SEO Guru Reveals His Inner Self
May 18, 2009
I found the article “Dammit, I’m A Journalist, Not A Blogger: Time For Online Journalists To Unite?” here quite interesting. The reason? It makes clear that “real journalists” want more respect than a “real blogger” gets. The schism will ignite a firestorm of Tweet and probably lead to the formation of a not-for-profit organization, a certification program similar to that required of medical doctors and air craft pilots, a Web site, and maybe a movie deal.
The author of the “Dammit” essay is Dan Sullivan, who is the oft-quoted expert in search. The distinction between search as in marketing and search as in the enterprise is not usually made. I have seen Mr. Sullivan’ statements about Google, online marketing, and other aspects of the online world, I associate him with search engine marketing, conferences chock full of ad executives and stressed Web site managers, and newsletters that explain the intricacies of getting a Web page to be trim and fit for indexing.
You real digital journalists, fall in, hustle, hustle, hustle.
The “Dammit” essay turns on a different color spot light. Mr. Sullivan wrote:
Bloggers got bumpkiss. We have no lobbying group. We have no organization designed to help members learn the intricacies of uncovering government documents. We can’t get government agencies to call us back at all, at times (I know, been there and done that). And we’ve got a newspaper industry increasingly portraying us as part of an evil axis that’s killing them. Blogs steal their attention, and Google steals their visitors.
But the gravel in the craw is that existing associations are not doing what needs to be done to preserve the reputation, professionalism, and statute of digital journalists. He asserted:
I want online journalists to get organized. Yes, there’s the Online News Association, but that seems an extension of “traditional” journalists working in mainstream organizations with digital outlets. I think we need an “Online Journalists Association,” or a “United Bloggers” or whatever catchy name you come up with.
The author of “Dammit” then shifted into what struck me as “plea bargaining mode”. He wrote:
But while I love newspapers, came from them and hope they continue to find a place (more on their future later, short story, expect 4-5 “nationals” to survive), I’m begging them to stop seeing bloggers as enemies. Many bloggers are journalists, part of the news ecosystem, colleagues that are entitled to respect.
Yes, I shouted. Yes, bloggers deserve respect.
Respect, digital journalists deserve respect.
Well, some bloggers. There are the bloggers who write about their cats, personal tastes in breakfast food, long form bloggers, and the newer microbloggers. My thought is that bloggers have to be separated into the ones who are “digital journalists using the Web log form” and the run-of-the-mill millions who start a blog, quit, or rant and foam in a manner that often surprises me.
Search Results a Cesspool
April 13, 2009
The addled goose is at the end of the trail so I don’t pay much attention to link farms, traffic scams, and online advertising. I was shocked when I read Frank Watson’s “Extortion SEO Sanctioned by Google” here. If true, I have been misunderstanding how the Google operated. Mr. Watson wrote:
There’s a much more successful way to play Google these days — just build a site that can rank for companies or individuals and write crap about them. Once the posts start appearing in the search results, these entities will get in touch with you to remove them and you can charge them for it.
Mr. Watson then asserted:
The king of these programs is Ripoff Report — the darling of Google. Matt Cutts has defended them and their right to publish defaming information — and he has two reports in there himself. Inclusion of information like this makes me agree that the search engine results are “cesspools” — though Yahoo, Microsoft, and the other engines seem to be wise to Ed Magedson, the site’s founder.
Take a look at a site called Ripoff Report. You will have to make your own decision about Mr. Watson’s allegations. Post your views.
Stephen Arnold, April 13, 2009
Oparla: Pay You to Use Its Search System
April 9, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to Oparla. This is a pay you to use it search system. I ran some of my standard queries and found the results useful. The results page is simple, and “beyond search” appears at the top of the results list. I liked this, of course. I don’t know much about the system, and I could not spot a way to sign up and start getting paid. You can read a brief review of the system here. There is some basic information about the service here.
The founder is a British entrepreneur Daniel Jupp. The Web site quoted Mr. Jupp as saying:
Users will also be able to message each other to advise and help each other with searches, something previously used by chat rooms, forums and blogs, but avoided by the search engine creators.
I don’t fully understand the variable payment model, but that does not mean it will not work. The search system launches later this year. I have added it to my watch list.
Stephen Arnold, April 8, 2009
SEO Cheat Sheet
March 4, 2009
I never thought much about cheating in school. I just grunted along and took what grades I earned. For readers who do have a fondness for cheat sheets, short cuts, and line jumping, here’s a link for you–“The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet” by Danny Dover. There’s a link on the site to a PDF version of the “cheat sheet”. You will learn about “important” tags, indexing limits aka stay under the stuffing ceilings, syntax, url conventions, redirects, bot factoids, bot traps, robots.txt syntax, and sitemap syntax. I scanned the tips and concluded that this is less of a “cheat sheet” that a check list to avoid silly errors. One person’s cheat sheet is another person’s reminders.
Stephen Arnold, March 4, 2009
SEO: Good, Bad, Ugly
March 3, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to the February 20, 2009, article by George for Insiders View: Insurance Blow here. “More and More SEO Scams” made the statement:
It seems that there are few whitehat agencies these days. I always advocate some gray hat to stay on top and some blackhat to determine what others are doing. But this is getting ridiculous. The economic climate has pushed people out of the city so instead of brokering toxic investments, they’re now brokering SEO services.
Strong words. I had seen the About.com posting “How to Avoid Being Taken by SEO Scams and Bad SEO Companies” here, but I was not sure how widespread the problem was. Dave Taylor here made this comment in his “SEO Company Promises Top Three Positions: A Scam?”:
Of all the aspects of the Internet, none seems to be so full of con artists and purveyors of dubious businesses than so-called search engine optimization companies. The reason for this is that the basics of SEO (which I’ll call it for simplicity) are simple and can be explained in five minutes. Heck, Google even has a free guide to SEO best practices.
Image source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jhSlOGUoB5k/R-1-flxJm0I/AAAAAAAAE40/y1pVNDBfyXE/s400/scam.jpg
Several thoughts:
- As the economy slides toward a financial black hole, some companies hope their Web sites can be a source of sales leads and revenue. Managers turn to their marketing advisors and Web professionals to deliver a return on the Web investment. Pressure increases.
- The dominance of Google in Web search means that a company not in the Google index does not exist in some cases. A company whose product or service does not come up on the first page of Google results may not get much traffic.
- The quality of Web sites (content, coding) becomes increasingly important. But quality takes thought, time, and effort.
When one mixes these three ingredients together, search engine optimization becomes a must. If a company can afford to buy Google AdWords, then the Web site must have compelling landing pages and the technical plumbing to make it easy for the person landing on a link to take the desired action.
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