Sucking Traffic to websites

Bangpuss

Well-known member
We've all heard about the means big web corporations use to suck traffic to their websites. I was speaking to someone who works for Daily Motion, the YouTube rival, the other day. They said they use a supercomputer with hundreds of IP addresses to keep generating hits to their site, and pulling it up the search rankings, etc.

As someone involved in a web startup, I'd like to know if there are any relatively inexpensive methods of generating traffic to a website.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Web search isn't my speciality, but that sounds like bullshit on a number of counts:
I can generate millions of hits an hour from a desktop PC if I want, so you wouldn't use "a supercomputer"
google don't use clickthrough data to train their algorithm, and I don't know of any other search engine that does either - partly because it's far too easy to hijack
most search engines will straight up ban you if they suspect that you're trying to manipulate their algorithms (and google would be pretty happy to do this to a youtube competitor if they could justify it)

There's a lot of stuff has been written about search engine optimization, including a lot of total balls. I think google have got a bunch of solid advice somehere. I think a lot of it basically boils down to putting relevant information on your pages and marking them up sensibly, and getting plenty of people to link to you without just spamming irrelevant links which will get you banned sharpish..
 

sufi

lala
... they use a supercomputer with hundreds of IP addresses to keep generating hits to their site, and pulling it up the search rankings, etc.

i'm not sure this would even work, apart from you'd be able to see that a video was viewed loads of times, unless perhaps the supercomputer was clicking through from google. Their famous algorithm (which i reckon has a dash of the kfc/coke secret recipe myth) is apparently constantly updating itself to ensure that it can't be gamed, so the art of SEO is also constantly evolving. A big part of it is around google ads (which generate $ for clickthru, not so muuch for views) & adwords (which you can purchase from google to make sure that your site rises up through the ranks and that you get first crack on optimising your content to boost it's placing in results).

As my learned colleague slothrop mentioned above - the basics is that google works on links to your site - so creating a buzz that gets people to talk about you is the best way to make your content appear popular to google - this is why there are masses of zomby linkfarms around the internet, potentially polluting the search results until changes to the algorthim relegate them.

on a related note
i'm hyping this petition this week:



if you haven't signed, please do!
If you signed already, pass it on to everyone you know!
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I met this guy who works for Party Poker or Party Gaming or something - a poker website anyway - in the optimisation department. He said that his job was basically trying to reverse-engineer the google algorithm but he described it as an arms race because the algorithm is always changing.
As an aside, it's weird that the google algorithm can change and suddenly your company can find itself in a lower position in the search and thus lose half its business and you have no redress and no explanation of why its happened. I guess that that is a function of a private company becoming so dominant in a field which turned out to be so useful.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I met this guy who works for Party Poker or Party Gaming or something - a poker website anyway - in the optimisation department. He said that his job was basically trying to reverse-engineer the google algorithm but he described it as an arms race because the algorithm is always changing.

As an aside, it's weird that the google algorithm can change and suddenly your company can find itself in a lower position in the search and thus lose half its business and you have no redress and no explanation of why its happened. I guess that that is a function of a private company becoming so dominant in a field which turned out to be so useful.

Kind of - although their algorithm updates are still driven by the need to get people finding the stuff that they want, so you can't really complain if you've spent ages gaming the system to get to get your unpopular site with crap irrelevant content to number one and they change the algorithm so you suddenly lose out to a popular site with lots of relevant content...

It's kind of a modern equivalent of firms called things like "aardvark windows" in Yellow Pages I suppose.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
What kind of start-up are you trying to start up?

Promise not to nick your idea - I wouldn't have the first clue as to what to do with it anyway.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Kind of - although their algorithm updates are still driven by the need to get people finding the stuff that they want, so you can't really complain if you've spent ages gaming the system to get to get your unpopular site with crap irrelevant content to number one and they change the algorithm so you suddenly lose out to a popular site with lots of relevant content..."
Oh yes, true in that case but I mean firms which don't try to game the system still have their rankings changed when the algorithm changes (they must do sometimes - or else why bother changing it?) and they have no recourse. Perhaps that's right - I mean a restaurant can't do much if it loses its Michelin Star say but at least someone has gone and looked at the restaurant - I'd be a little bit annoyed if I lost a lot of money because someone decided to weight the different connections to my website in a new way.
I'm not saying that's necessarily wrong - I mean, when Arsenal moved their stadium some fast food outlets would have lost out hugely and some would have gained and that's just the breaks I suppose.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Yeah, although it would suck equally to be the as-good-if-not-better competitor who is losing business because they come up sixth before the algorithm is updated. The whole point of it is to get the best stuff to the top, if you go down because of an algorithm rejig then the odds are that you weren't the best stuff.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Yeah, although it would suck equally to be the as-good-if-not-better competitor who is losing business because they come up sixth before the algorithm is updated. The whole point of it is to get the best stuff to the top, if you go down because of an algorithm rejig then the odds are that you weren't the best stuff."
If you accept that google know which business is best based entirely on internet connections and without actually using the products or services involved. And that they are always improving the algorithm in a way that more and more closely approaches reality.
But yeah, it would suck to be low in the list before the re-jig because you have no way of knowing why you are below and if you do get moved up you have no guarantee you won't get moved down again next time.
Google have too much power and it's opaque is all I'm saying.
 

sufi

lala
my colleague is trying to game google to relegate a photo of them they don't like - we're all gonna link to a better one
 

Bangpuss

Well-known member
What kind of start-up are you trying to start up?

Promise not to nick your idea - I wouldn't have the first clue as to what to do with it anyway.

Substance.tv is the site. I'm not the one responsible for this kind of thing, although I do contribute to it and have some editorial overview. Unfortunately, this is the area where none of us seems to know much.
 
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