
My sister's a quilter and Google mugged her - protomyth
http://www.cringely.com/2013/12/10/sisters-quilter-google-mugged/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sisters-quilter-google-mugged
======
tedunangst
_Eric Schmidt said he was sorry but he couldn’t help.

Now I’m angry._

Wow. I think I respect Google _more_ now. I don't like the "take it to the
people" approach needed to get action out of Google, but I like "I know people
who know people" approach even less. The chairman of the company should not be
dicking about with search results because a friend asked.

~~~
mempko
Except he could have given some helpful hint...

~~~
300bps
In reality, he couldn't. There are likely several million sites that are
wondering about their Google page ranking as well. Figure several thousand of
them know someone who knows someone who knows Eric Schmidt. From a practical
standpoint, how many hours are in the day and how many do you think he should
devote to such activities? From a fairness perspective, is it fair that you
give inside Google information to someone because they're an acquaintance of
an acquaintance?

 _Eric Schmidt said he was sorry but he couldn’t help. Now I’m angry._

This line strikes me as very similar to the person who makes a scene in a
restaurant when they can't get a table right away. "Don't you know who I am?!
My sister has the former #1 Photo Quilting business online!"

------
ChuckMcM
And apparently Mr Cringely doesn't know anything about Webmaster Tools, which
would probably be the first stop of anyone wanting to know about a sudden
change in rank.

Sudden changes are usually the function of 'action' rather than 'inaction' so
I'm guessing that somewhere there was an action. Did she succumb to some black
hat SEO marketing pitch? Did Cringely piss off some black hat SEO person? Did
her site get compromised and have malware installed? Did she not actually
update the content for the last 5 years (including Copyright notice) so it
doesn't appear to be a dead site.

The 'OMG I don't show up in results' is a good starting point but hardly the
ending point of these stories.

~~~
sergiotapia
You're talking out of your ass and it's really infuriating to hear people
disregard real, tangible problems you are facing.

Google makes software, and no software is perfect. I've been bitten by shitty
google services before. My most recent sting was Google Webmaster Tools not
showing any Googlebot crawls to me website. My website is very niche and
literally 1 of 4 competitors in the same arena.

5 month. 5 MONTHS. and google has yet to crawl my website, even though google
analytics shows me stats day in day out.

Why? Google breaks sometimes, and it's incredibly crappy that you can't even
reach out to someone to ask what's up.

~~~
mkhaytman
I'd contend you're the one talking out of their ass.

Relying on another company for all your business isn't a sound business
strategy. The person in the article put all their eggs in one basket and this
is the result.

~~~
eropple
This is trivializing to the point of absurdity. When it comes to doing
business on the Internet in the English-speaking world, Google _is_ the
basket. It's the only basket. I wish it weren't, but it is.

And so, yes, pretty much everyone is reliant on them to be good stewards of
the power they possess. (Whether they are or not is orthogonal to that the
quilter in question has a pretty good reason to feel like they aren't.)

~~~
true_religion
I really can't agree with that. We've built businesses in the pre-Google days
when search engines were a hit or miss affair.

~~~
eropple
Except that now everyone _goes_ to Google. It's not just a search engine, it's
literally the starting point for the overwhelming majority of web traffic.

If Google is against you, you're done.

------
zallarak
I see a lot of these articles; someone feeling cheated because Google takes
them off some or all search results. Google did not "mug" anyone - it is the
reason for your traffic to begin with. The fact that you even ever had
discoverability among a billion or so websites is a beautiful thing.
Additionally, have some perspective, the search is a free tool that is very
tough to get right. This might sound harsh, but I believe the effort in
complaining could be better allocated into promoting the authors' sister's
business. To emphasize, Google search is a FREE tool - use it to get business
but don't make it your bread and butter because it is optimized for users,
advertisers - not the content creators. To accept this is not optional, it is
simply reality.

~~~
latj
In one sense you are correct that Google is "free" because one does not pay
cash directly to Google to be listed in its results or to preform a search.

But in another sense, Google is not free at all. The fact is, Google lives and
thrives off of the data generated by the public. Yes, Google employees smart
people. But its real value is derived from the underlying public data that
Google gets- for free.

Google search works because the world allows Google's bots to traverse their
websites freely and index their content. Google translate works because the EU
and other governments translated their documents into many languages and then
gave them away to the world. Google Maps works because of GIS information
gathered on the public's dime. Gmail is able to operate because users allow it
to mine their personal messages to better tailor advertisements.

Google is built on top of and depends on the public- both to be its customers
and to be the source of its products. It has taken the market in search,
email, browser, and mobile. And, for the most part, it has created some great
tools for people to use. But there is a minority of people whose lives are
affected by Google for the worse. Its important not to marginalize these
people.

This is a non-democratically elected institution whose policies and actions
have more effect on people's lives than the governments of many nations. Those
policies and actions ought to be looked upon critically by the people.

~~~
thrill
Google does not get its data for free - what do you think the 50,000 people
employed there are doing? The vast number of servers, the ridiculous power
bill, the research efforts - all these are so they can not only gather the
same data that any of us can also gather with a simple bash script, but also
present it in such a way that is significantly "better" than the competition
that some people are actually willing to pay them money.

~~~
latj
The vast majority of Google employees are not downloading public data or
working on Googlebot. They are working on either converting public data into
better advertising algorithms or creating a product that will capture peoples'
attention.

Yes, it is true that Google pays a lot for infrastructure to download the
data. But it is a drop in the well compared to the price of actually
generating the data. Otherwise they would just do that.

------
trevin
Spent a few minutes looking at the site. Looks to me like it was hit by
Google's Penguin 2.0 update [1] that targeted sites that had low quality links
pointing in to their domain (in particular inner pages).

Probably not the sisters fault, but the site has done a lot of reciprocal
linking in the past which Google really frowns upon nowadays. There's
prominent page on her site featuring some of those links:
[http://www.portraitquilts.com/info/links](http://www.portraitquilts.com/info/links)

She also has some links from pages that are selling or exchange links to
spam/escort sites:

[http://www.iwr.com/gifts/crafts.html](http://www.iwr.com/gifts/crafts.html)
[http://www.livebusinessradio.com/trade/recip.cgi](http://www.livebusinessradio.com/trade/recip.cgi)

Again, probably not her fault. Google is doing their job but with so much
misinformation about SEO and link building out there it is easy for people to
accidentally get themselves in trouble.

If anybody is curious, I used ahrefs to pull in the backlinks to the site:
[https://ahrefs.com/site-
explorer/refdomains/subdomains/www.p...](https://ahrefs.com/site-
explorer/refdomains/subdomains/www.portraitquilts.com)

There are some other examples of link spam in there. Penguin would be my guess
after a quick check.

[1][http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2279845/Googles-
Penguin...](http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2279845/Googles-
Penguin-2.0-Algorithm-The-Definitive-Guide)

~~~
adam12
Another site that was intended to raise her page rank, but in the end got her
site blacklisted:

[http://www.linkstrategy.com/links/home-furniture-
specialty-u...](http://www.linkstrategy.com/links/home-furniture-specialty-
unique.htm)

------
oftenwrong
For the curious:

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=portrait+quilts](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=portrait+quilts)
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=photo+quilts](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=photo+quilts)

[http://www.bing.com/search?q=portrait+quilts](http://www.bing.com/search?q=portrait+quilts)
[http://www.bing.com/search?q=photo+quilts](http://www.bing.com/search?q=photo+quilts)

[http://www.yandex.com/yandsearch?text=portrait+quilts](http://www.yandex.com/yandsearch?text=portrait+quilts)
[http://www.yandex.com/yandsearch?text=photo+quilts](http://www.yandex.com/yandsearch?text=photo+quilts)

[http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=portrait+quilts](http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=portrait+quilts)
[http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=photo+quilts](http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=photo+quilts)

[http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=portrait+quilts](http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=portrait+quilts)
[http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=photo+quilts](http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=photo+quilts)

~~~
3JPLW
Too many, didn't click: (the result order for me; yours may vary)

    
    
        DDG:    1 2
        Bing:   1 2 (but ads before)
        Yandex: 1 3
        Baidu:  1 2
        Yahoo:  1 2 (but so much ads/images/cruft before)
        Blekko: 3 x

------
DanBC
> Eric Schmidt said he was sorry but he couldn’t help.

This is a good thing. It's incredibly frustrating that Google has no way for
people to get help with the search engine. Allowing the few people who happen
to know someone who knows someone to get help doesn't make Google any less
frustrating in this situation - although it does help that one person.

It would be interesting to learn why the site got delisted (if it did). Often
someone complains vociferously, then a Googler points out all the weird SEO
links that exist for that domain, and a bunch of odd things happening on the
site.

------
jenno
Has this sister _ever_ engaged in any dubious SEO practices, such as hiring
"backlink providers" on fiverr, spamming her link on unrelated websites, or
too much prolific use of using the anchor text of "portrait quilt"? Any of
those will signal to Google that they are unnatural links and as a result, the
site can be penalized and show up less in results, sometimes being removed
altogether.

I apologize if this comment is too obvious -- I have worked as an SEO
consultant for a while. The first thing she should do is check her Google
Webmaster Tools, as this is where she will receive any unnatural link
warnings. If it is there, she can start taking steps to remedy the situation
by undoing any of the questionable SEO tactics she may have used, and request
reconsideration from Google.

~~~
shobhitverma
This is pretty interesting. So I can theoretically bring down a competitor's
rank by creating spammy websites and providing unnatural backlinks ? Even if
the competitors figure it out from the webmaster tools, they will have no way
to remove the backlinks. Right ?

~~~
momokatte
Backlinks can be disavowed via Webmaster Tools.

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487)

Related:

[http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2309486/Matt-Cutts-
Use-...](http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2309486/Matt-Cutts-Use-the-Link-
Disavow-Tool-Even-if-Your-Site-Hasnt-Been-Penalized)

------
kybernetyk
> Eric Schmidt said he was sorry but he couldn’t help.

> Now I’m angry.

I would be more angry if Eric Schmid had helped. Because not everyone whose
website gets de-indexed knows someone who knows a buddy of Eric Schmidt.

So at least it stays equally shit for everyone and there's no two-tier society
of website owners divided by Silicon Valley real life contacts.

------
neilk
This is more of a story about the danger of relying on search ranking than it
is about Google abusing anyone.

Presumably Cringely knows this, but he also knows that carping loudly about it
will increase portraitquilts.com's Google rankings.

Unfortunately, this is a zero-sum game. If portraitquilts.com deserves to win,
then that's also saying that the other businesses, how-to sites, Pinterest
boards, and so on deserve to lose. Is that obviously true?

------
Systemic33
I think it is quite terrifying, that one company can singlehandedly shut down
business, even if you have never used a Google service in your entire life;
because all your customers only discover you through Google. And what is to be
done about it? you aren't a Google customer in the direct sense, so they feel
no obligation to assist, and it seems as if even actual customers get
negligible support. The only way out of this seems to be either Google
collapsing, or a MS-esque antitrust/monopoly court.

~~~
gagege
Let's say I own a single store and it happens to be in a space in a mall.
Also, the mall is letting me do business there for free. I get exposure,
electricity, easy access, all kinds of good stuff, for free. (The mall is
Google)

Suddenly the mall wants to _extort_ me by charging me money to use their
space, electricity, water, etc. Those jerks!

~~~
Systemic33
Completely missing the problem.

The problem i'm talking about is more in the case of some company distributing
a large phonebook for the city, which includes all stores and people,
information they gathered by downloading public city records.

So people start using this phonebook all the time, and for most citizens, it's
the only way they can find your business.

But on day the phonebook company, decides for an uknown reason to delist a
business.

When the store then contacts the phone company, they are reached with a
voicemail, every time they try to contact. The store knows some friends who
know the owner of the phonebook company, but the guy they know refuse to
comment on it.

What the hell is the store supposed to do? The entire city is so hooked on the
phonebook company, because they give them free phone lines, and all sorts of
seemingly free stuff, which is really just feeding drugs to the addict.

How does this not stink far away of antitrust? The phonebook is actively
working to keep its users with free stuff, so that they keep using them, and
enables them to extort the phone store to have to pay the phonebook company
for getting them listed again.

~~~
MichaelGG
That's not accurate at all. The phonebook doesn't provide any useful ranking -
it's an alphabetical sort usually. It's closer to a factual database than
anything. Google could solve all criticism of its results simply by returning
all URLs in alphabetical order -- but they'd lose all their users, too.

The situation is much more akin to a hotline to call up and ask what a good
place is for Q. And usually the hotline refers people to your business for Q,
but now they don't. And since the hotline is part of a massive organization
and answers are generated by a massive, complicated, AI, it's hard to find out
why the hotline decided to not refer people to your business anymore.

------
BlakePetersen
Dude, that site is riddled with out-dated and now black-hat seo tricks. It was
just asking to be blacklisted.

Get that cheater off my SERPs, I wanna go with the honest portrait quilt
providers.

~~~
maaaats
any examples?

~~~
genericuser
First off I know nothing about SEO as will likely be apparent from my comment,
that said.

As someone who knows nothing about SEO it looks to me like it could of
triggered duplicate content detection portion of a google algorithm.

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en)

Looking briefly at the source she has the entirety of the following in the
title of every page other than the main page I looked at _Portrait Quilts -
Memory Photo Quilts with up to 96 Photos! Personalized Memory Quilts, Picture
Quilts and Photo Blankets

info - Portrait Quilts - Memory Photo Quilts with up to 96 Photos!
Personalized Memory Quilts, Picture Quilts and Photo Blankets_

and half of it in the title of the main page

It seems like some maintenance could be order for the site.

------
mikeash
Really, "mugged"? Google walked up to her on the street and threatened her
with a weapon?

~~~
bmelton
The sad part is that I was expecting that maybe there was a snafu with
Google's NFC payments, or the Wallet, or maybe Google Shopping algorithm or
something.

Google used to give her a bunch of web traffic, arguably for free, and now
they apparently have stopped, possibly with good reason, possibly without. And
that is somehow stealing?

I'm sympathetic to the plight of having lost revenue, but that revenue was
never guaranteed, nor was it owed, nor should she have allowed Google to be
her sole source of traffic.

~~~
DanHulton
"Allowed Google to have been her sole source of traffic?"

It's one of the realities of the world we live in that Google - if you're
popular on it at all - will likely dwarf any other traffic you're pulling in,
despite any other efforts you may make.

Further, it's important to note that effort spent on optimizing your Google
ranking is usually an order of magnitude more effective than time spent
optimizing for any other search engine. For people with very limited time
outside of their primary activity, you've got to prioritize.

(That said, the rest of your comment was spot-on. I just felt the last part of
the last sentence didn't really reflect a few key realities, is all.)

~~~
bmelton
Compared to free traffic, I'd agree. What I was trying to say was that, if
traffic is so important to one's business, one should try securing it... but
even that isn't really valid since, why would you spend money on something
that you're getting so much of already, but for free, especially in a business
that doesn't scale.

Either way, Google's organic traffic results are probably replaceable through
purchased clicks, and I'm guessing the proprietor appreciates the value of it
more than what they otherwise might have, so who knows? Maybe all the free
traffic is just Google's upsell.

"You remember all that traffic you __used to get __? You can have it all
again, for just $149 a month. "

------
eli
Reminds me a bit of the recent article on the rise and fall of the content
farm Demand Media: [http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/epic-fail-the-rise-and-
fall...](http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/epic-fail-the-rise-and-fall-of-
demand-media-1200914646/) (worth a read).

Someone was recently telling me that "diversity of traffic sources" is a key
metric they use to evaluate digital media properties. There's a real risk in
basing your whole business on organic Google traffic.

------
southpawgirl
Sorry for the author's sister, but it's kinda reassuring to know that even
Google's CEO won't tamper with the results algorithm. Which might or might not
be fair, but still...

------
ry0ohki
It's the unfortunate reality, I honestly feel like Google's algorithm has
gotten really arbitrary lately (just had a huge drop off of almost all traffic
for a month which was completely unexplained, only to come right back a few
weeks later). The fact that they hide keywords now will make it seem all the
more arbitrary.

The real world comparison is not a mugging, it's as if your small business was
on Main St one day, and the next there are literally no roads to get to you.

------
ErikAugust
Comes up first for me -
[https://www.google.com/#q=portrait+quilts](https://www.google.com/#q=portrait+quilts)

Edit: HA! Sorry, it's an ad! I thought it was the first organic result but it
was actually the second ad!

I can barely perceive that shade of yellow indicating that it's an ad. Took
two or three takes.

~~~
3JPLW
It's an ad for me. Of course, Google's been doing all it can to make ads look
like organic results. Looks like she bought into the protection racket.

~~~
mynameishere
Maybe you're being funny, but it's scary to think that google has a quiet
policy of letting businesses develop revenues through organic search and then
intentionally changing the algos.

------
mariehaynes
If this site used to rank well for things like "photo pillows", it's not
because it was the best site to show users, but rather, it was because the
site was being propped up by self made backlinks. Here are some of the links
that are all anchored with the word "photo pillows":

[http://www.bobmarketing.com/links/page_Business_Marketing_17...](http://www.bobmarketing.com/links/page_Business_Marketing_17.html)

[http://stardir.info/stardir/subcategory.asp?IDsubcate=494&of...](http://stardir.info/stardir/subcategory.asp?IDsubcate=494&offset=15)

[http://www.cyberpathway.com/cgi-
bin/recip/internet/recip.cgi](http://www.cyberpathway.com/cgi-
bin/recip/internet/recip.cgi)

The majority of the backlink profile is made up of self made low quality
directory links.

It's possible that the Penguin algorithm has realized this and as a result is
not trusting links to the site. But, it's also possible that Google has just
gotten better at not counting this type of link when it comes to ranking. It's
also possible that the site is under a manual penalty (which would be evident
by looking at the Webmaster Tools manual spam action tool.)

When I look at the site's keyword positions on semrush.com, it appears that
the rankings started a gradual decline as of May 2013. There was a Penguin
refresh on May 23, so this is certainly a possibility. If the site is affected
by Penguin, then in order to make the algorithm trust the site again, she's
going to have to disavow each of the links that are self made. If there are
good, truly natural links in the profile then she stands a chance of ranking
well again. But, the likelihood is that the site won't get back to the
previous rankings by just clearing up the backlinks because those rankings
were not deserved in the first place.

It's not Google's fault that this site is not ranking well now. But, one could
argue that it was Google's heavy reliance on links and on a system that could
be scammed that allowed this site to reign for the time that it did.

------
noveltysystems
Maintaining rank and attracting organic traffic from Google requires constant,
continuous work, and there are plenty of ways to shoot yourself in the foot.
We all compete for this traffic; getting angry at Google and writing a pissed-
off blog post won't change her ranking - stepping up to the plate and
competing for the traffic using white-hat SEO, semantic markup, webmaster
tools, syndication through social media, etc. is the only way forward. SEO has
changed - adapt or die.

------
csomar
Let's make people rank, so they could build businesses from traffic we drive,
and then cut the traffic. That would be a good business plan for Adwords, no?

Now, seriously, I don't think this is Google plan. I think Google just got
many billions websites and pages to rank. Google aim is not to be fair for
every website, but instead to give the best results.

Given a huge number of websites (and people running them), these occurrences
would obviously happen.

~~~
grey-area
Yes, there is a serious conflict of interest at the heart of Google's business
- they are in the business of selling links to advertisers, and of curating
links for readers.

------
wonderyak
This is what I see on Google:
[https://i.cloudup.com/7ymLpPBmma-3000x3000.png](https://i.cloudup.com/7ymLpPBmma-3000x3000.png)

The first organic results don't even show up with the size of my window.

The whole situation these days on the SERP for any purchasable item is pretty
sad. Luckily, I don't use Google that much when pricing or shopping. Results
for data are much more helpful and useful for me.

~~~
maaaats
And the shading is so much more hidden now. I had to tilt my screen properly
to even see that it was ads.

~~~
derekp7
I found out that this varies quite a bit based on your monitor. For example,
on my newer Thinkpad, the yellow background really stands out. But on my
desktop monitor (a 5 - 6 year old Samsung), it isn't noticeable at all, even
with tilting the monitor.

------
jiggy2011
I've had this sort of thing happen myself, client's who's websites lose out on
<company name> to some spammy site for no obvious reason. People seem to
assume that google operates as some sort of public service which provides free
services to website owners.

Now I just tell people to factor adwords spend into the development costs for
a site.

------
nwalter08
Most misleading title of the day!

------
dude3
Google just plain hates exact match now in my experience. You have to build up
solid reputation to get out of the exact match sort of penalty. I think they
think exact match is generally spammy and elevates the spam filter. Some other
factors in an algo update probably got more weight that the site was affected
by and pushed the site over the edge. I tend not to change anything right away
when this happens. Wait a bit and see if it corrects. Then make small
iterative SEO changes and throw some youtube videos on your site that you
produced. Another good strategy, and I've seen a bunch, is to change the
domain name. Only do that in last resort. Watch how often googlebot accesses
your site and try to increase frequency too.

------
memracom
Just don't trust your business to a "site". If it is your business, then your
"site" should include a blog that should have regular articles about all sorts
of related things, including about other related sites who hopefully have
their own blogs and will write about your site. There needs to be a buzz of
activity around your business or people will stop coming in the door.

Dirty windows? Spider webs in the doorframe? Trash on the sidewalk? Paint
fading? Lightbulb burned out? Sign peeling? These are signs that the business
is dying and the passersby will gladly help you out by not shopping there and
by telling their friends to avoid the place.

Life is like that in the real world; why should the Internet be any different?

------
mkhaytman
Mr. Cringely might start helping his sister by removing the completely
unrelated link to his sister's site from his own, or at least mark it
"nofollow".

It's really interesting reading the rantings of the grossly misinformed,
especially when they are able to dismiss the entire industry of search engine
optimization as "bullshit". I bet if the tone of his article was different, he
would have dozens of SEOs willing to diagnose the problem and giving tips on
how to fix the issues. Oh well, maybe he should get in tighter with Eric
Schmidt, so he can personally take a look at the writer's wife's photo pillow
website.

The entitlement is so rich.

------
pflats
Since work's got me locked into IE/Bing, I might as well point out that Ms.
Cringely's site is #2 on Bing (#6 if you count the 4 ads on what looks like a
15% blue-gray background that come before #1).

------
frakkingcylons
If you're going to write an article criticizing how Google lowered your spot
in the SERP, then at least try to make a substantive argument for why it
deserves to be higher. Otherwise it's just whining.

------
panzi
"This is how she makes her living, selling on the web and through photo
stores."

"She founded PC Data, the largest PC market research firm, now part of the NPD
Group."

She founded the largest PC market research firm and now she has to make a
living making quilts? How did that happen? Wouldn't the bigger story be how
she lost all her money (which I'm assuming) running a PC market research firm?

~~~
Xylakant
She has to make her living != She makes her living. Maybe she just likes
making photo quilts and found a niche market that allowed for a sustainable
business that was now ruined. Isn't that what we'd all like to do: Earn enough
money so that we can work in a job we like, even if that doesn't pay as much
as we'd need to live?

~~~
panzi
Yes, but again, this would have made a interesting story. It's just confusing
and strange to note such a thing and then not elaborate at least a bit on it.
Also, someone who can found such a firm usually understands how not to "get
mugged" by a changing search engine.

------
Rebuildorkillit
She has very few links and the ones she did have that were propping her up are
dying out. She needs to work on the site more and reach out to other people
more.

------
EliRivers
If I were running a business providing free advertising for such companies,
I'd wait until a company relied on me and then make them pay for it. Given
that google is a business, doesn't seem that odd that this happens. In fact,
seems surprising if it doesn't.

------
gscott
The problem is your sister is in direct competition with Google. Searching
Portrait Quilts brings up your sisters site then a large box that says "Shop
for portrait quilts on Google"

Google is a competitive enterprise. They have to report to stock holders every
quarter that income is more then the previous quarter.

