Final Research Paper

Juicing Against the Little Guy

      by Joe Palinsky

Let’s say you’re a small business owner. You own a restaurant and you have a very reliable blender in your kitchen that has worked for years. One day, a piece of the blender breaks. It is a metal ring that goes on the inside of the blender near the blade. You turn on your laptop, connect to the internet and go to the manufacturer’s website, only to discover that this piece has been discontinued for some time now. From experience you know that restaurants tend to resell old equipment they no longer use so you begin scouring Google for this piece. You enter the most specific information that you can, including the make and model of the piece and the fact that it is metal. All of your results, however, seem to be guiding you towards purchasing an entirely new blender. None of your results are even showing a hint of what you are searching for. This is a common problem faced by many individuals who use popular search engines. Whether it be for a blender piece or anything else under the sun, many are finding that their search results are corrupted by results that do not seem to match what is being searched for. This is due to Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, which, essentially is when a company pays to have content generated for them, utilizing specific key phrases in the body of the text in order to have results come up higher. 

We live in an age of great technological advances. The advent and evolution of

the internet has given us a vast world of information right in our pockets. All we have to

do is go to Google, or another large search engine, and type in a few key words in order

to find anything we desire. Small business owners have been given a time to truly shine

in the digital age. With social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, smaller

businesses are able to directly connect with their customers in order to create

relationships between them. Other sites, like Yelp and Urbanspoon, allow diners to rate

and comment on restaurants they have visited in order to laud or admonish these

establishments to others. Why, then, does it seem that more often than not our search

engine results are similar to the above scenario? Why does it seem that large companies and biggest names in business dominate our results? Companies that utilize SEO, or other practices, are treading water that is quite new. The ethics behind SEO are a bit gray, and there has not been much discourse about the practices. This study is incredibly important, as taking a look into this world sheds light on how smaller businesses may be hindered if SEO continues on in an unregulated way. By taking a look at how marketers view SEO, and by interviewing small business owners about their  take on Search Engine Optimization, a clearer picture is painted in regards to how the ethics of SEO and similar practices might affect the growth of small businesses in the age of the internet.

Defining Terms

Before continuing, there are a few important terms that must be defined in order to get a firm understanding of the world being discussed. This will help to clarify the practices being discussed and various terms that pop up throughout this research.

S.E.O. (or Search Engine Optimization) - is a process that allows websites to

come up higher on search engines. It encompasses a broad range of tactics, but the

one focused on here is the utilization of key phrases (which are determined by the

popularity of phrases searched for) in web content to allow the site to appear higher in

results. SEO can also stand for Search Engine Optimizer, or one who performs the act of optimizing search engines. It depends on the context in which the phrase SEO is used. 

S.E.M. (or Search Engine Marketing) - is an internet marketing tool that allows for

websites to come up higher in search results by means of (mainly) paid services. These

paid services include advertising, PPC (Pay Per Click), sponsored links and more.

Sometimes used as a broader term that also includes SEO techniques.

S.E.R.P. (or Search Engine Results Page) - this is the "end result" of SEO and SEM, it is the first page (or close to the first page) of results generated by search engines when a search is submitted. "Winning" SERP is a goal of many SEO and SEM marketers. 

I.R. - (or Internet Regulation) - is the general term for regulating the internet. In this case it centers around the regulation of SEO, SEM and similar practices. It can also concern censorship, and other practices of hiding/revealing information, but this is not what will be focused on in this paper. 

Google - the world’s most popular search engine. While there are many search

engines on the internet, this site is the primary focus for this paper due to its popularity

and accessibility.

Yelp - Yelp is a popular website where restaurants can be reviewed by guests.

Yelp’s content is generated by anyone who creates an account for the site and chooses

to write a review, but they also utilize various SEM practices which shall be discussed

later.

Facebook - An extremely popular “social networking” website. Many businesses create Facebook pages for their business in order to get in touch with their customers. 

Literature Review

As mentioned, there has been very little uncovered about the ethics behind SEO, SEM and similar practices. Much of what has been discovered has not been brought to the public’s attention, if for no other reason than it simply slips under the radar. In researching SEO, one of the few relevant bits of literature comes from a discussion held  on Twitter wherein the ethics of SEO/SEM were placed on the table and many different individuals began to comment on them. From this data it becomes slightly apparent that many people involved in the creation and generation of SEO material find that ethics are a very important issue that is not being widely discussed. Many give their input in a straightforward way, though due to the nature of the data (a Twitter feed) the credibility cannot be fully established. It can be assumed that many of those responding to this discussion were marketers or involved some way in the generation or moderation of SEO material. Much of the information they give is also somewhat specific to the field, as many references are made to conferences and/or meetings that centered around SEO and SEM but the discourses held in these meetings are not made explicit through the text. What can be determined is that these opinions come from a place of some sort of knowledge of the business world, and specifically the peculiar practices in the age of the internet.

     The Twitter conversation was moderated by a man named David Harry (Twitter name: @theGypsy). The hashtag for this conversation was #SEOchat. Mr. Harry has over eight years of experience in the field of SEO, and he claims to have an idea of how SEO works. He also knows that there are some less-than-ethical practices that occur in this field and he raises those points to the conversation.

While many of the responders tended to dance around the questions being asked, a common practice in marketing, there were some very relevant bits of information that sprung forth from this material. When the topic of content generation, one of the pillars of SEO, was brought up, many began discussing the ethics behind creating content for the sake of creating content. This prompted the following replies:

@scottcowley Isn’t the goal of SEO is to “win” at SERPs? So... all is fair...

@JadedTLC No, because juicing isn’t fair. 

@lyena The goal for me as an SEO is to make the client more money. If they get organic revenue but lose respect, then I’ve failed.

This bit of dialogue paints an interesting picture of SEO and the ethics that surround it. At first, we have an individual (@scottcowley) who suggests that “winning” is the primary function of SEO. He mentions that “winning” is having your results (or content) appear on an SERP, which is the first page seen by someone who performs a search. The response to this (from @JadedTLC) likens this to “juicing.” In the world of athletics, “juicing” (or using steroids) is looked at as an unethical means to an end. This is an amazing analogy, as it is able to point out the primary flaw of SEO: it is not always fair. As pointed out by the final commentator (@lyena), if money is made for a client by unethical means then respect is lost and the SEO fails. 

The comment about “juicing” also ties into the idea of SEO in relation to smaller businesses. As we will see in the next section, there are many ways that SEO can prohibit the growth and development of smaller businesses in an age where they should be able to thrive. 

Methodology & Analysis

In order to get a feel for how small business owners feel about SEO and related practices, an interview was held with co-owners of a small restaurant and cafe. The pair are brother and sister, and have co-owned their business for three years. Prior to their ownership the cafe had been in business for close to 15 years with two other separate owners before them.

The owners of the cafe, who will be referred to as RV (brother) and SG (sister), are both relatively young, with SG being in her late 20‘s and RV in his early thirties. They use the internet for practically everything in relation to their business and they use the internet multiple times daily for various reasons. They were the ones who provided the introductory scenario about the blender piece, as it was a situation that they had found themselves in. After a metal ring on their blender broke, they searched in vain to find a replacement piece but were met by pages and pages of unusable results on Google. Eventually they gave up, as they did not have the time or patience to shift through dozens of pages of unhelpful information in order to get closer to what they needed. 

This brings up one of the biggest problems with SEO in relation to small business. If a smaller business wants to be able to find equipment, should they have to only go through the largest distributors? What’s more, why should they be given only the option of purchasing an entirely new product when all they are searching for is one of the components of the product that they are trying to fix? SEO “rig” search results in a way that is beneficial to their clients. In this case, the cafe owners had to give up on their search without ever having found a replacement piece for their blender. 

One of the positive sides to this, however, was that the siblings were able to discover new distributors for other products. Though they did not find what they needed, they did discover www.webstaurant.com, which is where they now purchase much of their restaurant’s dish and glassware. While this is a small victory and not the original intention of the search, it does highlight the fact there is some merit to SEO even though the methods used lured the searchers away from their intended results. 

During the interview process SG brought up her own experience with SEO in regards to the popular restaurant-review website Yelp. First, it must be noted that SG and RV’s business has held a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based upon hundreds of customer reviews. As far as Yelp goes, that is quite an impressive feat. The average review of a restaurant on Yelp is generally between 3 and 4 stars. To have more than 4 is to have an exceptional business, to have less than 3 is to be somewhat less reputable. SG mentioned the restaurant’s rating, then explained that Yelp had contacted her in the past in regards to being one of Yelp’s “sponsored businesses.”  SG then explained what this meant:

SG: “Its a “sponsored business”...  so if you pay to advertise with Yelp... let’s say (another local restaurant) down the street pays for advertising... when you search for restaurants in (the area) through Yelp... they would come up above us... even though we have the highest rating in the area...”

This, again, speaks to the somewhat unethical nature of SEM and SEO. In this case, Yelp is supposed to be providing helpful information to those who are looking for credible restaurants. This “paying for praise” feature eliminates the entire point of Yelp being a “consumer-run” website. As stated by SG, if someone with a low rating (let’s say, 1 star) decides to pay for this feature on Yelp then they would automatically come up at the top of results for their area. This seems incredibly unfair, as many businesses (including the one owned by those interviewed) work incredibly hard in order to earn their ratings. SG and RV take pride in their business, and they try their hardest to make sure that they meet and exceed both the needs and expectations of all of their customers. Services like the “sponsored business” feature on Yelp creates yet another roadblock for small businesses to have to overcome on the internet. Even a reputable and well-reviewed business like the one owned by SG and RV is not safe from the various SEO techniques that could potentially pull customers away from them. As RV commented: 

RV:  “(When you search for something) it should be the results that match the best. Not because they’ve toyed with it for... for like... a service like Yelp... it should be the quality of the product and not who can pay more money to have their review first.”

Again, this comes back to the idea brought up in the Twitter feed about “juicing.” It creates an incredibly uneven playing field to highlight businesses that have more money when their service, merchandise or food is less impressive than other businesses in their area. What’s more, SG and RV realized that this type of “underhanded” marketing may be responsible for damaging other businesses. 

As previously stated, both RV and SG are relatively young. They mentioned that they were born before the internet had existed in its current form, and were able to grow alongside it. Over time they learned how to utilize various web services to allow their business to prosper. They consistently use websites like Facebook to market various events, promotions or specials that they are having and they feel that this is an excellent way to communicate with their customers. RV commented that the vast majority of their Facebook “followers” are those who have previously been to their cafe and so they use Facebook as a way of connecting with customers who have already been to their restaurant and see what they can do in order to meet their customers’ needs more accurately. They fear, however, that older business owners who do no have this kind of familiarity with the internet might suffer in the age of SEO. As SG mentions:

SG:  “I have a friend who owns a restaurant who has no idea about (how to use the internet for marketing) and its hurting him because if you can’t figure it out then you’re missing out on a huge portion of the world, essentially, because no one knows who you are.”

This is an important statement to understand. While many might look at SEO as just another competitor (albeit a more abstract one than, say, a rival business) SG is concerned about business owners who have been around for years and who do not understand how the internet works. Unless a business owner has a reliable and trustworthy staff , it is quite likely that they attempt their internet advertising (if any) themselves. This can be incredibly harmful to their continued growth and development, especially if they don’t know the proper ways to advertise on the internet. Then one must take into account SEO and how it can harm these small businesses. If Google results are already making it more difficult to find what customers are looking for, and credible Yelp reviews are being undermined by “paid businesses” who are getting top priority due to how much they pay, then how is a less-than-internet-savvy business owner supposed to make themselves known? 

There are no concrete answers to these questions, as no studies have been done in relation to them. What can be understood, by using logical reasoning, is that SEO practices will eventually overtake the internet and their current rate of usage, and that will definitely harm smaller businesses. 

Conclusion

Advertising is everywhere. Regardless of where we go, whether it be to the store or to a website, we are bound to see a non-stop onslaught of ads. This is understood. When it comes to advertising and marketing in less-than-ethical ways, such as taking advantage of SEO or Yelp’s “paid business” feature, then the innocent habit of advertising becomes slightly more malicious. As seen throughout the data, small business owners are wary, if not downright outspoken, about SEO and what it means to their business’ growth. It is hard to say whether or not IR should be put into place, and it would be even more difficult to pinpoint who would be responsible for the regulation of such practices. Since anyone can, essentially, generate SEO content, then who would be the one to watch over what is being created and how it is being used?

Further studies about this topic might explore the avenues that would have to be traveled in order to regulate SEO. Other possible studies could center around businesses that have been negatively affected by SEO, or small businesses that have taken advantage of SEO services and what they feel it did for their business’ reputation. What can be stated, for now at least, is that there are more drawbacks to SEO than their are advantages when you are a small business owner. Those who are able to utilize the internet to their advantage, who can confidently boast about their business and its ability to succeed, without using SEO practices, will be ahead of the curve. Only time will tell if credibility and quality will outlast the ability to pay for the results a business may desire.