On the SEO forum there are often cries of pain from people who can see competitors using 'unfair' tactics etc.
Our arena has been relatively free of that but there is quite a lot of rubbish in the SERPs when you look at it from the point of view of someone looking for particular Classical MP3s to download. You can put up with the modern stars who share part of their name with a famous composer but it is the sites that lure you through from an innocuous front to another site when you click that download button that are disturbing and frustrating.
Looking at Chopin MP3 and Dvorak MP3 this morning on Google there are also a few broken sites and a charming one that reports "Dvorak 0 files found" surrounded by other useless automated content. And you also tend to find that the 'Free' sites don't actually work.
The Chopin MP3 check was also a dramatic example of how Google adapts the SERPs to individual searchers because on Reladvance this morning we are between 35 and 45 for that phrase across different data centers whereas on my search we came in at 15. This is independant of whether I have signed in to my Personalised Google page or not!
Serendipidy being what it is I also found a Classical Portal site of which more later.
In other words there is not much legitimate competition selling individual tracks - the Russian sites are more of a worry because they undermine our value proposition so seriously. We just have to live with the subscription sites like eClassical.
Our arena has been relatively free of that but there is quite a lot of rubbish in the SERPs when you look at it from the point of view of someone looking for particular Classical MP3s to download. You can put up with the modern stars who share part of their name with a famous composer but it is the sites that lure you through from an innocuous front to another site when you click that download button that are disturbing and frustrating.
Looking at Chopin MP3 and Dvorak MP3 this morning on Google there are also a few broken sites and a charming one that reports "Dvorak 0 files found" surrounded by other useless automated content. And you also tend to find that the 'Free' sites don't actually work.
The Chopin MP3 check was also a dramatic example of how Google adapts the SERPs to individual searchers because on Reladvance this morning we are between 35 and 45 for that phrase across different data centers whereas on my search we came in at 15. This is independant of whether I have signed in to my Personalised Google page or not!
Serendipidy being what it is I also found a Classical Portal site of which more later.
In other words there is not much legitimate competition selling individual tracks - the Russian sites are more of a worry because they undermine our value proposition so seriously. We just have to live with the subscription sites like eClassical.