Damage Control? Shades of Google China? There Ain't Nothing Money Can't Buy

[mbarrick]

I'm not sure what to make of this.

If you Google "vancouver 2010 mascots" (without the quotes) on Google.COM these are the results:

Top Google News result (currently a story on the Pedobear mixup)
Top four image results
The official mascot page
My blog post with Pedobear



Earlier today if you did exactly the same search on Google.CA you got exactly the same results. Just as you do with any other search without selecting the "only pages from Canada" option.

But suddenly, tonight, this changed. Now the search on Google.CA returns these results:

Top four image results
The official mascot page
Two links from the official mascot merch store
Top Google News results (the same story as Google.com)
The blog of the woman who founded the company that that did the web page for the "Coca-Cola Canada Newsroom" (i.e. an Olympic shill)
The Hudson's Bay Company (official store of the Olympics)
My blog post with Pedobear



Anybody else find that just a little bit fishy?

Comments

[valerian.livejournal.com]

I'll bet if you've got the money, you can pay people to do anything, including rig your search results.

[bradleyf81.livejournal.com]

It's probably just a matter of more people searching for the Vancouver Olympic Mascots and then clicking through to the other links, which raises their page rank and puts them higher in the search results.

Still, I think it's weird that there would be that much of a change over the course of an afternoon.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkpixie_/]

This morning there is one of those fancy paid ads right at the top, methinks our tax dollars are now being used for SEO 'specialists" However, you can see Pedobear is sneaking back in. With the article on Escapist Magazine slipped into the first 'unpaid' spot and a couple others further down the page. Its probably a losing battle.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkpixie_/]

Also, just a little off topic here, but I wonder how Rogers feels about all this extra traffic to your blog (not that the majority would actually delve deep and read the rest of your content, but still. This can't be good)
:)

[agentdanak.livejournal.com]

nothing has come across my 'desk' at the second job, but i don't get many canadian results. i would say it's gotta be the canadian seo workers' faults.

:P

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

That's possible for the Miss604 and HBC links, but unlikely. Everything above the news link is unquestionably paid advertising.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[in-vino-vanitas.livejournal.com]

big brother seo fail, indeed.

i just want to say that i think your pedobear art going global is the best thing about these olympics. i wonder how long it will take them to shut down those kinda funny twitter accounts belonging to the mascots' evil alter-egos.

[magiknat.livejournal.com]

Almost half the top page results on google.com.au mention your pedobear work :P

SEO and Google results

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know.

I've heard that Google will modify the value/weight of sites if they are found to be "unofficial" or "not the real thing". Though their web site doesn't say so explicitly. It does imply that when SEO companies use fishey behaviors, those skewed results will be doctored to lessen the over all site's listing.

Now, with all the paid advertsing to keep Pedo down, those sites are getting a bigger weight too. But, I bet it was a hard "slap on the wrist" that your "unofficial" image somehow got ratings that "werent merrited".

Pedobear will get rank back, but it'll require a bit more publicity and more organic growth to fame rather than the rocket-to-fame it had last week.

Re: SEO and Google results

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Actually, on an image search for "Vancouver 2010 Mascots" the ranking for the pictures is much improved from all the activity.