Warmest Greetings,

Search Engine Optimization Karma and Search Engine Worship  

:: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 ::

The shit is hitting the fan in Search Engine Land.

I'm finding it impossible to get excited about Google. I don't care what their share price is. There are plenty of other investments that are affordable, easy to purchase, and come with a historical record. I'm not buying into Google hype, hope or hysteria.

I don't care if Google was down. It's not the only search engine on the Internet. To take up every newsfeed, for several days in a row, with headlines about MyDoom and Google's bad hair day, is to be obsessed and cornered between an office wall and computer monitor. My local town newspaper covered the news about Google, taking up an entire page. CNN showed screen shots of a faltering Google. The only thing that had more press this year was Janet Jackson's breast.

Show me a big ass corporation who cares about the little people who helped make it what it is.

My PC's, both the earlier ones that ended up in some computer recycling pile somewhere, and my present day ones that are in most of the rooms of my house, are all Win-doze boxes.

And yet Microsoft refuses to support any older Windows or IE browsers people may still have. Instead, you must keep shelling out money to upgrade. This is a pathetic business, and sadly, it'll keep working for them until enough people and companies finally migrate to Linux, MAC, Opera, Firefox, etc.

I once made a living as an SEO promoting web pages to Google and making sure my clients' web sites got into that engine. I founded a forum that has a Google topic for Google submission, rank and SEO support.

Google doesn't want me to buy shares. For starters, I don't make the kind of money needed to buy them. The hippie, "we're cool and democratic" attitude coming out of that corporation isn't flying with this working mom. When the competition comes, and it will, I have no loyalties to Google. Make your shares affordable and the process user friendly, please. In the meantime, I have work to do.

Other various karmic backlash is interfering with my sweetgrass and sage smoke, such as:

Optimizing Search Engine Optimization by Anil Dash of "Nigritude Ultramarine" fame.

     "There's nothing the blogosphere loves more than angry mob justice, and I probably benefitted from tapping into a bit of angry mob antipathy towards the SEO industry. Though many, perhaps even most, people in the SEO industry behave ethically, the reality is that much of the SEO industry has treated the weblog medium with an attitude ranging from crass opportunism or exploitation to downright abuse, in the form of comment spam, referral spam, and fake, content-free blogs.

So, as with all things in the blog world, we confuse an angry link with actual Fight The Power action, and this is one of the few cases where that link actually had some effect."

Mike Grehan pulled away the curtin and exposed SEMPO's Oz in Who Needs SEMPO

     "I was invited by Barbara Coll to speak at the SEMPO meeting at SES London and it seemed essential to her that I should, in fact, be a member of the organisation first.

So, a few months ago, I succumbed and joined at the lowest level for $299.

After parting with my cash I waited patiently for my welcome pack and my newsletter and frequent pinging about events and happening stuff and... Not a sausage."

Which got the widely recognized conversation at Cre8asiteForums called So What Does SEMPO Mean To You? re-charged again.

     "Maybe as someone who conducts web promotion in house, I would join an industry group that focuses upon SEO or SEM. But it would depend on a lot of factors. That group would need to show me a few things.


I would want to see a clear statement of whom the members of the organization should be.

I would want to know what benefits there might be for me in membership.

It would discourage me to see different prices for different levels of membership, with a "golden circle" that got preferential placement on the organization's web site.

I would want to see clear lines of communication developed, with people knowing the aims of the organization, and their efforts.

I would want to know what the methods for choosing leadership were, and would probably want those methods to be democratic, based upon some type of voting. Maybe an election of directors who would appoint executive officers.

I would want to be able to see bylaws for the organization, and I would want to see them online, available to the public to view.

I would want the organization to come up with some guidelines of ethical conduct and practice, developed with the efforts of disinterested third parties from academia and the business world (professors and professionals).

I understand that Nonprofit doesn't mean that people work for free, and I would want fair compensation to be paid to the people working for the organization, and the measure of fair would probably be related to the amount of pay that people performing similar functions in other nonprofits are getting paid."

     "Maybe they need to hire someone with real experience in running a non-profit organization like AMA."

The Search Engine LowDown has more in Scandal Rocks SEMPO, Expert Suggests Board Members Should Resign


This Week, Elsewhere and Just as Important

     "My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called "opinionated"...

is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish.

And my only hope is that one day soon, My only hope is that, one day soon, women, who have all earned their right to their opinions...

instead of being labeled opinionated will be called smart and well informed, just like men."
--- Teresa Heinz Kerry, in her speech at the Democratic National Convention, USA

     "For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are all connected as one people."
--- Barack Obama>, in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, USA

I See Into the Future of SEO, and Win an MP3 Player

New change in SEO world

Thanks Andy Beal and the gang at Search Engine Lowdown!

I told my daughter I entered a contest, hoping to win an MP3 player for her. Upon being informed that I won it, she cleaned her room!

Quick Note

Goodbye Lycos. Another search engine property rides off into the sunset.

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 7/28/2004 10:26:24 AM

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