Peter T Davis
How do you verify stats when buying a website?
One of the ‘gotchas’ about buying sites is stats manipulation. I’m speaking specifically about website traffic, but this could equally apply to revenues or any other statistics that you take into consideration when buying a website. How do you verify what the seller is showing you is true?
With traffic stats, I think the best measure is to have them add Google Analytics to the site, if it’s not already on, and have them grant you access (Analytics allows the owner to share the stats with anyone who has a Google account) and watch it for a few days (or just look at the historical stats if it’s been in place long enough).
Other ways to verify are not as satisfactory. You can look at Alexa rankings, and that might help. For example, there was one site for sale in Sitepoint’s marketplace recently in which the seller stated hundreds of thousands of unique visits per month, yet the Alexa ranking shows above 500,000. So, that seems a bit absurd. I don’t consider Alexa very accurate, but you can get a good rough idea that a site getting hundreds of thousands of unique visits probably should have a sub-100,000 Alexa ranking and if not something is smelling fishy with the sale.
In addition to factors such as checking a site’s PageRank and backlinks, this is something I look very closely at when buying a site. Because in my opinion the traffic is one of, if not the, most valuable assets of a website.
You might also be interested in finding out where to buy and sell websites.
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Matt Cutts says Link Buying Still Works
In an interview with Stephan Spencer, Matt Cutts, the Google Spaminator admits that aggressive link buying is “more likely to help” than harm a website. Look for the quote a bit over half-way down the interview.
This may be just stating the obvious, because anyone who is still buying links will be able to produce the evidence for themselves and not need affirmation from Matt Cutts, but I think it’s an interesting point to make after such a turbulent few months in the SEO industry.
Personally, I think if you’re in a competitive industry, you have to buy links. If you don’t, you won’t compete. That goes double so for newer websites, and websites without massive marketing budgets.
Knowing where to buy your links is now the real test.
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Can You Predict Google Knol’s Demise?
I say 14 months, 3 days.
It’s going to take up too many resources for Google to make a go of it.
It’s going to get spammed to death, like Squidoo.
Even the best pages will be thinly disguised self-promotion (except the ones Google employees do).
What’s your prediction?
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New URL
As of now, I’m putting my blog on www.petertdavis.com and redirecting www.petertdavis.net
I’ll sort any issue with the feed as it comes up.
Getting ready to pull this blog out of mothballs. 
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RSSMagician Coupon
RSSMagician Coupon
I just got this in - I don’t mean to review RSSMagician, but to simply pass along a coupon to anyone who’s interested in buying RSSMagician.
Use this when you purchase and you’ll save 20% on RSSMagician.
LUCKYYOU124112
It also works on their other products such as BlogSolution.
Here’s their site: http://www.rssmagician.com/
[Link]
866-267-9392
We’re getting too many phone calls from these people. Phone number 866-267-9392. Anyone else getting messages like this one?
http://www.zealot.com/blogs/voice-message.wav
We’re on the Federal ‘Do Not Call’ list. These calls are obviously a blatant attempt to skirt around that.
If you’re getting calls from these people as well, please leave a comment. If enough of us come together, perhaps we can get the attention of an Attorney General somewhere.
[Link]
Why You Shouldn’t Be Like Joel Comm
This is just dumb. Somehow I got on one of Joel Comm’s mailing lists. Fine, I’m on a million of them anyway, sometimes I read, sometimes not. Today I read one from him, which references a website of his. I looked at the website and noticed a really dumb error on the website. An error that should induce a Home Simpson ‘D’oh’ from anyone who looked at it.
So, being the nice guy that I am, I jotted off a quick email to him about it. Naturally, used the email that had sent the newsletter from. Of course a smart marketer would want to receive emails from his customers, right?
Nope.
Here’s what I got moments later.
Thank you for your email.
I’m sorry, but email sent to this address is not read by a human. In order to contact us with support issues, please visit our help desk at:
http://www.thehelpdesk.us
Anything that requires a reply should be submitted at the help desk.
However, If you have non-urgent questions or joint venture requests specifically for Joel, you may submit them at:
http://www.askjoelcomm.com
Due to the number of inquiries, it is physically impossible for Joel to reply to all of them, but they do get read on a weekly basis.
To your success!
The InfoMedia, Inc. Staff
Seriously, you can’t make up stuff like that.
[Link]
What Does Your Web Presence Say About You?
Much of the time when I meet someone, I google them. Sometimes I’ll google them after meeting, but more importantly if it’s an arranged meeting with someone I’ll google them before meeting them. To me, this is normal.
I’ve also been cognizant of whether others do some investigating of me. Sometimes I’ll hear subtle clues, for example if I mention something I’ve written recently some people will tell me that they did read it. I’ve found it more striking, though, when it becomes apparent that someone has not even done a simple Google search and I think they should have.
Why should someone try to find information on the web about another person? Well! A thousand and one reasons, of course. It can help in social situations. I’m learning how to golf, for example. I’m pretty bad still, but enjoying and looking forward to the ground drying out so I can play some more this summer. Someone I meet who’s read that could get a conversation going with me about golfing.
But, more important than easing over awkward social situations, you can find out things you need to know about people you’re about to do business with. Hiring a new freelancer to do some coding for your website? What does Google turn up about that person? You’d be surprised. I have avoided freelancers in the past as a result of information turned up on basic searches. You should too.
Adam Darowski tells us that The Blog is the New Resume. (hat tip to Bijan Sabet for pointing to that post) I do get a bit surprised when someone asks to see my resume. I think it’s so obsolete. I don’t believe that it necessarily has to be a blog, but creating a web presence seems to me a more effective way of showing potential employers, business partners, or investors who you are and what you’ve done.
But, still, Google shows more. Google even shows what you wrote on the Usenet back before the web became popular. Some people make it easy for others to find them online. Me, for example. On most community and social networking sites I use the same account name, petertdavis. So, google petertdavis and it shows up nearly 20,000 entries. Follow those links and find tens of thousands of more things, articles I’ve written, items I’ve posted, images, designs, ideas, etc ad nauseam.
Google yourself today to see what image you’re projecting on the web. I don’t know any industry where this isn’t important. I hired a carpenter recently, and I googled him. If you want to work with web savvy people, it’s even more important.
I’m also surprised when I meet someone, and there’s nothing to be found about that person. I guess I’m so far into this now that living in obscurity seems alien. Even if someone’s in a witness relocation program, the Feds would be smart enough to create some info available on the web for their new identities, wouldn’t they? To make them seem real. Google yourself. Nothing there? Why not?
The other challenge I share with people with common names like Peter Davis, is how to make yourself stand out among the crowd. I started blogging early enough that my blog tends to stay near the top of the results for my name. I do better when my middle initial is used, Peter T Davis. I started using my middle initial quite a few years ago, when I came to realize just how many of us Peter Davises were out there. But there’s still plenty of stiff competition for Peter T Davis.
So, stop and think a moment, what your web presence says about you. What do you want it to say about you? If you’re not already, should you be using the web to gather information about people? We should all put at least as much thought into it as we put into resumes.
[Link]
The SEO Lemon
I don’t often blog just to say read what someone else has posted, but occasionally I see something that’s so thought provoking that it’s worth remembering the login to Wordpress and crank out a few sentences. John Andrews post about A “Market for Lemons”, a Nobel Prize, and Snake Oil SEO is one of those occasions.
John’s been doing some reading. Academic economics to be exact. The paper he cites theorizes that through pricing, the used car industry created a “Market for Lemons” by pricing low-quality autos where quality autos should be priced, and overpricing the real quality cars. John shows us how that applies to the search engine marketing industry.
I like this analogy. I’m not so sure we’re there yet, though. Crack a joke about a used car salesman, and everyone gets it. Crack a joke about a SEO, and unless you’re in an after hours Pubcon Vegas party, you get blank stares. It is an apocolyptic prophecy of the industry, but he could be right.
The reason I’m not convinced that SEOs will end up in the same jokes with used car salesmen and personal injury lawyers is that I’m not convinced that search engine marketing will remain a stand-alone industry. I don’t think it’s going away. Not at all. But, I think it’s going to be more and more integrated into the existing marketing industry. More companies will have an in-house SEO and less will outsource.
But then, even that may play more into John’s vision, as the smaller companies who can’t afford to have an in-house SEO will still outsource. And, the smaller the company, the more price-conscious they’ll be, and thus the more likely to hire the boileroom SEO service. caveat emptor
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Look Who’s Cloaking Today
When I try to visit the following url:
http://www.marketingprofs.com/5/destefano1.asp
here’s what I see:
Contrast that with what Google thinks you should see:
Naughty, naughty. Just something I found when searching Google.
[Link]
Site flipping article on Sitepoint
My Sitepoint article about flipping websites is up.
I’d love to have any feedback, either here or there in the comments.
And, what should I write about next!
[Link]
RSSMagician Coupon
RSSMagician Coupon
I just got this in - I don’t mean to review RSSMagician, but to simply pass along a coupon to anyone who’s interested in buying RSSMagician.
Use this when you purchase and you’ll save 20% on RSSMagician.
LUCKYYOU124112
It also works on their other products such as BlogSolution.
Here’s their site: http://www.rssmagician.com/
[Link]
866-267-9392
We’re getting too many phone calls from these people. Phone number 866-267-9392. Anyone else getting messages like this one?
http://www.zealot.com/blogs/voice-message.wav
We’re on the Federal ‘Do Not Call’ list. These calls are obviously a blatant attempt to skirt around that.
If you’re getting calls from these people as well, please leave a comment. If enough of us come together, perhaps we can get the attention of an Attorney General somewhere.
[Link]
Why you shouldn’t be like Joel Comm
This is just dumb. Somehow I got on one of Joel Comm’s mailing lists. Fine, I’m on a million of them anyway, sometimes I read, sometimes not. Today I read one from him, which references a website of his. I looked at the website and noticed a really dumb error on the website. An error that should induce a Home Simpson ‘D’oh’ from anyone who looked at it.
So, being the nice guy that I am, I jotted off a quick email to him about it. Naturally, used the email that had sent the newsletter from. Of course a smart marketer would want to receive emails from his customers, right?
Nope.
Here’s what I got moments later.
Thank you for your email.
I’m sorry, but email sent to this address is not read by a human. In order to contact us with support issues, please visit our help desk at:
http://www.thehelpdesk.us
Anything that requires a reply should be submitted at the help desk.
However, If you have non-urgent questions or joint venture requests specifically for Joel, you may submit them at:
http://www.askjoelcomm.com
Due to the number of inquiries, it is physically impossible for Joel to reply to all of them, but they do get read on a weekly basis.
To your success!
The InfoMedia, Inc. Staff
Seriously, you can’t make up stuff like that.
[Link]
What does your web presence say about you?
Much of the time when I meet someone, I google them. Sometimes I’ll google them after meeting, but more importantly if it’s an arranged meeting with someone I’ll google them before meeting them. To me, this is normal.
I’ve also been cognisant of whether others do some investagating of me. Sometimes I’ll hear subtile clues, for example if I mention something I’ve written recently some people will tell me that they did read it. I’ve found it more striking, though, when it becomes apparant that someone has not even done a simple Google search and I think they should have.
Why should someone try to find information on the web about another person? Well! A thousand and one reasons, of course. It can help in social situations. I’m learning how to golf, for example. I’m pretty bad still, but enjoying and looking forward to the ground drying out so I can play some more this summer. Someone I meet who’s read that could get a conversation going with me about golfing.
But, more important than easing over awkward social situations, you can find out things you need to know about people you’re about to do business with. Hiring a new freelancer to do some coding for your website? What does Google turn up about that person? You’d be surprised. I have avoided freelancers in the past as a result of information turned up on basic searches. You should too.
Adam Darowski tells us that The Blog is the New Resume. (hat tip to Bijan Sabet for pointing to that post) I do get a bit surprised when someone asks to see my resume. I think it’s so obsolete. I don’t believe that it necessarily has to be a blog, but creating a web presence seems to me a more effective way of showing potential employers, business partners, or investors who you are and what you’ve done.
But, still, Google shows more. Google even shows what you wrote on the Usenet back before the web became popular. Some people make it easy for others to find them online. Me, for example. On most community and social networking sites I use the same account name, petertdavis. So, google petertdavis and it shows up nearly 20,000 entries. Follow those links and find tens of thousands of more things, articles I’ve written, items I’ve posted, images, designs, ideas, etc ad nauseam.
Google yourself today to see what image you’re projecting on the web. I don’t know any industry where this isn’t important. I hired a carpenter recently, and I googled him. If you want to work with web savvy people, it’s even more important.
I’m also surprised when I meet someone, and there’s nothing to be found about that person. I guess I’m so far into this now that living in obscurity seems alien. Even if someone’s in a witness relocation program, the Feds would be smart enough to create some info available on the web for their new identities, wouldn’t they? To make them seem real. Google yourself. Nothing there? Why not?
The other challenge I share with people with common names like Peter Davis, is how to make yourself stand out among the crowd. I started blogging early enough that my blog tends to stay near the top of the results for my name. I do better when my middle initial is used, Peter T Davis. I started using my middle initial quite a few years ago, when I came to realize just how many of us Peter Davises were out there. But there’s still plenty of stiff competition for Peter T Davis.
So, stop and think a moment, what your web presence says about you. What do you want it to say about you? If you’re not already, should you be using the web to gather information about people? We should all put at least as much thought into it as we put into resumes.
[Link]
The SEO Lemon
I don’t often blog just to say read what someone else has posted, but occasionally I see something that’s so thought provoking that it’s worth remembering the login to Wordpress and crank out a few sentences. John Andrews post about A “Market for Lemons”, a Nobel Prize, and Snake Oil SEO is one of those occasions.
John’s been doing some reading. Academic economics to be exact. The paper he cites theorizes that through pricing, the used car industry created a “Market for Lemons” by pricing low-quality autos where quality autos should be priced, and overpricing the real quality cars. John shows us how that applies to the search engine marketing industry.
I like this analogy. I’m not so sure we’re there yet, though. Crack a joke about a used car salesman, and everyone gets it. Crack a joke about a SEO, and unless you’re in an after hours Pubcon Vegas party, you get blank stares. It is an apocolyptic prophecy of the industry, but he could be right.
The reason I’m not convinced that SEOs will end up in the same jokes with used car salesmen and personal injury lawyers is that I’m not convinced that search engine marketing will remain a stand-alone industry. I don’t think it’s going away. Not at all. But, I think it’s going to be more and more integrated into the existing marketing industry. More companies will have an in-house SEO and less will outsource.
But then, even that may play more into John’s vision, as the smaller companies who can’t afford to have an in-house SEO will still outsource. And, the smaller the company, the more price-conscious they’ll be, and thus the more likely to hire the boileroom SEO service. caveat emptor
[Link]
Look who’s cloaking today
When I try to visit the following url:
http://www.marketingprofs.com/5/destefano1.asp
here’s what I see:
Contrast that with what Google thinks you should see:
Naughty, naughty. Just something I found when searching Google.
[Link]
Site flipping article on Sitepoint
My Sitepoint article about flipping websites is up.
I’d love to have any feedback, either here or there in the comments.
And, what should I write about next!
[Link]
Ideas are cheap, implimentation is expensive
This thought came from a conversation at our SEO Meetup on Tuesday this week. I talk to a lot of interesting people who show up at the meetups. It’s a rare opportunity for me to interact face-to-face with people who are interested in similar topics. There really aren’t that many of us that think SEO is a fascinating topic!
I think that a lot of the people who are in the SEO industry, who are doing it solo, suffer from a similar affliction. Heavy on the ideas, light on the implementation. I know that applies to me. I can come up with a dozen great ideas in a day. A great idea for a company isn’t worth much. To me at least. The value lies in the implementation.
What good is an idea if you can’t get it off the ground? I can’t count the number of great ideas that I’ve had over the years. Sometimes I go as far as registering a domain for the idea. I have a hundred domains that have a great idea behind it. When exactly I think I’ll have time to build a hundred businesses, I don’t know. No answer to that question. It astonishes me when I meet people who do the same thing.
What’s the solution? I think for me that there’s a ceiling that I’ve reached. Working solo has been a lot of fun. Too much fun. It offers a flexibility that cannot be rivaled. To get to the next level, though, I think that I need to be part of a team. I’m not sure what team. Sometimes I think that it doesn’t even matter what the idea behind the business is, I could add value to anything. It does though. Matter, that is. It has to be something I could be passionate about.
When I was a graduate student at the University of Maine, a favorite professor told me that it isn’t enough to have talent. You need to have a passion for what you’re doing. My passion didn’t lie in becoming an academic. I had a passion for doing research. I didn’t have a passion for teaching, or the politics in academia.
When I launched the Small Business Forum, I was passionate about it. It disappoints me that the investor that I sold it to doesn’t have the same passion. He hasn’t brought it to the next level. But, I don’t believe I could have brought it to the next level by myself. Wearing many hats is part of being an entrepeneur. Wearing many hats stifles passion.
Adam McFarland has a passion for his venture, Sports Lizard. He also started a venture with some friends, but I think that’s less of a passion, and more of a calculated venture aimed at making money. Is a passion enough?
I don’t think passion is enough. Maybe it was for the professor at UMaine. He has a tenured position; he doesn’t need to worry about where next month’s mortgage is coming from. Most of us entrepreneurs do worry.
Shared passion, a good idea, and implementation are what lead to entrepreneurial success.
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Onebox makes baby cry
I clicked on a link to Onebox.com today, because it was recommended on a discussion list I’m on. I had my two week old baby, Lidia, with me. When you click on the site, it starts a flash file that has an annoying song playing along with a voice that makes babies cry like they’ve never cried before in their short lives.
I’m quick with the off-button on my speakers, but it did take me a couple of seconds to get it. Too late, though, the damage was done. She’s probably scarred for life, she’ll never use Onebox. Of course I’m joking about that, but it is a horrible noise and voice and it did scare her and she did cry.
The point, though, is that web designers put so little thought into their sites. Exactly what does Onebox think that their flash intro does to enhance their customer experience? I’d really like to know that. And, exactly who are these idiot designers that think that flash has to have stupid music, and why do they drill it down your throat instead of asking first?
So, if you’re developing a site now, forget the flash with the stupid sounds. If you have a site that does this, remove the flash. It really sucks. You don’t need it. It annoys people. It makes babies cry.
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Lidia Davis
Lidia Davis - born February 22, 2007
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Protecting yourself when buying a website - PageRank
This is part of a series I’m writing about safety in website purchasing. As the market grows, so will fraud. When I started buying and selling websites, I pretty much knew everyone in marketplaces like Sitepoint. Now, there are so many people jumping into the market every day, it’s impossible for me to keep track of who’s a player and who’s a scammer.
You’ll often see PageRank listed as a key feature of a website. Particularly, when the index page, or other pages on the site are showing a PageRank of six or higher in the toolbar. This can influence how much people will pay for a website. This is particularly so when a significant portion of a website’s revenue comes from selling text link ads.
How can we verify whether the PageRank is solid? Well, in most cases, fake PageRank is easily discovered. The first thing you want to do is go into Yahoo! Site Explorer and see where a site’s backlinks are. Type in the site url, and click ‘Explore URL’ and have a look through the results. Use the url for my blog as an example, http://www.petertdavis.net
The first thing you’ll see is what pages Site Explorer recognizes on the site. Just verify that this is in line with your expectations for the site. My blog shows just over 800 pages, and that’s pretty much what I’d expect. Then, click the ‘Inlinks’ and see what that lists. You’ll notice it gives a number, which is how many backlinks Site Explorer thinks the site has. What that means is, any page on any website that contains a link to any page on the site you’re examining.
Is the number of Inlinks Site Explorer shows in the range you expected? If you’re looking at a site being sold as a PageRank 7, and Site Explorer shows a dozen or less Inlinks, that should throw up a red flag. This blog shows over ten thousand Inlinks, and that would be a strong indicator that the PageRank of this domain is solid.
In addition to looking at the raw number of Inlinks, next you’d browse through to see the diversity of the Inlinks. Are they all coming from a small group of domains, or are there many different domains? You want to make sure that the links are diversified, and not all coming from websites that the seller controls. It’s a common trick that all of the PageRank is coming from the sellers own website, and if you have no guarantee that those links will remain in place, you can expect to see a drop in PageRank very soon. I call this “Inbred PageRank.”
More serious than Inbred PageRank is hijacked PageRank. This doesn’t happen so much anymore, but during 2005 and 2006, I saw dozens of examples of a supposed high-PageRank site being sold, but the PageRank was hijacked from another domain. I won’t explain how it’s done, that’s easy enough to find out, but I’ll explain how to detect it.
What you need to do is start going to the sites listed in the Inlinks list, and verify that the link actually exists. Under normal conditions, you will find pages in the Inlinks list that no longer have the link. This is normal. Expect it. However, if you can’t find the link on any of the pages, that’s bad.
The more you’re investing in a site, the more of the Inlinks list you want to examine. You can discover some interesting things. Perhaps there is a single large source of PageRank, and all the others are minor. You’ll know that your PageRank is heavily dependent on a single source. That’s a risk you need to know about when you’re buying a site. What you hope to find is a diversity of types of sites and strength of PageRank in the Inlinks. You don’t want to find that only, or primarily the Inlinks are from directories. You want to see links from content and resource pages as well.
This should give you a primer on what to look for when the site you’re buying includes an attractive PageRank. Even when you’re buying a lower PageRank site, you may want to give a look at the Inlinks in Site Explorer. It does give you an insight into what type of marketing the owner has done for the website. Good luck!
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How to float your Adsense code in the text
I needed this bit of info recently, and thought I’d repost it. I’ll know where to find it, and maybe someone else will find it useful too. If you want to float your Adsense (or whatever else, for that matter) in the text so the text wraps around it, you can use this snippit of code.
If you change the “right” to “left” it should be obvious what that will do for you.
You can alter the placement by changing the numbers.
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The never-ending nofollow debate
We seem to be going over, and over, and over, again the debate about nofollow. I thought it would be worthwhile to include here a couple of comments that I made on other blogs.
This is what I posted in response to Loren’s post that sparked off this round of the debate.
Great linkbait Loren! I agree with much of what you’re saying. While comment spam was the original problem that nofollow was supposed to solve, I think that the greater concept is still applicable. Yes, it’s a bandaid that’s imposed by the search engines to make their jobs easier. But, I do see the usefulness of it. If you (or any webmaster) do not have good editorial control over what links are placed on your website, nofollow is a good tool to let the search engines know that you cannot vouch for the quality of the links. If you, or Wikipedia, can take the time to give editorial review to all links posted, then of course the nofollow is irrelevant. I think a lot of people have perverted the meaning of it, though. But, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.
I posted the following on Scobleizer;
I think a lot of people are missing the main point of the nofollow tag. Naturally SEOs will be opposed to it, because they get no juice when they put their links in the comments on your blog. But, preventing people from manipulating search rankings by posting irrelevant links all over the place is the whole reason nofollow was created. It doesn’t matter if it’s link spamming on Wikipedia, or comment spam on Scobleizer. If Loren, you, or Wikipedia feel that they have control over the quality of the links being posted, then of course there is no need for the nofollow. When you remove the nofollow, you’re telling the search engines that you’re vouching for the quality of the links being posted on your website.
And this on Marketing Pilgrim in response to his speculation whether it will increase comment spam or the quality of comments.
I wouldn’t think it would increase the spam comments so much as lowering the general quality. You’d probably see more people posting a short, useless comment like “I agree” or “good post”. I see it a lot in the forums, where people post crap posts just to get their signature into the thread. Not that it doesn’t happen in blogs, but I’d think it would tend to increase when people think they might be getting some juice from the links…..if anyone is going to be removing the nofollow from comments, they’re in effect saying that they’re going to be taking each comment on a case by case basis to ensure that the site being linked to is of quality. IMO, that’s the purpose of the nofollow, if it’s a link that hasn’t passed editorial control. If the blog’s owner is going to check and vouch for each of them, then yea the nofollow doesn’t need to be used.
Also, reference to this post at the “Official Google Blog” from a couple years back.
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Greater Boston Webmasters February Meetup
If you’re in the Boston area on Feburary 15th, join the group!
http://webmasters.meetup.com/99/calendar/5403723/
When: Thursday, February 15, 2007, 6:30 PM 20070215T233000Z Where: O’Naturals
149 Great Rd
Acton , MA 01720
9782660222
Wikipedia nofollows is best thing since sliced bread
I don’t really think I get why SEOs think they have a God-given right to get a non-nofollowed link from the Wikipedia. Wikipedia hurts poor, innocent businesses if they don’t allow the links. I know links are the lifeblood of SEO. Links are an SEO’s crack.
I checked, and we don’t even have a Constitutional ammendment that guarantees the SEO right to a link from Wikipedia.
Actually, I think I have a clue. It’s not very complicated. SEOs think that Wikipedia is great because of how many people have linked to Wikipedia. Everyone else thinks Wikipedia is great because of its content.
It’s the old Links vs. Content debate.
The problem there is that the links are not vetted through an editorial process. The whole point of nofollow is exactly this. Google states it quite clearly, use nofollow “anywhere that users can add links by themselves.” (*)
Now, let’s see. Can users add links by themselves at Wikipedia? Oh, my gosh, yes they can!
“But if an editor/volunteer ads a legitimate external source, it should pass on the PR value.” (*) Should it? Well, only if you turn the reason nofollow came into being on its head. That’s the exact opposite of what nofollow is meant.
Could there be a process where certain links are vetted, and thus have the nofollow removed? Sure there could. But, then that wouldn’t be any link randomly added by whomever, whenever, and however they wanted. Wikipedia would need to make a strong process to ensure the quality, and evenhandedness of that, because SEOs would surely give it a prompt ass-humping if it wasn’t.
But, the larger question is should Wikipedia even be in the business of deciding which links are to pass editorial review? I don’t see how that would enhance the Wikipedia. The links already appear for users, and to me that’s good enough for their purposes. Why, exactly, should the Wikipedia be in the business of helping random websites improve their search engine rankings?
In the end, this controversy just serves to give us people interested in these esoteric things something to blog about.
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Why I get Frustrated with giving Free SEO Advice
If you give away something of value for free is its perceived value nothing?
I often get asked for advice on someone’s website. Mostly from people I don’t even know. Most of the time, if I take the time to give a decent suggestion or two, I’m left with a feeling of frustration. It’s like when my five-year-old son is jumping on the furniture, and I tell him not to do it, and five minutes later, he’s jumping on the furniture again. That kind of frustration.
And, it’s not always that the person I’m advising isn’t listening or understanding, sometimes they successfully impliment my advice. It’s that I’m taking time out of my day to help them, and rarely even get as much as a “thanks”, no follow up to let me know how it worked out for them, no nothing. But, usually the advice falls on dead ears, because most of what I suggest takes time and effort.
I’ve been going to the SEO Meetup, which is held monthly in Arlington (a suburb of Boston) ever since I met Brian at Pubcon in Boston last year. Every month he invites someone to join the group, to have their website be the focus of a brainstorming session on how to market it better. Last month, I left the meeting perfectly frustrated.
Here’s one example. One of the websites reviewed was called Foodler. It’s a really neat service, which allows people to order takeout from the web. They have a good number of restaurants in their inventory, including some that I’ve eaten in. The owner of the site rightly wanted to know how to expand the reach of his marketing. I do think he really needs to gain traction, because this is an idea that someone could easily encroach upon.
I mentioned to him that I thought he’d get a lot of benefit if he got some of the popular local bloggers to mention his site. Perhaps giving them a free dinner would help getting them familiar with the service. I’m not the one who coined the word ‘Sneezers‘ but I think that local-focused bloggers are clearly in that group, and having them adopt his service would pay huge dividends.
I was stunned with the reply. He asked “where do I find popular bloggers?” I stumbled on that, I wasn’t expecting it. Someone mentioned the Universal Hub, which is exactly the kind of blog I meant. Next, I mentioned that I had posted a link to the blogs I read in the Meetup’s forum. His response to that was something like “how do I know the blogs you read are the important ones?”
Luckily, the conversation turned away from blogs at that point. I’m probably too easily frustrated. Asking me how to find popular blogs is kind of like asking me how to walk.
So, should I, and others in similar situations stop giving out free advice? No, not really. I’ve been on the receiving end of good advice far too often to say something as short-sighted as that.
Should I get better at deciding who to give free advice to? Yea, I’ve been working on that. A couple years back, I had a problem with people constantly asking me to help code their website. Because I’m a Sitepoint Advisor, people assume I’m a top-level coder. I’m not.
Should Brian stop inviting people to our SEO Meetup to get free advice on their website? Maybe. Not once have I heard back from any of the people who were lucky enough to have the group giving them free advice on their website marketing. Not one. But I do think he should expect more of them. Perhaps the next one needs to buy us dinner and drinks. Instead of sitting at Panera with a cup of coffee and bowl of soup, the next one treats the group to dinner at John Harvard’s.
And a bit of advice for the people lucky enough to make it to Jeremy Schoemaker’s Meetup. Be good to him. Make him want to do it again with you next month.
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