Flight Center's SEO Practices shaken at SMX Sydney
Monday, 14 April 2008
SMX Sydney took place last week on the 10th and 11th April 2008 in Luna Park, in Sydney. For the first time in Australia, the event organised by Barry Smyth brought many international and local speakers to discover and discuss the latest trends in the search marketing industry. Part of the conference, called the SEO Clinic, offers selected real-life websites to be examined by a panel of experts.
In 2008 the panel included Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz, Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Journal and Adam Lasnik from the Google Spam Team. All these guys are probably some of the most recognised professionals in the industry and having their input can save you a lot of work and help you to improve the optimisation of your website. That is great you would say. The drawback is that high-level experts can also find all sorts of things that can make you feel quite embarrassed in front of a live audience and in the industry.
How did Flight Center get Shaken?
That is exactly what happened to one of Australia's largest travel websites: FlightCenter.com. When Rand and Danny did an analysis for duplicate content for DiscoverTasmania.com, they found out that their content is served on the Flight Center website. However, they discovered that the same content is not visible for a normal user when you go to the Flight Center website. That's when it starts to be tricky.
After a little more work, they noticed that the content on the Flight Center website is served differently to users and search engines robots(responsible for crawling and indexing pages). In practice it means that, if you are a simple visitor of the website, you would see this:
But if you are a Google Bot, you would see this:
This practice is called Cloaking, which identified as a SEO Black Hat practice by Wikipedia"
Now it is getting really embarrassing, especially when this happens in front of an audience of search marketers.
Why did Flight Center use Cloaking?
As described by Flight Center's GM Colin Bowman in Neerav Blog,Flight Center wanted to create more interactivity and a better visual experience when a user browses their catalogue. To serve this purpose they decided to use Javascript to display the content. However, search engine spiders are not able to read content contained in Javascript, which results in the pages not being able to be indexed and therefore not being able to rank in the SERPs. Obviously this has a bad impact on traffic and Flight Center and their technology provider wanted to avoid this.
The alternative they found (probably not the best one) is to serve a text based version to the search engine spiders so that they can index the content and a Javascript version to the end user to provide optimal interactivity.
Are Flight Center's SEO practices Black hat?
While Cloaking is against the Google guidelines and considered as a Black Hat practice, the Flight Center case is quite ambiguous. As noted by Rand in SEOmoz, the content served to the search engine spiders is identical to the content served in a user browser, and therefore the intention to 'deceive' search engines spiders is not fully there.
Flight Center's GM Marketing Colin Bowman has also expressed that their intentions were not to deceive search engines, but to make sure that the content of their web pages would be properly indexed:
It sounds like Flight Center had no real intention to deceive search engines, but to index their content, however they have made a poor(if not more) choice in using cloaking for this purpose.
Update - 21st April: Based on further research, discussions and feedbacks (thanks Webco), it appears that Flight Center did not direclty use cloaking on their website, however the cloaking was part of the catalogue solution offered by Catalogue Central (one of their technology provider). This gives even more sense to the Google decision.
What is the outcome for Flight Center?
Having Adam Lasnik in the panel was probably not the best thing ever for Flight Center and it seems that the content included in the catalogue section of the Flight Center website has been removed from the Google listings already. However, the Flight Center website is still present in Google SERPs, which seems to prove that the website has not been fully banned.
Probably worst (or not?) than being banned from the Google listings, Flight Center will have to review their SEO practices and probably work on some serious reputation management as the news has already generated quite a lot of buzz in the industry.
What is the outcome for the Australian SEO Industry
The Flight Center's case also bring us back to thedark VERY unpopular debate on skills level the practices in the Australian SEO industry. While the Flight Center case does not mean that all Australian SEOs are 'Cowboys' or 'Spammers' as you can see in some comments, it surely demonstrates that the standards of some of them in the industry have yet to be improved and that some SEOs in Australia have to lift up their game to compete on a global scale. In that sense, initiatives such as SMX Sydney have a key role to play in this process and should therefore be encouraged.
What is the outcome for Google?
On top of a real need to have clearer guidelines, the Flight Center case also reveals the limitations of search engines to index content that is not text-based and therefore to be up to date with the latest web development technologies.
As demonstrated at SMX Sydney in the SEO 3.0 session with Chris Dimmock talking about the Myhome.com.au website, web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX and Javascript are getting more popular and largely contribute to improve the end-users experience. However search engines are not able to follow (or not quickly enough) the trend.
While evolving toward better indexing capabilities there is a real and growing technology gap between the current web development technology and the technology behind search engine indexing. This gap is currently stretching the challenges of search engine optimisation and obviously creating some 'collateral damages'. Should search engines stop focusing too much on relevancy and include user-experience in the equation?
PS. After receiving feedback for some readers and proof reading the post, I realised that what I wrote did not really match with what I actually meant. English is a tricky language and a few missing words can make a big difference... Please find some correction in blue.
In 2008 the panel included Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz, Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Journal and Adam Lasnik from the Google Spam Team. All these guys are probably some of the most recognised professionals in the industry and having their input can save you a lot of work and help you to improve the optimisation of your website. That is great you would say. The drawback is that high-level experts can also find all sorts of things that can make you feel quite embarrassed in front of a live audience and in the industry.
How did Flight Center get Shaken?
That is exactly what happened to one of Australia's largest travel websites: FlightCenter.com. When Rand and Danny did an analysis for duplicate content for DiscoverTasmania.com, they found out that their content is served on the Flight Center website. However, they discovered that the same content is not visible for a normal user when you go to the Flight Center website. That's when it starts to be tricky.
After a little more work, they noticed that the content on the Flight Center website is served differently to users and search engines robots(responsible for crawling and indexing pages). In practice it means that, if you are a simple visitor of the website, you would see this:
But if you are a Google Bot, you would see this:
This practice is called Cloaking, which identified as a SEO Black Hat practice by Wikipedia"
Cloaking is a black hat search engine optimization (SEO) technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the users' browser. This is done by delivering content based on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of the user requesting the page. When a user is identified as a search engine spider, a server-side script delivers a different version of the web page, one that contains content not present on the visible page. The purpose of cloaking is to deceive search engines so they display the page when it would not otherwise be displayed.
Now it is getting really embarrassing, especially when this happens in front of an audience of search marketers.
Why did Flight Center use Cloaking?
As described by Flight Center's GM Colin Bowman in Neerav Blog,Flight Center wanted to create more interactivity and a better visual experience when a user browses their catalogue. To serve this purpose they decided to use Javascript to display the content. However, search engine spiders are not able to read content contained in Javascript, which results in the pages not being able to be indexed and therefore not being able to rank in the SERPs. Obviously this has a bad impact on traffic and Flight Center and their technology provider wanted to avoid this.
The alternative they found (probably not the best one) is to serve a text based version to the search engine spiders so that they can index the content and a Javascript version to the end user to provide optimal interactivity.
Are Flight Center's SEO practices Black hat?
While Cloaking is against the Google guidelines and considered as a Black Hat practice, the Flight Center case is quite ambiguous. As noted by Rand in SEOmoz, the content served to the search engine spiders is identical to the content served in a user browser, and therefore the intention to 'deceive' search engines spiders is not fully there.
Flight Center's GM Marketing Colin Bowman has also expressed that their intentions were not to deceive search engines, but to make sure that the content of their web pages would be properly indexed:
It is clear that our intent is not to show content to spiders that differs from the content in the pages and therefore should not be regarded as blackhat cloaking. The content that was visible to Google’s spiders is an identical replica to what is shown in the customer friendly brochure viewer so no unfair advantage was gained nor sought.
It sounds like Flight Center had no real intention to deceive search engines, but to index their content, however they have made a poor(if not more) choice in using cloaking for this purpose.
Update - 21st April: Based on further research, discussions and feedbacks (thanks Webco), it appears that Flight Center did not direclty use cloaking on their website, however the cloaking was part of the catalogue solution offered by Catalogue Central (one of their technology provider). This gives even more sense to the Google decision.
What is the outcome for Flight Center?
Having Adam Lasnik in the panel was probably not the best thing ever for Flight Center and it seems that the content included in the catalogue section of the Flight Center website has been removed from the Google listings already. However, the Flight Center website is still present in Google SERPs, which seems to prove that the website has not been fully banned.
Probably worst (or not?) than being banned from the Google listings, Flight Center will have to review their SEO practices and probably work on some serious reputation management as the news has already generated quite a lot of buzz in the industry.
What is the outcome for the Australian SEO Industry
The Flight Center's case also bring us back to the
What is the outcome for Google?
On top of a real need to have clearer guidelines, the Flight Center case also reveals the limitations of search engines to index content that is not text-based and therefore to be up to date with the latest web development technologies.
As demonstrated at SMX Sydney in the SEO 3.0 session with Chris Dimmock talking about the Myhome.com.au website, web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX and Javascript are getting more popular and largely contribute to improve the end-users experience. However search engines are not able to follow (or not quickly enough) the trend.
While evolving toward better indexing capabilities there is a real and growing technology gap between the current web development technology and the technology behind search engine indexing. This gap is currently stretching the challenges of search engine optimisation and obviously creating some 'collateral damages'. Should search engines stop focusing too much on relevancy and include user-experience in the equation?
PS. After receiving feedback for some readers and proof reading the post, I realised that what I wrote did not really match with what I actually meant. English is a tricky language and a few missing words can make a big difference... Please find some correction in blue.
Labels: australia, black hat, seo, SMX Sydney
SMX Sydney promises to be good!
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
As announced earlier this year in our Search Engine Marketing Events Agenda, SMX Sydney (Search Marketing Expo) is one of the major event in the SEO/SEM industry in Australia.This edition will take place on April 10th and April 11th and they have lined-up some pretty famous international speakers. Here is the list I got from the SMX Newsletter:
- Danny Sullivan, Editor in Chief - Searchengineland.com (US)
- Gord Hotchkiss, President & CEO - Enquiro (Canada)
- Rand Fishkin, Director - SEOmoz (US)
- Jane Copeland, Search Marketing Consultant - SEOmoz (US)
- Ciaran Norris, SEO & Social Media Director, Altogether Digital (UK)
- Frederick Valley, Adwords Evangelist, Google Inc. (US)
That looks awesome and should attract quite a few people. To register visit the new SMX Sydney Website
Labels: search engine marketing, search industry, seo events, SEO News, SMX Sydney
Search Marketing Events Agenda 2008 - Australia
Monday, 7 January 2008
After a 3-week break in Europe, it is time to get back to some more regular posting. To start 2008, we have researched and listed some of the most interesting Search Marketing events. For those looking for internet marketing jobs, these events also offer great opportunities to meet the major players in the industry.
Also most of these events offer interesting discount for early birds, so do not wait until the last minute.
AIMIA Conference: The Future of Seach Marketing
AIMIA and 24/7 Real Media's conference, will explore the new trends in Search Marketing, including mobile search and widget. The conference will take place on the 12th February at KPMG Auditorium in Sydney.
Search Engine Bootcamp - Travel Edition
The first search engine marketing event for 2008 will take place in Brisbane on the 14th February. This edition will focus on the Travel vertical. Click here for more information.
Ad Tech Sydney
Ad Tech Sydney, is arguably the biggest interactive marketing event in Sydney. It cover a large range of topics related to interactive technologies. The event will take place a the Hilton Hotel in Sydney on the 12th and 13th March. Click here for more information.
Bruce Clay SEO Training
For the third time in Australia, Bruce Clay will present his 3 day training course covering search engine optimisation (SEO) principles. The course will take place in Sydney at the Shangri-La Hotel from the 17th until 19th March 2008. Click here for more information.
Search Marketing Expo Sydney
From April 10th until April 11th, the SMX (Search Marketing Expo) will take place in Sydney. It is the Australian premiere of the popular US and now global event. Click here for more information
Search Engine Room
The popular Search Engine Room conference will take place in Sydney on the 7th of October 2008. Click here for more information. Search Engine Room will also be in new Zealand on the 11th November.
E-Marketing & SEO Conference @ Cebit 2008
As part of the Cebit Event in Sydney, the E-Marketing and SEO Conference will take place on May 21st. This Conference is organised by Search Strategies.
Also most of these events offer interesting discount for early birds, so do not wait until the last minute.
AIMIA Conference: The Future of Seach Marketing
AIMIA and 24/7 Real Media's conference, will explore the new trends in Search Marketing, including mobile search and widget. The conference will take place on the 12th February at KPMG Auditorium in Sydney.
Search Engine Bootcamp - Travel Edition
The first search engine marketing event for 2008 will take place in Brisbane on the 14th February. This edition will focus on the Travel vertical. Click here for more information.
Ad Tech Sydney
Ad Tech Sydney, is arguably the biggest interactive marketing event in Sydney. It cover a large range of topics related to interactive technologies. The event will take place a the Hilton Hotel in Sydney on the 12th and 13th March. Click here for more information.
Bruce Clay SEO Training
For the third time in Australia, Bruce Clay will present his 3 day training course covering search engine optimisation (SEO) principles. The course will take place in Sydney at the Shangri-La Hotel from the 17th until 19th March 2008. Click here for more information.
Search Marketing Expo Sydney
From April 10th until April 11th, the SMX (Search Marketing Expo) will take place in Sydney. It is the Australian premiere of the popular US and now global event. Click here for more information
Search Engine Room
The popular Search Engine Room conference will take place in Sydney on the 7th of October 2008. Click here for more information. Search Engine Room will also be in new Zealand on the 11th November.
E-Marketing & SEO Conference @ Cebit 2008
As part of the Cebit Event in Sydney, the E-Marketing and SEO Conference will take place on May 21st. This Conference is organised by Search Strategies.
Labels: Ad Tech, bruce clay, search engine bootcamp, search engine room, seo events, seo market, SMX Sydney
