Comments on: The Time Has Come To Regulate TechCrunch http://www.dotcult.com/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-techcrunch Ryan Jones Blogs About Internet Culture, Marketing, SEO, & Social Media Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:09:08 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Groove Factory PR http://www.dotcult.com/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-techcrunch/comment-page-1#comment-3799 Groove Factory PR Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:42:00 +0000 http://www.dotcult.com/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-techcrunch#comment-3799 Fair enough. But claiming that the "algorithm" doesn't matter isnt at all honest. Take the "no follow" tag controversy that Google is in the middle of this summer. In 2005 they told everyone that using 'no follow' to retain page rank was legitimate....so lots and lots of SEO firms recommended adding no follow to links you didn't want spiders to follow, specifically all links out from your site. Wikipedia as a practice has every one of their external links tagged as "no follow" Now we hear that they have not only reversed this decision and no follow no longer is a good thing....but they tell us that they actually reversed that decision last year, without telling any of us. As the behemoth of the search industry and nearly a monopoly by any definition, I see this is a major oversight and problem. if they want to be the big cheese and run a search engine that can make or break so many websites (and companies and people working for those companies) - then then need to be more transparent with their decisions and let people in the SEO world know when they are making changes that have potentially detrimental effects on commerce on the internet. So I viomently disagree that the algorithm doesn't matter....OF COURSE it matters. Fair enough. But claiming that the “algorithm” doesn’t matter isnt at all honest.

Take the “no follow” tag controversy that Google is in the middle of this summer.

In 2005 they told everyone that using ‘no follow’ to retain page rank was legitimate….so lots and lots of SEO firms recommended adding no follow to links you didn’t want spiders to follow, specifically all links out from your site. Wikipedia as a practice has every one of their external links tagged as “no follow”

Now we hear that they have not only reversed this decision and no follow no longer is a good thing….but they tell us that they actually reversed that decision last year, without telling any of us.

As the behemoth of the search industry and nearly a monopoly by any definition, I see this is a major oversight and problem. if they want to be the big cheese and run a search engine that can make or break so many websites (and companies and people working for those companies) – then then need to be more transparent with their decisions and let people in the SEO world know when they are making changes that have potentially detrimental effects on commerce on the internet.

So I viomently disagree that the algorithm doesn’t matter….OF COURSE it matters.

]]> By: Ryan http://www.dotcult.com/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-techcrunch/comment-page-1#comment-3798 Ryan Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:06:26 +0000 http://www.dotcult.com/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-techcrunch#comment-3798 Correct. without understanding SEO and the way search engines view your site, you ARE at a serious disadvantage. But that's not Google's problem, it's your problem. There's tons of resources out there for people to learn about SEO and best practices, and anybody who feels compelled to launch a website should also be compelled to learn how to do it properly. I don't recall arguing that it doesn't matter what you do in SEO. It totally matters what you do. Correct. without understanding SEO and the way search engines view your site, you ARE at a serious disadvantage. But that’s not Google’s problem, it’s your problem.

There’s tons of resources out there for people to learn about SEO and best practices, and anybody who feels compelled to launch a website should also be compelled to learn how to do it properly.

I don’t recall arguing that it doesn’t matter what you do in SEO. It totally matters what you do.

]]> By: Groove Factory PR http://www.dotcult.com/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-techcrunch/comment-page-1#comment-3797 Groove Factory PR Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:00:28 +0000 http://www.dotcult.com/the-time-has-come-to-regulate-techcrunch#comment-3797 Amusing post and nothing to really add to the diatribe about Techcrunch….but your inability to see how Google has a massively distorted and unfair advantage in the marketplace makes most of the rest of your post hard to take seriously. No one of sound mind is asking Google to reveal their search algorithms, but to take the next leap that it doesn’t matter what you do in terms of SEO is simply ridiculous. There are PLENTY of examples of spam sites that rank very well….and lots of cool informational blogs and instructional pages that are poorly formatted, have bad URL structures, no metadata or keyword focus – and rank horribly. Of course it is clear that all things being equal a site with poor content and not much to offer will return worse results than a site that has useful, relevant content and even basic SEO. But without understanding some SEO and the basic way engines view your site – you are at a SERIOUS DISADVANTAGE. Don’t even see how you could possibly argue that point. Amusing post and nothing to really add to the diatribe about Techcrunch….but your inability to see how Google has a massively distorted and unfair advantage in the marketplace makes most of the rest of your post hard to take seriously.

No one of sound mind is asking Google to reveal their search algorithms, but to take the next leap that it doesn’t matter what you do in terms of SEO is simply ridiculous.

There are PLENTY of examples of spam sites that rank very well….and lots of cool informational blogs and instructional pages that are poorly formatted, have bad URL structures, no metadata or keyword focus – and rank horribly.

Of course it is clear that all things being equal a site with poor content and not much to offer will return worse results than a site that has useful, relevant content and even basic SEO. But without understanding some SEO and the basic way engines view your site – you are at a SERIOUS DISADVANTAGE.

Don’t even see how you could possibly argue that point.

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