Links, Issues not attacks
When I started blogging 18 months ago Kent Newsome was one of the first “established” bloggers that would actually engage in a conversation with a greenhorn like me. In his content I’ve always found him to be fair and honest, even when he’s probably had reasons to be otherwise.
I’ve read and enjoyed many post of Louis Gray and I understand he’s concerned about Technorati’s ranking system. I believe Louis would have been better served by more carefully focusing on the problem of perceived manipulation of Technorati’s system via Viral Tags/Links rather then indicating Kent as a ring leader of some sort of fraud. Louis may not have intended to do that, but that’s the way his post read. If it’s a fraud, then it’s one I’ve participated in as well.
Kent, in his response questions:
…is a link from some other blogger via viral tags that much worse than all those upstream “I agree” or “look at me, please” links from some pandering wannabe.
I think probably not. There may be some differences in the original intent but in both cases the goal was the same…to promote their own sites by getting linked to. Most of us are wannabe’s in that regard. Exactly, what are the rules here?
From my own experience, I’d agree with Kent that the viral tag links are not as meaningful. I’ll admit for myself that I don’t feel one hundred percent positive about “Viral Tag” links. Going with my gut, I wouldn’t post another one and am even considering pulling the post I have (yes, after the horse has already left the barn).
Louis Gray
Earl, good insight here. There were a couple ways I could have addressed the issue. I led with the idea that Technorati should fix the problem, and used Kent as the most prominent example I know. There’s no question that my post was strongly worded, as I do get frustrated with stat manipulation. As said there and elsewhere, I think Kent, and others using this process, is a great guy who got involved with what I see as a bad practice.
Sometimes you can soft-shoe analysis like this, and sometimes, I feel you have to come out and say, “Hey! This is messed up!”, which is the route I took this time. I like Kent’s blog, and his comments, and I can take it when he slams me as a newbie or a pandering wannabe. It’s on me to prove that’s not the case. I like your comments saying you’d consider getting rid of the practice now, and maybe others will as well.
Earl Moore
Louis,
It’s a subject worthy of conversation. I see it falling into a grey area. If the system allows it, is it cheating or is the system invalid? That’s when I think it falls to a personal choice. As I said in my post, I participated, but my guts telling me it’s not for me.
As far as the Viral Link Technorati results, they now can only be resolved by Technorati. If Technorati decides to do nothing, I would have to ask if that’s not condoning them as an acceptable form of linking?
Your thoughts?
Louis Gray
Earl, I see it as a loophole not yet discovered by Technorati. Technorati in the past has made efforts to remove “spam blogs” that offer no content at all, but I think the issue of removing “spam links” from otherwise legitimate blogs will be much harder. The note you said above about how you feel in your gut is the best indicator to me if it’s really a gray area.
Back “in the old days” of the Web of 1998-99 timeframe, I worked for a company that had a lot of the early SEO technology, but no good business model. We were among the pioneers of spawning multiple Web pages at multiple servers with tons of keywords to drive up positions in AltaVista, Excite, and Infoseek, and that all worked for a while before the search engines got wise. What we were doing then was seen as approved behavior, but when they changed their algorithms, traffic could be cut in half. I think this viral tags game will be short lived. If it isn’t, then those sites that deliver statistics using it will be less respected.
Iantrepreneur
agreed! well put I too do not think these viral activities work