Is Google Blocking Traffic to Competitors' Sites?

[danno]

I was contracted to do SEO for iMapia.com

Summary
It seems that Google doesn't mind anything on their search engine unless it directly threatens any of their core applications.

After considerable efforts at optimizing iMapia.com for several different keyword phrases and aspects of the mobile mapping software, it seemed that it was time to target the market for "driving directions and maps".

Several on-page and off-page SEO techniques were used and hand-submission to many directories was done. At a certain point, one would think that a keyword phrase that receives 55,000 to 100,000+ searches per month according to overture, would deliver a fair amount of traffic if you were placed at position #14/15 on page 2 of Google "above the fold". Top 20 results are usually a good bet for traffic, with a large number of searches per month as with this keyword phrase.

However, since I began SEO on iMapia in August of 2006, it has been a steady 150-200 visits per day. Yes, you read that correctly. No increase.

In addition, an adwords campaign is constantly running for the same keyword phrase "driving directions and maps", so you would think that at least that would pull some traffic.

It seems that since iMapia's software is 90% cheaper data cost than Google Mobile Maps when the cell phone bill arrives and because it is 95% more efficient than Google maps, it is a threatening contender in this field.

This is with only a skeleton crew and very limited resources. What if it were to take off and have more resources. Obviously, iMapia would become a problem for Google.

This is where it becomes advantageous to own Google. Not only can they spot sites that are getting a lot of traffic for possible buy-out, but they can also control the flow of traffic to explosive "up-starts" that they see as potentially threatening.

Here is the site: http://www.imapia.com

So not only do we have the problem of small business ideas being stolen on the Internet (large businesses are too smart to steal your technology, they steal your ideas), now whenever you enter an area that Google has a particular interest in owning, you can forget about many people finding out about it, at least through Google. This I find amazing. The site has also dropped from a PR8 to a PR6, however, I have noticed that lower PR scores may be universal at this time across the web.

What do you think?
Is Google blocking or throttling down traffic to competitors' sites?

[wige]

I have several terms on page two of Google's SERPs, and have no appreciable traffic from these listings, as opposed to listings on page 1, which do get decent traffic. I notice that your site is now on page one, in the bottom spot. You probably would see some increase now.

It is hard to imagine Google being able to "throttle traffic" as you suggest.. the only way to do so would be to give users that click on the link an error message, and if searchers start getting error messages when clicking on results, Google would start losing credibility.

Also, if you do searches for something even more "core" for Google, such as the term "video downloads" Google and YouTube aren't even on the first page.

[danno]

thanks, it just seemed odd how the amount of traffic never varied. it was like being in the sandbox
on page 2 :) I also just checked and I'm at position #23 for driving directions and maps all of the
sudden. What search term did you use?

Dan

[tacimala]

A quick search on Google for the keyphrase 'search engine' will reveal that Google considers the MSN Live search more relevant than their own. Maybe that helps disspell any thoughts of Google edging you out of their target market.

[corporateface]

How are you doing on your other phrases and terms?

If I am looking for driving directions and maps, I won't go to page 2. In my opinion "Top 10" is "above the fold". I have never experience "noticable" results for anything on the 2nd page of any search engine unless the results in front of mine were not relevant.

At least that has been my experience.

[danno]

It was not the SERP (search engine results page) position alone that I was referring to. It was primarily the amount of traffic that I was wondering about and if Google could selectively decide how much traffic went through, or if it could be selective, as with Adwords. Sometimes your ad shows on Adwords, sometimes it doesn't.

Also, there are ways of redirecting traffic.

That's more what I meant.

I also dropped to page 3 for that same search term after my post here today, a funny coincidence, no?
Maybe it's not good to post a link here at WebProWorld.com :) Maybe it is a bad neighborhood.

[corporateface]

Also, I looked at your site.
I think that "Driving Directions and Maps" falls short in scope. "Driving Directions and Maps for Your Cell Phone or Mobile Device".

How about looking at the viability of including mobile or cell phone etc... in your key phrases.

This is a niche market and should be included in your SEO data.

You are at 23 in Google for Mobile Maps. Similar for Cell Phone Maps. Not bad, you might want to focus on the niche market.

[aviator67]

...it just seemed odd how the amount of traffic never varied.

Googlebot indexes my databases at a feverish pace for 2-3 months (a new search term every few seconds) and then allows the pages to be searched after a short week or two delay. It then steadily drops the pages from its index over time. I've yet to determine why, but it's not popularity. I've had several high traffic producing pages simply stop bringing in traffic suddenly. It's very frustrating. In November '06 I had 265,000 pages indexed (site:sync2it.com) and it's now reporting just over 80,000 pages. It has leveled out at that number for the past two weeks. On the other hand, site:bookmarksync.com is being assimilated now by the Googlebot and has gone from 4,000 to 44,000+ pages indexed in just over 6 week, updated every day or so.

It's interesting to watch but I'd hate to have to pay the bills with the fluctuating AdSense revenue this causes!

[incrediblehelp]

Well to be honest when your trying to rank for "driving directions" your comepting with websites that will ALWAYS be more popular than your own website. Do you honestly think you will get rankings above these websites:

"driving directions"

http://www.mapquest.com/
http://maps.yahoo.com/
http://www.randmcnally.com/
http://www.yellowpages.com/
http://maps.google.com/
http://mappoint.msn.com/

????

[carlos_p]

A search for "driving directions and maps" churns out mapquest, yahoo and msn even before google's own...
Maybe you should try to get more specific because that site's core business is mobile phone map downloads, or isn't it?
Some good news: you site comes up 2nd on "mobile phone driving directions"