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I still see good comment threads. That's community. I'd love to see this as a central "neutral" ground where we can discuss things. In fact, "we" (SEPeople) are considering using Sphinn as the place to point people for ongoing discussions.
Flip the thing around: make both desphinn & sphinn anonymous :)
If you want better quality, don't make it *harder* for stuff to go FP. That's insane. Gypsy wrote 3 great posts about GA and they moved liked frozen peanut butter. If you stay away from FP you do find nice stuff -- stuff you know won't go anywhere simply because of this medium being social (circle jerk).
So if you want better FP quality, make it easier to get rid of *stupid stuff* instead. Desphinn ratio of 1-on-1 and make it anonymous. People would beat the crap out of bad submissions.
Story: How To FUBAR At Social Media
I don't see Michael's data representation as an "instead" but an "also" view on search engine usage.
Unique visitors vs. queries performed is a lot like unique visitors vs. page views: different stories about the same thing.
Adding Michael's view can help hold on to a realistic feel of search penetration outside our techno-world: 70% of all quries go to Google souns deafening (and it is) but it doesn't equal that the majority of searchers go to Google.
Just adding to that 70+% of queries picture PEW's data that only a litle under half of people online will do a search in a given day changes my impression of their daily reach.
Given that half of the people online today will *not* come to your site via any search engine, the fact that we often see 75-90% influence by Google could be saying a lot about a site; either about the type of site (one-time use) or about its quality/stickiness.
Oversimplified, botht metrics and my use of PEW's data, but puzzle pieces none the less: can't discard one for the other.
Stopping to have our time wasted is as hard as convincing companies to start a blog back in 2001.
Now, in no small matter thanks to the search engine's increased smarts, we're winning the "get content" conversation.
But I seriously don't know when or really IF we'll win the "get good content" conversation across the board.
Adding value *or at the very least not being without value* is an investment of time, effort, creativity and dollars companies need and people want. Meanwhile burping out hot smelly air is as effective as email spam: it's cheap, can be outsourced, hides within the dense woods of a million pages published, and with even 1% of its generated links counting gives enough *if not more dollar value* than doing the value added thing.
I like the "morning after" thinking: it's personal, it's easy to relate to.
That's maybe also the problem; marketing often comes from outside a company. There's often no touch or feeling with the company, the brand, the values. It's hard for someone in an office to come up with workable ideas. I think this is where you get "American Apparel" kind of ads from.
Dave Winer did a great piece, Online Advertising is Now Dead, where he wrote; "Remember that perfectly targeted advertisement is just information" (my emphasis).
It's less whizz-bang surprise marketing but it's effective: being there with the right information at the right time.
Congratulations :) Now you'll learn all about cloaking as you try to hide stuff for the baby :)
Story: searchwiki Reputation Issues
Be that as it may I'm SO HAPPY searchWiki FINALLY arrived.
I remember using Hotbot and missing just this kind of thing! Then Google came along and well, the results were relevant but I had no way to comment on them, you know? [shakes head in disbelief] I tell you, SUCH an ESSENTIAL feature and only now it shows up. Thank God our children won't have to wait for this, eh?!
Seriously, this solves a problem no-one has. It's like finally adding a game of Tic-Tac-Toe to the results page; amusing yet useless and business-wise simply insane.
... hmm.... I think I'll go add this to the google entry in the search "wiki"
Well, we definitely don't want to become a search engine news place. Barry Schwartz does an incredible community job in that regard, for example.
We also don't want to replicate functionality such as a discussion board. Most of the time, like now, when we want to discuss something we should just do it over here on Spinn. Why not, right?
So providing a guest blogging place certainly is one thing that we want to do. You guys, the community, know your stuff: you see new people appear and can suggest they show their face at SEO Scoop.
Could be also that sometimes you want to kick an idea around and don't want to do that on your own site; that it's too far outside of what you would usually post. Again, SEO Scoop can then be the place where we kick around some ideas, right?
And as a community we would have to think about providing access to resources as well. Resources that newcomers and most individual SEO-ers normally wouldn't have access to. I'm not really talking about tools like rank checkers or stuff like that. That's the usual stuff that's already being provided elsewhere. But how about business intelligence for example?
Reminds me a bit of this "black hat" post http://seoblackhat.com/2008/11/12/seo-starter-guide/ :)
Great way of brainstorming sometimes; formulate things in the opposite.
Still seeing the same old place here. Maybe a US/Canada thing?
We sure have walked the same Google for. The last couple of years down with some really cool stuff (although it doesn't really help them) and since 2060-ish Microsoft sure as I'm a creative role as well.
Shared this in my Google Reader too where I noted that this post makes you want to get to work with the tools discussed right away. Inspiring post :)
I'm really proud that Lisa has guest posted on SEP. With a "keep it real but leave the Drama at home" kind of principle she's one of the truest SEO bloggers out there.
Thanks!
Doing things the right way certainly won't hurt your rankings in Google. But doing things the wrong way doesn't necessarily hurt you, according to Google. On multiple occasions Google has said that semantically correct HTML or even somewhat correct HTML is not a condition they enforce on the web.
Confusion stems from not differentiating between social media branding and social media marketing, maybe?
Except for some paid posts marketing efforts I'm not aware of a lot of successful social media marketing campaigns. On the other hand, we do know of a number of successful social media branding efforts like the now famous Zappo and the even more famous president Obama.
"SEO is dead" ... check.
OK, next on the list: "SEO is part of SEM or SEM is part of SEO"
After that: "XYZ is coming -look out Google!"
:)
SEP will be looking for other ways to work with us, the SEO/SEM community.
We're open for additional ideas and contacts.
Thanks for the submission and the Sphinns!
I love the idea of the post being charming!
Last.fm is a nice legal way of listening to good music, yes. Another fine source is Shoutcast Radio. I use it through WinAmp. Stations like Swiss Groove and Smooth Jazz Tampa Bay have some of the coolest jazz.
Thanks for the nice words, Barry.
Story: Real SEO Ethics
I like how this was written, the tone of voice, more than anything else. Good to read a genuine voice.
Story: The Trouble with Twitter
I don't see how they would do ads in regard to the API. Insert an ad every x messages?
Honestly, twitter is one of the rare services I'm willing to pay (a little bit) for
Story: Cash, SEO and Ethics
@Halfdeck I too think critics serve their purpose. It's a balancing act and they (we) are part of the balance. Also, "he who is without sin, let him trhow the first stone" doesn't mean we can't criticise or that when we do the validity of our critic is automatically nill simply because of our ethics (or absence of them).
@neyne Unrelated: love your avatar :)
Knowning your own ethics is as essential as knowing your own SEO theories: search, always question, always test.
Story: Cash, SEO and Ethics
Slashing someone down, killing something off is fun.
I think that sums up the motivation behind a lot of lynching mob critique. Happens with stars (whether Hollywood or SEO) and big success (whether Microsoft or Google -- Apple is slated for vilification, I expect).
Good point though, good point.
Story: It's time to raise the Sphinn bar