DISQUS

I think Digg started off by being a people's social news media outlet. Marketers saw the benefits almost instantly and they helped propel it to where it is but they are not solely responsible as we all know. Kevin has a great site. Granted they have problems but nothing that can't be fixed. Digg is still being gamed successfully, but the powers that be in social media now have it slightly harder. That upsets many as you know. Everyone wants everthing as easy as possible, but gone are the days when with just a small group of say 20 or so people you can get that Digg effect and land on page one.
The 'Diversity' of votes that Digg is after can be gamed and right now it is already being gamed by people we both and everyone knows.
Digg will adjust further their algo but again you will see the same people get pissed off ( sometimes understandably) since it does affect their bottom line.
Digg changing things is akin to Google changing their pagerank computations. Some will be upset, others will cheer depending on who has the easiest time gaming. Life is funny I think.

Google looks like it will remain on top for some time. As the founder of EarthFrisk.org and .com, I can say that any challenge for Google will be long and hard. EarthFrisk.org lets users vote on the best results of the major search engines and we have our own ranking system and toolbars as well. Only time will tell how popular any of these Google challengers will become.

I was into BSG and probably will still watch the next season when they find earth as well. I have to admit that I was bummed out that all of the main players are machines. The whole show is based on Cylon manipulation. Without the Cylon players like the Chief, the Eye of Jupiter would not have been found right before the star was to explode, as well as everything else would not have taken place.
Now they are saying there are 5 remaining Cylons but they were all revealed in the last episode. Even the President seems to be one as is Baltar, and Starbuck.
They really could have revitalized the show by making them find Earth but in the 24th century with a Star trek tie in. The Star Trek people need some help with revitalizing that franchise and I thought that the Galactica running to Earth, chased by Basestars and then met by Starfleet would have been fantastic. They were actually in talks but the talks fell through.
I will be watching this next season whenever it finally begins but the series lost something now.

Everything can be gamed is the bottom line I think. It's up to these sites to do their best to prevent the gaming.
Alexa is so useless for data Andy as you know.
As someone who uses Izea/Payperpost for a number of sites, when you are hiring the bloggers, they should stop altering rates for pagerank. I know the console lets us choose their ranking system, but I don't pay any attention to it at all. Most bloggers don't either. Ted, please do your bloggers a favor and stop using pagerank for pricing.
When something can be taken away so easily be another company, it makes no sense at all.

There was another community search engine launched last week at earthfrisk.org. Press releases are online and for marketers, the right side panel keywords for searches are in play or can be bought. The search engine also has it's own toolbars for Firefox and IE and is far more Deomocratic allowing voting and comments that translate to the search bar. All can be seen online without downloading the toolbars.
Jimmy does some great work and I have no doubts that his new search engine will be decent. EarthFrisk.org serves the purpose for marketers who can claim their name;s for free, complete with links and bio's and so on.

That's the point though, we need a lot of the big boys to join Andy and others in taking a stand. Unfortunately it usually comes down to who can kiss the rear end of Google or whoever else is in charge.
Will Textlinkbrokers take a stand if tomorrow Google lets the hammer come down on them? What do you think would happen if tomorrow Google changes things and Matt Cutts announces that google is cracking down on text link ads completely. Anyone that has them ( like the nice code from textlinkbrokers that so many have) all get 0 pagerank immediately.
What would be the result? Would every site that uses the links pull these ads or will they stand firm?
Sorry to say but I think if people like Arrington and Andy and others with influence don't all stand up at the same time, the end result is the same. Payperposties slammed, the others not targeted stay still.
Next week textlinkbrokers gets hit and who stands with them?
Seems to me the ranks need some organizing.

Andy, a few times I've tried to go the paid review route with you and each time the 'controversy' of paid links starts up again from Google. Since you were the very first person to comment on my blog ( an excellent strategy by the way) I have made many links to you on numerous sites that I own, and from this and your excellent content I have will always consider this site an excellent one written by someone with similar views on this whole search engine controversy.
I think it is time to stop already and at the very least plant a seed that may bear some fruit. I will write you over the weekend personally and give you some great info, but i think Google can only be challenged by using Google themselves. What do you think about a Meta-Social Hybrid search engine based in web 2.0 that you love so much, bearing the best results from Google, MSN and Yahoo and with LESS Spam? I'm not joking and the release date is Monday for EarthFrisk.Org. The blog that is linked in this message has an interesting write up by me with one of your articles linked in it again on this whole Google is flirting with evil.
If people like you with at least a little influence take a stand, maybe others will follow. Just a thought rather than us all complaining. I remember you telling me this very thing on my blog in the very first response I received when I was asking why people care about Pagerank. Well what if a new system existed with a new way to rate sites, for instance like CV rating (Color Value) with toolbars available in Firefix and IE. No joke brother and it is indeed time to step up to the plate and hit back. Imagine a whole community with you involved where comments and votes make the already superior results even better over time, all with a new ranking system not reliant on the whims of any one company. Join me Andy, you will like what I have to say and I think by Monday's launch of EarthFrisk.Org you will see at least the possibilities. Keep an open mind and check it out.

Jim, For me to give examples, in a few industries it wouldn't be hard to guess my companies, and then identify authors. I can never do that.
From what you said to “to write linkbait.” That phrase is interesting to me. I guess you are trying to write interesting content, but that makes it so black hat…"
I can't write very well, but I hire people in what I as a businessman consider to be part of advertising. When they write what is called 'linkbait' they write as juicy a story as the payer wants. The best wrtitten linkbait gets the most links, mentions, stumbles, and whatever else (sign ups), members, maybe even most buzz as it is called.
Are we thinking of different things? Like I said I've hired quite a few and they all work the same way. Only minor changes in pay structures and time it takes for them to complete task.
So when you say "To me, good social media marketing is authentic, not just linkbait. Now that might make it work more slowly (so some clients won’t wait), but it should also make it work more deeply and therefore longer and more brand building.

Thoughts?"
Yes another thought on that point. It all depends on the type of story that you are getting out there. For a retailer it's that latest Act now deal that ends in 20 minutes. Or for a specific purpose, like a Political candidate. How else would any professional social media people be judged except for the results.
Maybe it's a contest that ends in one week, so link-building isn't important long term in this instance. But take a service company that wants to rank well for their main search terms. Now you're looking for more long-term link deals. Or branding of course.

Do you really consider it 'black hat'? If I approached you to take up some really interesting angle for such and such new website, finding the 'juice' as most say. You wouldn't do a great job in that respect? Thinking that this is linkbait'? I'm just curious because seriously I just hire people and that's all I know up till now. I'm curious to see if the partners do better than those I paid.

A really strange thing though goes on in the social media arena. Ive now hired quite a few people and most have done at least a decent job. The weird thing I've found on putting together a social media proposal is that if you do, the people who you pay to write linkbait don't help much by way of advice in re-shaping it. They don't offer ideas, which I am like a sponge for. I see more of the 'Just sit back and watch the magic' response from those I pay. Some seem justified though as I had that Digg effect and tremendously successful linkbait campaigns on SU for various business ventures.
So for number 3 I have to say that top social media people DO NOT want to talk or advise.
The people who have offered advice are those that I let in in some big way to profit from the company and it's services. I wonder why this is? I find it strange.
I have a big social media proposal about to be finished and am doing this on a more massive scale. I wonder if it holds true. The paid people just say sit back and at times don't even want to speak! The people with a vested interest help out in amazing ways! In social media does paid people = just doing the job? It seems so as my next proposal this next week will be looking for partners. I'll keep you posted how it goes. It is an interesting experiment and I keep great notes.

Many people buy expired domains not for any pagerank but for the traffic that exists. There are huge businesses that then send that traffic to the websites that pay them for those visitors. The traffic is of better quality than those pop up companies they say, but who knows. I don't use them . You can see many by just searching term expired domain traffic. It made quite a few people wealthy.
If you do buy an expired domain just make arrangements to transfer ownership but don't update your registry. Google looks at the updated registries. of course if you change the layout of the site search engines will also change your listings but I'm assuming you keep things the way they are when you bought the domain.

So so true! People just aren't as intelligent as most think, in a great many ways. Before we judge them though maybe we should also look in the mirror and think if perhaps you and I and others reading this aren't as smart as we think they are.
Here's a test for you. I did this in one of my offices in New York City. I have one that is dedicated to customer services for companies all over the world, and my people are well paid even for New York City.
I asked each one
1. What is the moon?
2. Does the Earth go around the Moon?
3. The Moon go around the Sun
4. Does the Sun go around the Earth?
5. Does the Sun go Around the Moon?
6. Does The Moon go around the Earth?
Now you and I might think these are common sense as we all look up in the sky and should know what the hell is going on with such important features of our lives and solar systems. But out of 30 employees only 6 knew that the Moon revolves around the Earth. An equal number thought the Sun went around the Earth!
I'm talking college graduates here who supposedly had at least a basic Astronomy course ( or got out of the 3rd grade!)
Try this with people you know - even the intelligent ones and see what I mean.
Now I'm not trying to say all of these people are idiots. My own mother failed this test and thought that the earth went around the moon! How can I call her stupid?
What I am saying is what is common knowledge to you or I even in marketing may not be common knowledge to your wife or employees or other marketers.
One employee looked me in the face and said '"What does the moon have to do with this job?"
So Jack, finding people all over the net who fall for these get rich quick schemes is not surprising to me.
I'm sure you have received those letters from someone in Nigeria ( or nowadays South Africa, Brazil and so on) that claim to have some diplomat with 20 million dollars in the bank who will give you a finders fee of a few million if you help them out. This is e-mailed to millions of people a year and is commonly known as the Nigerian scam. Well this idiot was a client of one of my companies, a virtual office company and i saw first hand how stupid people are. I had to shut them down and report them to the FBI as they ripped people off and continue to do so to the tune of millions of dollars a year.
As P.T. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute.
It's all of the people who want things NOW and don't understand that you always have to work for success that fall for the BS.

There's something you guys are missing. Go to Sphinn and check it out. There is a new field called social media that these guys talk about quite often. These top stumblers are actually making $$$$. If you want proof check it out yourself. The site I mentioned is a hub for search engine optimization as well as social media people. The top Diggers as well as top social media people do well. I've hired many for various projects and am not in the field. I just use that site to find them and watch them debate.

For some reason when I think of social media I actually think of Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon, but NOT Myspace and Facebook. How weird is that? The complete opposite of Lincoln in the above post. Maybe since I'm a newbie to social media and was introduced first by Digg and my love for Digg made me seek out a way to have a site that members can vote on videos and groups and more ( Digg at the time was mostly tech news). That's when I found Pligg, the open source platform resembling Digg, then evolved my own site earthfrisk from there.
Social media to me is not Facebook, I think social networking with Facebook, but like I said I am a newbie to the field and not a pro and do not intend on becoming a professional Social media man. I prefer to hire you guys and see who does best for me.

So why point them out? Maybe they want to worship at the alter of Google as many here and elsewhere do. Why bring notice to them. Are they a competitor of your's? Lets stop cutting each others throats and opt out of the throat slicing of fellow sites. Google just hasn't had that Dept. get to them yet.

I've been a customer of TLA as well as PPP. I guess that is why Google dropped my main site from a PR6 to a PR4. But so what? I think it's funny that the only real ads on my main site are Google Adwords. Yet site was still dropped. Luckily pagerank means nothing for me and I'm finding that social media traffic far outweighs that from all of the search engines combined.
I have a question for all of the SEO guys reading this.
Why are you even using pagerank to make rates and sell rates in advertising? I've been diving into the topic big time for I admit a short time period compared to the rest of you. As a business owner I only advertised offline for a long time. But now I see it is ridiculous to advertise on a high pagerank site. All I care about is qualified traffic and people that are interested in my services. I won't even mention my sites that I do business with here. It is not the one in the no-follow link in this post. That one is just for fun. I make nothing from it - even from the adwords. Everything is put back into the site.
How about we all cut it already and just turn away? I understand what you said Andy about there not being another alternative to judge the quality of a blog or site as Google's pagerank. I think they need to change the way they market pagerank to be a little more accurate, in light of their dropping sites for the hell of it or for daring to sell links as they do. As if how dare any company make money from links. I find that hilarious as do many of you.
I though look at it as they do - they own pagerank and their search engine. If you don't like it, leave. Check out ask.com, I do now almost daily and found it to be superior ( Oh my God, I said it!) to Google's search engine.
Let me ask you guys something.
If an alternative existed but it was a bog company like Microsoft that had it, would you embrace it? Or is this all simply a gang up on Google exercise?
How about if Wikipedia comes out with a better community driven search engine. Would you guys embrace it if you can't profit off of manipulating the search engine rankings?
I buy links now for traffic that can convert to sales. I'm finding people like Andy, whom I intend on hiring shortly with quite a few other social media people, do far better for sites than search engines.
Just keep making friends, expanding your networks. Before you know it there will be another dominant system to attack and complain about. As long as you don't rely on any one site, you will all be fine. If you do rely on only one site, then that site is your online God. Play by their rules and stop whining about it.
One last thing, most people outside of SEO don't even know about pagerank. I know that is hard to believe for so many of you. Businesses only learn about it from you guys. What if you guys stopped already with pagerank talk? Imagine focusing instead on what advertisers really want - ROI! That's it. If i can get 20% more profit from a PR1 than a PR 8, what good is pagerank?
How about this oath, stupid I know, but I'm one of those stupid business people who couldn't care any less about PR.
"I Swear that from this day on that i will not ever mention pagerank to a client or customer unless they bring it up first." I'm willing to bet that with the rush of new advertisers such as myself and my companies, in no time flat pagerank will be a thing of the past or dropped by Google as no one would even know about it as most people that I know that do advertise on the net. They don't know about it. It is as important to business as the Alexa rank is, no one (except you guys) have that toolbar so no one cares except you guys. My own web designer put that Alexa rank tool on my earthfrisk site. I keep forgetting to tell her to take it down. I'll make a point to tell her tomorrow.
Duncan - and mblair - let's be real shall we. I have a PPP account and bloggers write what you ask them to write, in their words of course. So they are advertorials. No matter what anyone says. I'm not attacking that - I think it's fine! I will continue to hire PPP and Smorty people and others. Just call a spade a spade and don't be afraid. There is nothing wrong with buying and selling links. Your sites are your sites, stop kissing the rear-ends of anyone company.

Why can't all of you social marketing geniuses just say enough already with having to kowtow to any one company? I don't know about you guys, and Andy in particular as well as Dosh, but let's be real and start doing other things. Don't even look at pagerank anymore. Don't sell advertising based on it. Let's all just get on with our lives and put our money and advertising where it works the best. If adwords works for you, do it. Social marketing to me is starting to blow away Google's ads easily. Long ago it blew past Yahoo ads which I pulled completely - no more Overture for me. Everyone reading this and the many other articles on the topic, simply tune out of any company that tells you what you can or can't do.