HERE ARE JUST a FEW REASONS TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS, WHETHER INTERNET OR BRICK & MORTAR SMALL BUSINESSES AND NOT AMAZON!
Small businesses that make the mistake to partner with Amazon give up ALL RIGHTS to their content, including pictures, to Amazon FOREVER!
So even if a business realizes that teaming up with Amazon was not such a good idea, and they end their selling on Amazon, Amazon will retain and use their content and pictures to link to and sell other products.
Often to products that are not even the same or of lesser quality!
Black Hat SEO practices employed by Amazon and allowed by Google that give Amazon unfair advantages over smaller competitors.
Amazon has supported and lobbied for the grossly anti-small business Internet Tax.
EBay at least has understood how devastating this will be to small businesses and has lobbied to block this terrible piece of legislation that is thankfully been blocked in the US House of Representatives for now.
Reference: Internet Sales Tax
Amazon’s Feedback System is highly manipulated and grossly inaccurate.
Based on my profession of aquarium/pond products where by I have over 35 years of hands on experience, I have read many Amazon reviews where by an excellent or even top notch product were slammed, usually because Amazon sold the product with incomplete parts for proper use or simply improper use due to inadequate information on Amazon.
I answer emails regularly form those who have unfortunately purchased incomplete items or not received correct information from an Amazon product similar to what I sell.
Worse yet, I recently received an email from the most vile person you could ever believe accusing me of attempting to harm his family by a filter back up and subsequent water leak (& the potential electrical fire this could have caused), because he purchased an API/Rena HOB filter from Amazon without the correct pre-filter that WE SELL and recommend for proper operation of the filter.
He was too cheap to purchase the correct filter from me and instead purchased the incomplete filter from Amazon and somehow this was my fault.
On the other side of the coin, I often read positive reviews on Amazon for products that scientifically cannot perform the job that is inferred on the Amazon selling page.
This is common with many Amazon UV Sterilizers that can only perform Clarification, not true sterilization.
And even then these often break down in less than a year
Many persons will go into Mom & Pop businesses such as that of a friend I know who operates a Lego Brick shop (Rebel Bricks) and then get the free help while shopping at Amazon for a better price.
These same types of persons do this in increasing numbers by reading my free articles online and then going to Amazon to purchase, often for an inferior product.
My Stat software proves this too
Google continues to be a spam search engine, nothing like the Google of 2005 or earlier.
Matt Cutts and others at Google will claim that Adwords has nothing to do with organic listings, yet it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that that the evidence says otherwise.
Here are a couple of examples:
EXAMPLE 1
In the search query, “Aquarium UV Sterilizer Reviews”
The second result is this one from Amazon:
amazon.com/Green-Killing-Machine-Internal-Sterilizer/dp/B001KP9B2W
What is wrong with this result?
There are only two very weak links for a forum coming in.
No links of any authority as Google would describe, unlike better websites with REAL content, that unfortunately do not happen to be Amazon.com
See this screen shot (click to enlarge)
Second, the link to Amazon is an embedded hyper link, just the sort I was told was a poor quality link according to my Google Webmaster Tools
See this screen shot (click to enlarge)
Third; as a 35 year expert in the field, this is not even a review web page, rather it is a selling page for a piece of junk (Green Killing Machine) that is only a UV Clarifier, NOT A UV STERILIZER!!
If Googles search engine was any good at discerning accurate content, they would know that this result is not a UV Sterilizer, nor even a review
EXAMPLE 2
In the search query, “Aquarium UV Sterilization”
The results are even worse
Since the term “UV Sterilization” is a process, a thinking person would expect an article/ web page dealing with this process, NOT a product.
YET Google displays nothing but products from the usual junk aquarium product seller suspects such as Amazon, Pet Mountain, etc., etc.
Unfortunately many of the best and most researched websites are missing completely from Google Search
One example of an brief but very accurate website with resources to more advanced information: http://aquarium-digest.com/2009/10/26/uv-sterilization/
What do I suspect
What I suspect is that a manual removal was performed as one of the many articles of the process of UV Sterilization was plagiarized by about.com (it is well known in the professional aquarium keeping community)
Google apparently gave their spam buddies at about.com credit for content of this article.
Summary
It is obvious that about.com, Amazon, eBay, Pet Mountain, Dr. Fosters & Smith all get preferential treatment in Google search, as well as in Adwords as per cost per click.
Sadly none of these websites have ANY respect among the aquarium keeping professionals I know (myself included)
What do I think of Matt Cutts?
I think he is an intelligent person, therefore he knows full well that most everything out of his mouth is a lie.
He also should be ashamed of himself and his employer for all the small businesses and persons he has put out of work in this tough economy.
As well he has caused great harm to the aquarium & pond keeping community with the amount of spam that now poses as legitimate results for many queries about aquarium/pond care.
Maybe someday he will apologize to me and others instead of hiding behind his so-called Penguin updates.
I would love to be proven wrong by this man.
What is also troubling as I read more and more online as to how to appease Google in SEO, what comes up more and more is that the only way to succeed in Google search of late is to practice what is called “Black Hat SEO”.
I suspect that Amazon maybe doing just this.
For me, I have NEVER conducted my business since 1978 this way, as I have always placed honesty and integrity ahead of profits. So I am not about to now!
Hopefully either the Mainstream Media will do their job and report what type of business Google REALLY IS, not the darling they portray Google as.
OR Google will change their ways (not likely)
OR persons will switch to the many BETTER search engines such as Bing or DuckDuckGo.
References
Need further proof?
Please read these references
Google Search has really “tanked” as of 2013 as per search results in my field of expertise; aquarium and pond information.
While it has been over a year now since the Google updates that precipitated this fall from relevancy for Google search results, the results continue to get worse rather than better as in some previous Google updates where Google appeared to tweak/fix bugs in their updates.
Now the only fix is that the big players such as About.com, Amazon, Fish Lore, Pet Co, Dr. Foster, etc.-etc. now dominate results, often with poor content and worse, often incorrect or irrelevant web pages for the search query used.
My personal opinion is that Matt Cutts and Google know full well that their results are junk, they just choose to ignore as their intention is to generate more revenue from these poor results by increasing Adwords users and campaigns there of.
However this is where they may be wrong and this may be Googles eventual downfall.
Assuming even if these were to bring in more revenue from Adwords in the short term, the out cry on the internet that I read is that Google search results are increasingly bad.
This can only result in less and less users of Google Search and thus less and less clicks on Google Adwords.
Here is just one comment from a Google Sponsored Forum: “Google used to be great, … had it as my home page for all browsers. Once the Penguin update came out I can’t find anything relevant online? Search results have become worse than Yahoo and Bing, which is saying something. Sure, I get that Google wants to cut down on spam, and feature their PPC Ads, but the inability to bring up content that actually relates to the query is a cardinal flaw with this new update. I sincerely hope that Google’s management will recognize the mistake they made in their algorithm and correct it before they lose all credibility as well as loyal supporters.”
Back to assumptions, I personally think that these poor Google Search results will even hurt in the short term as the costs per conversion of Google Adwords has gone up considerably in recent months/years.
Here is another quote: “Setting up and running an Adwords campaign is a daunting task. It requires understanding of keywords, Adwords campaigns, writing effective ads, and many more factors. I don’t know many good business people who can run effective Adwords campaigns.”
I would add to this that good search results and effective Adwords go hand in hand, so when the search results tank, the conversion rate drops which I know for a fact can and does happen as per my own Adwords campaigns and website tracking statistics.
My theory based on the information at hand is that when the search results are poor, the person searching clicks though web sites quickly (probably subconsciously), both organic and paid, due to the amount of poor or irrelevant content that now appears in a Google Search query. So even if a website with relevant information and good content is clicked on, the person searching spends much less time on this site than they would have in the past.
Here are just a few search queries that now yield poor results via a Google Search:
*Aquarium UV Sterilization
This search now yields NO true information web sites, yet alone good, accurate and researched information on the subject.
Worse is the fact that many of the products, rather than information (the term “UV Sterilization” IS A PROCESS not a query for products) that now dominate the results are not even capable of of true level 1 UV Sterilization, such as the “Green Killing Machine”
What is also interesting as per this query is that the leading authority web page about the process of aquarium & pond UV Sterilization disappeared after part of the researched content was copied by about.com.
Google appeared to give credit to their spam buddies at about.com rather than the website that had this content for years and had done the research leg work. Shortly there after, the in depth 32 page article was no where to be found with a search of the quoted text acutally bringing up the content used by about.co without permission. On a positive note, about.com added a note 2 months later to their webpage giving credit back to the correct website, but the damage was done in the eyes of Google Gods (not so Bing, DuckDuckGo, & other vastly better & more honest search engines).
*Aquarium LED Lighting Information
This result is not quite as bad as the last query, however cut and past websites such as “aquarium-lighting-guide.com” which is nothing more than cut and paste webspam are now present.
As well one of the most in depth, constantly updated, 7 content rich web sites on the subject by a friend of mine is no where to be found: http://aquarium-digest.com/2010/04/11/led-aquarium-lights-lighting/
* Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle
This again yields cut and paste web pages from Google darlings such as about.com and others.
As well the results include factally inaccurate information such as the suggestion to use “Raw Shrimp” to cycle a fish aquarium when in fact this was discredited more than a decade ago as it can and does introduce Saprolegnia to aquariums.
*Aquarium Planaria
This is one of the most disgusting Google results (mind you I have nothing to sell here, in fact it is others that are capitalizing on these incorrect Google results to sell snake oil products such as Green Leaf Aquarium).
This is a case where Google’s Algorithm no longer gives credit to real research, due to their strange reasoning with how they deal with links since the dishonest Penguin updates.
Now poor content is king and cut & paste is the rule of the day.
In this particular result, the results are 100% scientifically incorrect and the most simple of research would prove this. However Google’s “pet” authority websites have repeated this lie so many times it has become truth in Google search results.
From Adolf Hitler: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”
Sad that one needs to quote Hitler to prove a point about Google, but sadly this is the company Google keeps now
IN SUMMARY;
I would suggest readers tired of terrible Google search results and what appears to be constant lies from Google’ so-called SEO guru Matt Cutts to join this Facebook Group: Boycott Google Search
While the main stream Media rarely calls out Google for their dishonesty and other less than moral actions; they (Google) got caught with egg on their face with their doodle featuring communist Cesar Chavez dressed in white on Easter.
Many such as myself initially thought this maybe an early April Fools joke, but it was not.
While others also might find Cesar Chavez a hero, the facts, especially for those with ties to family farms, was that he was a communist sympathizer who had a hatred for the American Capitalist system
From Chavez: “Until the chance for political participation is there, we who are poor will continue to attack the soft part of the American system – its economic structure. We will build power through boycotts, strikes, new union – whatever techniques we can develop. These attacks on the status quo will come, not because we hate, but because we know America can construct a humane society for all its citizens – and that if it does not, there will be chaos.”
Fast forward to Eater 2013, while Google has never made a doodle at the very least wishing well their Christian friends on Easter, they clothe a communist in white in almost a Jesus like aura and place it on their home page; HOW INSULTING!!!
Then there is this (from Fox News; Google creates controversy with Cesar Chavez doodle):
“Google defended the decision by saying it reserves the spot for historical figures and events, but a review of its past doodles shows it has never honored Jesus on Christmas or Easter, despite his historical and spiritual significance to billions around the world.”
What can we do if you are offended by this action?
For one STOP using Google search, their are many better search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo or Blekko.
References:
*DuckDuckGo
*Blekko
Better yet, if you run a business that advertises via Google Adwords (such as I do), at least send your Adwords administrator an email stating how you feel, then “Pause” your Adwords for a day, a week, whatever you feel conformable with.
For those not familiar with Google’s lack of integrity, I should tell you this is nothing new.
However this is NOT a surprise for those familiar with their Plagiarism in the name of their extremely dishonest Adsense division, and their lies about their Algorithm updates “Penguin & Panda” which at least in my line of work I can prove is noting but a spam update that promotes “cut and paste” spam and websites such about.com that promote such misinformation.
Unfortunately the news media and those (especially on the left) who believe everything persons such as George Stephanopoulos say, will never know or understand the truth about this immoral company.
BTW, for those at Politico and other hate filled blogs (yes I have read the comments there on this issue, so the word hate is correctly used); I do not think you understand the relationship many Christians have with Jesus, as it is not a Religion in the sense many on the outside looking in see it, rather a relationship. As well; from my perspective, I would understand this as a simple oversight (which it clearly was not) if it were not for the extreme dishonesty practiced by this oversize gorilla of the interest.
I can state this as a matter of indisputable FACT based on their Penguin/Panda updates and the lies surrounding these algorithm updates as well as the corruption in their Adwords/Adsense programs.
I started writing for Article Base in my “green” years when first conducting my business and providing my decades of aquarium and pond experience on the internet (about 2006).
I read much in SEO forums about the importance of submission to these directories in getting your content recognized and and improving your main website and blog sites up in search engine results.
HOWEVER, over the years I have learned much and tracked many statistics and found NO BOUNCE for these articles placed on Article Base.
This includes articles from Hydroponics Lights, UV Bulbs, and much more
WHY? Well for one I started investigating and found that they have discretely placed “no follow” tags in the code (which i did not agree to).
Worse is Article Base does not ensure that those “borrowing” my copyrighted content (albeit first drafts of my constantly updated full content articles) place correct hyper links WITHOUT “no follow” tags.
Sadly I man finding my content plagiarized all over the internet, without ANY legal reference to the original source vie true hyper links. This in turn has traced back to Article Base.
WORSE, Article Base along with these plagiarizing websites use my content to place Google Adsense on, without ANY revenue sharing (which Article Base dishonestly claims that they share revenue over a certain amount of hits, which I had 1000s).
As well while all these scammers including Article Base are making money of my 3 decades of experience and 1000s of hours researched article, Google Adsense is denying my such an account and illegally not responding to DMCA complaints as to content used without proper accreditation and revenue sharing.
Then again Google’s algorithm has become nothing if a sham to sell Adsense, as exemplified by how many searches yield spam result such as the search term “UV Bulbs now yields spammy sites such as Amazon or selling light bulbs which is not a UV Bulb!!!
IN SUMMARY; do not be fooled by Article Base or any other article publishing directory; THEY ARE NOTHING BUT SCAMS!
Do yourself a favor if you have good content that others may find helpful, publish them on your site, do NOT share.
If Google Adsense denies you revenue while placing their crappy ads on your content that has been plagiarized, boycott those adverting and write them that their ads are being placed on plagiarized content and if they continue you will cite this in public view on your website.
Also directly sell Adverts on your website (there are brokers who will do this for you too).
The bottom line is you will not improve your SEO (search engine optimization) position on Google, Bing, etc with Article Base, so save yourself the time and many, many futures headaches and do NO waste your time with these people who are only there to TAKE from you with nothing in return (unless you count all the websites/blogs that will use Articles Base to plagiarize your copyrighted contnet you share there)!!!
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Recommended Friends of this weblog and its articles, from my field of endeavor (Aquarium & Pond Keeping):
Aquarium Supplies & Resources http://aap.atrixnet.com;
the place to go for aquatic resources and articles!
Google Apps Infrastructure Changes Review; Enterprise & Wallet Support
In a nutshell it Sucks!
This was/is a typical Google change; they do everything to make their processes easier and produce more revenue and we as “sheeple” follow along and drink it all in.
The arrogance in their responses (& non responses) is unbelievable with Google expecting me and other “users” to take temporary emails accounts, then move blogger accounts and other apps.
Unfortunately many of our users finally got fed up and left, resulting in less users for our forum generated blogs and more.
Worse is Google Enterprise support; these guys only write late at night (from India) and provide no real knowledge, they just repeat canned responses that expect us to spend hours cleaning up the mess Google made with this transition.
If Google really gave a cr## about their customers, this transition would have been done in a way where all data was stored and even if a new temporary account was needed, this should have been a smooth transition of signing in and all data, profile information, etc would have been moved automatically.
Examples
(1) Even with our paid accounts such as the Google Site Search Bar, “Google Enterprise support” sent us a payment notification reminder to the correct email, yet we could not log in to pay this.
When we finally found a way in (hours later, thanks Google, NOT) it was applied to our temporary account, not our new transitioned account.
So Google told us to then pay for the service on our new account (which should have been the same account if Google used ANY logic at all). However we now had the Ads back on our search box results.
So then Google states we will now have get a new search box and go through our entire websites to paste this back in (estimated 8 hours of work, minimum). Considering the hours of work we have already put into this “transition”, this transfer of “ownership” to the new email (actually the old email if truth be told). We stated this is not acceptable and that Google would have to either fix this or refund our money since we were paying for a service not rendered. Googles response is we had to “jump through more hoops” to get our money back, so in the end we simply contacted our business credit card issuer who then reversed charges based on email evidence of lack of real support from Google.
(2) I maintain several domains for myself and others. In a recent incident a domain re-list payment failed due to Google Apps transition issue along with severe issues in Goolge Wallet.
I received nothing but canned answers that went in circles, never addressing the real issue.
Even though the original Wallet (Checkout) account has worked (& continues) to work, Google claimed this account failed to charge. However in calling my credit card issuer (whom also always sends alerts if there is an issue), my card was NEVER attempted a charge for this by Google.
Google instructed me to get new Wallet accounts for this domain and the email used (two new accounts??). This of coarse was not the answer and did nothing to solve the problem.
I was then told to clear the cache and cookies, which did not solve the problem. I then was told to download a new browser (Chrome) with a clean install (no imported Cookies); this too did not solve the issue.
After this the issues has gone back to the original comments and then the Cookies, Cache, etc.; in other words the same canned responses from dishonest Google Obamanite help.
Here is a screen shot of what I am shown by Google when attempting to force a charge in a clean browser (I know for a fact that I am correctly logged in):
The bottom line is Google would simply not fix THEIR problem (so far luckly only one domain has had this issue, although ALL renew through the SAME account). I know if I treated my customer the way Google treats their customers I would be out of business very quickly, but sadly the media (including conservatives like Rush Limbaugh) continue to talk about Google like they are Gods, so this company can do no wrong in the publics eye.
Further;
We have since suspended our Google Adwords in part as a “boycott” of Google service and also for the dishonest support there whereby Google hides behind a proprietary algorithm that states our keyword “UV Bulbs” is only a 4 out of 10 in relevancy when in fact this exact phrase matches both the ad and the landing page. This is unlike some of the delivered results on Google; both organic and paid whereby this search term requires the person searching for this product to click up to 3 times for the correct result.
The issue here is also based on the fact that this has resulted in bidding going up to $1.25 for good results for a product with a $4 profit margin, which is ridiculous.
I also found Google’s responses insulting in that I know my product well being in this business for over 30 years. Their explanation did not meet with what the industry considers a UV Bulb to be. Google’s response would be analogous to telling a pilot how to fly when they had no concept in the operation of an aircraft.
I should also note Google Adsense which hides behind a veil like the “Wizard of OZ”, claiming they are not Adwords when in fact they are likely just across the hall or even a chair away (like an air traffic controller) from an Adwords employee.
Adsense will NEVER return questions, complaints, etc., choosing to hide behind this secret veil.
My point is, Adsense continues to this day to constantly place content ads on websites that plagiarize my MANY copyrighted (and constantly updated), websites. All the while denying my websites revenue via Adsense on my original content (this has been going on now for 7 years with no end in sight).
Finally;
Google (or more specifically their minions) state that users of Google services (email, apps, etc.) have nothing to complain about when they make changes, abruptly terminate accounts, etc and these services are “free”.
Sorry Pals, they are not free. When a user agrees to one of these Google services they are also giving Google access to all sorts of free information about you, your habits, and much more. THIS IS A TANGIBLE ASSET!!!
This asset you have traded Google rights for their services can used to make Google much $ or even sold, in fact as a business, I can guarantee you Google makes far more off this “Asset” than the cost of providing you these terrible services with absolutely no customer support.
As for me and my business, we have shelled out tens of thousands of $$ to Google; PLUS the rights to our “information assets”, so Google here has even less excuse to treat us with such contempt and terrible customer service
What really perplexes me is the high regard this despicable company is held in, but then the media loves Google and most persons anymore are “Sheeple” and listen to the “Master” (the media)
Posted by cstrohmeyer 
C Strohmeyer's Weblog; Life, Business 