Think Basis It's Good For Business

Hi, and welcome to my first blog post here on ThinkBasis. I’d like to say a few words about the most recent wave of panic that’s been sweeping the world of SEO and has everyone talking on the Wild Wild Web. Yes, I’m talking about the cartoonishly named update called Penguin from Google.

A few good hours spent reading white, gray, black and rainbow colored SEO forums has left me feeling like I’m currently in a post-apocalyptical part of the web, where spammers are given more power instead of being put in their place, businesses are given the green light to bomb and blast each and every one of their competitors, and Google idly sits on the sidelines, either enjoying the mess they created or scratching their heads going “Hey, that’s not what was supposed to happen!”.

Do no evil, right Google?

At first glance, Penguin looks like the single most well-thought and sensible update from Google in their constant war against spam. Matt Cutts even dipped the whole thing in honey with examples of spam-filled blogs and websites that were supposed to be wiped out by this update.

And then, out of nowhere, NegativeSEO!  Some guy over at http://trafficplanet.com started a brilliant thread and tested what we all speculated: Can you de-index your competitors with exactly the same kind of link-building tactics that everyone used just a month ago to rank with? Apparently, yes you can!

It was all downhill from there. From gigs on Fiverr offering to bomb your competitors with thousands of links, to more devious plans of making a website look bad in Google’s ever-so-watchful eyes, like duplicating blog content and re-publishing it on various websites, before the original can be crawled and indexed by Google itself. Google hates duplicates, and in this scenario, your original blog content would be seen as duplicated by big G … and down go your rankings.

So what’s left now: Should we all point our SEO “guns” at each other and blast away, or just put our trust in humanity and hope that our competitors don’t overload us with spammy links?

Easy it is, to be swayed by “the dark side” but deeper analysis would show a post-war of SERP’s displaying nothing but irrelevant content, mainly because all competitors would be down in the gutter, making room for all the mediocre 2-5 page results to float to the top. I seriously doubt anyone wants that.

That’s not to say the results right now are down in the gutter already. The worst offenders would be exactly the websites that Cutts gave as examples of on his blog, which still rank on the first page, weeks after Penguin was rolled out. Nice one Google!

So instead of fighting spam, websites with 20,000 spammy backlinks are protected (theory: Google assumes they’re giant businesses because of a high number of links pointing to them) and small businesses are getting trashed and pushed down on heck knows what page, or even worse: penalized and de-indexed.

Google hereby deems your article unworthy!

Another issue Google’s been trying to solve with this update is overly spun articles. Here’s a hilarious example:

“When it obliviously comes to provisions I’m drawbridge sweet fussy. I don’t meat too precisely cooked or too rare, and scout about has to be very soon right. She did all the old fashioned way. ”

Kudos to them for trying to remove such garbage from the web, but when I later found out they seem to frown upon guest posts as well, I felt quite a bit drawbridge sweet fussy about it to say the least.

Since content is king and G usually loves fresh material, it’s anyone’s guess why they would downgrade this option of creating backlinks, especially when the blog owners themselves state on their blog that “guest posts are accepted”,  as well as the blogs themselves not being auto-accept link farms and they are moderated by a human with a following of readers interested in the topic of your guest post. Big G probably assumes they’re paid links, and smacks your rankings right down. Speaking of content…

Meet Joe…

An average Joe, wife and two kids, mortgage on the house, that kind of Joe. He has a huge passion for household electrical maintenance. This drives him to create his own local business, and eventually his own website that promotes his services. Joe hits the first wall when he finds the standard wordpress/blogspot themes are “spammy” by Google standards so he naturally goes looking for solutions on the web.

He finds that fresh weekly content would do wonders for ranking higher in SERPs so he starts a blog writing about cathodes, conductors, faulty wiring and changing lightbulbs, but honestly now, how many people would be interested in that sort of material? How many articles and permutations on the same subject can Joe come up with before giving up, only to keep up with Google’s freshness algo?

On top of that, our Joe is left with managing Twitter, Facebook and Google+ while battling competitors on GooglePlaces that gave him false negative reviews, instead of actually gathering clientele and offering them his services.

Nevertheless, Joe gets a second mortgage on the house and hires a white-hat SEO company that manages to rank him for his main keywords on the first page of Google. Creeping out of Google’s algo factory comes an abomination called Penguin, meant to “help” small businesses and eradicate spam. However, Joe’s rankings plummet and he has no idea why. Careful examination of his backlinks point to tens of thousands of links created over-night, links he did not create,  but for which he was seriously penalized.

Joe cries out for help and Google gladly and promptly respond with their favorite email these days:

“We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank.”

Translation:

“Hello webmaster. It seems you have some not-so-cool links pointing to your website and we don’t like that. We know exactly which of your 50k+ links are the bad ones, but we want you to spend countless hours, manually going through each of them, finding the dodgy ones and then deciding for yourself if they’re the ones responsible for your rank drop or not.

In the meantime, would you be interested in running an AdWords campaign?”

And so, after spending months on creating rich content, a compelling website and social media following, our poor Joe is left searching through piles of links, some which he has no control over or no means of removing, in hopes of “maybe” getting back in Google’s good graces and having a chance at his website being reconsidered for indexation.

Where did those links come from? Was it a mistake on Google’s part with the new algo? Was it Bob, his main competitor, doing some shady business, dipping his toe in NSEO? Who knows!

I for one, anxiously am awaiting the Unicorn update. Rumour has it that it’s supposed to offer spam-free, relevant SERPs and constructive competition between rival companies that will result in creative websites with relevant and helpful articles that will promote friendly user-business interactions. Too bad the unicorn is just a myth…

Facebook tells the world who you are. Twitter broadcasts to the world what you are doing. Foursquare, the location-based social networking service, allows users to let friends and family know just where they are, with special benefits included.

Foursquare is, at its core, a game. Users check-in at locations where they are, shout a few words to their friends and fight over mayorships, badges and special offers. Unlike Facebook, which took some time to find a true revenue source, and Twitter, which has yet to outline a stable business model, relevance in Foursquare will prove instant value to any local institution.

Foursquare takes word-of-mouth marketing to a whole new level. Receiving a ‘ping’ from a friend checking into 416-Florist.com and shouting, “Just picked up birthday flowers for Susan” will have a far greater affect on you than a bland advertisement on a billboard. As well, advertisers can find great use in Foursquare to collect data on customers checking-in and participating in certain promotions. Soon enough, the hot shots on Madison ave. will be able to pinpoint a message to meet your demands exactly. Although that may seem scary to some, the pros do exceed the cons. Like this story about Miss Shirley’s in Baltimore (via aboutfoursquare.com):

The Sunday brunch line at Miss Shirley’s Café’s two locations in Baltimore often stretches to two hours or more. Since April, they’ve offered to let their foursquare mayor jump to the head of the line.

The competition for that coveted honor has been fierce. According to Ryan Goff of agency MGH, Miss Shirley’s has seen a 427% increase in foursquare checkins since the special launched. They’ve heard several anecdotal reports of people visiting more often just to try to earn the mayorship.

In Toronto, I recently got a friend request from the nationally distributed newspaper, the National Post. I didn’t see any reason to ignore the request and so I accepted, wondering where this paper would be checking into. A little later on in the day, I checked into Hemingway’s Restaurant for a nice lunch with a friend. Only a few seconds after checking-in I received a recommendation from the National Post’s food critic about a particular sandwich. I figured I would give it a shot, and it paid off! The meal was delicious and it was because I put trust in this particular recommendation.  Local businesses can tap into this and gain new customers just by setting up their profile on the city grid. “Special offers nearby” always attract visitors and to be “Trending Right Now” is a sign of immediate success.

Foursquare, and its growing partnerships around the globe, is here to stay. Although there is considerable competition in the market from Gowalla, Foursquare is winning the people over in droves. With connections in Facebook and Twitter, updates may eventually come solely through third-party apps and with Foursquare’s fun and easy to use location-based service, it only makes sense that in time all your tweets will come through the Foursquare platform.

Still don’t get it? Watch the video below. You’ll be hooked after your first checkin.

Recently, while taking important time out of my day to check up on Facebook, I have found some awkward recommendations appear on the right hand side of my news feed. As part of the Recommended Pages section, the Facebook team has devised an ingenious method of linking Pages that you have previously liked to other persons, places, or things they figure you may also like. Here’s an easy way to look at it: (more…)

In a case of asking a question they weren’t quite ready to have answered, Domino’s Pizza’s new site Pizza Turnaround (which promotes the chain’s new recipe) is getting the wrong type of buzz. After soliciting user feedback and including a stream of tweets under the hashtag #newpizza on their new recipe’s site, Domino’s seemed a bit startled that the general buzz wasn’t as overwhelmingly positive as they might have expected.

One screen capture showcases a variety of less than complimentary reactions to the new pizza, including the gem, “new dominos pizza just tastes like shitty pizza still. just different. too much sauce. always too much sauce.”

As a response, it appears Domino’s is now manually selecting which tweets will be included in the updates.

If you’re only going to print what you want people to say, why bother including a live feed in the first place? Why not just handpick a few testimonials or fake some positive reviews?

Oh, I forgot, that wouldn’t be “engaging in the conversation.”

I’ve started to develop an allergic reaction to Twitter lately. Not everything about it, just some of the specific types of tweets that seem to be tainting our stream with the unwanted taste of urine and self-importance. Although most of us have been guilty of at least a few of these from time to time, it’s the habitual offenders I’m taking issue with. Overusing these 8 types of tweets is a quick way to get yourself classified in a group you might rather not be a part of.

1. The Validation Seeker

I like to call this the attention whore. It’s usually someone who thrives on having other people inquire about their life so they can tell everyone how great things are while simultaneously receiving that special little “I’m important” feeling. It would be just as easy for them to write the actual news, but doing that would take away from the extra attention they get when someone finally decides to indulge them and ask the question they’ve been desperately waiting for. Plus, it’s a good way for them to test who their “real” friends are, and who actually has a life of their own.

2. The Perpetual Victim

Rarely stemming from legitimate hardship, this style of tweet typically centers on something so trivial that the rest of us probably wouldn’t even give it a second thought. Things like long lines at Starbucks, slow service, or a disappointing meal aren’t nearly the tragedies some people make them out to be. Everyone’s entitled to a bit of complaining now and again, but sometimes you need to nut up a little bit and pick your battles.

3. The Existentialist

There’s a fine line between being thought provoking and being a douchebag that tries too hard. While there’s always a place for a well-quoted song lyric or literary passage, trying to dress these up as a showcase for your depth of thought and incredible insight is questionable at best. Just because you’re quoting Thoreau on a regular basis doesn’t mean you’ve found some deeper meaning that we’re all lacking. You’re not the only one who’s read Walden, and the fact that you’re also on Twitter tells us you couldn’t have found it that inspiring.

4. The Too Cool for School

There’s a huge difference between informing people of what you’re up to and bragging about how awesome you are. We get that we should be envious of your carefree lifestyle and VIP status, but the fact that you’re Tweeting about how you’re shopping for a Ferrari makes us wonder whether you’re not actually sitting at a stoplight in the backseat of your parent’s astro minivan. What’s the deal, are you trying to compensate for something?

5. The Negativismo

Named for the fictional superhero that incapacitates criminals simply by bumming them out, this person thrives on sucking the fun from people on a daily basis. Although slightly less annoying than the people whining about their own (often imagined) hardships, you can still rely on this joyless soul’s tweets to put a damper on even the best of moods. Sure, there are a lot of sad things going on in the world, but sometimes we want to forget all about those things with amusing pop culture references and comical video links. Thanks for keeping us grounded in despair.

6. The Baller

Seemingly breast fed on hip hop, despite growing up in a cozy suburban home, this user is tweeting at you straight from the hood. His updates consist mostly of over-the-top-trying-too-hard-ebonics that are barely discernible to even the most studied linguists. Although there’s nothing wrong with tossing around a bit of slang from time to time, The Baller operates on a completely different plain. Fortunately on Twitter it’s easy enough to ignore this confusingly chest-beating macho gibberish once you’ve pinpointed a repeat offender…now if we could just find a way to keep him from commenting on YouTube.

7. The Self Promoter

Usually someone with the word “guru” in their title, the shameless self promoter sees Twitter as their own personal medium for evangelizing their products and/or services. The updates usually consist of projects they’re working on, projects they plan to be working on, and the occasional update on projects they have recently accomplished. It’s like an RSS feed of minutia about a business you have no interest in learning more about. You can usually spot these people by the auto-DM you receive the moment you’re foolish enough to start following them.

8. The TMI-er

Taking the concept of micro blogging to embarrassing heights, this is the person who doesn’t understand where to draw the line between public and private. Just because you have the ability to tweet something while you’re sitting on the can doesn’t mean anyone wants to hear about your most recent contribution to the Regal Cinemas men’s room. It’s bad enough that there’s plenty of noise on Twitter as is, you don’t need to go around adding your flatulence to the mix.

Alright, this was going to be a different post entirely, but it looks like I’ll have to just save that for another day. Because, as I was killing time by perusing Digg’s upcoming entertainment section, I spotted this article sitting at the top: Web Designer Battles Hollywood Cookie Cutting

It didn’t sound particularly interesting, but since it had an astounding 389 diggs, and a suspiciously low 0 comments, my curiosity got the better of me and I had to see what was going on.

Upon clicking through I immediately went to see who was digging this submission, because 1) it’s basically just a screenplay pitch, and 2) 389 diggs is an assload for something in upcoming.

Well, by the time I clicked to see who was digging the story, it had jumped up again, and was now sitting at 390. But, as you can see from the screenshot, the people (or person) doing all the digging aren’t exactly the type you’d expect to be browsing around in upcoming looking for interesting stuff.

In fact, the majority of the accounts look a lot like this:

No avatar, just joined, and has dugg a total of one story.

So, I’m left wondering whether this might just be on its way to the record for most diggs without hitting the front page. Since I started writing this, the total has already made its way up to 460, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Also, the submission hasn’t even cracked 10 hours. I’m anxious to see where it’s at after 24 and if it continues to climb.

It’s hard to imagine this could possibly be promoted on the number of diggs alone, but it is definitely one of the more impressive spam attempts I’ve seen in a long time.

UPDATE: The submission appears to have capped out at 510 diggs and has now been officially buried.