$2bn/yr in reported revenue is impressive and like Google on Adwords, their model is perfect. As long as the small businesses don't mind giving so much away - it will be interesting to see how they do once economic times are better

Only 300 - very low number but the active % within social media activities always surprises me. You're always left wondering how 'social' these things are when so few can pull the levers (and everyone else just watches).

Agree Jill - good article & research by Tim (promoted)

One of the advantages of having old-timers post is that they can add the historical perspective to 'new' developments in search. Good article (promoted).

Agreed Andy & promoted to the frontpage. Good discussion starter on how this change can impact the short, mid and long tail queries.

Slow start but I enjoyed the detailed explanation of 'pass-through impressions' and the practical points on prioritising your snippets. Promoted to front page.

Agreed - love these practical GA tips. Always walk away happy.

Google Instant is on the radar - this is a good introduction post to the change.

Yep looking through the TopSEOs SERPs, ORM does still seem to lean heavily on the domain name. This should hit consumer sites like RipOffReport. Which is no bad thing.

This only hits ORM from the SERPs cleanup point of view. The far bigger threat is the PR/Media agencies who have already moved in on this industry. ORM is about managing brand perception on all channels, not just search. Once they got that, we didn't have much chance keeping the work in the SEM sector.

@Badams

I remember when Threadwatch closed - I was gutted. Felt like all the time and effort I'd put into the site was for nothing. But this is not the case here - Sphinn is still going. Danny is not killing off the community.

We have to get some perspective. Yes there are editors here selecting the gems out of the material, but anyone can submit. Lets see if that helps improve the noise/signal ratio or not.

@OnReact

Just returning to pre social news times is not progress though.

But isn't this Danny's point - that the time of voting has come to an end. We've both been around long enough to know that everything evolves. I've never been convinced that voting, as represented in Sphinn, really promotes the 'best' material, only the most gamed or well known.

From my point of view - without spending hours killing spam, I'll have more time as an editor to read articles and look for jems. That has to be a more positive use of time. Anyone can still submit articles, so this is not a closed system. Community still exists in the comments.

The goal of Sphinn was to be a central hub where our industry could come and read the 'cream' of articles in one place. To borrow the old TW idea - less noise more signal. The question you have to ask yourself is - does voting help or hinder that goal?

I'm really impressed with the search quality - this definitely deserves some close attention. I'll be interested to see if this story gets 1% of the buzz Cuil.com managed to drum up. This has been a really quiet release, non-existant in the Western media - but Yandex is the best contender I've seen. Bottom line - it's *already* pulling the same traffic as Ask.com. This is not a start up but a product from a mature company with a strong financial and technological base.

Plus they are hungry and ambitious. They have not only fought Google off in Russia but increased market share over the last three years. Yandex have developed their own versions of desktop search, Adwords (Yandex Direct), PayPal (Yandex Money), Maps, Webmaster Tools and analytics. This is a long term player and as some Russian comenters have said, today marks a major turning point for them.

Thanks Chris - I've always used SuperCache but will take a look at W3 Total Cache after reading this.

As yoshimi said, the 'competitor' argument against Edward doesn't carry weight here. If it helps, I can also confirm that he's offered me a free place in his directory in the past - he's not motivated by money here.

If you take into account the hours/days/weeks that he's spent on these cases (VerifiedSEO/TopSEOS/Traffic-Power) you have to conclude that he (a) must have alternative income and (b) he cares passionately about these causes.

Also to pick on Alysson and Shaun is a false argument. What about the other community members who have commented on this and aren't listed in Edward's directory? People obviously care about this issue, without ulterior motivation.

Lets keep this about the facts, not the personalities and a quick reminder to the Sphinn rule below the comment box - "Be respectful and polite". Thank you and welcome to all the new commenters in this thread. 

@pageoneresults

"Partners with" is an awesome phrase for "I've bought a stand at" isn't it.

Dixon is bang on the money as usual - augmented reality is going to be huge. It's a big part of the current trend to work out integrations between place/location and the Internet. Foursquare is an obvious example but Facebook also has ambitions in that direction.

I'd agree with David. This process, even explained - seems very wrong. One other question I'd add -

When a client is trying to contact agency X, but agency X is not paying for leads and therefore never receives this contact - is the client informed of this or just left thinking agency X couldn't be bothered to respond to their request? (and turns to one of the 'lead-payers' who have emailed them instead).

If so, you have a situation where agencies are generating bad-reputation with potential clients because they fail to reply and act professionally.

This also seems quite a good way of trading off the reputation of the larger agencies involved. At the lower/mid end of their budget scale, these site owners want to get well-known companies but end up with no response and other (paying) companies emailing them. They would assume their project was of no interest to the agency they wanted to contact.

If the lead-payer following up on the client words their email carefully, it might even be taken as a referral?

@evision

Yep unfortunately this seems part of the TopSEOs "lead generation strategy". If you don't pay, those contact forms for your company reportedly feed through to TopSEOs customers. They appear to be using the reputation of other companies both in the listings and the articles section. Very questionable behaviour.

I'm guessing TopSEOs have seen a few removal requests in the last month.

SEOBook's post on DIY SEO - remind me never to cross Aaron ;-)

@iBrian

Yep seen them around for ages and lets be honest, the business model is hardly surprising. It only seems to be this year though that people generally gave a cr+p. Either that or everyone is working angles I'm unaware of.

I'm guessing this has a little to do with Rhea's victory. Nothing highlights the complete apathy in industry better than a 25yr old spending her time and $17'000 of her own money defending it. I think that's kicked off a little activism.

Still brings a little drama to Sphinn and best of all, it's got you back here commenting. As Lee says, your snarkiness is much missed. So overall, a result. Now where's my pitchfork....

@John Andrews

And of course, it wouldn't be classic SEO industry stuff without you coming in at the end to make a post exactly like that. ;-)

Agreed. Especially when they start going hot on April 2nd...

@micheledivano

Wow, seriously. Can you try any harder not to come off as a staged comment? You'd sound slightly more believable if you:

a) mentioned your site name - I can see why you'd have trouble marketing your website. You seem to naturally get three mentions of 'topseos' in there though, one with the .com extension.

b) existed online (seriously, no results on your name or email?)

c) hadn't just signed up now, just to write that. That's what I call customer loyalty!

d) didn't use a picture of a hot Indian chick as your avatar (hmm wonder what that connection is)

e) didn't have an Indiana IP (same place as the TopSEOs/e-ventures, LLC. office)

I don't think anyone has called them but they have definitely been invited to comment here. If they like, they can even do it under their real names.

First I heard about TopSEOs was in 2007 - when Todd pointed to their 'competition'. From our discussions there, I got the impression from David Ogden that this was about buying promotion. In my opinion, the ROI was questionable.

It's sad to see they may have gained reputation since then. I guess this is what happens with the 'leave alone/ignore' approach which makes me so glad Charlie's/Chuck's (?) plan was killed in the bud.