Back to the future

So I was looking for a website with information for visitors to Vienna ... and sitting near the top of the Google SERP was this site – aboutvienna.org.

It was full of useful – if limited – information over a number of pages, then I noticed the footer on the pages.

Yep ... it is a sponsored – they say 'powered by' – site. So what's the story?

Well, I can recall that nigh-on 20 years ago I held an 'e-commerce' [that's what we called it then] session for hotel and B&B owners during which, as part of the SEO session, I advised them that including visitor tips on their website would help get to the top of the search engines [yes, engines, there where six main ones and Google was over 10 years away]. Or they could sponsor a tourist website as a kind-of back door way onto the SERPs.

 
If you were to come across a 'new' online marketer she or he would call it 'content marketing'.