In a letter written to Google’s CEO on Tuesday, democratic lawmaker Sen. Richard Blumenthal stressed the tech giant has routinely failed to exercise due diligence on deceptive ads that violated its policies.

“I am deeply concerned that Google appears unwilling to protect consumers and small businesses on Google Ads, and has demonstrated inadequate due diligence against fraud and abuse,” Blumenthal wrote.

Citing a 2021 article from The Markup, Blumenthal drew attention to how Google violated its own policies by running ads that mimicked government websites. The imposter ads in question were later revoked by Google. A verification process was also introduced to limit imitations of federal services.

Even so, Blumenthal states there’s newfound evidence suggesting the deceptive ads continue to resurface with the same keywords mentioned in the 2021 article. Additionally, new ads regarding misleading weight loss treatments have also appeared.

Blumenthal added Google’s focus on “paid ads over real answers” serves to hurt and bury smaller competitors, while the tech giant continues to benefit.

Addressing the allegations, a Google spokesperson said, “We have strict policies in place to protect people and advertisers alike from abuse, including rules that govern the use of trademarks in ad campaigns and safeguard businesses from infringement.”

“Our Google Search ads are also clearly labeled and we rely on extensive user testing to ensure ad labels meet our high standards for being prominent and distinguishable from unpaid results. We are reviewing Senator Blumenthal’s letter and will work directly with his office to provide a full response.”

Google users have been warned of a new malvertising campaign in which people searching for popular websites are instead redirected to scam sites by malicious adverts.

Searches for some of the most popular websites were found to produce adverts that had been crafted to appear as if they were legitimate links to the desired website, with some appearing as the first listing on a results page.

Websites mimicked by the threat actors include YouTube, Amazon, Facebook and Walmart, and in all cases appear to lead to a browser locker website where users are given scam warnings to call Microsoft support, or fake alerts from Windows Defender, according to researchers at Malwarebytes.

Malvertising, or the practice of hiding malware payloads behind online adverts, typically occurs on websites in more obvious ways, such as advertising that promises users free products or cash prizes.

In this case, however, researchers noted the sophistication of the campaign, with an example of a Facebook malvertising link containing no obvious discrepancies that might alert a user to its illegitimate nature.

However, because the malvertising uses Google Ads as its platform, it is still denoted as an advert with bold text in the top-left corner reading ‘Ad’. This allows discerning users to at least identify that it is not a direct link to the website they were searching for, although this still does not reveal its malicious nature.

Researchers also noted that the redirect mechanism used by the threat actors is complex enough to make it difficult to ascertain where the advert will send would-be victims through HTML analysis.

Upon clicking on the advert, the page the user is sent to will either redirect to the legitimate website as a ‘decoy’, or load a secondary script where the malicious URL is found.

This is then loaded within an inline frame, an HTML element that loads a page within another. This has the effect of replacing the page with the scam element, but the user is not actually redirected a second time.

In this way, the URL of the malicious browser locker page is hidden from the user, who only sees the interim of the .com ‘cloaking domain’ (in the case of Malwarebytes Labs, this was named ‘shopmealy’).

The fact that the adverts are listed on the search results before even some of the most popular websites in the world implies that the threat actors are willing to pay money in order to perpetrate the scam, which would be necessary in order to target keywords of such popularity.

Moreover, researchers found that the threat actors had separated the flows of the cloak and browser locker to prevent being taken down by authorities holistically, and used a mixture of expensive and free domains. The infrastructure of the malvertising also appears to have been hosted on both paid virtual private servers and free cloud providers (PaaS).

“Google's proprietary technology and malware detection tools are used to regularly scan all creatives,” reads the Google support page on malware in advertising.

“Fourth-party calls or sub-syndication to any uncertified advertisers or vendors are forbidden. Any ad distributing malware is pulled to protect users from harm. Any Authorized buyer whose creative is found to contain malware is subject to a minimum three-month suspension.”

Malwarebytes Labs have stated that all necessary reports have been filed to notify Google of the adverts, and researchers reported every such advert under the label ‘An ad/listing violates other Google Ads policies’.

IT Pro has contacted Google for comment.

Yext has announced a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) search solutions to help government agencies optimize their digital presence.

New public sector solutions feature the same search technology the company initially implemented for the World Health Organization (WHO), the US State Department, and New Jersey and Alabama at the height of the pandemic.

“The signing of the 21st Century IDEA put the public sector's need for improved digital experiences into full view," explained Laurie Cook, VP of public sector at Yext.

"Now more than ever, government agencies are looking for technology that will quickly and easily set them up to serve constituents more effectively online. Our growing team is so excited to show them the potential they can unlock with Yext's powerful Public Sector AI search solution set, a one-stop shop for all of their CX needs."

Yext highlighted four key offerings from its new solution set: self-service portal, site search, reputation management, and SEO.

Yext's self-service portal offers a one-click customer service experience, allowing constituents to receive direct answers to their questions.

In addition, agencies can limit support costs and enable constituents to better navigate their websites with Yext's Marketing Answers site search solution. Through natural language processing (NLP) technology, this solution provides comprehensive answers to questions without the need for costly, time-consuming technical support.

Yext's reputation management solution allows agencies to maximize their online reputation by monitoring, responding, and generating reviews from one central location.

Furthermore, Yext's SEO-optimized FAQ pages feature in search results, allowing agencies to help constituents before they arrive at their website via extended customer support.

The firm also announced new additions to its public sector sales team.

Google has made tons of updates to its Maps and Search applications recently, and the latest one will help support Black-owned businesses.

According to Google, this update comes as search trends for Black-owned businesses have spiked recently. To help these searchers find and support Black-owned businesses, Google now lets business owners label their business as Black-owned right through their Google business profile.

With this option activated, customers searching for a business on Google Maps or Google Search will see Black-owned businesses flagged right in the business profile. The image of the flag is below.

This is all a part of Google’s $300 million commitment to support underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Google will work with the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc. (USBC), which has 145 Black Chambers of Commerce and 326,000 members nationwide, to get the word out about the new feature. It’ll also team with USBC to train Black business owners to enhance their search engine placement through Google My Business and Google Analytics.

Google mentions nothing about any checks to verify a business marked as Black-owned is actually under Black ownership. Even without verification, though, this will offer those looking to support the Black business community a more streamlined process.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has criticised Apple and Google for their billion-dollar deal which allows the latter to be the default search engine in the Safari browser.

In a market study report published yesterday, the CMA branded the deal as “a barrier to expansion for other search engines”, arguing that such agreements are capable of hindering competition and innovation.

According to the report, titled Online platforms and digital advertising, Google has managed to generate around 90% of UK search traffic each year over the last decade and generated at least 90% of UK search advertising revenues in 2019. That same year, the search engine and Apple came up with a £1.2 billion-deal which kept Google as a default in the Safari search engine.

The report claims that last year, rival search engines to Google told CMA that this financial deal was “one of the most significant factors inhibiting competition in the search market”. Google remains largely unaffected by the existence of other search engines, retaining 86% of the global market share, with its closest rival being Microsoft's Bing, which holds just 6.25%.

Google’s competitive advantage stems from its access to vast pools of user data which are sourced from multiple services. The CMA compared it to the demographic and social advantage of Facebook, which is used to offer companies targeted advertising campaign opportunities.

“Advertisers and media agencies have told us that Google offers in-depth targeting options, driven by its unique and vast sources of data, while Facebook has the advantage of offering the ability to target specific audiences based on demographic characteristics, interests and location,” said the CMA. “This creates a substantial competitive advantage for Google and Facebook, both of which have access to more extensive datasets than their rivals.”

The regulator found that “the inability of smaller platforms and publishers to access user data creates a significant barrier to entry” and called for better legislation to regulate large technology companies.

The CMA has also joined forces with Ofcom and the ICO to manage the regulation of digital services to ensure they act in a way that's fair for businesses and consumers.

Google has announced that Google Images will now include fact-check information, building on the fact-check features in Google Search and News.

Visual media adds a lot of power and value to text-based articles. However, given advances in technology and the growth of dubious sources, questions may arise about an image’s origin, authenticity or context.

To help people address these issues and make more informed decisions about what they read and see online, some thumbnail results in Google Images will include a fact-check label. After tapping on an image to increase its viewing size, a summary of the fact-check will appear on the webpage.

The fact-check label will apply to search results from independent, authoritative sources that meet Google’s search criteria. Sources use ClaimReview, an open method publishers use to label fact-checked content for search engines. YouTube also uses ClaimReview for identifying fact-check information panels. Google’s Fact Check Explorer and open API provide access to the fact-check library.

Adding the fact-check label in Google Images doesn’t affect article or image rankings

Earlier this year, the Google News Initiative donated $6.5 million to help fight misinformation published about the coronavirus.

Google effectively invented the search engine and has long reigned supreme as the top-dog. Many in the industry recognize Google as the superior search engine, leading to its overall brand dominance in the tech space. Google now offers cloud storage, navigation, smartphone operating systems, and so much more -- a far cry from its roots as an early way to make it easier to find things on the internet.

Google's dominance has been under fire a lot recently, as more and more search engines continue cropping up every year. Most search engines realize they can't compete with Google in terms of search quality and popularity, so they offer other benefits. One of the benefits many of them latch to is security and privacy. Enter in DuckDuckGo.

For many years, DuckDuckGo has been one of those competitors vying for the crumbs Google leaves behind. Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo prides itself on no user or search tracking. DuckDuckGo doesn’t participate in or advocate for any of that pesky ad targeting either. Naturally, those aren’t the only differences between the two.

Google’s rise to fame in the world of search

You’ve heard the story. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met on the Stanford University campus. They didn’t quite get along but were able to tolerate one another just enough to build a search engine using links to rank individual pages across the web.

Over the next few years, the pair picked up an array of cash-positive investors, all of which were more than willing to back their search-engine-related endeavors.

Today, Google makes hundreds of products used by millions worldwide. The company’s success is truly startling. Not only does Google process over 3.5 billion searches per day, but its search volume grows by 10-15% per year.

Of course, Google’s had its fair share of issues. When it comes to the user privacy, Google’s faced some well-deserved criticisms.

In 2013, Microsoft took aim at Google, launching an advertising campaign attacking the company for scanning user’s email messages so it could deliver targeted ads. Microsoft argued most users were unaware their email messages were being monitored.

Well-meaning features, such as Google's online map service, have also come under fire. Google has been accused of taking photos that unknowingly encroach on people’s private homes. It isn’t until a photo is uploaded to Street View that a person might learn they or their home was photographed and used in Street View.

Despite the backlash, Google continues to rule in the world of search. For those concerned with user privacy, there are other options.

Getting Acquainted with DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo prides itself on, “setting the new standard of trust online, [by] empowering people to take control of their information.” According to the company’s Privacy Policy, it doesn’t use cookies to follow its users and claims it collects no personal information on its users.

Taking things one step further, DuckDuckGo has also developed a feature to tackle what it calls “search leakage.” For instance, when you click on links from Google, those search terms are sent to the site you’re visiting in the HTTP referer header. Then, when you visit that site, your computer automatically shares information, such as your IP address, with the site.

Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo leverages a default setting to prevent search leakage. Instead, when you click on a link, DuckDuckGo redirects that request in a way that doesn’t share your search terms with other sites. While other sites will know you’ve visited it, it won’t have access to what search you entered beforehand.

DuckDuckGo also offers an encrypted version of its search that automatically changes links from a number of major sites, like Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon, and points to encrypted versions instead.

For users concerned with privacy and how their data is shared, DuckDuckGo is a worthy contender compared to Google.

The largest search index vs. useful search features

When it comes to search, Google has established itself as the reigning king. It’s no mystery why Google is so popular, as it’s remarkably reliable and can decode everything from misspelled words to disorderly sentences to return the exact results that you expect.

Google also boasts one of the largest search indexes. The company claims “the Google Search index contains hundreds of billions of web pages and is well over 100,000,000 gigabytes in size.”

Google also makes consistent updates to its algorithms and even leverages new-age tech, including artificial intelligence via RankBrain.

Unfortunately for DuckDuckGo, its search index isn’t quite as vast.

DuckDuckGo says it, “gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google).”

On the other hand, though, DuckDuckGo has some quality search features worth mentioning.

Bangs has grown to be one of its best features. Named for the bang that typically proceeds an exclamation point, bangs are shortcuts that quickly and seamlessly take you to search results on other sites.

For instance, if you wanted to search for a new movie on IMDb, simply type “!imdb bang” and the movie name. That search takes you directly to IMDb search page using the exact search phrase.

Two different approaches to user privacy

There’s no denying online privacy is becoming harder and harder to come by. While Facebook is known for selling its user data to third parties, Google is similarly well-known for tracking user searches.

Today, many internet users are becoming increasingly aware of the lack of security the web affords them. According to the Pew Research Center, 60% adults in the U.S. say they don’t think it’s possible to go through their day-to-day life without having their data collected by companies or government groups. Further, 81% of Americans believe the potential risk of companies collecting data about them outweighs the benefit of what they’re collecting and how they’re using it.

When it comes to data collection and privacy as it relates to DuckDuckGo and Google, you’ll find that both companies handle things very differently.

Take a gander at DuckDuckGo’s Privacy Policy, and the company sums it up as, “DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. That is our privacy policy in a nutshell.”

DuckDuckGo doesn't attach your searches to any persistent identifier, and no cookies are set by default. Further, there's no method for identifying unique users when using DuckDuckGo.

Google, on the other hand, saves and tracks all of its users’ search results. That’s not all the tech giant is tracking either. Google also tracks your location, browsing history and ads you might find useful.

While Google claims it tracks user information only to improve and build upon its current services, such extensive tracking can bring about some questionable feelings. While customized search recommendations are nice, are they worth compromising your privacy?

Choosing between Google and DuckDuckGo

Google is like an old, familiar pair of shoes. Sure, they may not be the cleanest option on the shoe rack, but they're comfortable and familiar, so you wear them again and again. On average, most Google users employ its search tool 3-4 times per day. With that type of usage, it’s easy to become acquainted with Google.

Not to mention, Google also has plenty of other products to offer its users. Whether that’s Gmail or YouTube, you’re likely using a number of Google tools.

Even if you’re used to Google, DuckDuckGo is worth taking for a spin. Either access it directly from your browser, or add DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials to Chrome and experience a bit of both worlds. As DuckDuckGo so flawlessly puts it, this “extension provides the privacy essentials you need to seamlessly take control of your personal information, no matter where the Internet takes you.”

Google is warning businesses to not disable their websites during the coronavirus pandemic as it could result in a significant drop to site search rankings, even when correctly implemented.

Instead, the search engine company is offering advice for keeping websites online but with temporary limits on function.

As businesses around the world are experiencing a drop in sales or service due to the spread of COVID-19, Google has issued a list of recommendation in a blog post written by webmaster trends analyst John Mueller.

The company is advising this as the best practice to help protect firms in the long-term.

"As a last resort, you may decide to disable the whole website," Mueller wrote. "This is an extreme measure that should only be taken for a very short period of time (a few days at most), as it will otherwise have significant effects on the website in Search, even when implemented properly.

"That's why it's highly recommended to only limit your site's functionality instead. Keep in mind that your customers may also want to find information about your products, your services, and your company, even if you're not selling anything right now."

Google's best practice in this regard is to disable the cart functionality on your site. This, according to Mueller, is the simplest approach and won't affect your site's visibility.

He also recommends advertising what the situation is with a display banner or popup with relevant information for your customer base. This should mention any delays to usual shipping, pickup times or changes to delivery options.

If your website uses structured data, you should make sure to adjust it to reflect current availability. Also, check your merchant centre feed and update Google and make requests to limit page numbers.

The company is making it clear that deleting a website is the last resort, but if a company does decide to do so for one or two days, then it should return an informational error page with a 503 HTTP result code instead of all its content.

If the site is going to be down for longer, Google recommends providing an indexable homepage as a placeholder for users to find in Search by using the 200 HTTP status code.

The internet is broken, though that's hardly news. Facebook doesn't bring the world closer together, as Mark Zuckerberg once hoped, but drives people with slightly divergent opinions further apart. Twitter was designed to share news and information instantly and across borders, but it's much better for sharing abuse. As for Google's goal, to "organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"? Searching for anything specific is nigh on impossible.

Don't believe that Google is useless? Here's an example. Try to find out the date and time of your local Bonfire Night fireworks display. The first result I see when I search "Walthamstow Bonfire Night 2019" is a Google-made "Events" box informing me that Bonfire Night is the fifth of November, a fact I very much remember. Next in the results is a list of questions that other "people also ask", which includes the suggestion "what time are the Crystal Palace fireworks" – while I'm sure they're lovely, I live in northeast London.

Both of those results were generated automatically by Google's systems, and both are useless to me. But after that algorithmic garbage, we finally have some actual results from the web, namely a series of articles and blog posts finely tuned to ride the SEO train to advertising profit. The first result says there's no fireworks in Walthamstow this year; that is not true. The second and the third results don't feature the "Walthamstow" anywhere on the linked page – so why are they ranking for that term? If my editor would let me use emoji in my columns, there'd be a "shrug" here.

The fourth website in the ranking does include all the key terms, but only in a photo caption; it's an explainer about what Bonfire Night is, rather than where I might partake. The fifth result is the local council's Bonfire Night listing on Facebook... for last year's event. Bing, on the other hand, had an accurate result second in the list. It's enough to make anyone want to chuck Google on the bonfire; the only fireworks are my temper.

The cause of those fruitless Google results is twofold, and both are issues Google needs to address. First, the article results are there because sites are trying to game Google's ranking algorithm, the dark art known as search engine optimisation (SEO). It's easy to blame publishers, but if sites are ranking for "Walthamstow" without using the word at all, we need to dole out some blame to Google's clearly broken algorithm, too.

The second cause of those terrible results is also to do with Google's algorithm: data ages, it erodes and goes out of date. It's much easier to find information about Bonfire Night displays from 2018 and before than it is this year, but that isn't of much use for those of us without time machines.

Don't get me wrong: I haven't forgotten what life online was like before Google. Hotmail, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves all pale in functionality and utility compared to Gmail and Google Search. But that leap forward hasn't been maintained. The web isn't what it was back in 1997 when Google Search launched, and plenty of that change and added complexity is down to Google itself. Back then, it was easy to dig out the link to the council's web page about Bonfire Night, but now that same system must also define Bonfire Night, sort through the many SEO-designed pages gaming the system and sift through social posts. Google's search algorithm is creaking under the weight.

All of this is important. Under its wider Alphabet umbrella company, Google is building driverless cars, with Waymo running trials in Arizona. In Toronto, its subsidiary Sidewalk Labs is designing a new neighbourhood from the ground up as a smart city lab. It bought British machine-learning startup DeepMind to expand into AI healthcare and Nest to shift into smart homes. And that's just Google. Algorithms are slipping into our homes via voice-activated assistants, into our cities via automated traffic lights and dynamic transport timetables, and touching every aspect of our lives. Your bank processes your salary via algorithms. Your medical scans are examined by machine learning systems.

Many of those algorithms aren't fit for purpose. Others may be today, but won't be in the near future. They must learn how to evolve with change and spot the erosion of data quality. We hear a lot about avoiding bias in algorithms and AI, and that's vital, but we also need to make sure systems actually work – and keep working.

After all, if I can't trust Google's famously powerful search algorithm to find such basic information, why would I trust its systems to drive me, organise my city, or keep me healthy?

Every web startup faces the same challenge: how do you get noticed amongst all that competition and build traffic? The clever money says leave all that search engine optimisation (SEO) stuff to the professionals. Yet money, clever or not, is the one luxury most startups don't have. This can often lead to a DIY approach to both SEO and online marketing, which is no bad thing if done properly.

The temptation to cheat and follow the dark side when building traffic is strong. Yet, grey- or black-hat SEO, along with social media follower farming, isn't the panacea you may have hoped for. So, what's the alternative to either investing in SEO expertise or becoming the Darth Vader of ecommerce? Well, you could ask SEO and digital marketing experts to pass their knowledge on for free which is precisely what we've done.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Let's start with how not to do things, even if it does look like an easy and relatively cheap way to build your traffic in no time at all. Some call it "black hat" SEO, while others try to disguise the underhand nature by labelling it as "grey hat" instead. Whatever you call it, if you try to game the system using dodgy techniques, you will likely end up on the naughty step with Google, Facebook and Twitter plus all the other services that you need to push traffic in your direction. So how do you know what is an illegitimate marketing technique to begin with?

Joe Linford is the head of SEO at ISP price comparison site Broadband Genie, and warns that Google has cracked down on websites "seeking to gain an advantage in the SERPs [search engine result pages] and will penalise sites for building unnatural links".

Links were the lifeblood of the Google algorithm for many years. Who you link to, and the backlinks your site gets from others, are still important; but link signals are not the sole determiner of strong SERP ratings. "Google has moved towards relying more on human opinions such as search quality raters, Chrome browser activity and Analytics data," Linford told PC Pro.

The trouble is that those Google algorithms are impenetrable to mere mortals. Which is why so many businesses still turn to high volume and low cost link-acquisition strategies, such as placing links into generic directories or link networks. These are a group of websites, more commonly than not owned by the network operator, that generate huge volumes of what are essentially fake links. They will offer the unwitting customer a bundle of, say, 250 or 500 new links to their site for a fee. Trouble is, not only are those links of very low quality, as they provide nothing of any real value to someone who clicks on them, but Google has become a Jedi Master at spotting link networks and blacklisting them. That's hardly surprising: if there are no "footprints" linking these disparate sites together, chances are the network is fake. By buying into such a link-farming network, your traffic could suffer as Google penalises you for being associated with a black hat operation.

It's not only link-farming that will get you into negative equity with the search supremo either. Jake Ramon-Capon is senior SEO consultant at Greenlight Digital, a digital marketing agency that counts eBay and Dixons Carphone (whose brands include PC World and Carphone Warehouse) among its clients. "Google has a long list of well documented tactics that could negatively impact your brand," Ramon-Capon explained, before pointing in the direction of cloaking. This is where you serve up different content to search engines than actual users, the former designed to be uber-SERPs-friendly of course. "Google spots this as its crawlers parse the source code of the page to find irregularities in the code that suggest cloaking," he said, "and then a member of the web spam team will manually check the affected pages." If they're served up something completely different, the site will be penalised.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Talking of content, we come to the much used "trick" of stealing someone else's, known as spinning. Marc Swann, search director at SEO specialists Glass Digital, told PC Pro that it's unfortunate that there are "50 shades of grey areas when it comes to SEO" courtesy of Google keeping spam-detection techniques something of an in-house secret.

That paranoia is understandable: if the process were made public then the black hats could game the system more readily. But that doesn't mean definite no-no's are hard to come by, including the aforementioned content spinning. "Stealing someone else's content using a word-swap script to turn stolen content into unique gobbledegook is an effective way to get slapped with a Google penalty," Swann said. He also cautioned against any agency or "expert" who "promises #1 rankings as absolutely no-one can make these kinds of guarantees".

Manchester based I-COM is one of the biggest digital agencies in the North West, and Jamal Atcha is the SEO manager there. He talks us through another black hat technique that should be avoided: keyword spamming. This is when specific keywords are used many times on a page to try and bump up the relevance ratings.

Google is, naturally, onto this one. Far better, Atcha said, "to avoid overuse of the same keywords or phrases on a page and write naturally with the user in mind". Similarly, overusing your keywords as the anchor text (link) every single time someone links to you is harmful. "When linking back to your website," Atcha advised, "keep anchor texts varied by including brand terms, similar keyword variations and generic terms like 'click here'."

It used to be that all that would happen if you tried to game Google was that it cancelled out any benefit, by making whatever technique was being used impotent. That all changed in 2013 when Google started actively penalising sites caught cheating the system. But what does "penalising" actually mean to Google? According to Ramon-Capon from Greenlight Digital, the penalty can vary from page-level to site-level and simply involve a drop in your organic, as opposed to sponsored/advertising, rankings. That, in turn, will harm organic traffic to your site, precisely what you were looking to build in the first place. "If you are penalised by either the Panda or Penguin algorithm," Ramon-Capon continued, "you will see the impact in near real-time once you make changes as these penalties happen in a very speedy manner."

Episode IV: A New Hope

Cheating Google may be a fool's errand, but what about social media? Social media can drive plenty of traffic to your online business if done properly. Of course, that takes time. You can kickstart traffic with commercial tools such as promoted tweets and targeted advertising that the platform itself provides. However, for many new online businesses, these can seem like a slow and expensive route to traffic they need right now.

This has led to the emergence of black-hat techniques such as follower and like farming. Both have become heavily marketed by the "farmers" in question, and both are against the terms and conditions of the social media platform -- be it Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.

The pitch is simple: we will provide you with a bundle of followers or likes, in return for a fee. That fee will depend on how many thousands of either you are buying. Both can be detected by the social media platforms using pattern recognition technology, which can determine when fake accounts or click farms are being employed. Much of the time, for example, Facebook claims it can block fake likes before they even reach the target page of the buyer. Facebook says that it will "send notifications to page administrators when we block or remove fake likes... to help them learn how to gather authentic fans." Repeat offenders could find their accounts suspended.

Aggressive following is more in grey hat territory, where an account follows or likes large numbers of others every day in the hope of getting a reciprocal follow or like, and then unfollows those who don't play the same game. The thing is that none of this really works anyway, as Greenlight Digital's Ramon-Capon explained. "It's important to remember that it's not about the number of followers or likes you have but the engagement these followers have with your pages," he said. And, as Atcha from I-COM reminded us, "genuine customers will see straight through you if you have thousands of followers but only a few people liking or sharing your posts."

Episode IV: A New Hope

We've covered what you shouldn't be doing, which leaves us with the obvious question of what marketing path should you take to build web traffic legitimately? We turned to Joe Friedlein, founder and managing director of Browser Media, a UK-based "inbound marketing agency" that works to attract targeted web traffic for clients. Friedlein summed it up when he told PC Pro that the secret to building sustainable traffic to your site is to "think about your users rather than thinking about Google".

If you create a site that offers content and functionality that is genuinely helpful to your target audience, you will benefit from organic engagement and attract links. "The search engines will recognise this," Friedlein said, "and you will be rewarded, over time, with improved visibility across the major search engines."

Friedlein has a few tips to help grow that healthy, organic traffic. "You should use keyword research as a stimulus to understand what people are looking for and to steer the content that you publish on your site" he said. By using the same language that your target audience use, you will increase the likelihood of ranking for the keywords that they use to search and, crucially, increase the likelihood that the site will engage with your visitors. "Rather than focusing on commercially motivated pages," Friedlein advised, "think about content that you can offer that is genuinely helpful. This will naturally attract links, which will then help to improve rankings."

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Of course, content alone is very unlikely to deliver immediate success. And it's that immediacy that startups yearn for, and often need to survive until the next funding round or letter from the bank. To build traffic quickly you must invest your energy into what Friedlein refers to as "amplifying your content".

This is more of an online PR exercise than an SEO one. You have to build an understanding of where it is your target audience goes online, and then forge relationships with those sites. Sharing content works better than simply adding irrelevant links purely for perceived SEO gain. Understanding the type of content that will resonate with your audience, and that of any sites you share with, is key.It's better to start slowly, Friedlein advised, than rush in and ask for too much. "This is especially true for social media, which offers incredible potential for referral traffic.

"Take time to listen and understand the nature of the discussion before steaming in with your corporate message," he added. There's no doubt that social-media engagement takes time, but it can pay dividends in terms of shared links and consequently traffic to your site.All that said, Friedlein admits there isn't a silver bullet. "If you want immediate results you should look at paid traffic sources, especially paid search," he said. The argument being that if you want to build a brand, a business that will enjoy long-term success, then investing resources to build both a great site and great relationships is key to that goal.

The "building a great site" bit is often overlooked when it comes to thinking about hits. Which is a shame, as it really does matter. "It may seem obvious, but make sure your website is technically 'in shape' and keep up-to-date with Google Webmaster guidelines so you can future-proof your strategy," said Greenlight Digital's Ramon-Capon.

He also emphasised the need for ensuring all your important pages are keyword-optimised with relevant title tags, headers and engaging content. All of this will impact those key SERP ratings. As Google has strived to bring users more relevant search results, so its algorithms have been tweaked and evolved to better evaluate the quality of site content in a more human-friendly way.

"Google's crawlers are better at assessing websites the way users do," said Jamal Atcha from I-COM, "which means factors such as click-through-rates, bounce rate and time on site, and providing good user experience, have become important things to consider to improve how your website is perceived by Google."

Remember: the bots are never going to buy from you or read your articles. People will.

Main image credit: Bigstock

This article originally appeared in PC Pro

Google's latest algorithm update - focused especially on mobile browsing - is being rolled out today, with many organisations waiting with baited breath to see whether they will be adversely or positively affected by the changes.

Most successful businesses now rely on search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies to get their websites seen, but those strategies themselves always in turn rely on Google's complex algorithms.

When those change, it can mean bad news for many previously thriving sites, and another update for Google's mobile-friendly algorithm is indeed on its way. Today, an update, dubbed Mobilegeddon', will change "mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on our search results," according to Google.

Maria Mitsostergiou, head of search at mobile marketing firm Somo, said: "Google's upcoming mobile friendly' algorithm update the so-called Mobilegeddon is another indication of how important Mobile Search is and will be this year. We regularly see Organic Search becoming an increasingly important factor for Paid Search success."

Websites that anticipated being affected include MI5, Nintendo, Windows Phone, RyanAir and more, with the way Google recognises how compatible with mobile devices their sites are changing. Even companies with apps or reactive sites may see a drop in rankings - though the full impact may not be seen until anywhere between 72 hours and several weeks, experts says.

"The incorporation of mobile friendliness' as a ranking signal for websites will separate companies proactively opting-into mobile versus those that cannot see the benefit and power of their mobile presence on SERPs," Mitsostergiou continued.

"This in turn will only benefit the synergy of Organic and Paid Search efforts by providing the right results in the right place and at the right time."

This article was originally published on 15/04/15