News Source: http://www.seorefugee.com
Published: Oct 17, 2007 - 09:24 am
Story Found By: Skitzzo 1682 Days ago
Category: SEM
23 Comments
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News Source: http://www.seorefugee.com
Published: Oct 17, 2007 - 09:24 am
Story Found By: Skitzzo 1682 Days ago
Category: SEM
23 Comments
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Comments
Good to know the lines of communication weren’t blocked. I can personally vouch that Rand has spent great time following up with phone calls and emails. Rather than being hard-headed, he’s listening to what people are saying. Nobody is saying everyone has to agree or be buddies. I respect those who keep talking and considering all points, those who can learn from these experiences and those who can present concerns with fairness.
Re: The "Outing"This is ridiculous. Not only did Fishkin not do anything wrong in listing sites that pay for links, he and other high profile bloggers have a MORAL OBLIGATION to do so. Bloggers are in some sense journalists, and their job is to tell readers what is going on. Everyone who runs a high profile SEO blog should list sites that pay for links and where they buy them from on a regular basis.I can’t believe the negative reaction to Fishkin’s post. Are we supposed to all be under some omerta? Is this like the Mafia, where we can’t discuss things openly? I hope the SEO community doesn’t become some sort of guild with an immature pseudo-medieval code of silence.Sunshine, people. Sunshine. No secrets. Tell everybody everything.
Crimsongirl, this post wasn’t really about the "outing" but how in the world are you under a moral obligation to expose a site? First of all, just because Google says something is wrong doesn’t make it so. Second of all, Google is the one that has created the need for such secrecy with their idiotic policy on paid links. I have to admit, I don’t really know how to respond to this comment other than to say I hope you’re kidding.
I was happy to see the interview. I know that Rand and some members of the Refugee go back probably 5 or more years. I thought the "attacks" on Rand had merit with regard to a variety of the substitive issues w/ regard to both the directory and outing issues. At the same time I wasn’t always pleased with the tone of the attacks on the one hand and the lack of straight up responses to questions on the other.What they did accomplish, though, was bring up various perspectives with regard to the posts at moz that merited thought and response. I was particularly interested in comments on "hurting" other sites through one comment or another.The interview is a worthwhile read and further comments and insights would be greatly appreciated
It’s a shame that during the process of being more open and transparent and self-critical, Rand admits to holding information back that would directly address the topics that raised the ire of some in this community in the first place. Quite a contradiction.
Skitzo, you’ve previously come across as an intelligent person, but this whole issues comes across as some kind of crusade based on "I want to be right and insist other people/companies adhere to my own personal principles". People in different places say and do different things - everyone has different standards and editorial preferences. It’s your perogative to choose whom you will be audience to.But this whole issue suggests you’re taking it all too emotionally, and if SEOmoz really did lose a six-figure contract because of your efforts, doesn’t that turn you into a certain type of hypocrit, too? You criticised Rand for potentially threatening other people’s businesses as you saw them, and in doing so, threatened Rand’s business. That isn;t business - that’s personal and unnecessary.
I’ve never really understood the occasional commentary that there is something wrong with holding intentionally public people to a certain standard. Why can’t the public demand the very best from journalists or bloggers or politicians etc? It’s not a simple as just saying you don’t have to read it or buy it or vote for it if you don’t like it. The public people in our community are our representatives, elected or not, to the rest of the world just as the President is the respresentative of the US... just because we did or didn’t vote for the guy doesn’t mean we can’t be critical when a certain level of professionalism or ethics isn’t adhered to - especially if he’s one of us!
Congratulations for gaining a few more page views by trashing another SEO blog and killing a six-figure contract in the process. I hope the notoriety you gained from this sad chapter in SEO novelette was worth it. What Rand did to the outed sites is miniscule compared to the damage you may have caused to his business. And your whole point of contention was to think about other people’s businesses before you publish a post. Maybe you might want to think about practicing what you preach.Reading that interview was like listening to my high school principle drone on about why I shouldn’t skip classes. Or like a girl switching to CNN when I’m watching Lost. Or being choked in my sleep.I can’t decide who is the bigger morality cop: Google or members of the SEO Blogstapo.
Halfdeck and iBrian, please go back and read that portion of the post again. Rand said:"And yes - I DO certainly think that a blog can damage someone’s business. Just as an example, we were in talks to recently make a multi-hundred-thousand acquisition and those talks fell through largely because of the negative press we received on blogs like SEORefugee. Of course, I don’t blame you - it was my late night, careless blogging that caused the issue, but it shows how powerful blogs can be in influencing sentiment."I’m not sure whether you just read it wrong or you simply read what you wanted to read but there are a few important points to this paragraph. First, it was an ACQUISITION they were trying to make that fell through. Secondly, it was "because of negative presss... on blogs LIKE seorefugee." Notice the s on the end of blogS making it plural. I know it’s hard to believe but there have been other sites that have been critical of Rand and SEOmoz besides ours as well. Last but not least Rand stays "Of course, I don’t blame you it was my late night careless blogging that caused the issue".Also, I have to agree with Tim. When did saying you believe someone’s actions were wrong become trying to force my morality on someone? As I said in the post, obviously no matter what you say or type, there are going to be people that interpret it to suit their agendas.
It’s good to see you guys talking this out. It really is.Miriam
"First, it was an ACQUISITION they were trying to make that fell through."Ok, I admit I skimmed past that."Notice the s on the end of blogS making it plural."Please. Now you are trying to shrug off responsibility. At least have the guts to take credit for helping to get the whole ball rolling."Last but not least Rand stays "Of course, I don’t blame you it was my late night careless blogging that caused the issue"."Lol, what else can he say? If he said "yes I blame you" then he knows he will be accused of redirection, as he says here:"I don’t want to make this about someone else (or even several someones) … any re-direction of that would be seen, I believe, as dodging the issues."Lastly,"When did saying you believe someone’s actions were wrong become trying to force my morality on someone?"Google never said you can’t sell links, but obviously we all interpret their belief that paid links pollute search results as "shoving their rules down our throats." You are being awfully inconsistent.
No, Google saying selling links is wrong is simply stating a belief. Google penalizing sites that sell links by dropping their PageRank or even dropping their rankings is them trying to force us to behave how they believe we should. See the difference?
@CrimsonGirl: "Sunshine, people. Sunshine. No secrets. Tell everybody everything."Seriously. You must be kidding.
OK, I was in on this too. I do take SOME responsibility for the acquisition falling through and it’s something I can live with. Basically someone decided not to take SEOmoz’s money. Whether they did so because of negative publicity or because of the reason for the negative publicity or even for some other reason, we’ll never really know. But it’s certainly something that we as bloggers should consider before posting and something that I personally often haven’t done. I will in the future.My (obviously biased) opinion is that Rand and Skitzzo did the right thing by staying in touch and coming together on this post. There were a lot of ways to manipulate and prolong this situation to generate more controversy (and potentially more traffic). They seem to have done the opposite here.
Some of the comments in the interview reviewed issues about adversely affecting web businesses, such as aviva, and the sites that were obviously selling ads. Their were critiques about these issues while the controversy was brought up. It was referenced many ways. It was further brought up in the interview. Rand referenced Aviva as one example. I suppose the facts on that would best be articulated by the owner of Aviva--as to whether the commentary had any affect on his business.As a business person, this stuff is so prevalent. Purposefully, or inadvertantly someone or a business says things that inadvertantly badmouth another business. That stuff drives law suits. It is taken very seriously.It is also something someone learns along the way. The fact that this commentary and criticism of Rand may have contributed to killing a potential acquisition by moz, is both a problem, and a valuable lessson to be learned for future efforts. In fact, taking business hits for mistakes is exactly how I learned valuable lessons for the future.If the criticism’s from members of seorefugee and other places contributed to the breakdown of that deal so be it. If Rand is big enough to attribute the loss to his own actions--then his own learning curve is terrific.
@Halfdeck: LOL, I nominate you for the comment of the year thus far with: "Reading that interview was like listening to my high school principle drone on about why I shouldn’t skip classes. Or like a girl switching to CNN when I’m watching Lost. Or being choked in my sleep."BTW: Skitzzo, please o’ please let this be the last post on this topic, or should we all be looking forward to posts such as "What I learned from Outing Rand" or "MozGate: 6 Months Later"?
Natasha, call it a hunch but the fact that this story has been sphunn by nearly 50 people suggests I’m not the only one that thought this was a worthwhile post. I guess they could be just voting it up to torture you though.
@Skitzzo: I never said anything about it being worthwhile or not worthwhile. However... ya know how sometimes you watch a Mini-Series and then if the ratings are really high the Producers decide to turn it into a Full Series, and you think to yourself, "Wow, they should have really let it remain a Mini-Series", I was just kinda wondering that about these posts And Sphinning this up doesn’t even come close to tourture. A world without cute heels where I can only listen to "Let’s get Physical", that’s tourture... I shudder at the thought ;).
I appreciate the effort that’s been put in to the inteview etc; however, I doubt the bridge-building light that it’s being painted in. As far as I can tell, the only people who have benefitted from this whole discussion have been SEOrefugee due to the undoubted extra traffic it has garnered.Rand made mistakes without a doubt, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing out how he did so. Nevertheless, the way the crusade has been put together, and the pompous and patronising ’interview’ (aka. public dressing down) that this Sphinn is related to have left a really bad taste.One thing that I’d like to pick out in particular is the criticism of Jane, Rebecca and the SEOmoz ethos in general (ie. openness and the defence of colleagues):a) it’s nobody’s business but Rand et al’s, andb) I dearly hope the approach doesn’t change.Suggesting that such an approach will result in a loss of business is ridiculous considering how the industry percieves SEOmoz in the first place.How can someone criticise a business model that has been so successful so far? If it aint broke, don’t fix it.
Lol Natasha, I will now have that song in my head for the rest of the day. Wonderful. :)But no, this is certainly not something I’d like to continue. In fact I didn’t really want to do this post. It would have been much easier just to let it go. However, I think a direct dialogue needed to take place and I know I wasn’t the only one that felt like their questions had gone unanswered. I hope this post answered some of those questions.@ChrisOD, this is a comment I’ve seen quite a bit which means I obviously did not convey my point well. I am not criticizing SEOmoz’s open culture or business approach. Like I said, it’s worked very well for them. What I was criticizing was Jane and Rebecca’s comments. I was saying that they struck me as unprofessional and represented their company poorly. It wasn’t the fact that they disagreed with Rand or even the fact that Rand lets them say whatever they want, it was simply HOW they said what they wanted to say. My point was that they have a lot at stake and should be careful how they come across. You can certainly disagree, even strongly, without being rude, condescending or resorting to name calling. I think Rebecca and Rand have both admitted that there have been instances where it got out of hand and really that was my point.
"please go back and read that portion of the post again."So, you damaged an acquisition - gee, I’m sure that makes everything fine, then? You still lost them a contract and adversely impacted their business model because of your insistence on SEOmoz having yours, not Rand’s, editorial standards."Notice the s on the end of blogS making it plural. "Of course, your SMO had absolutely nothing to do with other blogs carrying the stories you sphunn?"In fact I didn’t really want to do this post."You accidentally submitted it to sphinn and acidentally got it sphunn it as well? You know - you maybe had a point originally - certainly your comments aren’t entirely without merit. But your use of Social Media Marketing to position yourself as some kind of watchman for SEOmoz looks like a traffic grab and reputation smash at someone else expense. 2c.
Brian - Obviously, I’m no fan of getting lots of negative publicity, nor of losing potential accretive business opportunities because of it, but I think that this thread in particular was actually a really positive thing. I don’t know for sure whether it belongs on Sphinn (that’s up to the users to decide and apparnetly many of them have), but it was really refreshing to sit down with Ben and his Dad and just talk through the issues privately, without contention or disrespect or the negative atmosphere that’s pervaded much of the discussion around these topics.Ben - Thanks for taking the time and energy to put this together. I really do value and appreciate the fact that after what’s happened, you were genuinely interested enough to get my side of the story on each of these issues.
Okay, I’ll consider that means the matter is considered closed, and hope everyone’s moving on. :)