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Danny Sullivan

12 hours ago

in Should a Social Media Editor Use Social Media? on Mashable - The Social Media Guide
Hmm. Ever heard @comcastcares talk about how he got Comcast going with Twitter? He sat and listened for about two months. I think few would doubt he's pretty savvy when it comes to Twitter. I'd give her a bit more time.
1 reply
iGoMogul's picture
iGoMogul I agree Danny! Don't most SM experts, actual experts, advise that before you engage in the conversation to sit back and listen for a while? I would think that a publication like the NYT would want to make certain they were getting it, SM, right. And if she is listening for a while before engaging, wouldn't that prove she's understands the medium and therefore doing her job well? Just some thoughts...
Sara @ iGoMogul

14 hours ago

in Bing Now Bigger than Digg, Twitter and CNN on Mashable - The Social Media Guide
Ben, how was Live Search ranked against these sites? If you don't say that, then you don't know whether this is news or now. I'm pretty sure it was ranked around the same. If so, then it's not that Bing is "now" bigger than the others. It's that Bing just has new data because it picked up from Live Search.

1 month ago

in Antitrust Primer: Google and Microsoft on Joe Wilcox
Sitemaps are not a requirement for Google or any of the search engines. In fact, I believe only Microsoft says that they'll actually increase the chances of getting indexed (not ranked), but even there, you'd still get listed without them. Google and Yahoo state to view them as “suggestion.”

There are good reasons to argue Google’s dominance in the space, but that’s an incredibly weak point, to suggest that sitemaps is somehow a Google proprietary thing or required. I mean, one version of the sitemaps protocol is simply a list of URLs in a text file. Heck, Infoseek allowed that back in 1997.

2 months ago

in Wikipedia Grappling with Deletion of IHT.com on Thomas Crampton
Yeah, I've grappled with this longer than Wikipedia. I've got stories I've cited in newspapers and magazines that stretch back over 13 years. Then they go poof as a publication dies or changes things all around. Similar to the advice above, I've found it's essential to cite the headline, date and publication name along with the URL. Then you have a shot at tracking down a copy elsewhere.
1 reply
Glenn Fleishman I can't believe I've been writing articles since 1995 about link breakage. I would have thought media sites would have actually seen inbound links as an intangible, valuable asset of the company. It's fiduciary misconduct in a public company to take an IT action that results in massive loss of inbound traffic, reputation, and ongoing authority.

Back in 1995, I wrote a piece for Adobe Magazine's online site which was a very thinly veiled attack on Adobe itself having broken basically every link on the site by re-engineering with no forward path. In every site migration and redesign I've worked on nearly all links (all regular links and as many special ones as I can) work indefinitely.

3 months ago

in Digg Added To Twhirl! on Loic Le Meur
Like Kyle said above, digg does a 200 file INS code that claims all link credit for itself rather than a 301 that give sites themselves link credit. add it if you want but add support for better services too. and for goodness sake dont make digg the default.

8 months ago

in Is @theRealAlGore the Real Al Gore? on Mashable - The Social Media Guide
I wondered as well, after getting followed. Then I read through the few articles, and they just don't seem real. In one, there are links to lots of company's I assume Gore advises to, done in a way to say "hey, i have a business here" the many odd references to melting ice also give it the sarcasm feel.

11 months ago

in Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon… on Scobleizer
"Most of which were pretty congratulatory...."

Actually, I was surprised that most of the initial posts I read were fairly muted and critical of the claims. Even before we could actually try Cuil, most of what I read were people saying "looks interesting but we'll see...."

1 year ago

in louisgray.com: The Importance Of Blog Linking Seems to Be Declining on louisgray.com
Louis, your top referrring source is Google/organic -- which is primarily Google web search. And Google web search is heavily influenced by linkage. Those links all help build your site into an authority that can pull in search traffic when other sites without links simply lose out. I agree you shouldn't be sitting around hoping that some supposed A-List blogger will make your day. But the headline is a bit too broad -- the importance of linking is what drives the bulk of your traffic, I'd say.
2 replies
Louis Gray's picture
Louis Gray Danny, you are absolutely correct. To underestimate Google's power, and the algorithm behind Google search, would be silly. You said the headline is too broad, but it's other bloggers' tendency to declare "Links are Dead" or some other superlative note. I caged this as "seems" to be "declining", which is softer. I didn't want to sound too aggressive.
elliottng's picture
elliottng Louis, your blog post "Seems to be misleading". I echo Danny's comment. There is no more powerful signal to Google about your importance and your thematic area and your keyword space than links from authority blogs and websites. Especially for new bloggers and new blogs, getting links from established blogs is paramount if they are to be discovered for topics that they are focusing on, and that relevant traffic via search is super important in that initial 6 months when you are just writing for yourself...wandering in the desert looking for the promised land of readers and feedback. So I think this post may be correct for well established older blogs with lots of links from other established authoritative sites already. But for the new blogger, links can be the difference between the search traffic that keeps them in the game and another failed blog lost in the wilderness.

1 year ago

in 2008/07/01/google-adobe-flash-search/ on Mashable - The Social Media Guide
"This change, however, alters one of the fundamental SEO rules - the one that says that text is king."

Doesn't change that at all. It's the textual information in Flash files that will be read. Don't got text; don't have anything to rank for.

1 year ago

in Microsoft to buy semantic search engine Powerset for $100M plus on VentureBeat
"The Microsoft purchase appears to validate Powerset’s technology, though the amount of the purchase is clearly less than Powerset’s investors had originally hoped for."

Indeed. For some perspective, Ask Jeeves bought Direct Hit for about $500 million in 2000. OK, the dotcom boom was still going. But basic clickthrough tracking went for five times Powerset?

$100 million is dirt cheap for technology that supposedly is going to propel search into the next level. Which, of course, means it was overhyped to begin with -- so Microsoft is getting a bargain.

Don't get me wrong. Powerset's got a nice collection of patents, some very interesting technology that will be helpful to some search player someday. And the purchase would let Microsoft talk about how "semantic" even if it takes years for them to implement, which gives them some buzz. So there's value -- but nowhere near the "revolutionary" value that some though Powerset was worth.

1 year ago

in Why YouTube is going long-form on Scobleizer
Um, I'm pretty sure they started out long-form. Then went to 10 minutes to deal with copyright infringement. And now that people are talking to them directly about wanting to upload longer content with permission to do so, going long form sort of is a natural consequence.

1 year ago

in Pilgrim’s Picks for June 7 - Google Favicon Edition on Marketing Pilgrim
Now Andy, isn't this the same story you were giving us twitters**t about writing? Welcome to the club :)

1 year ago

in The really interesting FriendFeed page to watch on Scobleizer
Robert, FriendFeed is nice, but I can tell you for me, it wouldn't accurately reflect my online participation. For one thing. I read lots of blogs and share them through our SearchCap newsletter. FriendFeed doesn't reflect this -- yet there's a world outside Google Reader. I do lots of discussion on Sphinn but FriendFeed has yet to add that to their supported services. In short, I'd be wary of using that as a benchmark for participation studies (though I do love the service).

1 year ago

in Ask.com Will “Continue to be a Great Search Engine” on Marketing Pilgrim
And Jordan, no offense -- I love the work you do. I just think Ask is doing the serious spin job here on a lot of people.

1 year ago

in Ask.com Will “Continue to be a Great Search Engine” on Marketing Pilgrim
Heh, won't hold back. I think Ask went WTF! we've just devalued our search engine and is in panic mode. Put it to you this way -- none of the naysayers I know of have been contacted about how it was all wrong. 'Cause we wouldn't believe it? Maybe. And seriously Andy, if you think Ask were staying in the game, don't you think you'd have gotten a tickle about the new direction before the -- hmm -- shit hit the fan? I mean NOW you hear from Ask after they talk to the AP, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal rather than those pesky little elitists blogs, after it turns out those blogs probably are calling it straight. Yep.

1 year ago

in Ask.com Will “Continue to be a Great Search Engine” on Marketing Pilgrim
Seriously, I can't believe people are falling for this. AP was wrong? Oh, so Reuters and the Wall Street Journal didn't hear it right too? Or is it more that Ask said after the fact, uh oh, and now is running around playing damage control. Honestly, I don't think they know what they want to do, at this point -- and given the competition, that means they're deader than ever.

1 year ago

in A tribute to Wired magazine, age 15 on Mathew's comments
Mathew, I'm glad I'm not alone in moving those damn magazines around:
http://daggle.com/070424-021922.html
1 reply
mathewi's picture
mathewi Definitely not the only one, Danny. And I'm going to invest in some
plastic bins, I see -- great idea :-)

1 year ago

in What you all are missing about Google on Scobleizer
Unless you meant it was around search, of course :)

1 year ago

in What you all are missing about Google on Scobleizer
Did I miss it, or did you fail to actually say what the main thing is that's being missed? You said what it's not. Um, what is it?

To your points....

1) Seriously, Robert, Google does mind. Nope, two turkeys don't make an eagle, but having those turkeys fight against each other rather than just one that pecks at you is still better.

2) Sure, Google wins in the short term. But what, you think that this is somehow something they were hoping for? Don't get you here and what relevance this has.

3) So what if IM and email are harder to monetize. Google doesn't want these two kids to get together and knows that pushing back on letting them have greater dominance in particular products may work as well for them in stopping the deal as is did for Microsoft giving Google bad PR on the DoubleClick deal.

1 year ago

in Techmeme PageRank Penalty? on Andy Beard - Internet Business Systems Discussion
Great to hear, Gabe -- but wow, something from back in 2006 finally shows as kicking in. Wow. Remember, you've probably been prevented from passing link love to people for all this time. It's just that no one publicly could tell that until the penalty.

1 year ago

in Microsoft to buy Yahoo: Ray Ozzie roars on Scobleizer
It's very much about search, Robert. Indeed, that's first and foremost. Don't lose sight of that.

What's the core of Google's earnings? Search eyeballs, eyeballs that convert better than any other type of online advertising and which are in short supply. Google's got them. Yahoo has a fair chunk to. Microsoft hasn't been able to grow them organically.

aQuantive needs inventory? They're buying Yahoo for that? Seriously. C'mon. Open up contextual ads, take 2 billion of the 45 billion you're giving to Yahoo, and you could simply rent a fair chunk of the web to knock out AdSense.

There's a lot going on in this deal, but it boils down to Microsoft having been seriously chasing Google now for five years (it's been five years) and unable to catch or gain on it in search. So go get the number two.

1 year ago

in Facebook Revealed: IPO Coming 2009 End? on Rev2.org
Well, they might have to IPO this year:
http://searchengineland.com/071026-140303.php

If they have more than 500 shareholders (sounds like they easily will) and $10 million in assets (despite the losses, they'll have these), they either go public this year or start reporting like a public company.

1 year ago

in Techmeme PageRank Penalty? on Andy Beard - Internet Business Systems Discussion
Yep, heard this last week, and Gabe and I had a little twitter about it:

http://twitter.com/dannysullivan/statuses/63694...
http://twitter.com/gaberivera/statuses/637443512

And yep, the detour though a blocked page in robots.txt should be perfectly safe. It's not traditional SEO thinking. It's exactly what Google says:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/an...

"Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file"

So yep again, Gabe looks dinged unfairly. What annoys me most, really, is that the links are clearly labeled as Sponsor Posts. Yes, Google wants Gabe and others to use nofollow or block etc. etc. But I also expect Google to have built up its own intelligence at this point to figure out what's paid even if the "machine readable" signs are missing. Words in a reverse box saying "Sponsored" ought to be just fine.
1 reply
Andy Beard Sorry it got stuck in moderation Danny, links to Google.com get flagged because so many comment spammers use links to Google.com to try to build up their Karma, or just use Google for redirects.

I wasn't aware you had been in contact on Twitter before I made the post.

As it is, Google have had more links to their webmaster guidelines on this blog than the people who requested a review

I totally agree that Google should be handling all of this in a different way.

The traditional SEO thinking was in reference to my previous post, which extensively references the Matt Cutts / Eric Enge interview.
If this is just a glitch in Google's datacenter, it would still be advisable to nofollow those links, because Gabe has tons of them on every single page, and best case scenario the redirects are hanging pages.

Lets think of a hypothetical website

100% horrible flash based site with no redeeming features.

If it was indexable, if you link to it in a paid post, you could get a penalty.

But what would happen if the whole website was blocked by robots.txt?

If you link to a page that is blocked by Robots.txt, it can still accumulate pagerank and get indexed.

Could Google give a blogger a penalty for writing a paid post linking through to a site blocked with robots.txt?

Then there is meant to be a layer of manual review, especially I would think for the larger sites.
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