Can you buy a #1 organic listing in Google?
Filed Under Google, SEM, SEO, Search Engines, Yahoo! |
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In response to Scott Hendison’s blog post “Is Yahoo Selling Out“. Scott talks about how Yahoo removes the tinted box and leaving out the words “sponsored” for the search “special k”. They are also listed organically at #1. The listing actually has the URL “specialk.com“. Now yahoo is giving the paid search results in a way that it isn’t real evident that it is paid results but It appears to me Special K did actually earn the #1 organic listing.
Google does their own version of it too but more stealth. Now Google didn’t remove the sponsored link identifiers but…
Did Vintage Tub buy the organic #1 position? No where in the results, except for the paid ad, is the word antique associated with the site ranked #1 in the organic results. Now I did a little research and I couldn’t find “antique tub” in any anchor text pointing to the vintagetub.com site. It appears you can buy a #1 non-paid listing on the big “G”. Google didn’t even use “nofollow” tags either.
My questions for Google:
- Can you buy the #1 organic listing?
- How much does it cost?
- What kind of a adWords account will get me a #1 organic listing?
This could save me a lot of time! Sign me up.
Well Scott, it looks like both Yahoo and Google will sell out if the price is inviting enough.
It looks like it is possible to buy your way to the top of the natural or organic listings on Google.
late,
gary
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4 Responses to “Can you buy a #1 organic listing in Google?”
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After Rand Fishkin commented on my blog in the Yahoo article that Google does it too, and cited a travel example, Matt Cutts clarified that Rand was incorrect, and there was no way to pay for number one.
True, the number one listing for antique tub does not contain the word antique in the title tag, nor description or H1 tag either.
I do see the body of the landing page does contain a link - “Antique Clawfoot Tub” right above the footer, and it is pointing back at the home page.
So how to explain your example above, for the number one ranking does not use the phrase in the title tag, or feature it prominently on the page, or even have an inbound link with that exact link text?
In my opinion, the example you are citing above is probably a perfect demonstration of LSI - (Latent Semantic Indexing) working exactly the way it is supposed to. That is, based on all of the other phrases and text used on that page, Google has determined relevancy based on synonyms and content.
For years people have been saying LSI would change the way SEO is done, and I can’t think of another explanation…
Scott, I went to the home page and clicked on the link ” antique clawfoot tub” and the page the link takes you to does not have the word “antique” any where in the source code.
Let me see if I understand the LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) premise. If I want to rank on a phrase that I don’t have on my page all I have to do is put a link containing the phrase to another page that does not contain the phrase anywhere either.
I guess this really does change the way SEO is done. Are we going back to the days of stuffing keywords?
Volumes have been written about LSI, by many experts smarter than me, but the best way I can sum it up in a blog comment is to say that Latent Semantic Indexing makes use of similar relevant phrases to determine the subject of a webpage.
in other words, taking advantage of LSI means using synonyms in your body text and in your links too. (also note that my comment says “PROBABLY” but I still believe it)
To rewrite your “understanding of the premise” I’d say this -
If I want to rank on a phrase that I don’t have on my page all I have to do is put LOTS OF RELEVANT CONTENT WITH SYNONYMS AND links containing SYNONYMS of the phrase to OTHER PAGES that MAY (probably should) contain the phrase.
In my opinion, the search engines use of LSI is not something you can “rely on” solely for ranking, but rather should be considered a byproduct reward of having a well written, well structured, and well crafted website.
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