Who Are The Internet’s Big Bad Wolves?

September 12, 2007

Anyone starting an Internet Business should be aware of the big bad wolves. We’ve all loved and hated them at different times - but now, these three giants are becoming some of the Internets most hated.

Google: What has happened to Google? I used to love it, and I really thought they were going to improve the Internet. But, like others - I’m beginning to hate Google. Most searches are still bringing up all the spammy sites of the day on the first page.
Apparently, Google are trying to stop people from buying links from other sites. And they’re also meant to be clamping down on some of these spammy directories. But, I’m not sure that it’s working. And I know for a fact that I’m still outranked for some of my keywords by directories.

I don’t see how Google can improve Internet content, and please their shareholders. Their main source of revenue is advertising. And they’re under a heap of pressure from shareholders to make more cash. For example, their profits were only slightly below their projected profits in their last quarterly report, yet share prices dropped significantly.

I worry about the way this is going, and I have visions of the first ten pages of a search eventually being Google sponsored ads.

DMOZ: DMOZ is an important Internet directory, because it’s hand edited by real people. Google takes DMOZ v seriously, and your google ranking could suffer if your site isn’t listed with DMOZ.

Allegedly, many of those DMOZ editors are corrupt. You see, if you apply to DMOZ, and there isn’t an editor for your site category, you can apply to become an editor yourself. A lot of people have, then what they do is to refuse admission to the directory for sites that are in competition with them.

One of the worst examples of recent DMOZ corruption was an alleged editors attempt to extort $5000 dollars from Shoemoney. When he didn’t pay it, his site was dropped from DMOZ. You can read about what happened here.

Alexa: This site is owned by Amazon, and it is meant to measure the amount of traffic visiting a website and rank it accordingly. The problem is, Alexa is completely inaccurate because it only measures traffic when a site visitor has the Alexa toolbar installed. And unfortunately, it’s mostly just webmasters that have the toolbar.

We all know the results are inaccurate, so why do we still use Alexa? Well, for a start, it’s much easier to sell ads on your site if you have a high alexa ranking. Also, a busy site will often appeal to visitors more. After all, if it gets a lot of traffic, it must be worth visiting right?

If you have a website, and you want to attract visitors and advertisers, you should probably install the Alexa toolbar now. Just having the toolbar installed on your own browser will make a difference to your own Alexa ranking. I dropped the toolbar for several weeks, to see what would happen and my Alexa ranking plummeted.

And I know it was hypocritical to reinstall it when I think the toolbar sucks - but at the end of the day, we all want our sites to seem popular.

What do you think of the three big bad wolves? Have you ever had a site rejected by DMOZ? Or are you an Alexa hypocrite like me? And what do you think Google should to to improve search results?

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Comments

6 Responses to “Who Are The Internet’s Big Bad Wolves?”

Sean on September 12th, 2007 3:24 pm

I have the Alexa toolbar installed too, but I didn’t know Alexa was that inaccurate and only count people who have the toolbar installed…

I probably get more traffic than Alexa have predicted then since I get a lot of traffic from article, video, and social sites. I am sure many of them don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed and I have also read some statistic too that most don’t have it installed.
Opal Tribble on September 12th, 2007 5:10 pm

I really don’t pay too much attention, for ranking, to them anymore. I’ve noticed a lot of spam sites tanking ahead of legit websites on Google.

I sent my website to DMOZ several months ago, but it has not gotten in. Google doesn’t place as much emphasis on DMOZ as they used to.

I’m on a Mac and don’t use Alexa toolbar although they recently made it available to firefox users. It’s highly inaccurate and only counts the people who use the toolbar. That’s not a very accurate way to determine who’s visiting your website.
cathlawson on September 13th, 2007 1:00 am

Sean - yes, it’s a shame that nobody could come up with a similar tool that measured all traffic. They’d probably make a fortune.

Opal - that’s good news about Google not taking so much notic of DMOZ anymore. They’ve never accepted any site I’ve submitted either.
bez on September 13th, 2007 1:39 am

*** When Shoe didnâ€™t pay it, his site was dropped from DMOZ. ***

Complete rubbish.

His site was banned in 2005 for trying to bribe editors to list the site, They refused to list it and banned it from being listed so that no-one could ever be accused of taking that bribe.

There was no extortion. Do some research before blindly repeating stuff that isn’t true. The bribe offer from 2005 is easy to find.
cathlawson on September 13th, 2007 4:41 am

Mmm - this is a tough one. Who should we believe?

Well Shoemoney openly posted the allegation against the DMOZ editor on his blog - and in fact I think he named the particular editor. I doubt he’d be silly enough to say it if it wasn’t true, as they could sue him.

And bez - you have posted this message with no link to your site and a hotmail account as your email address. So you must be telling the truth right?!
Bloggers, Lies and Libel on September 13th, 2007 8:31 pm

[...] received an irate comment by an anonymous poster yesterday on this post. The commentor said Shoemoney’s claims that he was defrauded by DMOZ were [...]