Tuesday 16 June 2015

Thumbtack, A Startup Backed By Google, Returns To Google’s Graces After SEO Hiccup

As the Internet's most powerful force in the world, Google invites a lot of conspiracy theories.

Here's one: When Push Pin, a web startup that connects consumers with home service professionals, disappeared from Google search results last week, rumors began to turn. You see, Thumbtack has raised nearly $ 150 million in five rounds, the last of which came partly Google's Capital, the investment arm of the last stage of the search engine. But Google is also reportedly building a product of home services, a direct competitor of the pin. Nothing is confirmed from the end of Google, but many in the industry see as inevitable. That's a conspiracy theory.


 
Then, number two: On Friday afternoon, Thumbtack back into Google's good graces. Search for "housekeeping San Francisco" and its results show up near the top, along with rivals like Yelp and Homejoy.

That is a particularly quick solution after trailing by SEO. Most SEO recoveries require manual actions (which occur often) and take several weeks, if not months. Last Saturday, Thumbtack received notification from Google webmaster - what is called a manual action - that the company was being punished for soliciting paid links on their site to juice SEO results. Co-founder Jonathan Swanson confirmed Re / code, but declined further comment.

Thumbtack awards its customers, such as a house cleaner, with the website "points of progress", such as background checks or verification of the means of social communication. Some come with anchor text pointing back to the site of Thumbtack, an SEO no-no. According to reports, the company sent notes to their customers asking them to stop this practice earlier this week. It is not clear if thumbtack unaware that he was violating the rules of SEO and modified their behavior immediately, or if - as two years ago Rap Genius - knew what the growth of piracy was doing. People familiar with the rules of manual action say it is an arduous process that normally takes longer.

So a conspiracy to bomb a competitor has Google preparing to enter a market. And the other is Google doing the opposite - instigating a holding company algorithmic felt his wrath.

Nor is it probably is. Google search machine and Guardian operates independently of its investment arm. It has inflicted penalties on small and large companies, including JC Penney and BMW, and even its own properties, such as Google Japan. Google equity openly supports new companies that compete with Google on some Web markets, or may soon.

Still, the opacity of Google in the world and muddy their algorithm does not help. New businesses that rely on Google referral traffic, which often have difficulty obtaining a hotline in Google, especially as the company accelerates remodeling search pages away from its original ten blue links is enervated.

"This and Rap Genius make me skeptical of Google's claims that this is fair," said Rand Fishkin, co-founder of SEO and marketing company Moz. "Even if there is a perfectly legitimate reason, it just looks horrible and I would Google just provide some transparency and comments behind him."

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