| LED Digest 2200: Public Speaking & Conferences |
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List Moderator: Published by:
Adam Audette LED Digest
adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com
..............................................
July 11, 2006 Issue no. 2200
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.....IN THIS DIGEST.....
======= NEW ====================
--== Are Outgoing Links Important? ==--
~ Paul Harris
"...can you have too many outgoing links to
other web sites?"
--== Conferences & Public Speaking ==--
~ Shari Thurow
"First and foremost, before any person pitches
him- or herself to be a speaker, do your research."
==== CONTINUING =================
--== Google "Miserable Failure" Search ==--
~ Steve Pronger
"Perhaps [this example] highlights flaws in [Google's]
basic philosophy."
~ Rich Dudley
"Google has been accused in the past of editorial
bias in their Adwords program."
--== Selling on Amazon ==--
~ Scott Marino
"I am very happy with my relationship with Amazon."
==== BILLBOARD ===================
--== Update on the Site Disappearance Case ==--
~ Clive Smith
--== Email Pirates ==--
~ John "zeke" Brumage
~ John Smart
========== NEW ===================================
From: Paul Harris
Subject: Outgoing Links
I receive regular "invitations" to swap links with other sites - the
majority of the sites are in no way connected to my business. One
caught my notice recently as it said their link must not be on a
page with no more than 15 outgoing links.
This poses the question can you have too many outgoing links to
other web sites?
Paul Harris
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: Shari Thurow
Subject: Public Speaking Engagements
Hi all-
This is in response to Dirk Johnson's post in LED #2187 in which he
stated:
> It is next to impossible for alternative voices to be heard
> at the largest SEO conferences these days. It's the same
> parade of people, spouting the same unfounded theories,
> again and again. The management at these conferences
> appear to refuse to allow alternative voices. The truth suffers
> badly.
This is just a snippet from the original post. Quite frankly, the
entire post rubbed me the wrong way. I am not one of the
"management" at these conferences, but I am one of the original,
long-term speakers at many of them. And I certainly have something
to say about it.
First and foremost, before any person pitches him- or herself to be
a speaker, do your research. I don't merely mean research on the
topic you wish to speak about. I also mean researching the target
audience, current speaker opinions, and scholarly articles on the
topic.
Let's begin with the most fundamental items: understanding your
target audience. The SEO conference audience is a tough one. This
audience contains marketers with little or no technical skills, and
it contains IT professionals with considerable technical skills.
Both groups often attend the same sessions. If a speaker is too
technical, the speaker loses the marketer crowd. If the speaker is
not technical enough, then the speaker loses the IT crowd.
Additionally, the audience often consists of "black-hat" (unethical)
and "white-hat" (ethical) SEOs. I can't tell you the number of times
where I've been with a predominantly "black-hat" audience that
cannot stand anything I say purely because I am a "white-hat" SEO.
Now, as a speaker, you need to meet the needs of the aforementioned
type of audience. Of course, no speaker can make all of the people
happy all of the time. So the speaker must do his best. Speakers
with thinly veiled sales pitches are often not asked back. Likewise,
speakers who like to crack jokes (usually the "black hats") but give
no substantial content or guidance are also weeded out. But it does
take a little time.
I like to try new material on smaller venues to gauge audience
response. And audience response isn't merely written evaluations.
How many people are constantly writing during a presentation? Maybe
I should make it a slide. How many peoples' eyes are glued to a
screen? Maybe I should elaborate a topic more. If I am talking too
fast, where can I embellish? If I am talking too slowly, what slides
/ examples / explanations can I skip?
Public speaking isn't something where you appear in front of an
audience and people miraculously worship the ground you walk on. It
takes a lot of work and sensitivity to your audience, which is a
fact that many would-be speakers tend to forget.
Second, "management" does an outstanding job at presenting different
opinions on a topic. If all speakers on a panel agreed with each
other, the panel would be boring. Many panel speakers work together
to ensure that they do not discuss the same ideas. Or, if they do
discuss the same ideas, they show it from different perspectives. It
makes the conference more interesting for everyone. Hey, I don't
like that the "black-hats" exploit the engines and do not wish to
associate with this group professionally and socially. But I know
they offer different opinions than I have, and it makes a more
interesting conference.
Finally, people honestly don't know how much a speaker does or does
not know from a 10-20 minute presentation. I do a considerable
amount of research and fact-checking before all presentations. If a
search engine software engineer wrote a journal article about, for
example, duplicate content, I am going to try and incorporate that
knowledge into a presentation. And I'll often contact the author
directly for clarification. Then I have to modify the presentation
for technical as well as non-technical audience members without
butchering the author's main points.
As a side note, to the LEDer who wanted to know my education, it is
a Library and Information Science graduate degree with a specialty
in human and computer interfaces. My specific area of interest is
search-friendly interfaces (act surprised).
I apologize for such a long post, and I don't mean to bore any
LEDers. This is my point to Dirk and anyone else wishing to be a
speaker: how much work do you perform in order to become a speaker?
When you pitch yourself, do you demonstrate a clear understanding of
both the topic and the target audience? And, when given a chance to
be a speaker, do you bask in the glory of your wonderfulness, or do
you really listen to the audience?
I've had my bad speaking days, and "management" certainly
understands that it happens every now and again. So most speakers
are not eliminated from one poor performance. Do you talk to the
moderators and "management" to find out what has worked well in the
past and what hasn't worked so well?
So quit whining about the lack of speaking opportunities. If you
want to be a professional speaker, do your research and earn the
privilege. Be diligent. Be patient. Earn the privilege and prove
your worth.
Okay, off of my soapbox.
Sincerely,
Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director
Grantastic Designs, Inc.
~ For Free design and marketing tips, visit us at:
======== CONTINUING ===============================
From: Steve Pronger
Subject: Failure search
> There is nothing on the page that matches Dakota County
> or hobby farm. It only hit on two of the six words I entered.
- Lew Vividere, LED 2199
Lew, go to Google's cache of that page (click on "Cached" under the
listing in the SERP) and you'll see the reason. You'll even see the
search words highlighted on the page. Notice at the top of the page
it says "Google's cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as
we crawled the web. The page may have changed since that time."
Whether by accident or by design, it seems that's exactly what's
happened here.
> It's not politics; it's not about free speech.
> This is about returning accurate results.
- Tommy Powell, LED 2199
I guess that depends on how you define accurate results. The Google
algorithm has always been based on the philosophy of "we will rank
your site based not only on what you say your site is about, but
what other people say your site is about". That's the way I
understand it anyway. So if lots of people say "miserable failure"
and point to your site, it's likely your site is going to show up in
Google's SERPs for that expression.
We can debate the politics, ethics and appropriateness of such a
thing happening, but it merely reflects an online reality. Perhaps
it highlights flaws in that basic philosophy.
Personally, I agree with Mark Medlicott that MSN often returns more
usable results. If MSN was the dominant search engine life would be
so much easier. But they're not, and Google still is. So while we
can all bemoan the fact that Google sometimes returns kooky results,
all we can hope to do is understand why it happens and use that
knowledge to our best advantage.
Steve Pronger
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Richard Dudley
Subject: Failure search
Although I also believe the SE results are coming up fairly, Google
has been accused in the past of editorial bias in their Adwords
program: http://snipurl.com/t1jy [google.blognewschannel.com]
Rich Dudley
-------- new post - new topic ---------
From: Scott Marino
Subject: Amazon selling
> This thread is based upon a common confusion with the
> meaning of the word "fair" - confusing it with "equal." As
> they used to say on the old Laugh-In show, "Look it up in
> your Funk & Wagnalls" and when you do, you find that
> fair means "according to rules, principles, etc.
- Wes Hopper, LED 2199
Wes -
Thanks for pointing out the definition of fair and the better use of
the term equal. You are correct and perhaps I could amend my
statement to read "Business is not about being equal."
The original post was about how Amazon favored certain sellers and
how one person bashed Amazon for their perceived slight of his
business in favor of another. In response to that post (which
sounded to me like a child crying "It's not fair!") I posted the
following:
"Do the bigger companies with higher sales get better placement?
Yes. Is it fair? Maybe / Maybe Not - either way, BUSINESS IS NOT
ABOUT BEING FAIR"
Upon review of what I posted, taken in context, it is a valid
assertion. In changing the words from "fair" to "equal", the
statement loses it's meaning.
Either way, I am done with this thread. One poster was very unhappy
with selling on Amazon, I posted an opposing view that I am very
happy with my relationship with Amazon.
To the original poster asking about selling on Amazon: I hope the
distraction created by the misinterpretation of my statement has not
detracted from the meaning of my post.
Regards,
Scott Marino
WebUndies.com
==== BILLBOARD ===================================
From: Clive Smith
Subject: Site disappearance
Hi Everyone,
Just a brief follow up and bit of advice related to the discussion
about Dirk's site, http://www.plants-magazine.com, going AWOL
because the company he was dealing with went belly up. [Dirk van der
Werff, "The Case of the Missing Website", LED 2190]
We just had a similar situation with a client where the site records
were controlled by the hosting company. When hurricane Katrina hit,
he went off the map. It has became difficult for our client to
manage their own site as a result. They asked us to help move it to
another hosting service, which we were happy to do, but since none
of the e-mail addresses for verification pointed to our client this
meant they had to do a painful process of verifying that they did,
indeed, own their own domain name with the registrar for their
domain, Network Solutions.
Our staff security expert, Allen Schaaf, looked over the procedure
to make sure it was done correctly. Beyond fixing a couple of points
of potential confusion, he also examined the security model used by
Network Solutions to keep web sites from being hijacked. He was
appalled at the weakness of the security model. His comment was that
they raised the barrier for the legitimate owner of the domain name
yet they actually made it easier to hijack a domain name by social
engineering.
So a couple of words of caution: Make sure that you are the "Primary
Contact" in the records your domain registrar. Make sure the e-mail
address you use is one that is going to be around for a while and
that you have ongoing access to it for verification of any changes
needed. The last point is that you should have all this, and related
information, included in a disaster recovery / business continuity
plan which is stored in a couple of secure places, just in case.
Best to all,
Clive Smith
Planned Systems Inc.
csmith, planned-systems.com
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: John "Zeke" Brumage
Subject: Email pirates
> If your domain has a "wild card" box, it becomes
> very convenient for spammers to use arbitrary or
> role addresses... Get rid of "wild card" acceptance.
- John "Zeke" Brumage, LED 2198
> Do we somehow set it ourselves when
> we make our email addresses?
- Carrie Cassidy, LED 2199
Wildcards are set up at the domain inbox, the exact method will vary
according to the email software. In my system, there is a database
with addresses in the left and mailbox names on the right.
address actual mail box
------------ --------------------
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
brumage
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
brumage
@brumage.com brumage
.. only the first one on this list is actually in my database, i
removed the others to prevent <random letters>@brumage.com from
returning RCPT OK when the latest spam filters verify sender address.
This will not prevent a spammer from using
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
as a
return address, but as soon as multiple emails arrive at a domain
with the same return address, the spam score is raised considerably,
From my standpoint, the number of bounce messages that i am forced
to wade through each night is reduced.
John "zeke" Brumage
anyhoo.com
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: John Smart
Subject: Email pirates
Not all servers support wildcards (catchalls) but it is useful. When
I signed up with BMG I gave them the address of
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
and they sold me out!!! But Target are very
good and never spammed me (nor did Lego!) That said, it does open
an infinite amount of doors to mail bombers (spammers who ‘guess’
mail addresses, every single guess will hit you).
Your host should be able to offer this. I know that we do! Call
support and ask for a ‘catchall’ account set up. (or a wildcard
account, depending on ISP)
I hope that helps,
John Smart
InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World
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