Who “owns” SERPs?
An interesting thread took an unusual twist at WebProWorld.Com this week.. Specifically this thread (now locked) discussing the possible existence of the sandbox effect at Google.. During the course of the debate I took it upon myself to prove the competitiveness of several search phrases, dual zone completions, xn nipple and rotating choking sleeve were just a few of the phrases.. To no real surprise we were able to force ourselves to the #1 spots with very little effort at all.. As far as I was concerned we had proven our point and were prepared to remove the page and use the domain for something else..
Then the surprise happened.. The SEO that we were able to outrank decided to threaten me specifically..
CrankyDave and Feydakin… I invite you to leave your spoof SERP page up without anyone linking to it or any other SEM whatsoever!
If there is any detectable SEM at all I will turn it over to the GOOG explaining the game and referencing this thread to get it removed.
…page 20…
At first I had intended to ignore the issue, but the problem carried on further..
I conceded that it was a great test even against my own SERP and offered to leave it alone as long as it was left alone. …page 21…
And further here
Most anyone could assault anyone’s clients for their SERP by going to various portfolio pages and playing with their top keywords and phrases if they really wanted to, at the risk of lawsuits. …page 23…
What started out as a debate about the existence of the google sandbox evolved into a series of veiled threats and claims of ownership of SERPs for certain key phrases.. Now, I may be a bit sensitive since I’m on the receiving side of this, but I was under the impression that the one group that controlled the SERPs were the Google algorithms..
This brings up an interesting debate in my mind.. Can a company or person actually claim ownership, or intellectual property rights, on key phrases?? Is this the new direction for SEO?? Beat me out of my rankings for any reason, spoof, testing, or genuine competition and I’ll take it to Google that you are beating me..
I would think that the obvious answer is that this is certinaly not possible.. But look at other things that we thought weren’t possible, an Aussie lawyer getting a patent on the wheel, Amazon getting a patent on one click purchasing, the list goes on and on.. Could this possibly be a vision of a not too distant future where search engine placements become a legal battle ground where you must show a valid legal reason (in someone’s mind) for targettting those words to be able to use them?? Would building a parody site that outranks the primary site see itself targetted for restraint of trade simply because it’s more popular??
Or will we see a new ICANN where SERPs can be challenged and a national committee will determine the suitable use for those phrases??
It scares me, how about you??
Fey
Don’t forget the American company that got a patent on DNA
This could only become reality when considering brand names. It’s got nothing to do with patenting, but one day in the future it might be argued that if you own a brand name, you could have the right to appear at the top of a search engine for that specific keyword, although that is Google’s decision, nobody elses.
I just used patents as an example of foolish things that have happened.. I do expect to see corporate trademarks begin to assert themselves in the near future.. Especially when you see sites that slam companies (paypalsucks.com etc.) that have an real shot at outranking the main..
I’m not looking forward to it at all, but I can see it happening as SERPs become more contested and mean bigger and bigger money..
What I found amazing about that thread, other than the threats, was the fact that the only reason you and Dave did the test which ended up taking #1 for greeneagles serps was due to 19 pages of Greeneagle (Ken) arguing that his keywords were competitive enough to have been boxed in the first place, even tho far better SEO’s explained and provided references and evidence to ken that his keywords were so uncompetitive it was not funny. All I got out of that entire thread, honestly, was that someone needs to answer the cloofone rather quickly. Well, and a good laugh when it was finally shown in 2 days time just how uncompetitive those keywords were in a way even Ken could not argue with any longer.
IMO you have to consider the source. While the Perp in this instance was actually a Moderator at that forum (which has made some colussal errors in the Mod department in the past) you can see that he is really not very clued up in the SEO department.
What bothers me is when someone gets a mod title in a large forum and proceeds to disseminate bad information. For those of us who know better we can shrug it off with a wry smile, but newbies may read that disinformation and lap it up. I consider the entire thread as sort of an surreal comedy but others may not see it that way.
I agree to a certain extent, and that was one of the reasons I went as far as I did in the discussion.. But if someone wants to take advice from just one source and run with it as if it were truth without verifying anything, well, that really is their problem to live with..
More important to me is the fact that I’m hearing more and more people say things like “my SERPs” and “my spot at Google”.. It may be simple semantics to some people, but I really see this as yet another trend in control of the internet and the threat to use legal means to enforce it.. Right or wrong..
XN Nipple, Rotating Choking Sleeve and Dual Zone Completions – competitive – come on?! ROFLMAO
The not-so-veiled threats were also very poor etiquette IMO – I used to respect Greeneagle’s (Ken’s) opinions, but for me he lost all credibility during the course of that thread.
And he claims his company turned over $200k in SEO last year?! Well, that was a waste of company money…
People have talked about “my rankings” since search engines began. Usually they mean the rankings that their pages have/had, but some may actually feel that they have a right to them, so that when an update drops them down the rankings, they probably feel that the engine has done something that is morally wrong.
I wouldn’t paint Ken with that brush though. He just doesn’t seem to know the difference between a SERP and a ranking
And in posting that last comment, I seem to have uncovered a flaw in the blog’s design – the blockquote extends too far to the right.
People do refer to things as ‘theirs’ quite a bit.. But in just the last year or so I have been seeing more people refer to ‘their SERPs’ and ‘rankings’ and actually take them as possesive..
And thanks for pointing out the blockquote issue.. It was a simple css fix and away we go..
Fey
Nice Blog.
I have to agree with William on how funny the whole thread was and with Mel on how sad it is that he is a mod. on that forum.
Last but not least I have to agree with Phil that he does not have a clue about SEO.