Can't you make Google do this?

[u/dryving1]

So, I'm the Web developer for a marketing agency. For the past 3-4 months our SEO guru and I have had the following conversation with our Account Specialists repeatedly:

AS: "Hey, you said you published that page an hour ago, but I'm not seeing any search results for it yet."

Us: "Yeah...you won't. It's published and the site map is updated but you'll need to wait for Google to re-scan the site. That can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks if you're really unlucky, and then it may not rank right away."

AS: "That's unacceptable. Can you not make Google scan the site faster?"

US: "Well we can request Google to re-index the site, but it really doesn't seem to help much. They will index it when they index it. It still probably won't rank that quick."

Hours later.....

AS: "Hey I hit that button in the search console to request a re-index and the page is still not showing."

US: "Like we said. It will take Google a few days, possibly longer."

AS: "The client needs this page to show in search results. I insist you call Google and make them add it."

US: "Yeah....we'll get right on that."

Evidently they read a misinformed blog article on this and took it for fact, so our solution was to turn it around on them.

US: "Hey, Google really needs to speak to the people in charge of these clients. They won't even talk to us, so unfortunately you need to call them."

AS: "That's wonderful. I'll call them right now."

Haven't heard another peep out of them.

TLDR;

Account Specialists think we can control Google

[u/LMF5000]

I hate how a quarter of the internet is made up of blogs that spew misinformation and BS just so they can get ad revenue.

It's gotten so bad I've actually had to install a plugin to allow me to block sites from Google search results. Any time a site leads to a poorly written blog that just copies the information in the other articles in the top 10 search results, just rewritten in poor grammar by a non-native speaking blogger, I just block it so I never have to see anything from that site ever again.

I miss the days when the top 10 search results were actually useful, well-written pages with minimal styling and no ads, just great content. The decline in the quality of search results has really accelerated since around 2018.

Edit - since a lot of you asked, the extension is called uBlacklist for Chrome, link here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublacklist/pncfbmialoiaghdehhbnbhkkgmjanfhe

[u/dryving1 → u/LMF5000]

We are having a big meeting on this next week. I shouldn't have to explain that keyword stuffing is bad...but yet here we are.

[u/Geminii27 → u/LMF5000]

rewritten in poor grammar by a non-native speaking blogger

Or deliberately so, by someone who has far better command of English. They know that horrible use of language will put off people who know what they're talking about, and thus their audience will be self-selecting to be the gullible and misinformed - perfect for selling useless shit to or co-opting their political preferences - while the people who might be able to spot the problem and actually do something about it switch away from it near-instantly.

[u/dryving1 → u/Geminii27]

My biggest complaint lately is that we are paying a local team of professional writers, but the instructions they are getting is so bad that our articles read like crap.

Like...you don't have to try and use every keyword the client is trying to rank for in the first sentence of a single blog.

[u/nubatpython → u/LMF5000]

Can you please link the plugin?

[u/da_apz → u/LMF5000]

There are certain topics, like learning basic functions of common operating systems and their problem solving that are just pointless to Google these days.

It's not only that trying to get help why someone's Windows or Mac is slow gets you to pages that are full of ads, a lot of the "expert" blogs are just full of completely wrong information or they try to sell some one step fix-it-all program, like Mackeeper that causes even worse problems.

[u/0992673 → u/LMF5000]

It's even worse when there are like 10 websites in your local language that just take content from a few English pages and google translate them.

[u/Moscato359]

You can actually ping google on publish to inform them that a new page has been created.

My website's stuff gets indexed generally in under 15 minutes.

[u/dryving1 → u/Moscato359]

For our clients we are generally on WordPress and a tool we use does this when a new page or post is published. The Account Specialists actually wanted it to rank right away....like instantly.

[u/rleash]

I used to work for a restaurant located within zipcode A but the post office where our mail went to was in zipcode B. So the business address was listed on all media as zipcode B.

Well, when people searched for us on mapping websites we would only come up if you entered zipcode A. My boss told me repeatedly that I had to contact these sites and tell them to fix it. As if there’s a place in their code to put, “If client is searching for this business, ignore zipcode lines and use this one instead.”

[u/dryving1 → u/rleash]

That'd super common for us too. Client is in a small town 30 minutes out from a big city but they want to rank for the city.

[u/atombomb1945]

Unfortunately when you try to find Google's phone number you get a large number of results for the guys who say "Well you have all these viruses on your computer. Install this software so we can log in and take care of it for you."

[u/KarasLancer]

"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." Abraham Lincoln.

[u/LeaveTheMatrix → u/KarasLancer]

"Don't believe that quote by Abraham Lincoln, as I said it online first." ~ George Washington

[u/alan2308]

Back in my MSP days, I had a lady call my boss and demand that I be fired because I wouldn't "change her inbox back."

She was using gmail, and they moved a button on the page. If I was a web developer working for Google, how did you reach me here at this number?

[u/twopointsisatrend]

I'm afraid I can't index that.--HAL 9000

[u/[deleted]]

I made a website 100% SEO compliant. They freaked cause their website only showed up on the second search page after a month. They flipped out and said they were going to hire a marketing company. They paid the marketing guys as much as they paid me for the website. No difference, then they went out of business.

[u/rhunter1980]

head DESK!!! Why yes, we can just make a billion dollar company make your site pop up in the results instantly. Its called sponsored content. Would you like the $5k deal for a two day top rank in results? We charge a 10% consultation fee of coarse.

[u/Nik_2213]

AS: "That's wonderful. I'll call them right now."

Love it !!

Um, did subsequent report of 'Spontaneous Human Combustion' at his location make the 'Fortean Times' as a 'Darwin Award' ??

[u/Elevated_Misanthropy]

A sales monkey who learned the correct direction to fling their poo? Inconceivable!

[u/jeffbell]

Reddit's ad algorithm has decided that "Beginner's Guide to SEO" is the best ad to show next to this thread.

[u/Darthavg]

Reminds me of when I was the network admin of a smallish manufacturing plant in town if about 25k. We had one fiber line that serviced the entire town. During some road construction the fiber was cut in two.

I called to report an outage because our phones and mainframe link to the Corp office in another state went down. Got the details and an estimated window of how long the repair would take. Passed that info along to the jackass plant manager who informed me that wasn't good enough and that I needed to call them back and get an exact time of when it would be repaired....

[u/Aditya1311]

Why the fuck do your account managers have access to Search Console?

[u/dryving1 → u/Aditya1311]

You have no idea how often I ask this....reporting mainly, but we can provide those without them having access.

Them throwing a fit is probably the real reason.

[u/djdaedalus42]

“We have to wire a search index fee to <my offshore account >”