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MattMcGee
Thanks JonnyT -- I agree, and was going to include that as one of the lessons, but it seemed like several of the ones I mentioned (visual content, differentiation) also mentioned the use of blogs, so I thought that kinda covered it. Thanks for Sphinning this.
Story: SEO Plagiarism
I'm not surprised (and kinda glad) you mentioned Sphinn in there, Jill. You're right -- there are about 4-5 blogs that show up somewhat regularly in "What's New", and all they offer is repeats of what was already posted on SEL, SEW, SE Roundtable, SEJ, etc., with nothing new added to the discussion. They rarely get lots of votes, unless friends are helping out.
Wow - thanks for all the kind words, everyone. And thanks, Li, for the blog post. I'm excited to be with KR -- already had a couple good and productive days!
@planetc1 -- oh, man, an In-N-Out Burger sounds perfect. :-)
This is a terrific article, Donna - thanks for putting it together.
This is a nice addition, but it's useless for small business owners/web sites. There's not enough search volume for Trends to show any data. I tried my wife's real estate site, my previous employer (small web design/marketing company), and the site of one of the companies I profiled recently in my SEL column. No data for any.
After that, I tried the web sites of two mid-sized, regional real estate companies (John L. Scott and Windermere) and there was data, but not very valuable.
So, a cool addition, but not something everyone can benefit from. :-)
It says right in the Guidelines:
"Yes, you can submit your own stories. In fact, we'd rather you directly submit your own stories you think are of interest to the community than have someone do it for you."
http://sphinn.com/guidelines.php
Well, sure, if you submit your own stuff every day, and it's crap, you'll pay the price. But if you write something you think is great, submit it.
Story: Is Desphinning rude?
Couple quick things on desphinn vs. spam, quoting from some previous comments:
>> you bet I'm going to desphinn pictures of cats or your favourite band's tour schedule.
Andy - that stuff is spam and you should mark it as spam. Don't desphinn it. Hit the spam button, please.
>> What about non-english articles?
The guidelines specifically say submissions must be in English, so those should be marked as spam.
>> if it's whack, or spam.. i'd say desphinn....
If it's spam, please hit the Report Spam button.
Generally speaking, I'd love for our users to stop being so afraid to use the tools we've given you to help keep the site valuable. If you don't like seeing spam on Sphinn, you have a tool that will help eliminate it. If you don't like seeing fluff on the home page, desphinn it before it gets there. We're all adults.
I am really proud to be part of such an amazing piece of content. I can't recommend this highly enough. If you have ANY interest whatsoever in local search, you have to read and bookmark this. Hats off to David for putting it together, and all the participants for sharing knowledge and ideas.
@ankitrawat - I edited your desphinn comment. No need to include personal attacks.
See, your comment above says "a bit darker than normal" but your headline screams "SMX Advanced Goes to the Dark Side." Which is it?
I saw Danny's comments when I read the article, but my point is the same: You've written an article that makes it sound like this was a black hat conference, which it most certainly wasn't. The headline is absolutely sensationalist, in my opinion. Perhaps we draw the line differently on sensationalism. :-)
Oh, please Lisa. Out of 22 sessions, you seem to be picking on 1-2 of them. Out of ... what? 75 speakers? ... you're calling out maybe 4-5? And then you write a headline and article that just nukes the whole conference? Give me a break.
Zarita - thanks for Sphinning this, and welcome to Sphinn. You should take a moment to upload your own avatar so you don't look like the hit-and-run spammers that submit here. :)
@onreact -- the SEO companies that come here and spam are the worst. Utterly stupid.....
Story: Why eCommerce is a Lot Like ICanHasCheezburger