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Jonah
The only problem is that we can be pretty sure that Google is hand editing the top 10 for candidates names. We can hope to have some impact on the long tail, but I would be shocked to see anything break into the top 5. Probably better to edit the wikipedia listing or something....
@Matt
It is hard to know whether this one counts as "fake news" or parody. I laughed through the whole thing, but I already knew is was fake before I read it.
So does this mean a great April Fools gag shouldn't count at link bait? Does the April 1st date count as disclosure the story is fake? I understand that you would consider a site gaining authority in the index based on "fake" information potentially spammy, but this is a really, really slippery slope.
How do you differentiate that versus a "true" story written around an ascertion that turns out to be a lie? For example, I recall some stories about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Is this "fake news"? How about the bloggers who wrote about the 13 year old Texas Felon. If someone links to the re-telling of fake new, is it still fake?
This is the slippery slope of Wikiality that Stephen Colbert so artfully satired.
I recommend you withdrawl your comments and let the links stand. Google doesn't want to be the truth police. The question should be relevancy, and this is the most relevant story for 13 year old orders prostitute... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=13+year+old+orders+prostitute&btnG=Search
Sorry to hear you are having coding problems. The Sphinn error is regretable, but I really wonder what the comment was.
Just for the record, Matt Cutts didn't only say it was OK to sculpt page rank and to use nofollow, he actually RECOMMENDED IT almost 2 years ago. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/bot-obedience-herding-googlebot/
Recently Adam Lasnik has been speaking out against the effectiveness of PR Scultping in general, but I agree with Stephen that if can be used to great impact. i see no reason to globally follow links to a privacy policy or a contact page and I will continue to no follow links with generic anchor text in favor on a strong internal anchor.
As for the debate about architecture and UI, Shari is missing the point. It is a good user experience to include a link to a content rich privacy policy or warranty on every page, but that doesn't mean we should be telling the engines that this page is more important than a third level product page.
Ah yes, but it is sanctioned by the almighty Matt Cutts and sucking up to him has also been shown to be a good thing.
Quoting Matt Cutts about what is acceptable SEO practices isn't sucking up to him. For that matter, having a lot of respect for his integrity and speaking out when people flame him isn't sucking up either.
Telling him how sexy he looks in that miliary green T-shirt, that is sucking up! For the record, it didn't help any of my clients sites rank.
It is certainly true that the average surfer doesn't recognize the redirect, but what good is building a brand while increasing the risk that Google will Smote Thy Domain into non-existence.
If you are a slash and burn affiliate, you can certainly make a killing while running the exploit du jour. If you are an affiliate manager and you allow/accept these tactics for short term revenue, you are contributing to the pollution of the Internet. That's the point of the Ten Commandments. It isn't Ten Tips to Make Money Online.......
SlightlyShady
Sorry to disagree, but I do so adamently.
Running a scrip to create links in posts on someone else's site is SPAM. Simple as that. It is not responsible or ethical. It is not at all interesting. It is possibly relevant, but I am skeptical. As for whether using automation to create links across the web will get you banned, I can only express my opinion. My opinion is that this qualifies as a SpamBot. These links shouldn't count and using a SpamBot can get you banned. (Paging Matt Cutts or Adam Lasnik)
Now, if you ran the script to create outbound links from your site to other sites with the topic gardening, that would be ethical, but I doubt you would allow a script to select all of the outbound links on a page.
Manually going to different sites, reading the posts and inserting links to your site along with a relevant comment is ethical, but it might be a violation of the TOS of the site. It certainly will cause the webmaster to quickly adopt a nofollow policy on links..
Now, as for the Brand issue, I believe there are a few marketers who disagree, but I say that building a Brand is essential. If you don't believe that, I can't change your mind.
Jonah
Well, I do agree that well implemented, subtle use of automation won't get you banned IMMEDIATELY, but if I also think that the affiliate manager needs to police their affiliates.
Again, this is Ten Commandments for White Hat Marketers. As for the Dark Side, it is always the temptation...
The link would help: http://www.seobook.com/thanks-sweet-myspace-spam-tool-google
Dare I say 301 redirect? I don't see any reason not to combine the sphinns, after you decide they are unique, of course.
Danny
It seems Google has opened up a can of worms.
Thanks for the great post....sometimes only a little ridicule can do the job.
I remember with nostalgia those early day at the end of April, 2007 when I wrote about the restraint Google had shown. Ah, how I long for the cute and cuddly Google, the one that didn't use vapor ware and market share to try to head off the competion.
Google's explosive growth to market dominance has not been obtained through bullying, predatory practices or exclusive contracts. They have not left a trail of trampled competitors whose value suddenly disappeared as Google incorporated their functionality into a new release. In short, they haven’t followed the path of other well known companies who have been accused of being too powerful.
http://blog.contextweb.com/exchange/google-corporate-greed-or-responsibility
Story: Click Fraud
Lori:
Thanks for the submission, but we have two URLs for the same story here and they are not consolidating correctly. "Canonical" version is the permanlink http://www.alchemistmedia.com/blog/google-admits-adsense-click-fraud-rate-is-above-20
The whole debate about outing sites has a couple of fallacies.
1. Do date, Google's penalty for selling links has been to cut off the value of those links. If anyone has been "outed" it is the companies who bought the links, not the "innocent little guys" who are selling them.
Pardon me while I tune my Violin--especially since many (most) of us are OK with outing Spam. While I have never actually done it, I see no reason not to file a spam report if I can knock off a site above my client.
2. That Rand "outed" someone. All he did was choose random sites from Stumble Upon and demonstrate that a large number of them have paid links. Does anyone really think it takes less time to read about these sites in SEOMoz than to find them in person. Do you really believe that finding paid links is so difficult that Matt Cutts is going to email someone on his team and tell them that someone DISCOVERED A PAID LINK - or wrote about it?
We have all seen extreme abuses of Google TOS mentioned in very prominent blogs without any response, so why do we think that the Google handjob team is going to jump into action because Rand mentioned these sites.
Aaron Wall wrote a couple of months ago about Bankrate dominating the first page for "mortage calculator" and "mortage calculators" with mulitple domains and sub-domain spam. If that kind of TOS violation doesn't earn manual intervention, I would not worry too much about outing someone for selling global link, in the easiest of all ways to detect. If these sites were passing link juice before the post (doubtful) than they are still passing it today.
Great news for people who are concerned about privacy.
To keep ISP's and other third parties from capturing the data, they should allow https access, which would also allow them to know someone didn't want their searches logged and eliminate the need for a cookie.
They might also consider allowing Russ Jones suggestion for #privacy or some other key in the query to indicate that the user didn't want the search logged.
Of course, if the user clicks on a PPC ad, they need a mechanism to prevent click fraud.
Story: It's all about me, me me
I know you have a lot on your plate, but perhaps an SEO/SEM Jobs category would be a modest lead in to the often discussed jobs board.
Also, in honor of the Cryogenic Status for Threadwatch, a Rumors and Reminiscing section.
I agree the interface is sharp, but I am not sold on three levels of navigation across the top. That is really pushing it. Why aren't you using any side navigation?
Why are you using 800 pixels wide as the standard? Surely this audience is at least ready for 1024.
The Water Cooler may well serve the place of our recently departed TW, particularly if we find out that certain SE engineers have added it to their RSS.
Speaking of RSS, with so many topic areas and subtopics, can we manage subscriptions at the topic or thread level?
Finally, I see some overlap between "Event Calendar" and Conferences and Workshops". Shouldn't Conferences be a subset of the Event Calendar?
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Story: John McCain's Google Bomb Link Widget