Comments on: Generic Toolbar Indexing Debunk Post

By: don't be evil?

don't be evil? — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:31:43 +0000

These mysterious indexation of Google as mentioned above seems (to me) coming from Google Adsense Program. It says in Terms of Condition that Google indexes and caches all or part of URLs of websites participating in Google Adsense Program. In a sense, it’s more problematic than indexation from site-users via Toolbar, in that users hardly have any choice to avoid Google adsense program (users won’t know unless the Google ad pops up, and when it does, it’s too late). In addition, Googld ad planner also takes data from Googld adsense program.

I personally think it’s pitty that Google is so silent about its data collection.

Matt, correct me if I am wrong. I hope I am wrong!

By: 998

998 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:34:59 +0000

Thanks for the info. How would you respond to another BIG rumor on the web that Google Ad Planner gets its info from its Toolbar? how come Google is so silent about the data source?

By: Chris McElroy

Chris McElroy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:38:57 +0000

Matt I have a related question. There has been talk of Google possibly using the bounceback rate or how long users stay on pages as part of determining how relevant a page is to a particular search phrase.

I am not sure Google currently does that or really plans to, but if they do or plan to, how will they gather that data?

Personally I think it is a great idea. Tracking people who type in a search phrase, then adding in how long those people spend on the web page would be using a sort of social aspect to ranking pages.

So to be clear, Is Google doing this or planning to? and How will that data be tracked? and Would the Google toolbar possibly be used to track how long people spend on a particular web page?

By: wingthom

wingthom — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:32:47 +0000

Matt, but there might be one way how an Adords buy could influence ranking indirectly.

Some assumptions:

1. Google sometimes ranks pages better if G’ has more knowledge about this page and this information is fresh; this is documented in Google’s patents but this doesn’t mean Google has chosen a setup of the running system that follows this approach.

2. Google crawls pages immediatelly if the URL is the target of an Adsense campaign; this leads to a very fresh information about the page.

3. Google shares information about pages between its different services (you described the caching system in another post).

Conclusion:

A campaign targetting a page on your domain might increase indirectly the ranking of this page, this is a side effect of the design of the complex google system.

I did some testing with small, medium and large sites and did some exchange with webmasters of other sites and I think that the effect is very low for small and medium sites (you are very good in keeping them fresh in your index) but it could make a difference for very large sites (with complex structures where you might be not as good in keeping them fresh completely).

Btw. the opposite proved to be true too: if the content of the landing page of the campaign was low quality then running a campaign against it reduced its ranking. Conclusion: the fresh and deeper information lead to a worse ranking.

Finally: advertising against a high quality page leads sometimes to a better ranking. This is a result of the complex Google system.

By: Peter (IMC)

Peter (IMC) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:53:39 +0000

Dave (original) Said,
July 21, 2008 @ 11:49 pm

…. facts and common sense….

I just love it when you use those words,..

By: ctabuk

ctabuk — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:03:38 +0000

Hi Matt, just going back to Peter (IMC)’s question on G-Mail – I use the alerts system from Google on all of my anchor text and keywords. In fact I was one of the first to use it on SEO so I get a heck of a lot of URL’s sent to me daily and all through G.Mail (LOL) it has not done my SERP any harm! Good info in this thread – many thanks David

By: Dave (original)

Dave (original) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:46:50 +0000

Yep and it was my best of my life. Bora Bora, Tahiti.

By: Harith

Harith — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:39:56 +0000

Dave (original)

WOW.. you are back (from vacation, may be)

By: Dave (original)

Dave (original) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:49:57 +0000

Come on Matt, must you keep spoiling good stories with facts and common sense?

Most SEO having been claiming for Years that Google finds pages via their Toolbar. 99% of them will continue to spread the myth (along with many others, e.g “Sandbox”, “aging delay” etc) over facts and common sense, after all, it’s what they do best and what the industry is built upon.

By: Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:25:05 +0000

Nick Stamoulis, Ed Shaz/, and Charles, I wouldn’t claim to be the expert on every Google property, but (without chatting with either team) I very much doubt that Google discovers pages from either Google Talk or Google Analytics. In addition, I’ve personally promised that my webspam team wouldn’t go and ask the analytics team for data, and webspam has held to that promise. I know that the Analytics team has a strong privacy policy, and if people want to share (I believe anonymous) data, then there’s an opt-in in Google Analytics. But even then, I don’t believe that data is used in Google’s crawl.

Michael Stebbins, http://www.alexa.com/robots.txt forbids Googlebot from crawling several directories, so we don’t crawl those directories. I took a quick look at Compete and just from surfing around didn’t see any places that would lead to deeper crawling by Googlebot, although I didn’t check everywhere.