Check that website once a month for the next year.
Do you know when we first gained the top spot? December. 2005. That's fully one year. In that time, the most we've dropped is to number 2, toggling between us and the current #2 site.
The really crappy thing is that people don't understand the difference between SEO that's allowed by google and SEO that's banned by google.
I personally submit all of my sites to the google review team before completing the SEO contract. Including this one.
Proof that this guy doesn't know what he's talking about is right in his message:
"Keyword Stuffing" --> Illegal practice. Google has a 'keyword density threshold' Stay comfortably below that number, and you're OK. "link farming" --> Creating an artificial network of external back links isn't going to work. If google sees a big flux in your back links too quickly, you're penalized "invisible text" --> This is a big no-no, and I've never employed it. "generated page mazes" --> I'm assuming he means pages that automatically refresh to other pages, which Google considers "doorway pages." Again, it's a banned technique. "meta tag voodoo" --> Google doesn't even use meta tags in its ranking. It only uses them to build the site description. "Submitting to Slasdhot, Reddit" --> This is the linchpin that proves he's FOS. These sites always add a NoFollow attribute to prevent GoogleBot from following the external links.
This is simple, folks. I've been doing this for a while now. Two years. Everyone of my SEO contract sites has been reviewed by google, and none have ever been blocked. I'm not including the URL of my business website in any of these posts. I'm sharing this information for one reason only: For the benefit of anyone who wants to employ it.
The SEO Bible is not some E-Book you purchase for $30. The SEO Bible is the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Follow those, and you're golden.
Take my advice, don't take my advice, I don't care. I make an average of $10,000 on each SEO contract I've done. I'm giving away the info because I believe in the free exchange of ideas.
Some people are frustrated with themselves (or something) and they chose to attack me. Fine. I don't care. But I have no alterior motive. And if you don't trust me, follow the progress of that website. It was on page 30 in May of 2005 when I started. I got it to the first page after the Jagr update in September 2005. Three months later, they were number one.
"5 - Is telemarketing good business? Junk mail? Sure, the rules are level, it's a tool that can be used. But it's a detriment. It's a drain. "
This is your thinking, and this is why you're wrong.
What is a drain about Junk Mail? It GIVES PEOPLE JOBS. It MAKES PEOPLE MONEY.
Get over it. You want a fantasy land. The things you want would only be possible in a "star-trekien no money exists" world. Telemarketers aren't a "drain" on ANYTHING. What are they draining? Please, tell me. What are junk-mailers draining? Who is hurting because Junk Mail is sent?
You seem to have this idea of moral absolutes. Like I said. You have a black & white mind in a gray world. That sums up my entire argument.
I'm done here. I have to go optimize some other websites. Maybe if I'm really lucky I'll somehow inconvenience you while doing it.
Before I complete any SEO contract I submit the site to Googles review team. If it gets banned, I do what I need to do to fix it. Usually it's just a 30 or 90 day ban at first and they'll unban you if you fix the problem that caused the ban.
If it doesn't get banned within 45 days after submission, they pay the remaining part of the contract and it's considered complete.
So far, 15-or-so websites later, I've *never* has a website banned.
All you need to do is follow their webmaster guidelines, as I've already said.
All this talk of "gaming the system" by people who seem to not understand the "rules of the game."
It's tougher than that. Let me preface that by saying that I'm a developer (like 1/2 of slashdot).
The problem is the many components needed to run a browser. The rendering engine. The XUL engine. Everything. If each tab ran in a separate thread, as FF is currently designed, it would mean loading multiple instances of those components in each thread, thus bloating the memory all to hell.
That's a very simplistic explanation, but it's the gist. And it's why this is a difficult problem to solve.
I think it's HILARIOUS that you equate SEO with stealing, fraud, price fixing, insider trading and war profiteering. It says a lot to me about your personal values system and your judgment.
I have many thoughts on this.
1) You're not deriding the entire software development profession just because some people create spyware, are you? Of course not. You pay your bills writing software. You think it 'contributes to the overall happiness of mankind' or some such thing.
But you're quick to judge the entire SEO industry because of the part of that industry that does things like spam your forum.
Do you see the hypocrisy there?
2) The only harm you've listed is inconvenience to you. You have to clean up spam in an online message board. You have to read thru "SEO Gibberish" Excuse me if I don't cry a river for you. An inconvenience does not a "detriment to society" make. Commericals are inconvenient but are you going around telling producers that you hate them?
What's more, these are things you CHOSE to do. You chose to operate a website open to the public. Further, you chose to clean up spam as it happens. You chose not to implement heuristic or Bayesian filtering of comments (you're a developer after all. bayesian filtering is easy.), You chose not to implement a Captcha during sign-up or login. You chose to actually read "SEO Giberish" instead of just moving to the next site on the list. Your choices. Your hand is not being forced.
3) There's a phrase you may or may not be familer with. If you aren't, look it up: "there is no universal truth"
4) Getting 'bad search results' is Googles fault, Not website owners.
5) When a business closes one branch and opens another in the big economic center of a city--as in my mall example--this isn't considered 'gaming the system.' It's considered GOOD BUSINESS. Similarily, optimizing your site for it's location is not "gaming" anything. It's playing inside the rules, and it's GOOD BUSINESS.
6) If you think that this world is one of moral absolutes, where things are "Net Good" or "Net Bad" is silly and immature. It just is. I'm not trying to attack you personally, I'm just being honest. Capitalism, for all its ugliness, is the reason that America is what it is today. Capitalism is *good*. How about this for your moral relativism: By doing SEO, I'm making a business more profitable. This in turn means that they're hiring more people. Paying more wages. Those wages are feeding children and putting braces on their teeth and clothes on their backs.
7) SEO is only necessary because of the power of Google. They are creating a search monopoly. They are becomming one of the most poweful corporations on the planet. Yet you fail to wax poetic about the moral and ethical implications of what Google is doing. They can change their algo and a businesses sales can plummet. People get laid off. People go hungry. They cry. They stay up late worrying. They are harmed. Where is your crusade against that? Where is your crusade against the growing power of Google?
8) Google lays out a list of rules. If you play inside those rules you're not doing anything wrong. Period.
9) People that spam their links are stupid because that really doesn't boost your ranking. In fact, it can seriously harm your ranking. If backlinks fluctuate too wildly, your site is penalized.
10) What is your "total contribution to the happiness of mankind?" How would you begin to measure that? Do you know what? The website I linked to in the beginning--just one of many that's hired me--sells mostly to non profits. They raised hundreds of thousands--possibly millions--of dollars for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Boxing Day Tsunami. Schools and non-profits all over the country have funded things like school camp and toys for tots and make-a-wish thru products purchased thru the SEO'd website. How do you measure that?
The honest truth is that you cannot. You have a black and white mind in a gray world.
Fair enough. Nobody is forcing you to. But that isn't keyword spamming. At least, Google doesn't consider it to be keyword spamming. Furthermore, the body of text is below the fold, and lets face it: visitors hardly read anything.
And whether you take my advice or not I couldn't care less. The website did, and I took their money, and their sales have been excellent. They used to rely on adwords for 90% of their sales. Now, they don't spend a dime on adwords, saving on average $35,000 a month, and their sales--the last time we chatted--were down only slightly from the adwords days. Profits are much higher.
We don't live in some utopian communist star trek world. I would prefer such a world, but nobody in charge asked me what I wanted.
You're talking about wanting an internet that's not shaped by profit. Guess what: It's gone and it's never coming back. It's been gone since, at least, 1995. And you know what else? That's a good thing. The internet would not be what it is today if it weren't for companies and the driver of profit. It would be full of Geocities websites, academic resources, resumes and term papers. Yawn.
Furthermore, the fact that you equate seo with things like fraud and price fixing is totally overblown. But before I get to that, I want to address your "google would have more time to wipe my ass if SEO didn't exist" remark.
Think again. That same company that purchased my services, as I mentioned in another post, paid Google nearly 3/4 of a million dollars in Adwords.
Google is what it is today because of FOR PROFIT companies. It would've never made it out of stanfords basement labs if the web wasn't what it is.
But lets get back to your idea that SEO is a bad thing. I live in a midsized city, about 300k people. One of our Malls that is well-located has been growing and growing for 20 years now. It's grown so much that it's actually put 3/4 of the other malls in the city out of business.
Furthermore, many businesses close locations all over the city just to move to the neighborhood with this mall.
Location Location Location.
This is what SEO is. It's getting the best location on the internet that you can.
It doesn't hurt anybody, because these same techniques can be used by ANYBODY. It's a level playing field. So you can "hate me" all you want--I promise you that I don't care--but all you're doing is proving your ignorance.
Slashdot is full of people that think that software should be free, search engine rankings should be sacrosanct, and it's a bad thing when people make a profit.
Unfortunately, we don't live in a world like that. I butter my bread writing software and I cringe every time somebody suggests it should be free. Free software doesn't work. There is no model in existence of a major free application working. All of the free applications were paid for by somebody. The developers that work on Linux, MySql, OO, are *paid* developers. The companies that pay them do so by selling other software or services.
SEO isn't hurting anything. I would argue that your attitude, if it were actually held by enough people to even matter, would. Significantly.
I, too, *love* the find bar. I love the 'highlight' option and I use it often. In 1.5 and below, when you turn on "find as you type" it opened up this bar.
However, in 2.0, when you try to 'find as you type' instead of opening up that find bar, it opens up what's labeled a "Quick Find Bar" This bar is in the same place, and is the same size, but all it has is the find textbox, none of the buttons or options of the normal find bar.
Basically, it's useless and offers nothing to the user. I'm often 'finding as I type' and after the 'quick find bar' opens up, I always have to do a Ctrl+F, which removes the point of find as you type.
Defensive? Not really, champ. I wasn't insulted by your post, I was amused. Read it again and instead of picturing me sneering in your mind, picture me smiling. Then you'll get it.
You might not care, but I think you'd smile ear-to-ear if you upgraded to XP Pro, or even 2000.
I ran ME for a year or so and while it felt to me like status quo, I was stunned at how much better XP was. XP is evolutionary compared to 2000. It's revolutionary compared to ME.
I think that Microsoft tries hard to forget that ME never existed. I know I do.
Hey, feel free to mod me -5 offtopic. I couldn't care less. If your goal is to boost your google ranking--and if it is it's probably because the success of your business depends on Google--then this is good advice.
People look at SEO as a scummy job but it exists for a reason. I'm a web developer--I created the companies shopping cart and back-end processing system--and I just happened to get into SEO for a previous client who needed the service. I have no issues with it. I'm not using any unethical or 'illegal' tactics to boost the ranking, like spamming the links or hiding text or doorway pages. It goes to show that you can color inside the lines and still have positive results.
And for what it's worth, that same company was spending $25-40k a month on AdWords before their organic ranking worked its way up. They've given Google at least $750,000 in adwords revenue.
Keep in mind that it's not gibberish, it's just not what I'd call beautiful prose. An excerpt:
"The custom silicone bracelet ( silicone bracelets ) has become a powerful new medium for organizations, schools, foundations and sports programs worldwide to raise money and promote their message or cause! Commonly referred to as the silicone bracelet, rubber wristband, silicone wristband , rubber bracelet, rubber bracelets, silicone rubber bracelets , charity bracelet , charity wristband,, silicone bracelets, or silicone rubber wristbands, this extraordinary promotional / awareness medium is here to stay.
Silicone bracelets are inexpensive jewelry items that are colorful, durable and comfortable to wear. They have become a fashion craze both because of their appearance and the messages they impart. The different colors of silicone bracelets represent different societal causes, from finding a cure for a particular disease to raising environmental consciousness.
The explosive success of the Lance Armstrong Foundation's "livestrong" rubber bracelet has made rubber wristbands ( silicone bracelets ) the hottest fashion, fundraising, and promotional product sweeping the globe. More than 40 million people wear a LIVESTRONG bracelet in support cancer awareness. The Lance Armstrong Foundation has used awareness bracelets ( silicone bracelets ) to raise millions of dollars for their cause/ fundraiser and now you can do the same. "
The keyword density is well below what is considered "keyword spamming," so there's no real problems with it. On the website each of these keywords is a link to the front-page of the website.
Actually, the website isn't doing anything wrong. It follows each and every one of the Google Webmaster Guidelines. But feel free to report the website to Google. They'll review it and, I'm certain, not take any adverse action against the website.
"Being somewhat geeky personality, I'm always the last person to recommend people to get a life, but I've never understood why people who criticise Firefox seem to be the only people who I've met that actually know the exact resident set size of their browser at the exact time they're writing their witty critique. I don't get it. Last I checked, RAM was a renewable resource."
It's actually really easy. task manager is a keypress away.
Right now I'm at 181 MB.
And the truth is, your computer will never "run out of RAM." It will just increase your pagefile.
But much like the people who criticize Microsoft for having a 1GB office suite or a 3GB OS, those that argue against FF memory foot print have a valid point. Software should be as small as possible. As efficient as possible. As unobtrusive as possible.
I'm a software developer. I understand how difficult this is. But that doesn't make it less important.
I've often found my PC running sluggish and a taskmgr check reveals a 300MB browser window, fully 1/2 of my physical memory. This is a problem and it should be dealt with.
Blog software creates this by default, but you can do it manually. A recent website I was hired to optimize will illustrate this. The site is customSiliconeBracelets.com. When I was hired they were on the 30th page for their two desired phrases: Silicone Bracelets & Custom Silicone Bracelets. Now, they're number 1 in both of those.
To accomplish this, I did two main things:
1. Add a bunch of text. It's mostly nonsensical. It's not meant for human consumption. It's there for keyword density.
2. Add a shitload of intra-site links. Every keyword in that nonsensical text is linked to other pages in the site. If you tried to navigate the site by following such links (instead of using the sites navigation) you'd go in circles for hours. Which, when you look at the logs, is essentially what Googlebot does.
Of course, there was all the "standard" stuff like page titles, H tags, links with titles, alt text on images, etc. But those only get you so far. The real beef is in the link structures, friends.
This works unless you have more than x number of tabs open. After that, the tabs shrink. As you close them, each tab gets slightly larger until they finally get to their 'normal size.'
It's hard to explain, but open up 20 tabs and you'll see what I mean
Funny you say that, because in your OP you ignored the distinctions and instead resorted to generalizations.
"I say you CAN indeed know such things because knowing such thing is a prerequisite to using the English language."
Once again, you think that knowing the definition of a word is the same thing as knowing a persons opinion. While I understand your point that saying "X is simple" is an opinion, the particular attributes that make something simple are ALSO a matter of opinion. They are not a matter of DEFINITION, as much as you'd like to claim they are.
And let's look at those definitions again:
"Absence of luxury or showiness, plainness" -- This is *not* the same thing as "clean interface." You can have a clean interface that is both luxurious and ornate. A quick example in my mind is the iDrive control on a BMW.
"Clarity of expression. or b. Austerity in embellishment." -- This is, again, not the same thing as "clean." That is, something can be CLEAR but not CLEAN, and vice-versa. An example might be the Dell laptop I'm tapping on at this very moment. The interface is not clean. There are dozens of buttons of radically different function and fashion. But it is CLEAR. It is not ambiguous in the slightest.
And I don't consider all of your posts to be long-winded. Just that one.
Adding tabs was a huge change to the IE application model. The rendering engine was updated for efficiency and standards compliance (which is much better now, if still not yet where you'd like it to be) Things like anti-phishing, new security models, and a new plug-in interface are features that 'go down to the metal'
IE7 was very substantial. I'm writing this on FF2.0 and I have to say: The IE7 upgrade was far more successful than FF2. I still believe that Firefox is a better browser over all, but not by very much. The only reason I'm still using FF is the extensions. There are just things that aren't available as IE Plugins yet that I would miss too much to fix. Funny enough, FireFox has be in vendor lock-in.
I'd say that the FireFox 2.0 upgrade was a debacle. There are so many things that I dislike about this release. I know I could go back to 1.5 but thats a PITA, too. Some of the many flaws with 2.0 are:
1. The "quick find" menu. When I 'find as I type' it no longer opens-up the actual "find" bar that allows me to highlight/move next/move previous. Instead, it opens a USELESS quick find bar and I have to press ctrl-f to get the full find-bar. This is so idiotic it's difficult to put it into words. There is absolutely no good reason for this. The quick-find takes up as much screen real-estate and my guess is that it takes up just as much resources.
2. The absolutely HORRIBLE options menu. In addition to being visually unappealing, it's horribly convoluted. I now have to click 10 times to do what I used to do in 2 clicks. Changing proxy settings is an example.
3. Ugly graphics. IE7 is just clearly more beautiful. For that matter, FF1.5 is clearly more beautiful. I don't know who created these things (the 'home' icon in particular) but somebody really should have said 'thanks but no thanks.'
4. Why change terminology? Extensions are now Add-Ons. Will they be plug-ins in the next release? BHOs after that? It took me 3 minutes after I upgraded to find the extension control panel.
5. More in-built functionality that I don't need. Like a phishing filter. This shouldn't be in IE, either, but DEFINITELY not in firefox.
6. I dislike having close buttons on each tab. I thought I would like it, but in reality, when I want to close multiple tabs now I have to keep moving my mouse to do so. Before, I could just click, click, click and close 3 tabs. I liked that much better.
What's even worse is that they didn't actually fix the things that would really make this browser better:
1. Memory Foot print. Right now, I have 2 tabs open (one is gmail) and about a dozen extensions. Firefox is using 101MB of RAM.
2. Extensions are not in a 'protected' mode. A misbehaving extension can still leak memory and bring down my entire browser. This infuriates me to no end when it happens.
3. No ability to see what extension has crashed. The recommended solution is to disable extensions one at a time. I should not have to do that.
4. When one tab is 'busy' (opening a PDF, for example) the entire browser window freezes. This is a tough one, I understand, but not impossible.
In summary, FireFox 2.0 was a step backwards for the browser. I sincerely hope they produce better results with FF3.
Actually, according to a CNET article (http://news.com.com/The+greening+of+the+city+bus/ 2100-11389_3-6079090.html) the average non-hybrid bus runs at 3.5 MPG. The hybrid types are coming in at 4.5. And while a 1.5 MPG difference doesn't sound like so much on paper, it's a lot when you consider it's nearly twice as efficient as you claimed. So please, stop trying to dress up your best guess as a fact. Your numbers for the hybrid buses were even further from the truth.
Furthermore, while the bus might only have 2 people in it sometimes, the only way to actually determine efficiency is to take a snapshot of an entire week. That is, how many gallons of fuel per rider. In my midsized rust-belt city, where many bus routes also run with just a few people during most hours of the day, the busses are still more efficient as a whole than individual cars would be. Some of the routes were a net-loss, but others were such a gain that the system is justified. And even the losing routes provide a value to the service that probably increases total ridership on other routes.
In summary, if you'd have prefaced your post with 'This is a complete guess, but...' then you'd have gotten no complaint from me. But you didn't. You just decided that you knew what you were talking about without actually interesting yourself with pesky things like 'facts.'
First, my comment that a "vast majority of people have broadband" was a little bit of a slight to you. I don't actually believe that. But I do believe that a majority of Americans do, whether at work or at home.
But this is a question of fact. What are the facts of broadband vs. dialup.
You're very good at writing long, circular-referencing arguments. These might actually convince (or fool) some people, whether you intend that or not, but not in this case.
You said that I claimed that "you can't ever know what the vast majority of people think without taking a poll." And you used my broadband remark as a support of your argument that you CAN indeed know such things. You seemed to just miss or ignore that one is a question of personal opinion (what someone considers to be 'simple') and the other was a matter of fact (how many people use broadband).
Let's look at the comment that started this whole thing.
Article Text: "If you're using the term "simplicity" to refer to a product in which the user model corresponds closely to the program model, so the product is easy to use, fine, more power to ya. If you're using the term "simplicity" to refer to a product with a spare, clean visual appearance, so the term is nothing more than an aesthetic description much in the same way you might describe Ralph Lauren clothes as "Southampton WASP," fine, more power to ya. Minimalist aesthetics are quite hip these days. But if you think simplicity means "not very many features" or "does one thing and does it well," then I applaud your integrity but you can't go that far with a" product that deliberately leaves features out.
Your Response: "In sum - if you're one of the vast majority of people who associate "simplicity" with "ease of use" or "clean interface" than I have nothing to say"
The author brings-up three possible definitions of 'simplicity.' You simply dismiss what he said by claiming that you have intimate knowledge of what the vast majority of people consider 'simplicity.' This is B.S. and I'll stand by that. The actual truth is you're GUESSING. You're guessing the opinions of everyone and passing that off without qualifying it as a guess. You dressed your opinion up as fact.
If you said something like "the vast majority of people were born between 1900 and 2000", for example, then I wouldn't have a problem agreeing with you. Or "the vast majority of people are taller than 2'" then again, I wouldn't argue with you. These are questions of fact, not opinion. But if you're going to claim to know the opinions of vast majorities, you should be prepared to qualify that.
When challenged, you make some argument about having to prove the definition of every word you use, as if people thinking something was simple was as simple as applying the definition of the word to an object. Essentially, it's the same as saying "The vast majority of people think some actress is beautiful" and as evidence you use the definition of the word beautiful. It goes woefully short of proving anything.
What's more, the actual definition of simplicity doesn't even back you up. The two definitions of simplicity that you offer-up as the opinion of the majority is "ease of use" and "clean interface." Neither of these are mentioned or alluded to in the definition:
sim·plic·i·ty Pronunciation (sm-pls-t) n. pl. sim·plic·i·ties 1. The property, condition, or quality of being simple or uncombined. 2. Absence of luxury or showiness; plainness. 3. Absence of affectation or pretense. 4. a. Lack of sophistication or subtlety; naiveté. b. Lack of good sense or intelligence; foolishness. 5. a. Clarity of expression. b. Austerity in embellishment.
Being "clean" doesn't mean being plain. Nor does it mean a lack of pretense. Nor does it mean a lack of sophistication, a lack of good sense, clarity, or austerity.
Finally, I enjoyed this discussion because you have creative answers. They're not
Slashdot Mirror
Here's my tip to this Anonymous Coward:
Check that website once a month for the next year.
Do you know when we first gained the top spot? December. 2005. That's fully one year. In that time, the most we've dropped is to number 2, toggling between us and the current #2 site.
The really crappy thing is that people don't understand the difference between SEO that's allowed by google and SEO that's banned by google.
I personally submit all of my sites to the google review team before completing the SEO contract. Including this one.
Proof that this guy doesn't know what he's talking about is right in his message:
"Keyword Stuffing" --> Illegal practice. Google has a 'keyword density threshold' Stay comfortably below that number, and you're OK.
"link farming" --> Creating an artificial network of external back links isn't going to work. If google sees a big flux in your back links too quickly, you're penalized
"invisible text" --> This is a big no-no, and I've never employed it.
"generated page mazes" --> I'm assuming he means pages that automatically refresh to other pages, which Google considers "doorway pages." Again, it's a banned technique.
"meta tag voodoo" --> Google doesn't even use meta tags in its ranking. It only uses them to build the site description.
"Submitting to Slasdhot, Reddit" --> This is the linchpin that proves he's FOS. These sites always add a NoFollow attribute to prevent GoogleBot from following the external links.
This is simple, folks. I've been doing this for a while now. Two years. Everyone of my SEO contract sites has been reviewed by google, and none have ever been blocked. I'm not including the URL of my business website in any of these posts. I'm sharing this information for one reason only: For the benefit of anyone who wants to employ it.
The SEO Bible is not some E-Book you purchase for $30. The SEO Bible is the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Follow those, and you're golden.
Take my advice, don't take my advice, I don't care. I make an average of $10,000 on each SEO contract I've done. I'm giving away the info because I believe in the free exchange of ideas.
Some people are frustrated with themselves (or something) and they chose to attack me. Fine. I don't care. But I have no alterior motive. And if you don't trust me, follow the progress of that website. It was on page 30 in May of 2005 when I started. I got it to the first page after the Jagr update in September 2005. Three months later, they were number one.
OK, when the "semantic web" happens in 20 years (if that) then we'll talk.
Tell me, what technology is going to power this? Sentient AI?
Tim Berners Lee has been talking about this for more than a decade and we're not a step closer today than we were then.
Get over it. Aint gunna happen.
"5 - Is telemarketing good business? Junk mail? Sure, the rules are level, it's a tool that can be used. But it's a detriment. It's a drain. "
This is your thinking, and this is why you're wrong.
What is a drain about Junk Mail? It GIVES PEOPLE JOBS. It MAKES PEOPLE MONEY.
Get over it. You want a fantasy land. The things you want would only be possible in a "star-trekien no money exists" world. Telemarketers aren't a "drain" on ANYTHING. What are they draining? Please, tell me. What are junk-mailers draining? Who is hurting because Junk Mail is sent?
You seem to have this idea of moral absolutes. Like I said. You have a black & white mind in a gray world. That sums up my entire argument.
I'm done here. I have to go optimize some other websites. Maybe if I'm really lucky I'll somehow inconvenience you while doing it.
And you don't have to take my word for it. Go ahead and submit that website to their review team. Then check back in a couple weeks.
Before I complete any SEO contract I submit the site to Googles review team. If it gets banned, I do what I need to do to fix it. Usually it's just a 30 or 90 day ban at first and they'll unban you if you fix the problem that caused the ban.
If it doesn't get banned within 45 days after submission, they pay the remaining part of the contract and it's considered complete.
So far, 15-or-so websites later, I've *never* has a website banned.
All you need to do is follow their webmaster guidelines, as I've already said.
All this talk of "gaming the system" by people who seem to not understand the "rules of the game."
It's tougher than that. Let me preface that by saying that I'm a developer (like 1/2 of slashdot).
The problem is the many components needed to run a browser. The rendering engine. The XUL engine. Everything. If each tab ran in a separate thread, as FF is currently designed, it would mean loading multiple instances of those components in each thread, thus bloating the memory all to hell.
That's a very simplistic explanation, but it's the gist. And it's why this is a difficult problem to solve.
I think it's HILARIOUS that you equate SEO with stealing, fraud, price fixing, insider trading and war profiteering. It says a lot to me about your personal values system and your judgment.
I have many thoughts on this.
1)
You're not deriding the entire software development profession just because some people create spyware, are you? Of course not. You pay your bills writing software. You think it 'contributes to the overall happiness of mankind' or some such thing.
But you're quick to judge the entire SEO industry because of the part of that industry that does things like spam your forum.
Do you see the hypocrisy there?
2)
The only harm you've listed is inconvenience to you. You have to clean up spam in an online message board. You have to read thru "SEO Gibberish" Excuse me if I don't cry a river for you. An inconvenience does not a "detriment to society" make. Commericals are inconvenient but are you going around telling producers that you hate them?
What's more, these are things you CHOSE to do. You chose to operate a website open to the public. Further, you chose to clean up spam as it happens. You chose not to implement heuristic or Bayesian filtering of comments (you're a developer after all. bayesian filtering is easy.), You chose not to implement a Captcha during sign-up or login. You chose to actually read "SEO Giberish" instead of just moving to the next site on the list. Your choices. Your hand is not being forced.
3)
There's a phrase you may or may not be familer with. If you aren't, look it up: "there is no universal truth"
4)
Getting 'bad search results' is Googles fault, Not website owners.
5)
When a business closes one branch and opens another in the big economic center of a city--as in my mall example--this isn't considered 'gaming the system.' It's considered GOOD BUSINESS. Similarily, optimizing your site for it's location is not "gaming" anything. It's playing inside the rules, and it's GOOD BUSINESS.
6)
If you think that this world is one of moral absolutes, where things are "Net Good" or "Net Bad" is silly and immature. It just is. I'm not trying to attack you personally, I'm just being honest. Capitalism, for all its ugliness, is the reason that America is what it is today. Capitalism is *good*. How about this for your moral relativism: By doing SEO, I'm making a business more profitable. This in turn means that they're hiring more people. Paying more wages. Those wages are feeding children and putting braces on their teeth and clothes on their backs.
7)
SEO is only necessary because of the power of Google. They are creating a search monopoly. They are becomming one of the most poweful corporations on the planet. Yet you fail to wax poetic about the moral and ethical implications of what Google is doing. They can change their algo and a businesses sales can plummet. People get laid off. People go hungry. They cry. They stay up late worrying. They are harmed. Where is your crusade against that? Where is your crusade against the growing power of Google?
8)
Google lays out a list of rules. If you play inside those rules you're not doing anything wrong. Period.
9)
People that spam their links are stupid because that really doesn't boost your ranking. In fact, it can seriously harm your ranking. If backlinks fluctuate too wildly, your site is penalized.
10)
What is your "total contribution to the happiness of mankind?" How would you begin to measure that? Do you know what? The website I linked to in the beginning--just one of many that's hired me--sells mostly to non profits. They raised hundreds of thousands--possibly millions--of dollars for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Boxing Day Tsunami. Schools and non-profits all over the country have funded things like school camp and toys for tots and make-a-wish thru products purchased thru the SEO'd website. How do you measure that?
The honest truth is that you cannot. You have a black and white mind in a gray world.
Fair enough. Nobody is forcing you to. But that isn't keyword spamming. At least, Google doesn't consider it to be keyword spamming.
Furthermore, the body of text is below the fold, and lets face it: visitors hardly read anything.
And whether you take my advice or not I couldn't care less. The website did, and I took their money, and their sales have been excellent. They used to rely on adwords for 90% of their sales. Now, they don't spend a dime on adwords, saving on average $35,000 a month, and their sales--the last time we chatted--were down only slightly from the adwords days. Profits are much higher.
We don't live in some utopian communist star trek world. I would prefer such a world, but nobody in charge asked me what I wanted.
You're talking about wanting an internet that's not shaped by profit. Guess what: It's gone and it's never coming back. It's been gone since, at least, 1995. And you know what else? That's a good thing. The internet would not be what it is today if it weren't for companies and the driver of profit. It would be full of Geocities websites, academic resources, resumes and term papers. Yawn.
Furthermore, the fact that you equate seo with things like fraud and price fixing is totally overblown. But before I get to that, I want to address your "google would have more time to wipe my ass if SEO didn't exist" remark.
Think again. That same company that purchased my services, as I mentioned in another post, paid Google nearly 3/4 of a million dollars in Adwords.
Google is what it is today because of FOR PROFIT companies. It would've never made it out of stanfords basement labs if the web wasn't what it is.
But lets get back to your idea that SEO is a bad thing. I live in a midsized city, about 300k people. One of our Malls that is well-located has been growing and growing for 20 years now. It's grown so much that it's actually put 3/4 of the other malls in the city out of business.
Furthermore, many businesses close locations all over the city just to move to the neighborhood with this mall.
Location Location Location.
This is what SEO is. It's getting the best location on the internet that you can.
It doesn't hurt anybody, because these same techniques can be used by ANYBODY. It's a level playing field. So you can "hate me" all you want--I promise you that I don't care--but all you're doing is proving your ignorance.
Slashdot is full of people that think that software should be free, search engine rankings should be sacrosanct, and it's a bad thing when people make a profit.
Unfortunately, we don't live in a world like that. I butter my bread writing software and I cringe every time somebody suggests it should be free. Free software doesn't work. There is no model in existence of a major free application working. All of the free applications were paid for by somebody. The developers that work on Linux, MySql, OO, are *paid* developers. The companies that pay them do so by selling other software or services.
SEO isn't hurting anything. I would argue that your attitude, if it were actually held by enough people to even matter, would. Significantly.
No, you misunderstand.
I, too, *love* the find bar. I love the 'highlight' option and I use it often. In 1.5 and below, when you turn on "find as you type" it opened up this bar.
However, in 2.0, when you try to 'find as you type' instead of opening up that find bar, it opens up what's labeled a "Quick Find Bar" This bar is in the same place, and is the same size, but all it has is the find textbox, none of the buttons or options of the normal find bar.
Basically, it's useless and offers nothing to the user. I'm often 'finding as I type' and after the 'quick find bar' opens up, I always have to do a Ctrl+F, which removes the point of find as you type.
Defensive? Not really, champ. I wasn't insulted by your post, I was amused. Read it again and instead of picturing me sneering in your mind, picture me smiling. Then you'll get it.
You might not care, but I think you'd smile ear-to-ear if you upgraded to XP Pro, or even 2000.
I ran ME for a year or so and while it felt to me like status quo, I was stunned at how much better XP was. XP is evolutionary compared to 2000. It's revolutionary compared to ME.
I think that Microsoft tries hard to forget that ME never existed. I know I do.
"the phrase "clearly more beautiful" is a subjective call "
No Shit?
"Was this really worth a whole bullet point?"
This coming from the guy whose entire post can be summed-up as "I disagree."
Sorry I "slammed" your browser, but it's not your fricken girlfriend dude. Get over it.
Hey, feel free to mod me -5 offtopic. I couldn't care less. If your goal is to boost your google ranking--and if it is it's probably because the success of your business depends on Google--then this is good advice.
People look at SEO as a scummy job but it exists for a reason. I'm a web developer--I created the companies shopping cart and back-end processing system--and I just happened to get into SEO for a previous client who needed the service. I have no issues with it. I'm not using any unethical or 'illegal' tactics to boost the ranking, like spamming the links or hiding text or doorway pages. It goes to show that you can color inside the lines and still have positive results.
And for what it's worth, that same company was spending $25-40k a month on AdWords before their organic ranking worked its way up. They've given Google at least $750,000 in adwords revenue.
Keep in mind that it's not gibberish, it's just not what I'd call beautiful prose. An excerpt:
"The custom silicone bracelet ( silicone bracelets ) has become a powerful new medium for organizations, schools, foundations and sports programs worldwide to raise money and promote their message or cause! Commonly referred to as the silicone bracelet, rubber wristband, silicone wristband , rubber bracelet, rubber bracelets, silicone rubber bracelets , charity bracelet , charity wristband,, silicone bracelets, or silicone rubber wristbands, this extraordinary promotional / awareness medium is here to stay.
Silicone bracelets are inexpensive jewelry items that are colorful, durable and comfortable to wear. They have become a fashion craze both because of their appearance and the messages they impart. The different colors of silicone bracelets represent different societal causes, from finding a cure for a particular disease to raising environmental consciousness.
The explosive success of the Lance Armstrong Foundation's "livestrong" rubber bracelet has made rubber wristbands ( silicone bracelets ) the hottest fashion, fundraising, and promotional product sweeping the globe. More than 40 million people wear a LIVESTRONG bracelet in support cancer awareness. The Lance Armstrong Foundation has used awareness bracelets ( silicone bracelets ) to raise millions of dollars for their cause/ fundraiser and now you can do the same. "
The keyword density is well below what is considered "keyword spamming," so there's no real problems with it. On the website each of these keywords is a link to the front-page of the website.
Actually, the website isn't doing anything wrong. It follows each and every one of the Google Webmaster Guidelines. But feel free to report the website to Google. They'll review it and, I'm certain, not take any adverse action against the website.
"Being somewhat geeky personality, I'm always the last person to recommend people to get a life, but I've never understood why people who criticise Firefox seem to be the only people who I've met that actually know the exact resident set size of their browser at the exact time they're writing their witty critique. I don't get it. Last I checked, RAM was a renewable resource."
It's actually really easy. task manager is a keypress away.
Right now I'm at 181 MB.
And the truth is, your computer will never "run out of RAM." It will just increase your pagefile.
But much like the people who criticize Microsoft for having a 1GB office suite or a 3GB OS, those that argue against FF memory foot print have a valid point. Software should be as small as possible. As efficient as possible. As unobtrusive as possible.
I'm a software developer. I understand how difficult this is. But that doesn't make it less important.
I've often found my PC running sluggish and a taskmgr check reveals a 300MB browser window, fully 1/2 of my physical memory. This is a problem and it should be dealt with.
And I'll share it for free:
A rich internal link structure.
Blog software creates this by default, but you can do it manually. A recent website I was hired to optimize will illustrate this. The site is customSiliconeBracelets.com. When I was hired they were on the 30th page for their two desired phrases: Silicone Bracelets & Custom Silicone Bracelets. Now, they're number 1 in both of those.
To accomplish this, I did two main things:
1. Add a bunch of text. It's mostly nonsensical. It's not meant for human consumption. It's there for keyword density.
2. Add a shitload of intra-site links. Every keyword in that nonsensical text is linked to other pages in the site. If you tried to navigate the site by following such links (instead of using the sites navigation) you'd go in circles for hours. Which, when you look at the logs, is essentially what Googlebot does.
Of course, there was all the "standard" stuff like page titles, H tags, links with titles, alt text on images, etc. But those only get you so far. The real beef is in the link structures, friends.
This works unless you have more than x number of tabs open. After that, the tabs shrink. As you close them, each tab gets slightly larger until they finally get to their 'normal size.'
It's hard to explain, but open up 20 tabs and you'll see what I mean
Thank You.
"I consider important the fine distinctions"
Funny you say that, because in your OP you ignored the distinctions and instead resorted to generalizations.
"I say you CAN indeed know such things because knowing such thing is a prerequisite to using the English language."
Once again, you think that knowing the definition of a word is the same thing as knowing a persons opinion. While I understand your point that saying "X is simple" is an opinion, the particular attributes that make something simple are ALSO a matter of opinion. They are not a matter of DEFINITION, as much as you'd like to claim they are.
And let's look at those definitions again:
"Absence of luxury or showiness, plainness" -- This is *not* the same thing as "clean interface." You can have a clean interface that is both luxurious and ornate. A quick example in my mind is the iDrive control on a BMW.
"Clarity of expression. or b. Austerity in embellishment." -- This is, again, not the same thing as "clean." That is, something can be CLEAR but not CLEAN, and vice-versa. An example might be the Dell laptop I'm tapping on at this very moment. The interface is not clean. There are dozens of buttons of radically different function and fashion. But it is CLEAR. It is not ambiguous in the slightest.
And I don't consider all of your posts to be long-winded. Just that one.
Adding tabs was a huge change to the IE application model.
The rendering engine was updated for efficiency and standards compliance (which is much better now, if still not yet where you'd like it to be)
Things like anti-phishing, new security models, and a new plug-in interface are features that 'go down to the metal'
IE7 was very substantial. I'm writing this on FF2.0 and I have to say: The IE7 upgrade was far more successful than FF2. I still believe that Firefox is a better browser over all, but not by very much. The only reason I'm still using FF is the extensions. There are just things that aren't available as IE Plugins yet that I would miss too much to fix. Funny enough, FireFox has be in vendor lock-in.
I'd say that the FireFox 2.0 upgrade was a debacle. There are so many things that I dislike about this release. I know I could go back to 1.5 but thats a PITA, too. Some of the many flaws with 2.0 are:
1. The "quick find" menu. When I 'find as I type' it no longer opens-up the actual "find" bar that allows me to highlight/move next/move previous. Instead, it opens a USELESS quick find bar and I have to press ctrl-f to get the full find-bar. This is so idiotic it's difficult to put it into words. There is absolutely no good reason for this. The quick-find takes up as much screen real-estate and my guess is that it takes up just as much resources.
2. The absolutely HORRIBLE options menu. In addition to being visually unappealing, it's horribly convoluted. I now have to click 10 times to do what I used to do in 2 clicks. Changing proxy settings is an example.
3. Ugly graphics. IE7 is just clearly more beautiful. For that matter, FF1.5 is clearly more beautiful. I don't know who created these things (the 'home' icon in particular) but somebody really should have said 'thanks but no thanks.'
4. Why change terminology? Extensions are now Add-Ons. Will they be plug-ins in the next release? BHOs after that? It took me 3 minutes after I upgraded to find the extension control panel.
5. More in-built functionality that I don't need. Like a phishing filter. This shouldn't be in IE, either, but DEFINITELY not in firefox.
6. I dislike having close buttons on each tab. I thought I would like it, but in reality, when I want to close multiple tabs now I have to keep moving my mouse to do so. Before, I could just click, click, click and close 3 tabs. I liked that much better.
What's even worse is that they didn't actually fix the things that would really make this browser better:
1. Memory Foot print. Right now, I have 2 tabs open (one is gmail) and about a dozen extensions. Firefox is using 101MB of RAM.
2. Extensions are not in a 'protected' mode. A misbehaving extension can still leak memory and bring down my entire browser. This infuriates me to no end when it happens.
3. No ability to see what extension has crashed. The recommended solution is to disable extensions one at a time. I should not have to do that.
4. When one tab is 'busy' (opening a PDF, for example) the entire browser window freezes. This is a tough one, I understand, but not impossible.
In summary, FireFox 2.0 was a step backwards for the browser. I sincerely hope they produce better results with FF3.
So $100 after development is complete is not "a lot cheaper" than $250 upfront?
Actually, according to a CNET article (http://news.com.com/The+greening+of+the+city+bus/ 2100-11389_3-6079090.html) the average non-hybrid bus runs at 3.5 MPG. The hybrid types are coming in at 4.5. And while a 1.5 MPG difference doesn't sound like so much on paper, it's a lot when you consider it's nearly twice as efficient as you claimed. So please, stop trying to dress up your best guess as a fact. Your numbers for the hybrid buses were even further from the truth.
Furthermore, while the bus might only have 2 people in it sometimes, the only way to actually determine efficiency is to take a snapshot of an entire week. That is, how many gallons of fuel per rider. In my midsized rust-belt city, where many bus routes also run with just a few people during most hours of the day, the busses are still more efficient as a whole than individual cars would be. Some of the routes were a net-loss, but others were such a gain that the system is justified. And even the losing routes provide a value to the service that probably increases total ridership on other routes.
In summary, if you'd have prefaced your post with 'This is a complete guess, but...' then you'd have gotten no complaint from me. But you didn't. You just decided that you knew what you were talking about without actually interesting yourself with pesky things like 'facts.'
First, my comment that a "vast majority of people have broadband" was a little bit of a slight to you. I don't actually believe that. But I do believe that a majority of Americans do, whether at work or at home.
But this is a question of fact. What are the facts of broadband vs. dialup.
You're very good at writing long, circular-referencing arguments. These might actually convince (or fool) some people, whether you intend that or not, but not in this case.
You said that I claimed that "you can't ever know what the vast majority of people think without taking a poll." And you used my broadband remark as a support of your argument that you CAN indeed know such things. You seemed to just miss or ignore that one is a question of personal opinion (what someone considers to be 'simple') and the other was a matter of fact (how many people use broadband).
Let's look at the comment that started this whole thing.
Article Text:
"If you're using the term "simplicity" to refer to a product in which the user model corresponds closely to the program model, so the product is easy to use, fine, more power to ya. If you're using the term "simplicity" to refer to a product with a spare, clean visual appearance, so the term is nothing more than an aesthetic description much in the same way you might describe Ralph Lauren clothes as "Southampton WASP," fine, more power to ya. Minimalist aesthetics are quite hip these days. But if you think simplicity means "not very many features" or "does one thing and does it well," then I applaud your integrity but you can't go that far with a" product that deliberately leaves features out.
Your Response:
"In sum - if you're one of the vast majority of people who associate "simplicity" with "ease of use" or "clean interface" than I have nothing to say"
The author brings-up three possible definitions of 'simplicity.' You simply dismiss what he said by claiming that you have intimate knowledge of what the vast majority of people consider 'simplicity.' This is B.S. and I'll stand by that. The actual truth is you're GUESSING. You're guessing the opinions of everyone and passing that off without qualifying it as a guess. You dressed your opinion up as fact.
If you said something like "the vast majority of people were born between 1900 and 2000", for example, then I wouldn't have a problem agreeing with you. Or "the vast majority of people are taller than 2'" then again, I wouldn't argue with you. These are questions of fact, not opinion. But if you're going to claim to know the opinions of vast majorities, you should be prepared to qualify that.
When challenged, you make some argument about having to prove the definition of every word you use, as if people thinking something was simple was as simple as applying the definition of the word to an object. Essentially, it's the same as saying "The vast majority of people think some actress is beautiful" and as evidence you use the definition of the word beautiful. It goes woefully short of proving anything.
What's more, the actual definition of simplicity doesn't even back you up. The two definitions of simplicity that you offer-up as the opinion of the majority is "ease of use" and "clean interface." Neither of these are mentioned or alluded to in the definition:
sim·plic·i·ty Pronunciation (sm-pls-t)
n. pl. sim·plic·i·ties
1. The property, condition, or quality of being simple or uncombined.
2. Absence of luxury or showiness; plainness.
3. Absence of affectation or pretense.
4.
a. Lack of sophistication or subtlety; naiveté.
b. Lack of good sense or intelligence; foolishness.
5.
a. Clarity of expression.
b. Austerity in embellishment.
Being "clean" doesn't mean being plain. Nor does it mean a lack of pretense. Nor does it mean a lack of sophistication, a lack of good sense, clarity, or austerity.
Finally, I enjoyed this discussion because you have creative answers. They're not