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James you're lucky I didn't find the post first then. Think of all the traffic you wouldn't be getting.
Bill I'll get the projector out for you.
One thing I'd argue though is my post isn't quite just typical regurgiated links. A number of people have let me know the links in the post aren't that important to them and they actually enjoy the writing around the links. The post isn't simply a list of links.
Thanks for submitting the post Aidan. I'm glad you liked it.
Sorry I didn't link to you Tadeusz. It's impossible to link to everyone. There are many great posts each month that I never see let alone link to. Going hot on Sphinn is not a requirement, in fact if anything it would be a post I figure most people have seen already. I realize I link to a lot of popular content, but I've been trying to make more of an effort to link to posts people may not have seen during the month.
Mostly though, there's just no way to link to every great post out there.
Tad, again sorry for not linking to you this month. I don't really see my roundup post as necessarily linking to the most popular posts each month. I'm not trying to repeat the Sphinn hot list for example. Every month there are great posts that for whatever reason either don't catch my attention or just don't end up in the post.
Sometimes it's as simple as me being very busy one week and not having time to read so most anything that's posted during that week just doesn't get included for no fault of the post, but rather my own schedule. This month for example I didn't have a lot of time to spend on Sphinn. I couldn't even tell you what the most popular posts here were this month.
As much as I read I still miss a lot more posts than I find. And again the post for me is not about linking to the most popular stuff out there. If the posts are that popular doesn't it stand to reason they've been seen by most people already. Not that I don't link to popular posts, but it's not my objective. Every month someone could easily complain they weren't included.
The one thing I've learned writing these posts is that there are a lot more great posts in the seo community than any one person to link to.
So what you're saying is from now on I need to read every single post written by everyone in the SEO industry and come to a completely objective decision about which are the best posts for the month or I can't use that title.
Tad I think you're being a little unrealistic here. You do read posts in the industry, don't you. How many titles do you see that aren't perfect representations of the post within? Are you asking everyone who posts with a title that includes top 10 to back up the claim? Or do they all need to change their titles too now.
I'm not exactly sure what part of This Month in SEO claims to be anything other than what I present. The title isn't This Month's Top Sphinn Posts. It's not The Unequivacal Best Posts from the Month in SEO, It's not These are the Algorithmically Determined Absolute Best Posts from the Month in SEO.
Everything you read is information filtered through the author. So this post is the month in SEO as filtered through me.
Glad to submit the post Bill. I enjoy all your posts as I think you know, but I think the idea of using annotations is going to be important given things like universal search and the potential for using social properties for determining trust and authority.
If what someone says about you is more important than what you say about yourself then what the community says about you is probably more important than what one person says about you.
I think the desphinns are from people who didn't watch till the end. If you only watch a little bit it's easy to think the whole point of the video is to make fun of her when she's really in on the joke.
But we all do need to remember that most of the common words we use all day are unfamilar to the majority. I wouldn't expect most people to know what rss is. The word blog has made it into the mainstream, though that still doesn't mean most people know what a blog is.
Story: How relevant is Cuil?
I wasn't impressed with my first look at Cuil, but it's so new I think it deserves some time to see where it goes. I saw a few other reports of Cuil sending a good amount of traffic the last few days too.
Dave makes some good points about why Cuil may do better than initial reports would indicate
Story: How relevant is Cuil?
I still can't past the vanity search. Cuil can find my site when I search for my business name with no spaces as in my domain. But when I put the spaces in it finds no information. Considering they claim to be putting more emphasis on on-page factors and I always spell the company name on the site with the space I think they should be able to find it.
Granted it's just a vanity search for me, but if they can't get that right I wonder what else they aren't getting right.
On the other hand I would like to see them do well and know they just launched. I'll still be checking on them and rooting for them. It's early and I expect the results will improve.
Great post Kim. Know that there are some men in the industry who have a lot of respect for SEO women. I noticed some of the same comments you pointed out and felt like I'd stepped back in time. You hope people would be long past certain attitides, but sadly some aren't.
I hadn't realized the links were followed in the first place. Guess the change won't affect how I participate with Sphinn at all. If it helps prevent spam good.
Story: Social Media Cash Grab
Jill I don't think this is about participating with expectations of thanks. Sometimes when easy opportunites to say thanks go by without one it can feel like a slap in the face.
For example I post to a couple of forums often. I don't get much back from it in any kind of marketing sense, at least not enough to justify the time, but I enjoy being able to help people where I can and so I'm happy to participate.
Sometimes a person will start a thread asking a question and I'll give a half hour to an hour composing a long and detailed response. Right after me two or three people will post some quick 'me too' posts echoing something I said. When the OP comes back he might thanks the 'me too' people and not offer any thanks to me.
Now I didn't post an answer in order to be thanked. I wasn't expecting it and it wasn't required at all. But when you give a lot of your time only to see someone else who didn't get thanked it feels like a slap in the face. It certainly doesn't make me want to help that person again, because it comes across as not being appeciated.
It's not about expecting or needing thanks. But there are times when thanks could easily be given and isn't. I think that's more where Dave is coming from. I don't think he needs the thanks, but I think he's seeing opportunites where it could have been given go by which makes him question whether or not his participation is appreciated.
I don't think all of these will work for everyone, but there are some interesting ideas in here that could prove very useful depenind on your situation. I particularly like the ideas of using your logo to promote site news items and the funnel based sidebar navigation.
Interesting stuff.
Good job Todd. Two simple questions with some very incisive answers. The threaded conversations in Plurk make the place much more welcoming and much easier to meet new people. I find myself getting into better conversations with people at Plurk than I do at Twitter, though I still like both,
Agreed. I bookmarked the original article, but haven't gone through it yet. The lessons are certainly valuable and good advice toward improving your writing.
For the most part I agree, but I think in the case of Plurk the service offers some things Twitter doesn't. On the surface it may be a copycat of Twitter, but the extra features, particualrly the threaded replies give it something Twitter doesn't have,
Plurk does promote conversation and quite honestly I've had better conversations there than I've had at Twitter. Reaching critical mass is important, but I do think it will get there as Plurk offers something a little different.
Not everyone works for a company willing to foot the bill, though. In my case I am the company and as much as I'd like to make to a conference just to meet everyone I can't justify the expense to myself.
In all fairness it's not just the price of a ticket to the conference. The related costs in travel, hotel, food, etc. add up. I know in the near future the only way I could even consider a confernece is if one comes back to Denver or even right here in Boulder.
Congrats Donna. 4 years of great content is worth celebrating. Happy 4th.
Great analogy Ken. I'll be using it in the future too. It's flexible like you say and we should be able to add to it to describe new thoughts about links as they come up. I've usually used an analogy of interconnected roads and highways, but the light analogy is a better one.
Thanks for submitting Dave. Always appreciated. And yes getting to know each other was more than enough ROI to share a couple of guest posts.
Story: 13 Ways to Promote Your Next Blog Post