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ChrisOD
It's even worse than that analogy.
It's as if the 'electrician' had replaced the new fuse box with a new box that would subsequently burn down the house.
The industry need's self regulation in its infancy, and Danny's actions are as close as we can get to it at the moment.
Really useful, even if a couple of the metrics are somewhat subjective.
Going to be very handy for quick reviews of client sites.
While I personally have no beef with MG bringing attention to this issue in the way he did, it's got to be said that Rand Fishkin caught a whole load of flack for something quite similar a few months ago.
Great idea.
Creating an anti-movement against a current trend which will no doubt have a passionate followin; therefore guaranteeing scorn and outrage.
Right, I'm off to start the anti-anti-spore movement.
@ev - just a heads up, number 8 - raspberry really should have a NoSwallow applied.
On a serious note, I don't think the example article went hot due to the writer having friends who sphunn it for him, but more the case that lots of people new to the industry rush to Sphinn as a key reference point and the article was relevant to them.
This subject keeps coming up again and again, and I think the only way to tackle it is to more clearly differentiate between beginners, intermediate and advanced articles. It's not going to go away while new people join the community on a regular basis.
Perhaps someone would like to take the plunge and create a site with strict moderation for advanced articles alone? But then again, maybe not considering anything put up would result in lower levels of traffic in contrast to that which sphinn brings.
At the end of the day, it's still a VERY young industry and for this reason, the phrasology just hasn't bedded in yet. Give it time, and it will do.
While I agree with the article in general, I do think a couple of bits of it are nitpicking and make little difference to how SEO is percieved. Take getting a website to rank as an example - of course, we know that it's a page that will rank, I see nothing wrong with using 'website' as a more generic term.
Personally, I'd love to see SEM become the predominent term, like AlanCH, I hate the semantics of Search Engine Optimisation. We don't call it Billboard Optimisation after all do we? The medium and the message seem to have become confused somewhere along the line.
Story: Plurk, You’re A Needy B****!
Our client facing website:
IE: 56.9%
Safari: 19.9%
Firefox: 19.6%
(Unless AWStats doesn't recognise Chrome and places it in 'Others', then we've had no visits using the browser)
While I can understand the need for clarification on the first three questions, the last couple seem churlish in the extreme:
- so you don't like the design of the browser, don't use it! You don't need to ask Google why they've designed it in such a manner. Of course, it could be some way for G to change the way we think - the mind controlling SoBs!
- hasn't the omnibox search been covered plenty enough? If you don't trust google as the default engine, then change it MSN. Again however, it could be one more element in G's world domination strategy.
I heard that beneath the Googleplex, there's an army of bears ready to march on Poland which will be called Googleland when its been conquered- pass it on
"Here is another thing: how do we know that the returned suggestions are not ads? In the SERPs at least you can tell the difference between organic results and ads."
I think this is an interesting point. I would assume that the returned suggestions are non-paid; however, if this is the case, then Google could logically be losing out on potential revenue.
My main problem is that because this is Google who have launched a browser, it's approached with much more cynicism than say a Mozilla launch. There's a sense of pessimism towards G that I feel is somewhat undeserved - but then I am a Google fanboy...
And nice HDM reference ;o)
P.S. It does seem that Chrome struggles with text boxes and HTML tags therein...
By the way, coincidence or not:
The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. A footnote in Mozilla's 2006 financial report states "Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties. The contract originally expired in November 2006 but was renewed for two years and expires in November 2008. Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract."; this equates to approximately US$56.8 million.
Anything that results in a Daily Mail journo being linked to the word 'idiot' deserves a healthy sphinn in my book.
Now, just to get 'Bigoted Rag' to link to said newspaper...
*Disclaimer - I don't really think that Daily Mail journos are idiots and I would like to state that the paper itself is a bastion of fairness and equality*
That's a pretty in-depth and high-brow article for the Sun to be honest.
I'm guessing it was on their political page in the actual paper.
Sphunn.
But I must strongly disagree with a key point in the article.
No way would you get Hobnobs at a Lidl, surely it would be a cheap German rip off such as Hoobnoobs or something similar ;o)
Somerfield is indeed always a safe bet.
Although, in keeping with your article, 24 Hour Spar has got to be the winner.
RIP Asda
And it's Asda Walmart now.
Bad times.
(what a surreal discussion this has turned into)
@John
Believe me, with the predominence of US TV in the UK, we understand what you're saying far more than the other way around.
I've got a feeling that Lyndon will appreciate this one in all its linkbaiting glory.
It was only a matter of time before predictive search was incorporated to Google. Wonder if they'll follow suit with Yahoo's related concepts function sooner or later - that will definitely have a massive impact if they do.
It's a great definition of black vs white hat SEO. My only problem with it is that it fragments what is black hat and what is not.
For instance, I'll buy some links for ranking purposes, but while that makes me a Google Black Hat, I'm still a pure virtuous Yahoo/Ask/MSN White Hat. So does that make me a Grey Hat overall? ;o)
And John, here's a conundrum for you. If you agree with Vanessa's definition, and in particular agree that paid links are black hat SEO, is that not implicit that that links form an integral part of SEO in its most generic sense?
There's definitely been a slight change of late, but it seems to have stabilised again in recent days - although, there are minimal variations across different Google data centers,
Up until a couple of weeks ago, a search for 'Chris Paston' returned my agency top of both .com and .co.uk (this despite the keyphrase not being anywhere on the site and Facebook, LinkedIn etc having pages). Last week it dropped a couple of places on both; however, I notice it's back on top for both engines now.
I've got a feeling that Google are slowly tweaking the algo, but are yet to take the plunge in a full modification of the algo. It's the next logical step in combatting paid links at source, but obviously any massive change would have huge ramifications and needs a great deal of testing first.
The next year or so could be very interesting.
@Nick
I'm being a bit naughty here in that I've not actually had a look at the articles yet, but sometimes it's worthwhile for a recap post like this for new SMMs. Suppose it's back to the positioning of Sphinn debate again...
Additionally, while technology changes, invariably good tactics do not; so an effective strategy is ageless. We wouldn't dismiss someone linking to Shakespeare's ten greatest tragedies on an English Lit bookmarking site by suggesting "everyone MUST have read these by now - they're like over 400 years old!"
Story: Conversation With An Idiot Link Broker