01.17.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Novell Employees/Contractors Take More Marketing to Search Engines, YouTube
Image makeover by subverting Google
HOW LOW Novell has sunk. It’s hiring people whose job is to manipulate search engines. Here is the new press release:
One of the world’s largest infrastructure software companies has appointed a Yorkshire-based company to manage its Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns.
Novell, based in Waltham, MA, USA known for its infrastructure software including SUSE® Linux Enterprise, an operating system in use by businesses worldwide, has specific requirements for its search marketing campaign, including multilingual SEO and PPC management and localisation of online advertising that Search Laboratory will now provide.
There is some coverage of this in the British press.
Search Laboratory will now lead Novell’s search marketing campaign, including multilingual SEO (search engine optimisation) and PPC (pay-per-click) management, along with localisation of online advertising.
Will they also have capacity for elbowing aside or harassing critical blogs?
Unrelated to this, someone has just added this new Novell advert to YouTube (assuming it’s not just new on YouTube).
A Novell employee still uploads Novell adverts to YouTube. Here is his latest addition:
Another Novell employee, Russ Dastrup, seems to have just sort of joined him. Based in Mapleton (Utah), he describes himself as “Corporate Video guy at Novell. I especially love working on family video projects and fun internal company stuff.” This probably counts as disclosure.
He has just uploaded two Novell ads. Here is the first:
Here is another new upload from him
All of these examples are just a few days old.
To summarise, Novell has people on its payroll who are manipulating Google search results (Novell-related queries) and also people who are passing Novell adverts to Google’s YouTube. █
“Did you know that I left Novell 11 months ago? I’m not part of the “Novell marketing people” that you seem to think I am. I parted ways with Novell for the very same reasons that you cite about the MS agreement–not its evilness, but the careless disregard for the people that the company never bothered to consult (including me).”
–Ted Haeger
ᶃ Gemini Space
This post is also available in 
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
Yfrwlf said,
January 17, 2009 at 9:14 am
All companies do this of course, it’s called advertising. The position involves making sure your company comes up in hopefully *relevant* searches, but also includes paying that extra bit to come up first or be more highly ranked. I know, because I’ve seen it done. What do you think Google’s revenue stream is from? I think it’s mostly from things like this, but of course it’s not the only source.
Any way, so I don’t see anything spectacular about this being news worthy, other than the fact that it’s coming from two companies that can go **** themselves.
Roy Schestowitz said,
January 17, 2009 at 9:17 am
This post was mostly a set of observations rather than a critique, but one part which I dislike is the gaming of search engines, which is paid for.
Yfrwlf said,
January 17, 2009 at 10:29 am
Fair enough, and you do make lots of observations here, and it’s always wise to watch what others are doing especially your enemies, but I just was not at all surprised.
Of course, if you know about Microsoft and Novell and the types of businesses they are, you won’t EVER be “surprised”, it’s more like…in awe that someone could be such a-holes. A train wreck that it’s hard not to look at because you feel bad for them. Or at least, bad for what they’ve done to themselves and others.
I agree about search engines, they should be the best at what they can be which is in providing the most relevant data they can as quickly and easily as possible. It’s very tempting for other interests to want to manipulate that data and I agree it shouldn’t be done. Quite simply, it’s selling out, and not something that businesses want broadcast around, yet anyone who knows anything already knows they do it.
At the same time, Google’s software and other services are pretty nice, and definitely their contributions to open source. I think they could really have something if they tried to help push desktop Linux with their name for brand recognition, but maybe they feel it’s too early to associate Google with Linux, especially since so many of what is essentially their user base is still on Windows. Still, I think they could push for it in more ways, and they are, and it will increase with time as Linux slowly makes itself more known.
Roy Schestowitz said,
January 17, 2009 at 10:37 am
Google promotes Linux from the top and from the bottom at the moment, moving towards the ‘middle’ (desktop for example). The world’s biggest ‘networked’ computers are probably Google’s (about 1 million GNU/Linux servers) and they now have Android, which scaled ‘upwards’ (Netbooks, navigation devices likely soon).
The ‘middle’ is hard to conquer because it’s the bread and butter of Microsoft and Apple (which expanded to portables and phones too).
twitter said,
January 17, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Yfrwlf, not all companies do SEO and it is bad for Google’s bottom line. Google makes money from impartial search. They lose trust and revenue when that trust is broken. SEO is only practiced by insecure and unethical companies. Good product does not need that kind of gaming.
Roy Schestowitz said,
January 17, 2009 at 4:06 pm
They often use the “everyone’s doin’ it” lie/excuse.
Yfrwlf said,
January 19, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Right, it’s labeled marketing, that’s all it’s seen as. Lying, exaggerating, bending the truth, they try to say it’s OK because it’s just someone’s opinion, but it’s not, and even if it were the opinion of some imbecile, it’s not someone who should be listened to or relied upon. It turns into con art or quite simply lies.