Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1322 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 1:17 pm Post subject:
AllanGardyne wrote:
Perhaps the long-term lesson to learn from this is that you'll increase your chances if you pour your efforts in large, well established sites with lots of links to them.
Yes, if we want to stay within the current paradigm, where free search engine traffic is the backbone of our business, then large old quality sites with lots of links seem like the safest bet.
Another long term lesson we might recall is that search engine traffic is, by design, inherently unstable. That is, the algo's only chance for survival is to constantly change.
Nobody is safe. Imagine that Google rolls out Best of Google, and it becomes a popular filter. Imagine that traffic to regular Google drops off dramatically as a result. Imagine that your or my large old site does not get selected for Best Of Google, in an inexplicable oversight by 17 year old minimum wage Google reviewers.
The long term lesson might be that search engine traffic should be ancillary bonus traffic, not the backbone of our business.
For affiliates this might mean building a business around the largest possible mailing list. For merchants it probably means a focus on creating an established base of happy repeat customers.
Building a base of happy repeat readers or customers who have a personal connection to you is a business model that is hundreds of years old.
The "leverage free search engine traffic to maintain a constant stream of incoming strangers" model is a couple of years old. Let's place our bets with that in mind.
Charlie wrote:
Besides, how old do you think I am?
Hmm. Well, when I wrote that my guess was that you are old enough to understand that surviving long enough to become an old geezer is a badge of honor, not an embarrassment. However, if modesty compells you to decline this award, I can edit our press release.
Charlie wrote:
If anyone can do something for free on the promise of easy money, many will. That's a very bad thing for everyone.
Hmm. Rather than create barriers to entry, why not focus instead on creating better filters? With good filters, anyone can join the game, and those with real talent will rise to the top.
Everyone should have an equal chance to make it in to Best Of Google as example, but only those who really bring something of value to the table will succeed.
It seems to me that in an era when we are being flooded by a tsunami of information, buidling our sites on the free info hook becomes somewhat like selling snow to eskimos.
But tools/sites that sort, filter and manage information could have a promising future? _________________ Free Email Discussion Group For Your Site
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I want to agree.
Blogs were fun at first but now, webmasters only use them to pull traffic to their websites. I call it blog abuse. Does google has any policy on blogging? _________________ Send Video Emails. Do LIVE Video Webcasting(Do it FREE or charge a fee). Video IM with 3 Persons. Video Blogging...plus many more features. All-in-One- Service!!
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I call it blog abuse. Does google has any policy on blogging?
Google has lots of policies on lots of things - AdSense, SEO, etc. The problem is a lack of enforcement and a lack of publicity when enforcement does take place.
What would be the downside if Google, Yahoo, etc. stopped considering incoming/outgoing links as a factor in determining search engine ranking?
I realize in theory if a lot of sites link to yours, you must have a good site. But that theory has been so easily manipulated, is it really a valuable consideration in determining search engine ranking anymore?
Further, if the world's foremost authority on lung cancer writes an article on prevention techniques, that should immediately be ranked higher than "made for AdSense" or "made for affiliate programs" type pages without having to wait for incoming links to accumulate. Besides, nowadays, instead of people linking to the good quality article, some (many?) will just steal the content and put it on their own site.
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1322 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:59 pm Post subject:
Bobby wrote:
What would be the downside if Google, Yahoo, etc. stopped considering incoming/outgoing links as a factor in determining search engine ranking?
The downside appears to be that there is currently no better automated (ie. affordable) alternative to this highly imperfect system.
You know, search engines provide their services to the searcher for free, and you get what you pay for.
It seems the future will be one where we are sandblasted with free info from all directions. So maybe we'll get past the limitations of the free model, and searchers will be sold on the time saving value of higher quality search tools.
Maybe we'll come to casually accept a $20/mo search account, just as we now accept connection and hosting fees, expenses that were just recently added to our pile of bills.
The bottom line is, would a $20/mo search account save me $20 worth of time or more? Seems quite possible it would.
Aha! I get it now! Google is deliberately allowing us to demolish their free SERPs, so they can then sell us paid SERPs, and we'll thank them for it. _________________ Free Email Discussion Group For Your Site
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A blog is just a simple CMS system with RSS that anyone can use.
Blogs don't own RSS, every single CSS system, and SBI for that matter uses RSS.
The WSJ and every other major news outlet uses RSS feeds for content, which they subsequently add to their own feeds.
Most of these sites for instance don't write their own book reviews, and most use services like AP.
Almost every article directory has an RSS feed, yet I am sure everyone in this discussion submits articles for publication in article directories.
This is what I am doing.
I select a whole load of 3rd party articles, wrap it with suitable keywords, and feed them to blogs.
All the content has been through at least 1 human quality control check, quite often 2 or 3.
The autors wrote the articles to get seen, and to get backlinks.
My article niche sites have just one feed, an article directory site may have 100+
Thus I regard what I am doing is not splog, but in many ways is like a highly targetted niche article directory.
Whether I automate the process or not is irrelevant.
Blog and Ping is more controversial, but can be equally justified.
Imagine you have a large content site and recently discovered RSS. Your competitors have been using RSS for a while, thus every bit of their content has already been fed into the ether.
Your content is equally relevant to your competitors.
I think such a website could be highly justified in adding RSS to their sites, automatically feeding all new content naturally, and also gradually adding their archives to the feeds.
But how fast should they be allowed to do it?
Say they have a 10,000 page site, full of quality articles. They would have to add at least 1 existing page to their RSS feed every hour to have it all available within a year.
Some might argue that this is a bit too slow, and that they should be allowed to do it in 1 month.
Thus they would have to add 1 article every 6 minutes.
This process is effectively blog and ping, just sanitized without the marketing slant, where someone has created such a site overnight (it could be equally good content), and then overdoes it with the blog and ping.
Now the WSJ article focused initially on blogs made up of randomised words, just junk.
If you drag other forms of RSS usage into the arguement and categorisation as splog, you may just find you are guilty of it yourself, and that every major player on the internet is guilty of it as well.
If I have taken articles from various article directories for republishing, who is to say they are not high quality. Often these articles are written by experts in their field, and they want to be republished.
Sure they would prefer me to send their article to a 500,000 mailing list than add it to a niche blog, but a backlink is a backlink.
Now I was slightly worried that Google had taken things too far the other day on Blogger. XML-RPC stopped working for a number of my blogs, and I started seeing captchas.
Now a few days later my content is being posted fine, and all those posts that did not appear had actually been cached.
I believe Google took drastic action because someone obviously was being abusive, and then eased off the restrictions.
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1322 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 11:35 pm Post subject:
I don't know. You have to wonder where the boundaries are.
I don't mean what is abuse, and what is not. I have no idea really.
I just wonder at what point we get so efficient at dumping content on the Web and then making it go around and round faster and faster that readers just start tuning the whole thing out.
Say our local newspaper tossed a new issue on our driveway 19 times a day. At what point do we throw up our hands and say this is ridiculous?
What's the logical outcome of no barriers to entry married to ever more efficient publishing and recycling technology?
It seems we're heading towards a Net where each of us will be able with one click to republish every word we (or anybody we know about) have ever written on to every web site on the planet, nine times a day.
It's nobody's fault really, all this power and opportunity is brand new and it's to be expected we'd go hog wild with it.
But I hear a pendulum swinging over our heads and wonder when the backlash era begins...
If our product is info, are we flooding the market with it and driving the perceived value down to zero? _________________ Free Email Discussion Group For Your Site
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Hmm. Well, when I wrote that my guess was that you are old enough to understand that surviving long enough to become an old geezer is a badge of honor, not an embarrassment. However, if modesty compells you to decline this award, I can edit our press release.
With apologies to Reggie P, I didn't get where I am today not surviving long enough. The press release is fine with me.
Quote:
Charlie wrote:
If anyone can do something for free on the promise of easy money, many will. That's a very bad thing for everyone.
Hmm. Rather than create barriers to entry, why not focus instead on creating better filters? With good filters, anyone can join the game, and those with real talent will rise to the top.
Well, one man's filter is another man's barrier to entry...
I liked the old technological "filters" best, and I bet you did too.
SunnyD wrote:
Does google has any policy on blogging?
Adsense?
Bobby wrote:
What would be the downside if Google, Yahoo, etc. stopped considering incoming/outgoing links as a factor in determining search engine ranking?
I realize in theory if a lot of sites link to yours, you must have a good site. But that theory has been so easily manipulated, is it really a valuable consideration in determining search engine ranking anymore?
If you go back to relying on on-page factors, manipulation becomes much easier. This is why we're on this road now...
It's a best attempt to minimise "manipulability".
AndyBeard wrote:
Thus I regard what I am doing is not splog, but in many ways is like a highly targetted niche article directory.
Whether I automate the process or not is irrelevant.
I often think it all depends as much on why we do something as what we do, but then someone says "marketing is a con". From there it's a tiny slip of the pen to "publishing is a con".
The practical good has to pay for itself.
Phil Tanny wrote:
It's nobody's fault really, all this power and opportunity is brand new and it's to be expected we'd go hog wild with it.
Surely that's exactly why barriers to entry, sorry filters, are so important. If anyone can do it, at least make them pay.
Just my opinion,
Charlie. _________________ "Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1322 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:
A barrier stops someone from publishing, so we never learn whether they have something useful to say.
A filter looks at what they have said, and determines whether it is useful.
Hmm. I know it's easy to create a Google search box that will limit it's search to one site.
Anyone know how to create a Google search box that limits it's search to a selection of multiple sites?
Let's say all of us have an imaginary search program, which can be aimed at user defined search lists. I have my favorite list of sites to search, you have yours, we swap lists, sell them on ebay etc. People collect lists for different niches, and load these lists in to Phoogle as needed. Everybody creates their own Best Of Google. _________________ Free Email Discussion Group For Your Site
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A barrier stops someone from publishing, so we never learn whether they have something useful to say.
A filter looks at what they have said, and determines whether it is useful.
Who says a filter has to be after the event? Secondly, barriers are built to be overcome - just not by everybody. It reminds me of the old joke...
A young soldier was standing behind a short section of seven-foot-high wall with bullets flying past either side...
When asked by an NCO why he wasn't moving forward, the young soldier replied that he couldn't get over the wall.
Back with the here and now, was the wall really a barrier or more of a filter?
Quote:
Hmm. I know it's easy to create a Google search box that will limit it's search to one site.
Anyone know how to create a Google search box that limits it's search to a selection of multiple sites?
Surely you could just "OR" together a set of "inurl"s in standard google search. For example...
Code:
"red car" -blue (inurl:domain1 OR inurl:domain2)
(This example looks for pages on domain1 or domain2 that mention red cars but not blue.)
If you need a web-based search box, how about this...
Create a form where the user enters the search phrase, but then use a script (perl for a guess) to build the destination Google URL. You can either use a default set of domains to search or let the user specify the domains in the form.
Cheers,
Charlie. _________________ "Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1322 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 12:51 am Post subject:
Hi again,
I saw a news report on TV that reminded me of this thread.
There's a new gizmo out (sorry, forget the name) that allows you to connect your TV and Tivo to the Net. Thus you can log in to your TV from anywhere, and watch your saved TV on a computer at a remote location.
The reporters framed their piece in the usual "ain't it amazing!" slant common to new technology reporting.
Technically, it is indeed a nifty accomplishment.
Once I got over the wonderment buzz, it struck me that there really isn't enough good content on TV (for my taste) to make it worth transporting it around the Net to my latest location.
It reminded me so much of the Net. We, me included, are fascinated by the gizmos that push all the info around. But so much of our publishing community doesn't care all that much about the info itself, just like on the tube.
Would the Net be a better place if there were no slick designs, no HTML formatting, no java whizz bang gizmos, no search engine games, no clever marketing schemes?
Imagine that the Net was nothing but plain text articles, and that they lived or died based solely upon their ability to generate sincere uncompensated referrals by readers.
It was only 10 years ago, anybody remember that Net?
On the tube, or on the Net, are we really racing forward? _________________ Free Email Discussion Group For Your Site
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Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 529 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:11 am Post subject:
Another thought provoking post Phil.
What made the net exciting, namely very little barriers to entry, has also made it a commercial cesspool not unlike the lowest common denominator TV we watch blankly on the tube.
The idea of watching more of the same on a computer screen is mind boggling.
So we have TV on demand, publishing on demand, push button web site and blog creation and still the quality seems to get worse!
I don't get it? _________________ Declan O'Reilly
Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code.
Do what successful infopreneurs do...
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1322 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:44 am Post subject:
Thanks for the kind word Declan.
Declan OReilly wrote:
What made the net exciting, namely very little barriers to entry, has also made it a commercial cesspool not unlike the lowest common denominator TV we watch blankly on the tube.
Yes, whether we sit in front of the tube or the monitor, we are who we are, and both mediums act like a mirror, reflecting our image back to our view. Some of the image is flattering, some is not. It's all educational though, if we want it to be.
Imagine Professor Blowhard's own personal embarrassment at the unfolding realization that it's often the case that the more we talk, the less we actually say.
But while I'm still learning this, here's another image from the offline world.
Imagine the normal cocktail party. 20 people in your house, all chattering away. Most of us like to talk more than we like to listen, and you can't really talk about anything too interesting, as the most interesting subjects are all a bit too controversial for polite conversation. You know the drill...
OK, now image this.
Your family and friends, sitting around the living room. Somebody says a few sentences. Everybody nods and smiles. And quietly considers what's been said for 5 minutes. After that pause for reflection, someone else adds a few more sentences. More nodding, smiling, and reflecting.
Less could be so much more, eh?
Gotta go, just got in 134 articles I need to republish to 456 sites before the ink drys! _________________ Free Email Discussion Group For Your Site
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Imagine that the Net was nothing but plain text articles, and that they lived or died based solely upon their ability to generate sincere uncompensated referrals by readers.
It was only 10 years ago, anybody remember that Net?
No, I draw a line in the sand at 1997. We're a bit backward over here.
Declan OReilly wrote:
What made the net exciting, namely very little barriers to entry, has also made it a commercial cesspool not unlike the lowest common denominator TV we watch blankly on the tube.
Yes, but at least not everyone is encouraged to make their own TV programs (for free).
Phil Tanny wrote:
Imagine Professor Blowhard's own personal embarrassment at the unfolding realization that it's often the case that the more we talk, the less we actually say.
I prefer the optimistic view that we give others more chances to make an association. We all have our own answers, remember.
Quote:
Imagine the normal cocktail party...
I'll do my best...
Quote:
...20 people in your house, all chattering away. Most of us like to talk more than we like to listen, and you can't really talk about anything too interesting, as the most interesting subjects are all a bit too controversial for polite conversation. You know the drill...
You might not be entirely surprised to hear that in all my years of sophisticated social intercourse, I have never ever been to a cocktail party anywhere - let alone hosted one myself.
I was going to say, I hope I never have the pleasure, but...
I've already been partially converted to the (hypothetical) benefits of an Affiliate Breakfast, so why not an Affiliate Cocktail Party. The night before the morning after, so to speak.
Deal with all the superficial tripe on the night, and get down to business in the morning? Just make sure the grub's good.
Cheers,
Charlie. _________________ "Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1322 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:54 pm Post subject:
Charlie wrote:
You might not be entirely surprised to hear that in all my years of sophisticated social intercourse, I have never ever been to a cocktail party anywhere - let alone hosted one myself.
Well, OK, then let's just say, any gathering of two or more people. You've been to one of those, right?
What might a typical conversation tell us about why and how we use the Net?
We've been complaining that the quality of Net and TV content is going downhill. But are these mediums, and regular face to face conversations, really about the quality of the content?
Do hundreds of millions of people watch the tube for hours each day because of the content quality? Is the real reason we are sharing this thread together because of the data being exchanged?
My wife's sister and her 14 year old daughter just visited us. I learned a lot from joining their conversations. The three of them talk excitedly for hours about pretty close to exactly nothing.
But they have an incredibly good time talking about nothing!
The three of them are like a swinging jazz trio. The songs have no story line or point, the experience itself is the point. It's not the info being passed back and forth that matters, it's the energy exchange. It's beautiful music, not a NY Times editorial.
We have 50 years experience with TV, and can see what has survived there.
We've all been in a million conversations, and know that the best conversationalists are above all good listeners.
And when the best conversationalists do contribute, it's most often their light cheerful musical energy we value them for, not their command of facts or powers of logical analysis.
Don't know. Just wondering if quality content, defined as useful information, is really what the Net is about.
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