe that's another option. All advice welcome. All advice appreciated.
Industry News | | jafayeh1 -
Now that Google is no longer publicly displaying Page Rank updates, how will this effect Moz's ability to calculate DA and PA?
Hi, How much more important do you guys think that Moz's Page Authority and Domain Authority metrics are going to become now that Google has stopped giving people public access to a site or pages Page Rank? And how accurate is PA and DA as a measurement in comparison to Page Rank..so for example if I was seeking a guestposting opportunity and saw a site as having a PR of 4....if I now looked to Moz's Page and Domain Authority metrics instead...would that still give me equivalent information on the strength of that domain and thus make a judgement on whether it will be a worthy site for a guestpost.. I guess what I am asking is, how close is now looking at Moz's metrics (ie. a third party company) to the info on PageRank that was being updated by Google themselves? Also will the lack of updated public PR info from Google effect the ability for Moz to calculate PA and DA?? Look forward to your replies on this,
Industry News | | sanj50500 -
If I have a Google+ Business page, do I need a Google Places page as well?
It seems like the two are redundant? Any official word on this? I'm fairly OCD about things being tidy and I dont want to split my reviews / shares / etc between two profiles. Are they not the same thing? I searched for my company, both my plus business page and my places page came up. I attached a SS of the situation. placesvplus.png
Industry News | | jonnyholt1 -
Does Google still have a standard search result? How can I get it?
I have heard a lot from the experts that there are no "Standard" Google search results anymore. They said that most of the SERP's of Google that show up are customized/tailored for each individuals even if they are not logged-in using their Google Custom Search. My questions are, Is there still a way to retrieve the standard Google search result? How? Are these scripts will be helpful when searching on Google? *webhp?
Industry News | | RafaelRanada
*complete=0
*pws=0 watch?v=B8ofWFx525s B8ofWFx525s watch?v=B8ofWFx525s0 -
Google Releases Penguin Update 1.1
So what affect is this playing on you guys? http://searchengineland.com/google-pushes-first-penguin-algorithm-update-122518 It was not to nice to me... Why over the holiday Google, why!? -Chenzo
Industry News | | Chenzo0 -
Chrome blocked sites used by Googles Panda update
Google's Panda update said it used Chrome users blocked sites lists as a benchmark for what they now term poor quality content. They said the Panda update effectively took about 85% of them out of the search results. This got me thinking, it would be very nice to discover what are the exact sites they don't like. Does anyone know if there is an archive of what these sites might be? Or if none exists, maybe if people could share their Chrome blocked sites on here we might get an idea?
Industry News | | SpecialCase0 -
Google Panda 2.5 Update?
On Sunday 18th Sept I noticed a huge drop in our rankings for keywords that we were doing extremely well. Majority of the keyword SERP positions for our main targetted keywords were #1 and #2. These have all drop the bottom part of first page. Other new keywords we were targetting had climbed very well (some hovering just below top 10 and some in top 10 of Google UK SERP. These have all completely dropped off. Although analysing the site thouroughly (both on-page and link profile) it doesnt appear to have any issue significant enough to cause a penalty. From Monday 20th Sept (everybody back to work) the threads here http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en&start=5760 and http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4364389.htm seem to be buzzing over unexpected SERP drops and increases. By that I assume Panda 2.5 or at least some form of update taken/taking place? If anybody know of the reent heavy fluctuations which seem to have started in the weeken or have experienced unexpected positions increaes/drops, I would be very interested to hear/read from you. Cheers, Mo Raja
Industry News | | MoRaja0 -
Google Products / Google Shopping
My client has a site with products a lot of which are so similar in function that for usability reasons we have combined some products on the same pages. We want to get into Google Shopping, but on the face of it the Google feed seems to want unique urls per product. I guess we could have products on the same page then have single pages as well, though that could generate duplicate content. We could also try pointing several products to 1 URL, does anyone know if this would work? Or can anyone suggest any work arounds? Justin
Industry News | | GrouchyKids0