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Chris1
Story: ***holes Inc
Very funny... but probably not too far from the truth for some company out there, I'm sure.
Sphinn makes you hate SEO? Why not just not visit Sphinn? This article is just as unoriginal and
useless as everything he mentions.
(Edit: Can't desphinn because of min character limit issues)
There's clearly a difference between creating fake personas to game social media websites and the examples of Obama and GoogleGuy.
This site is not good at all... and the name is even worse. Great PR department apparently, though.
Here is some good advice...
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/07/marilyn-monroe.html
Microsoft should just make Danny "an offer he can't refuse" to head their search. Not only does he know search better than just about anybody, he has a much better idea of what they should be focusing on than the decision makers over there.
Its too bad that no one is debating the content of the original article - creating fake user profiles to game social sites.
Great idea... so good that it looks like someone wrote a guest post today on ShoeMoney that is basically a dumbed down version. Not sure of the circumastances, but it seems like that article should (at the very least!) credit Dave and RedFly Marketing for publishing this idea 2 days ago.
I did read the article and it just seems like sloppy testing and an excuse to drop a few affiliate links to me.
I wonder why he tested this tool the way he did. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to test the accuracy of the tool by comparing the tool's forecasted impressions to a campaign that was opted out of Google's search network and parked domans? The article argues that he recived traffic from sites that were parked and other search sites that appear in google's advertising network. Why was this tested on a campaign that was receiving international traffic, traffic from the search network and traffic from parked domains?
When I ran similar tests on the three paid tools and MSN, I made sure that:
- only exact match was used in the test campaign and the tools (where possible)
- only US traffic was being tested and estimated in the campaign and the tools (where possible)
- the campaign was opted out of the search network
- the campaign was opted out of parked domains using stie and category exclusion (which doesn't really even need to be done if you are opted out of the search network)
By testing like this, I was able to (at least in theory) block all non-US, non-Google traffic as well as expanded match terms from spoiling my test results. And from my results, I can say that paid versions of KD, WT and WZ were not very accurate at all. I haven't run a full scale test like this with the new numbers being offered by Google just yet but I can tell just by eyeballing some terms that this tool is a far better indicator than any of the three paid tools I have tested before. Also, MSN's tool seems to be fairly powerful and accurate if you are looking for relative volume of terms in a given niche/category.
It looks like KD has at least updated its keyword database, as annouced in late June of this year. When I tested their paid tool back in the spring, you would have been amazed how out-of date the search data they were providing was. Most of the search data was 3-4 years old and almost none of it was over the past year or so from what I could tell.
I don't think that KD, WT or WordZe are anywhere near as accurate or up-to-date as the Google tool or the MSN Ad Intelligence for Excel Beta. Nice affiliate link drops, though.
I have tested all of the keyword tools mentioned. That includes the paid version of each of the three tools you mention in this article.
To build on your poetry example: according to KD, here is the fourth most popular keyword phrase (with a search volume of 4547) that includes the term poetry... "writing writer forum freelance poetry fiction". You can go ahead and optimize your site for nonsense like this, but I think I will stick to using the free tools from Google and MSN.
This is not a Sphinn-worthy article.
I tried to desphinn, but it didn't take.
"But fresh blood throughout Yahoo might actually be helpful."
Thats an excellent point. Many articles about Yahoo! over the past couple of years focused on the company's poor decision making, poor management and/or lack of leadership. Now that a lot of the top players are leaving, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing at all to me to get some new blood in there.
I always assumed this was a major factor in SE rankings at Goolge. For image search, I would almost guarantee it is a major factor. And I would assume that the appearance of site links for a specific term would depend on whether the site met or exceeded a historical CTR threshold for the term in question.
"Yeah, the end user argument is just not valid. If the site does not provide a good end user experience it is not going to be profitable."
I disagree. Arbitrage sites are profitable but provide poor user experience. MFA sites with scraped content can be profitable. Sites promising "Free iPods" and such can be profitable but be a lowsy user experience for for 95% of users. Tons of scam sites can be profitable that provide horrible user experiences.
An arbitrage site with porn affiliate links scattered amongst AdSense ads might be more profitable than a Wikipedia page, but which is providing the better experience to end users?
Shady, you honestly don't see the difference between the NYT/YouTube and the sites that you're creating with these types of tools? http://www.slightlyshadyseo.com/index.php/new-shadygenv20b-site-generator-almost-completed/
Have you ever considered ditching your BH tactics and concentrating all or most of your energy on Web sites and businesses that add value for users? You are clearly a brilliant kid, with a ton of talent, ambition and potential. I would guess that in the long run, you could probably make more money putting your talents to use for more legitimate work. Especially since Google or whoever else in the future will be doing all they can to make it harder for BH sites to get and monetize traffic.
For me, it would be so much more rewarding to use those talents you have to contribute positively to the Internet community rather than for BH tactics like scraping content, cloaking sites, autogenerating gibberish web pages, manipulating search rankings, spamming and teaching people how to exploit the system for their own benefit to the detriment of everyone else.
Linkbait definitely will not ruin the internet. Also, I agree with the first posted comment on Jill's site: "Not all linkbait is trickery"
The story on money.co.uk still ranks #1 for many terms including "13 year old steals credit card to buy hookers"... so where again is the hypocrisy?
If anything, this is Google's proactive attempt to keep information in its index useful and legitimate before SEOs go crazy making up false stories as linkbait..
Story: How Do You Measure Your SEO Campaign Success?