I have recently posted an SEO contest. It is not held by me, but by a friend. My entry is for charity, I have no time to spend all day on it, but it´s something that interests me to a degree and I figure I want to try and see where it takes me.
Twice my entry on Sphinn has been deleted, so my question to you guys is:
Do you not like SEO contests in general and why?
Mike Dammann
11 Comments
Twice my entry on Sphinn has been deleted, so my question to you guys is:
Do you not like SEO contests in general and why?
Mike Dammann
11 Comments
Comments
I think we did discuss a rule saying no contests. I’ll let Rob comment further. I checked the news submission guidelines: http://sphinn.com/guidelines.php and it’s not listed there. If this is a guidelines, we’ll get that updated.
I can confirm that Sphinn does have a policy of removing submissions of a contest/competition nature. The history of the decision was that this often resulted in vote gaming (asking people who enter the contest to vote it up on Sphinn) or contest flooding (each contestant submitting their blog post on Sphinn and then gaming votes to win the contest). In order to make it fair to all, we decided to pull all contest posts, even if these circumstances weren’t intended by the contest holder. The published guidelines probably need to be reviewed, I should have some updates for them shortly.
While it’s not listed (yet) in the guidelines, I knew of Sphinns overall policy on contests, and I believe I’m the one who recently removed 2 different contest submissions here.
I do understand that having people submit the same contest with their own entries would be a disaster. And as soon as the contest is announced, many will feel encouraged to do that. But at what point can a contest be mentioned when you have already a nice set of results with some fresh insight in how social bookmarking sites, web 2.0s and sites of various ages and authority battle for rankings?
It seems like it’s a slippery editorial slope when submissions start getting pulled. Isn’t the point of a system like this to trust the readership to promote good/valid/relevant content over spammy content?
A slippy editorial slope? Please. Spam removal and content moderation are necessary in any social media community, whether it’s a blog, forum/message board, or a voting-based site like this.
It seems rational that either:1. The guidelines be edited to match Jill’s actions.2. Jill’s actions be modified to match the guidelines.As the situation stands currently, the arbitrary nature of these deletions makes Sphinn look like of "third-world."Testing is an important part of effective SEO, and SEO contests are a fantastic testing mechanism. We’ve learned a lot from previous SEO contests. This knowledge has helped many people avoid snake-oil SEO salespeople.such as the archaic anti-linking crowd.Knowledge is good. SEO contests create knowledge, therefore SEO contests are good.
As the situation stands currently, the arbitrary nature of these deletions makes Sphinn look like of "third-world."They are not aribtrary at all.All online communities have internal policies that don’t always completely match the published guidelines. There’s no way that you can typically think of every scenario that might exist which may need moderation and put them in the guidelines. Sphinn, like most online communities, trusts their moderators to moderate in such a way that they uphold the spirit of the community. It’s often difficult to translate "spirit of the community" into rules or guidelines.
@Will Not quite sure of your chain of logic there. Hand on heart, in nearly 10 yrs of SEO contests they have never taught me anything new. These days they seem worse than ever. If you saw the amount of spam we get from people trying to linkdrop their way to the front of the lastest ranking competition, you may understand our position as moderators better. Saying that, I’m all in favour of transparent guidelines. I know that Michelle/Rob/Danny are already working on that though.
@Nick:I can see not allowing posts promting contest entries, but that’s a different thing entirely than censoring news items about the existence of contests.I can tell you that many participants in the Net Builders SEO Contest have <i>already</i> learned something from the contest. What we’re seeing now is quite different from what we saw during the last great SEO competition.
Nick, yes. They bring along the free blogspot crowd, I know that from several forums. But I know that quite a few people do watch these contests, especially when they head towards the end and competition does get a little heavier.