| LED Digest 1814: Using Your Loyal Opposition |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ June 3, 2004 Issue #1814 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Controlling Forum Moaners ==-- ~ Kath Chute "You could also create a section called 'from the desk of the eternal pessimists'..." ~ Aaron Agassi "Never underestimate your loyal opposition." ~ Jim Corbett "Our solution was provided by the software, initially." --== Credible SEOs and SEMs ==-- ~ John Smart "...we all have our own strengths and weaknesses." ~ Baruch Avraham "...if you read and look, you will find most that you need to know." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Searchclimbers ==-- ~ Scott Marino --== Outbound Links Increasing Rankings ==-- ~ Aaron Wall ~ Michael Martinez ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Kathleen Chute Subject: Moaners > Like many sites I have a discussion and ideas board where people > can post comments... the idea being to create a community where > people can help each other out. But what do you do about the small > group of eternal pessimists who keep on dragging boards down? - Richard Graham, LED 1813 Would it possible for you to just delete any articles that are negative (or in poor taste?) You could also create a section called "And from the desk of the eternal pessimists..." If they continue to see their articles there they may be too embarrassed to keep posting. Just a thought. Kath Chute ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Aaron Agassi Subject: Moaners True rational pessimism or criticality is a vastly undervalued resource, in any serious discourse of business planning and evaluation. For such is the positive power of negative thinking. Never underestimate your loyal opposition. Explicit problem statements are always the best first step towards serious viable solutions. The only question is, can you be as tough on your own pet concepts, as will be the average Venture Capitalists? The role of forum moderator, the veritable acting chair person, is simply to keep discussion at all on topic. Anything more is in and of itself, intolerable abuse. Heavy handed cult-like enforcement of bogus cheery sycophantic rightthink is all too prevalent, and seldom helps foster any substantive discourse. Aaron Agassi ------- new post - same topic ------- From: James Corbett Subject: Moaners Richard, I run a message board with a 5,000+ membership drawn from nearly 20 countries worldwide. We 'opened our doors' nearly 4 years ago so we've been through the same problems you're experiencing. Our solution was provided by the software, initially. InfoPop.com finally introduced a moderation feature which allowed us to moderate by member. That allowed us to censor troublesome individuals. Yes, the very mention of the word censorship causes an incredible kneejerk reaction among many but we make no bones about it on OUR forum. There are plenty of outlets on the internet for spleen venting but we insist on observation of a code of behavior in our community and if people don't like it they're welcome to leave! Together with monitoring IPs on new registrations this allowed us to keep most of the trouble at bay. And as our membership kept growing and more and more value was being added to the site we were eventually able to take the step which really solves the problem - we went pay membership only. On each credit card subscription payment we get the name and address of the buyer so we get no duplicate registrations. And if one of our paid members causes problems we just issue them a refund and close down their account. By the way, things have never been better since going with paid membership. It seems like our members are keen to get value for their money by contributing more to the community and by watching out for it by reporting misbehavior. It has in a sense become self-policing. Best of luck with your own forum. Jim Corbett http://eirepreneur.blogs.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: John Smart Subject: Credible SEOs I don't know that my comments were giving SEO's a bad name. In fact, reading my post, I thought I was making a strong case for SEO's. To clarify my view point -- so as not to give anyone the wrong idea, I was thinking of a site with two possibilities (to hugely over simplify). One page is an image -- all the text is contained within the image -- nice fancy fonts, looks great for the human element, but not too good for Mr. (or Mrs.) Search Engine. Version two would see a very simple page, as was required in the days of yore, with H tags of various sizes, in the appropriate order, the tag heading tying in with the body of text below it, etc. Something a search engine would have enjoyed, and probably in this day and age still slightly enjoys, even if only for the "e-nostalgia" it could give Googlebot or any of the others! SEO and good design do go hand in hand, of course. But do the SEO's here do web design? Do the designers do SEO work? Well, probably, yes. But the point I feel that Bob and I are both going towards is that we need each other -- we all have our own strengths and weaknesses. Kindest regards, John Smart ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Baruch Avraham Subject: Credible SEOs Like John Smart [issue 1812], I'm too the many hats person. I have a website, but have a webmaster do the work for me. Even for adding or changing text. My skiil on the net are emailing & searching. Once I paid a SEO for my site submission & advice on keywords. But what will be the text, keywords design etc.. are all my calls. I learned all I know about search engines from LED & other forms. Recently all my learning & work paid. My site come in the top 10 for most of my keywords in Google & Yahoo, and I dont pay them a penny. Probably I can improve many things in my site, but my point that if you read & look, you will find most that you need to know. Regards. Baruch Avraham Aris Jewelry www.aris-titanium.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Scott Marino Subject: Searchclimbers > ... I have been approached by a company called "searchclimbers." > They offer a pop-up of your web site's home page when certain > keywords are entered in the search engines. You pay an annual fee > per keyword. But first, the searcher must have installed their > software in order to get the pop-up. - William Ernest Waites, LED 1812 Run as fast as you can. There have been companies under various names for several years trying to sell the same thing. I ask them for good hard numbers as to how many searches have been made for my keywords and either get the story that "the reporting feature is currently in development" or they come back with such a pitifully low number of searches that it would amount to like $1.00 per click. I ask how many active installs they still have, and they can't answer that. Who cares if they have managed 16 million downloads if there have been 15 million un-installs. Actually, they have been claiming 16 million downloads since they started. I guess nobody is downloading it anymore. Save your money... Regards, Scott Marino www.webundies.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Aaron Wall Subject: Outbound links > Outbound links work for two reasons with Google... - Michael Martinez, LED 1810 > Somewhere in Google's webmaster guidelines is a warning > about having more than 100 outbound links on a page... 101 > outbound links on a page... may lead to an immediate decrease > in absolute PageRank even if it's not demonstrated in the toolbar. - Jim Gatton, LED 1812 That guidance was given based on providing a usable website for users. That guidance is for nothing more than that. I have noticed backlinks in Google from sites with hundreds and thousands of links on their pages. If a site is of greater perceived value (higher PageRank) then Google will be more inclined to follow more links. Some of the Blog tracking sites (such as Blogdex) regularly have thousands of outbound links per page and have no problems getting a high Google PageRank or ranking well. Linking to solid outside resources is great for your user and probably helps your rankings some in Teoma, but it is doubtful that it already provides a significant direct effect to your Google rankings. It can provide an indirect effect if by linking to many great resources more sites are inclined to link to you... aaron wall http://www.seobook.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Outbound links > I did not see in any of the information that you posted > that says outbound links work with Google. - Simon McArdle, LED 1813 The citation was about PageRank, not outbound links. Google representatives consistently tell people to stop worrying about PageRank. And people consistently ignore them and then ask why it's so hard to get good rankings. > Since when was adding links considered to be content? Everything you put on your Web page, which your visitors can see, is content. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. > Ah... there is my point confirmed as true. The old > authoritive site case. The new 53rd element from > the Google algorithm after the infamous Florida > update. You have been reading forums on this I see. You MUST be trying to provoke me. I have been telling people about Google and authority for YEARS (and that includes through this digest). I DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THE HYSTERICS posted at the various Web forums. The update you refer to had nothing to do with outbound links and authority. That technology had been in place for more than a year. All the rubbish you and others read in those forums was a complete waste of a lot of people's time. And here we are, still dealing with that nonsense because people really think that if everyone in a particular forum says a certain thing is so, it must be so. Truth is not democratically determined. When Google speaks, I listen. When people on a forum start naming updates, I gag. > Please also explain Googles' definition of a NATURAL > link as opposed to an artificial one. Go look at a blog. Then go look at a reciprocal links page. That is the difference. Michael Martinez, Author Understanding Middle-earth, Parma Endorion, and Visualizing Middle-earth http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature." - Rich Kulawiec |
