Troy recently commented on one of my posts: “Great post. Mini sites sure are hot right now. I wonder how they will adapt with future changes in search engines though? It seems to me that the search engines are not going to want these little 5-10 pages sites, built solely for AdSense, to be a big part of the results they provide.” I want to devote today’s post to this topic.
What search engine companies want
Put yourself in the shoes of a search engine company. What would you want to have to make sure you had a superior product?
Today I asked Matt Cutts, currently the head of Google’s Webspam team, what search engines want and it had to be a one line description. I proposed “Quality results that satisfy the intent of any query”. His suggestion back to me was to add “without spamming”.
So we have “Quality results that satisfy the intent of any query without spamming”
Unfortunately search engines are not mind readers (perhaps that should be the next evolution in search engine technology!) and the intent of a query is often not obvious. Worse than that, the person making the query may not be sure exactly what they want.
MFA (Made For AdSense) sites
What I presume Troy is referring to when he says “little 5-10 pages sites, built solely for AdSense” are MFA web sites. Their sole goal is to get traffic, provide no answers to the search query and put AdSense or other paid links on the pages.
The intent is to leave the visitor with no information and to lure them into clicking the ads. The trick is to make those ads the only door out of the web site. The worst of them will keep popping up ads as you try to leave or close the browser window or tab. The search engines already have algorithms that try to filter out the more obvious MFA web sites.
Quality mini-sites
Here is my perspective on what makes a quality mini-site. A quality mini-site answers a specific query by giving specific information. It may or may not provide links to related information. It should not simply be a doorway page listing links to let the user go find the answer.
Lets take a specific example. The user types in a query “calling New Zealand”. The main intention seems clear: “I want to call New Zealand and need information to do so”.
The next step is to ask what information would they need?
- international dialing codes
- current time in New Zealand
- ways to save money on calls to New Zealand
- find a phone number in New Zealand
So these are a few results that might satisfy the query. No. 1 and No. 4 are the most likely results that the searcher was looking for. No.2 is a ‘nice to have’ and No.3 is a way to make money from the mini-site.
By building a mini-site to address each of these four needs, you have built a quality mini-site. The person who made the search query should find the information they need and be satisfied with the search result.
Once the mini-website is up and running, you can check to see if there are other search queries where users are being directed to your website. You can add pages to address their needs as appropriate.
Quality mini-sites and search engines
Because the mini-site we just discussed satisfied the searcher, search engines will want to preserve these kinds of mini-sites. For that reason, I do not see these mini-sites being penalized or dropped from search engine results.
If you are going to build a mini-site, then bear in mind that you should focus on the searcher’s intent and try to satisfy their need. Then you can interest them in ads that are related to their query.
In the “calling New Zealand” example, the visitor is aware that these are expensive international calls and so they are immediate candidates for ads showing them how to save on such calls.
With a little more thought, you can imagine that they may visit that country and so ads for airfares to New Zealand, places to stay and so on should generate revenue.
Thanks to Troy for the comment/question. I really do enjoy getting feedback and questions because it makes me think more deeply and I often learn something new along the way. If I don’t have the answer, then I will try to find out for you.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Barry, good analysis.. As always
Most of the mini-site services out there, that are offered towards the domainers crowd, fail both SEARCH ENGINE quality tests and the USABILITY from a users perspective.
A good site is one that provides custom and unique relevant information. It can be a few paragraphs… It can be a few pages… It can be a few links.
The definition of mini-site can be 1 page to you, 10 pages to me.. Ask somebody else and they will tell you 5 pages..
The definition of quality of one site may be A+ to me.. To you B- and to other people it may suck..
Worrying about this stuff too much is rather pointless, but there are certain rules and guidelines to follow when launching any type of site. Small or large.
Follow those basics….and you shall succeed.
It’s simple!
Keep up the good work with the posts.
I enjoy reading your blog..
All the best,
Mike from NY
http://www.WannaDevelop.com
Hi Mike,
I agree with what you have said. However I made one crucial assumption when writing this post. I wonder if anyone can spot it.
“….not mind readers”
Well, Google is as close to a “mind reader” as it gets
OK. Well that wasn’t the assumption. I assumed that the mini-website needs to be indexed. Parking landing pages are not indexed and you could create a mini-website that acts in the same way as a parking page. Sounds like another blog post in the making
A lot of parked pages are in fact indexed by the search engines but they are penalized.
Your question based method of laying out the site architecture for a mini site is very good.
The best way to make money long term with a website is to find out what visitors to your site want and then give it to them better than anyone else.
After all, directing their searchers to the site that best gives the searcher what they want is exactly what Google or any other search engine wants to do so that they can satisfy people using their search engine and hopefully increase their market share.
Joel Ohman
http://www.DomainSuperstar.com
Mike,
Yes, you are right. They were put as part of the supplemental index in the past but that has since been merged with the main index.
In effect though, they do not carry any search engine traffic and that means other strategies are needed.
Joel, Exactly. My point is that for some queries, a mini-site is all that is needed. Not every query needs a huge website.
Well Shucks…. Glad to be a part of some type of thought process.