Tracking Code affects rankings in Yahoo?

[mrzen]

Sounds crazy I suppose, but a French SEO Expert told me today that he put the Google Adword Conversion Tracking code into a site and very soon lost placings in other search engines.

His rational was that if Yahoo / MSN discovered the tracking code, they would assume that you would be prepared to pay Overture as well as Google for adwords, so knocked you out of the rankings...

Sounds a bit far fetched to me - anyone else got any evidence to back that up?? I've not seen this in any of the sites that I've managed before...

:confused:

[Chris Boggs]

Haha that is, how do you say, "tres drole?" The rationale is the funny part...so conspiracist. I am curious if the code somehow effects the millions of other users in such a manner? Without looking at the site, I would speculate that he is using sitewides or something else that got him caught in Yahoo.

Peut etre il a pris un petit verre pour dejeuner? :p


btw, welcome to SEW Forums, MrZen :)

[mrzen]

I agree with you - I was at a slight disadvantage in the meeting as he didn't speak a word of English, but I'd not heard of this anywhere, and sites that I've been running for years have not been affected in this way...

I wonder if he doesn't want to put in tracking because he is worried that his client will find out that his sponsored links are not paying off....

Thanks for the advice, and the welcome.

MrZen

[giubany]

Google's conversion tracking has never affected my rankings. A solution just in case is to include a file calling the script :)

[Chris Boggs]

I wonder if he doesn't want to put in tracking because he is worried that his client will find out that his sponsored links are not paying off....

I know you may have been kidding, but that would certainly be sad, for our industry. In my opinion the best, I repeat best, thing about paid search is the tracking capabilities that lead to nearly crystal clear data for analysis of performance. Any effective marketer should highlight and not hide this fact.

[AussieWebmaster]

I know you may have been kidding, but that would certainly be sad, for our industry. In my opinion the best, I repeat best, thing about paid search is the tracking capabilities that lead to nearly crystal clear data for analysis of performance. Any effective marketer should highlight and not hide this fact.

I agree tracking is an essential.... but there have been instances where tracking codes in general can hurt... especially when it is in a link on a high ranked page and it gets grabbed as the listed link in the SERPs... the query string becomes part of the page and will get listed sometimes while the regular page that has other links is lost as it can be seen as a duplicate.

[Chris Boggs]

that is certainly an interesting scenario, aussie. can you send me an example by IM? or perhaps publicly post one?

[AussieWebmaster]

Forex Trading Customer Support, 24/7 Customer Service, Contact RefcoFX (http://www.refcofx.com/?engine=timezoneconverter&keyword=02063b+160*600+tzc) Learn what currencies to trade and how to trade them. Helpful tips for trading news and charts. Learn More · Forex Trading Ideas ...
www.refcofx.com/?engine=timezoneconverter&keyword=02063b+160*600+tzc - 26k -Cached (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:4IXc0KK2DKIJ:www.refcofx.com/%3Fengine%3Dtimezoneconverter%26keyword%3D02063b%2 B160*600%2Btzc+currency+trading&hl=en) - Similar pages (http:///search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-08,GGLD:en&q=related:www.refcofx.com/%3Fengine%3Dtimezoneconverter%26keyword%3D02063b%2 B160*600%2Btzc)

Do a search for currency trading