Slashdot Mirror
NewsWeek Looks at Search Engine Optimization
* * Beatles-Beatles writes to tell us that Newsweeks is taking a quick look at search engine optimization. From the article: "If search-engine rankings are supposed to represent a kind of democracy--a reflection of what Internet users collectively think is most useful--then search-engine optimizers like Fishkin are the Web's lobbyists. High-priced and in some cases slyly unethical, SEOs try to manipulate the unpaid search results that help users navigate the Internet. Their goal is to boost their clients' (and in some cases their own) sites to the top of unpaid search-engine rankings--even if their true popularity doesn't warrant that elevated status."
At least he's posting about something with which he has experience.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
1. Add your domain name to your profile on slashdot
2. Post useless crap to slashdot
3. Enjoy increased traffic and pagerank
4. Profit!
No need for ???? here. The domain that beatles-beatles has on his profile has a pagerank of 5. I imagine a fair amount of that is from his slashdot posts.
If you don't have the google toolbar, you can check a pages pagerank here: http://www.only999.com/google_page_rank.php
SecureThe.Net - Practical Resources for Securing Systems
Having worked both in the tech press and the SEO-needy internet world, I can say that the article is interesting, but based on a fundamentally flawed premise.
Search engine rankings are not, and should not be, based on popularity. When you type "britney spears naked" into a search engine, you don't care about how many people have clicked on the resulting links. You're looking for *relevance*, which is entirely separate from popularity.
TFA is interesting, but that flawed presence really hurts it. SEO's don't try to convince SE's that a site is more popular (well, there's backlinks, but that's a whole different story). Instead, they try to convince SE's that a site is more relevant. The use of backlinks, etc, is entirely secondary to that purpose.
Me, I'm all for Google and other SE's efforts to negate the effects of SEO by detecting and penalizing SEO behavior (gateway pages, bogus backlinks, etc). SE's may be wrong about what a surfer wants, but intentionally trying to *make* them wrong us abusive to surfers and ultimately makes SE's less useful.
After all, if I have the biggest and best widgets site and try to trick SE's to linking to me for searches on "wodgets," it's only reasonable to expect that people who make "wodgets" will try to SEO "widgets". Customers end up not being able to find what they want, and SE traffic is devalued for everyone.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Before everyone jumps directly to the conclusion that SEOs are evil, let me tell you this. As the article states, there are 2 kinds of SEOs:
Only the second kind is evil. Other SEOs out there actually do good things and truly make the Web a better place.
The only way to counter this effect is to have a larger base (i.e. at least more the 50%) of educated and critical thinking people in a society. And maybe for the first time in history we might have the chance to get closer to this goal.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Ah, you "intrinsic value" people are so cute. So convinced that goods and services are somehow worth some abitrary values based on what they should be worth, as opposed to what people are willing to pay for them.
If chinese Rolex knockoffs are achieving market parity with real Rolexes, it's because, for the people buying them, they're the same thing. Or, at least, the people buying them have decided they'd rather have 1,000 chinese "rolexes" over their lifetime than a single real thing.
When you say the market is "broken," what you really mean is that the market is, well, the market. And that some (most) people disagree with your estimations of intrinsic value. In reality, the market can't be "broken" any more than the weather can be "broken" -- it's a complex system that may evolve in ways we don't like, but if people really didn't like it, they'd change their behavior and the market/weather would trend back to what people consider "normal."
Might as well declare that sports, music, or academia is "broken." Large, complex systems tend to evolve. Deal with it. Or at least realize that your ideas of intrinsic value may not be shared by all 5 billion other people on the planet.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
If you are in the market for SEO, the nice thing is, you shouldn't have to look to far on Google. If they can't get themselves to the top 5...
San Francisco Photographers
Ok, so it's probably not him, but I did get a rather nasty surprise when I clicked the submitter's name. Yes, it opened george-harrison.info, but almost immediately my browser was redirected to http://www.winfixer.com/pages/scanner/index.php?ai d=gb_ed2&lid=in&ex=1&p=&ax=1, which was most insistent that my PC had errors due to spyware and that I should download and install their product.
Good job I browse using Firefox...
Funny thing is, it's not doing it to me now (despite a Firefox restart, killing the site's cookie, etc) and I don't see anything in the page that could have caused it to happen (unless it's a random chance thing, or a once-a-day thing based on IP address, etc). Still, people using less secure browsers might want to be careful of clicking on the guy's username.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
We have a number of websites, and a couple of "crown jewels" aka "profit centers." We were getting absolutely RAPED on adwords, but they were also driving ALL of the traffic that was actually BUYING from us.
So after months of trial-and-error with Google we decided it might be time to hire someone. The first thing we decided is to approach every prospective company with two simultaneous requests, from seperate subsidiaries. One RFQ for our "high profile" site that we needed a quote on, and another RFQ for a seperate website without an Alexa ranking.
Time after time, the quote was 2, 3, 4, even once 10x higher for the site with an alexa ranking in the top 250,000.
These people are scum.
So we decied that hey, we're no slouches. If **these people** can learn this trade, than we can too. So we did. And now we're number 1 organically on the our first and third most important phrases and number 3 on our second and fifth most important. We're still working on that "number 4." But we did this without SPENDING A DIME. And, I admit, we had a little help from Jagger. Especially Jagger 3. All my love to Matt Cutts and his family this glorius season.
The moral of the story: Caveot Emptor. These people don't know anything that isn't readily available if you're willing to spend the time. It's not trivial but if you're worrying about SEO then you've probably mastered things more difficult then this.
And, a tip: Most of these SEO guys have a copy of "Boiler Room" for home and an extra one for the office. Once you call them and make contact, play a little coy. Make him think his usual pitch will work on you. See, he's going to want to prove that he's got this encyclopedic knowledge that justifies his $15,000 quote. If you just shut up and let him talk, he'll explain everything to you. Every phone call-- and this can be many. These sales guys will talk to you as long as you let them-- can yeild real nuggets of useful knowledge. And it's all totally free. Just ask a lot of open-ended questions and prepare to wade thru some BS.
Shane