Comment · Sun, June 6, 2021 · ND Owner
This pull down screen is always in the way, whenever I'm jumping between tabs. Please re-consider it
What they were answering
rao-blackwell-ized · 3 points
That's what they say, but there is abundant evidence that's not actually why they make some of the changes they do. We have seen it first hand. Their ad experts suggest you go down paths that have the end result of siphoning your organic traffic into paid traffic, which then causes a spiral of lowering of organic rankings, which then makes you more reliant on the paid traffic. Maybe that is their ads team more than it is their algo team, but Google themselves is very good at tricking you into doing things that make you more reliant on their paid ads than organic rankings. We've gotten into big arguments with the Google team about it. We have shown them data that their suggestions are not in our best interest, and actually hurt our organic rankings over time. Their solution is to replace our ad rep every 6 months, who then goes on to suggest the same things over and over and over. Then they ask you all sorts of inside info questions probing your business and trying to get information out of you about competitors and trends. Then they use that information to solicit your competition to go and bid on the same keywords, driving the costs up. I realize independent PPC people would be different, but it is abundantly clear the internal Google people are trying maximize Google's ad revenue, not help the vendors.
Ignore anything the reps say and block their phone calls. Their only go…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Ignore anything the reps say and block their phone calls. Their only goal is to get you to spend more, as it sounds like you've noticed.
100%.
Definitely. But that was sort of my point. They're a private company and can do what they want. Whether or not those practices are unethical is another conversation.
I'd agree they're too big but I don't see the landscape changing.
For sure. They are not doing anything illegal. They are free to run their business how they see fit within the bounds of the law. However, we used to actually have useful and enforced anti-trust laws in this country. Those kind of went away. I remember the Microsoft one and the splitting up of Bell telecom, but now everything has coalesced back together into massive powerful companies that tip the scale in their own favor. It's entrenched interests blocking the ability for competition to enter the space and advance it, and they use lobbying to make the laws end up on their side. It actually stifles progress, because the entrenched entities don't have to constantly improve or advance. They can just keep enough pressure on the scales to prevent meaningful competition instead of trying to improve their products and services to remain competitive. I realize we have veered off into a different discussion, but I honestly think this is a big problem that will only get worse in this country if we don't do something about it. Amazon using internal data from ad campaigns that we pay them for to then go out and make competing products that they then automatically rank higher on their platform is not just morally wrong. It should be illegal. I think that when companies get big enough, like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, they have a higher moral imperative to ensure their platforms are not used to the detriment of the public. This needs to be better codified in law, though. Relying on company's morality obviously isn't going to accomplish much. It's a race to the bottom. However, I agree with you. I don't see the landscape changing any time soon.
ND branded keywords. I did several cursory searches and you didn't show up but competitors did. This should be a simple fix with a "phrase match" keyword for your brand name.
Out of curiosity, what search terms did you try out?
Bidding on competitors' names is likely a waste of money in your industry.
Agreed.
Makes sense. I'll be the first to admit Shopify was severely limited and I wasn't a fan of it as recent as about 3 years ago, but in that time they've made huge strides.
For sure. Both have come a long way. The Shop Pay integration is such a nice feature. However, we can't even use it because of our industry. They won't approve a processing account for us. If we could, that integration alone would be worth it.