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Went Hot: October 13, 2007 - 8:00 pm
Posted By: mattstoddart 365 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://blog.linkworth.com)
Category: Other Searching
32 Comments
Went Hot: October 13, 2007 - 8:00 pm
Posted By: mattstoddart 365 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://blog.linkworth.com)
Category: Other Searching
32 Comments
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Comments
Danny I'm sure you'll read this, at least I hope. I meant every word of it and I hope you give it consideration...if you haven't already.
Hmmm... Of course Rand Fishkin has already announced that he does want to create his own search engine.
That's right...he did. Maybe between SEOmoz's VC money and Danny's infinite connections and inevitable wealth they could pull this thing off. Let's be honest....he'd have the SEO/SEM community behind him!
Awesome, go Rand! Maybe him and Danny can have a "search off".
"Sheerch." That's golden.
I hope they have some serious resources ready once they make their improved search engine. From what I have read it consumes alot of resources with the amount of data and computing power you will need. But on the other hand, having Rand and Danny working on this subject is bound to bring good results.
I've got a couple of dell's I can donate. Plus, with his name and the people he knows, he can put the plan together, have companies like dell or hosting companies take a piece of the company to donate the resources needed.
Hey man, if companies like pay per post can get like 10+ million in funding, I know for a fact danny could pull one biillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliiionnnn dolllars (in my best dr. evil voice)
This is a great idea - I'm sure everyone involved in this industry has thought of it and has tons of ideas such as "why don't they do it this way..." or "why don't they take ___ into account" - put the top 1000 sphinners into a brainstorming session and the end product would be incredible.
Of course, Google did that by putting the top 1000 Stanford grads all in the same room, but that shouldn't stop us!!
I actually see the trend now based on the Stanford comment. Hear me out..
So Stanford beat USC in what some call the greatest upset in college football history (ie Google takes over search and everyone loves it, most everyone)
Monday night football, Buffalo vs Dallas. Buffalo starts rookie quarterback from Stanford. While the stronger team continued to have doubts and catch up, in the end, the Stanford QB mde the big mistake and Dallas won. (ie .. Google is riding the wave but they're pissing the common sense smart people off with their antics and eventually, common sense will pull it off in the end)
GO COWBOYS!!! :-)
This isn't a bad idea, but is it supposed to be some sort of joke that it appears on the blog of a link broker? Link brokers are the bad guys on the web today, people dedicated to manipulating search rankings in favor of deep pocketed customers, while Google is about producing relevant results. (Google does bad things to their advertisers, but their organic search is better than ever.) I certainly hope any engine developed by Danny S. or Rand F. would include a way to discount paid links.
"Google does bad things to their advertisers, but their organic search is better than ever."
You must be kidding - have you reviewed some of their pills, porn and casino SERPs recently?
Anyway, I do actually think that the time's rapidly approaching for a kick-ass search engine developed and run by marketers who'll actually be capable of balancing the demands of the commercial Web with the vast amateur and non-profit Net. (And I'm certainly not proposing some crappy model like Mahalo here, heh...)
Whoa, whoa... Who said I wanted to build a search engine? I think we might something out just to see how it works, but it wouldn't be anything commercial - just to help us get our heads more around how they operate and what it takes :)
As for Danny building an engine... We estimated that the machines neccessary to store a relatively complete index would run $25mil+, and that doesn't even count the redudancies and algorithmic portions (and global load-balancing requirements). I don't think you could even start a serious effort with less than $100mil.
Rand, check's in the post. :)
(Ralph, hope you don't mind that I signed it in your name ... :) )
Initial investment in Google was $1m after they started with $0 in a friend's garage.
Maybe we can get Rand & Danny to cooperate :-)
Danny and Rand better start looking for some potential investors. Any specific name for that coming search engine? :-)
@Brian:
"(Ralph, hope you don't mind that I signed it in your name ... :) )"
No prob - when it bounces it's sure to pay for itself by boatloads of links. :)
@Rand:
Off the cuff, $100 mil seems like a pretty shrewd, realistic estimate. But for a project of this caliber that's actually quite a small sum - eminently doable, I would think, if you set some pros to it. I'd expect premium investors to be queuing up in no time once you've hit the media circus bigtime. And hell - that's what SEO is all about as well, isn't it? Piece of cake. :)
Obviously, this doesn't factor in revenues that might be very fast in coming, e.g. for paid submissions or similar. Much of which is bean counter stuff.
Hm, may really be worth thinking over in more depth...
Oh please. No offense to Danny, I love him as much as everyone else, but outside of the SEM industry he is a nobody. And since SEMs are such a small percentage of people using search engines...well you get the picture.
Just because Google doesn't want to count your paid links, doesn't mean we need a new search engine. Deal with it and move on...
from crimsongirl ---
How can you judge a book by it's cover? When this business started, it was not an issue, it only became an issue 2 years into what we do. Are we supposed to just fold what we do because Google changed their minds?
Jill - first of all, are you going to sit here and say Danny isn't one of the more influential names in search? He put sphinn together and it seems to be doing well.
And it has nothing to do with google counting our links. Pull your head out Google's butt and realize that they have a vendetta against webmasters. They whack people from adsense for no reason, they penalize people without notifying them...and I understand it's theirs, but they can learn to work with webmasters and find a happy medium.
The nay sayers seem to be close minded. Can't get out of the box to think. But that's ok, i'm sure when it happens you'll also be the first to praise it.
"When this business started, it was not an issue, it only became an issue 2 years into what we do. Are we supposed to just fold what we do because Google changed their minds?"
No, nothing changed. I wanted link brokers to go out of business years ago, but they have survived. Nothing has changed.
"You must be kidding - have you reviewed some of their pills, porn and casino SERPs recently?"
Who looks for those? I just did a Google search on those terms and the results appeared about what I would expect. I don't get your point. Google produces poor result sometimes, and maybe more often in markets with paid links. But overall their results are good.
"A kick-ass search engine developed and run by marketers who'll actually be capable of balancing the demands of the commercial Web with the vast amateur and non-profit Net."
Yeah, good luck getting people to use that engine. Hey everybody, quit using Google and start using an engine that gives higher rankings to sites that pay link brokers! Yeah, that will work.
So maybe you wanted link brokers to go out of business when all they actually did was offering a trusted shortcut to an industry that had been thriving for years already, great.
"Who looks for those?"
Well, if you really think they're all that unimportant, maybe you'd want to do your homework and research a) industry turnover stats (hint: think triple digit billion dollars per year), b) advertising costs (e.g. PPC) for these terms, and c) the number of sites/pages competing for them.
As for the results themselves - if you can't detect for yourself what's going on there in terms of shitty results and how they are construed by the interested parties, I guess you don't really want to know. Hint: Paid links it definitely ain't. No way.
As for: "Hey everybody, quit using Google and start using an engine that gives higher rankings to sites that pay link brokers! Yeah, that will work."
Shite - you mean it won't? Bummer!
Because that, of course, was all everybody actually had in mind, uh-uh. After all, it's how $100 million businesses are usually launched, sure. Sigh...
But maybe it's time for a variation on Robert Heinlein's classic:
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Link." (TANSTAAFL)
"Jill - first of all, are you going to sit here and say Danny isn't one of the more influential names in search? He put sphinn together and it seems to be doing well."
Absolutely! And if you mean he should put together a search engine specifically for people in the search marketing industry, as opposed to the WHOLE WORLD, then I'm sure it would do great.
But the fact of the matter is that nobody outside of our industry knows (or cares) who Danny Sullivan is. If you ask them, they will most likely say "a race car driver." They don't know who Matt Cutts is either, so I'm sure Danny won't feel too bad about me saying so.
Pull your head out Google's butt and realize that they have a vendetta against webmasters.
If you're still talking to me with that comment, I can safely say that my head is nowhere near Google's butt. Is Danny's? Just because someone tells you to deal with whatever it is that Google dishes out that is out of your control doesn't mean that you are a mindless Google drone.
Google is what it is, and it does what it does. And search marketers can scream till the cows come home that Google is unfair and mean, but the rest of the world won't hear it nor will they care as Google provides them what they want -- relevant results for what they're searching on.
And even if tomorrow their results get less relevant, and the day after that even more so, it's gonna take years and years for anyone to switch to something better (if that something actually existed). So I'm just trying to save you your anguish now. Deal with the cards you are dealt and stop complaining about it, or simply get out of the game.
All I'm saying is selling and buying links is a big business and it's not about just gaming search engines, it's about helping people increase traffic through organic listings. I see the SE's side to the whole paid vs natural but why not work out a situation where they work with brokers and specific brokers are approved? Those brokers tag their links and while they don't count as a full natural link, they do count "some" as long as their relevant.
crimson calls link brokers the "bad guys" on the web today? Why? So if we didn't exist, you think no one would buy and sell links? THat makes you look like such a dumbarse! We provide a marketplace that exists. People were buying and selling links before we existed, all we did was provide an easier way to do it.
Funny people who are SEO's and trash link brokers, you're also the people who buy links behind the scenes. Should I even tell people about specific search engines that buy links? Of course not, I'd violate the our NDA. Just kidding. Or am I? I'm just saying, don't hate the players, hate the game. Show me one SEO firm that doesn't acquire links for their client and I'll show you a post where MCutts says he things TLA is the best company in the world.
But hey, it's all irrelevant. Google created their search engine which provides for you haters and the people for the market. I bet all the haters would change their tune if all the sudden Google said SEO was against the rules. Would you still be kissing their arse then?
GO COWBOYS!
How did this become about link-buying? We've got enough posts on that topic elsewhere.
Hey!
If you want to know how well a "new" search engine would do, simply look at Ask.com.
They are known as a Internet search engine by at least an average number of the U.S. population. They are running million dollar television commercials day and night promoting their "new" search engine and guess what? I have sites that have never seen one referral from Ask.com or MSN for that matter.
If you really want to throw away millions and millions of dollars to try to prove a point, there are better uses for the money than a new search engine.
I second your thought, bartimus. Instead of starting up a new search engine, why don't we all put our weight behind Ask. I've always felt they have a dynamite domain. They also have less of a fixation on links so if we all switch to Ask, that link thingy will probably get the attention it deserves, i.e. very little.
All of this would only amount to another case of "more of the same". All the major engines are acknowledging that change and development (to whichever "next level" you may have in mind) is required, e.g. Universal Search, personalized search, local, etc. etc.
On the other hand it's always a very difficult decision to drop an old model that's still making you a mint.
A new kid on the block with a different concept (and, this is critical of course, the capacity to capture the minds and hearts of surfers) wouldn't be inhibited by this kind of algo rot. Talk about infusing fresh blood, being lean and mean, and whatever cliches may come to mind.
The conflicting requirements of both the corporate/commercial and the private/non-profit Web haven't been merged to a mutually satisfactory model yet. Any engine which can solve this is bound to gain traction in no time, if sufficiently funded.
I can't see Danny Biting the hand that feeds him...
"The conflicting requirements of both the corporate/commercial and the private/non-profit Web haven't been merged to a mutually satisfactory model yet."
Yes they have. All current search engines do so.
Those who don't think a new search engine developed by Danny and Rand could fly are underestimating the influence of bloggers, Web site owners, online advertisers, and the SEM industry.
Bloggers who truly understand the power of interconnected blogs are quickly going to have the power of syndicated columnists and eventually the collective power of Oprah. They will be able to raise awareness quickly and without needing the major media to do it. (How do you suppose Google and MySpace got so big? Start noticing have often they're mentioned in the mainstream media.)
SEM companies already have influence with decision-makers in Fortune 500/1000 companies. At least some of them will get tired of overpaying for advertising. The little advertisers are going to be ready to jump anywhere they can get traffic that drives PROFITABLE sales - rapidly becoming a major challenge with the major PPC engines.
So I've been traveling and catching up on things today.
Building a search engine is a huge task. Ask Microsoft. A single person can't do it, and while I've written for years about search engines, I still wouldn't feel qualified to build one myself. I suppose it's like the movie reviewer trying to make a movie. Not that I wouldn't like to make a movie. Or perhaps be involved with a search project.
It really sounded like the plea was more for search engines to consider what site owners need more. I know the debate on paid links has some feeling a lot of search engine hate, at the moment -- but believe me, it's far better than several years ago.
Google in particular, with Webmaster Central, really rolled out stuff that I and others wished for, wrote wishlists about, and then it came. Yahoo got tools, Microsoft is getting them, and I do think we'll see more improvements.
Ok Ok Ok ... I guess you're not the little red caboose I thought you were. :( I promise you would have a lot of your faithful followers standing behind you shouting "WE KNOW YOU CAN, WE KNOW YOU CAN, WE KNOW YOU CAN!" I'm just kidding.
Danny you just seem to always have a fair understanding of both sides. I'm not here to say "make something that makes link brokers awesome"...that's so far from what my point is it's not even funny, that "crimsongirl" assumed since I'm associated that it was my whole point.
I feel like Google has too many ma & pa type online shops on the tips of their fingers and they're so out to get the spammers, they go overboard and innocent people get their livlihoods ripped out from under them at the blink of an eye. There's a lack of communication and I think they've gotten too big for their own britches. Plus, would you ever see Larry or Sergey look this spiffy?:
Coyote Danny
Oh well, IMHO I think if anyone has the voice of the people behind him to build a quality and FAIR search engine, I would vote Danny Sullivan for President.
Completely different opinion on SMX Social in NYC, but that's for a whole 'nother post!
Is it possible that viewzi is the new paradigm in search we are all looking for? Head over to http://www.viewzi.com and use "sphinn" as your invite code. Viewzi is in private beta now, but you can have a pre-release peek until all the sphinn invites are gone. Please let the team know what you think!