What google was thinking

1. 68

   ThomasEposted 13 years ago

   I think people might be interested in this : http://makemoneyonlinegrizzly.com/searc … go-update/
   
   it is interesting reading.
   
   We are all looking for a algorithm change... but what if this wasn't an algorithm change... could we be looking in the wrong place?

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      Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I'm reading the info on the link you gave and right now my response is wow! Google wants us to have perfect grammar and a list of credentials for our articles to be considered quality.
      
      Will come back when I've read it through fully.....

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         bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I have businessinsider.com credentials. No kidding.
         
         And my dog is a purebred Cairn Terrier.
         
         I have only been married to one wife.
         
         One of my children has a masters degree.
         
         I love my bank.
         
         I have never been convicted of a crime.
         
         

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            Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            You'll be ok then As long as your content is posted somewhere else....

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               bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               You are so reassuring. I am up too late. I am on Aussie time but am in Nevada, lol.

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                  Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Lol, I'm just kidding really. I believe Hubpages will recover. Just make sure you put your credentials in your profile and call yourself Dr bgamall

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                     bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     I did.  Well, not the Doctor part. But I write things like the housing ponzi was a premeditated crisis and things like that. If the ponzi facilitators saw that LTCM and Enron failed, why did they continue with a flawed and knowingly unreal model?
                     
                     The powers that be want you to think it was just an experiment gone wrong. We know better.

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                        jantamayaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        I think, you are Google-Clean.

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                           bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           Thanks, Jantamaya, I can put the cologne on now.

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                              jantamayaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              Good idea. I'll bring you more of this 'great stuff'' when I'll visit my hometown Cologne again

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               C.V.Rajanposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               

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      2. 66

         J Sunhawkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         What degree and credentials are required to write "The Best 4-cup Coffee Maker?" Must you be a tire manufacturer to write the article "How to Change a tire?" Or will a tow truck driver do?
         
         I'm starting to think that Google has jumped the shark. A few more tidbits about insane qualifications to write an article and we'll see clients calling brokers to short the stock.
         
         Google: Sepuku, American style. Gory pictures at 6.

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2. 59

   wizbitzposted 13 years ago

   I really thinks it is an algorithm change, Google was the one who declared that. The fact that users complained that they get lots of spam and useless contents whenever they search, push Google to clean their searches. They've been slapping so called content farms.

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3. 87

   Marisa Wrightposted 13 years ago

   It seems a stretch to say that the whole thing is due to manual reviews. Can you imagine how many man-hours that would involve?
   
   I did find this comment interesting though:
   
   "eHow is branded. They are a known company. Most internet users would tell you that they know who they are and what their site is about. The same can’t be said for ezinearticles, hubpages, squidoo, wisegeek and others, who weren’t concerned about building their brand"
   
   I agree with this.  Before I started writing on Helium and HubPages, I would have sworn I'd never seen those sites appear in search results.  No doubt they did, but I read the articles without noticing the domain name.  Maybe HubPages and Squidoo have deliberately kept it that way but maybe it was a mistake?

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      MyWebsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      When I used to be between #1 and #3 for a couple of two word keyword phrases I seen in my logs what I was rather sure was a Google manual review. The referring URL was some sort of admin page on Google that I couldn't access. I guess they liked my content because my SERP position never dropped until I let domain name expire.
      
      While Google can't do manual reviews on every keyword obviously,  I do believe they do it more often for the shorter keyword phrases than you would think.

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      bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Demand studios was trying to build the trails.com brand and it got smacked.  Their ehow didn't.

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         lrohnerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Not so sure about that. I believe they stopped publishing new content on Trails 8 months ago or more. LiveStrong (another DS property that got smacked) is a whole other matter. I write some fitness, nutrition and sports articles for them, but you have to hold a relevant degree and be professionally certified to write health articles for the site. And I thought that was what Google wanted.

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            bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            It is all weird.

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   3. 68

      ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It doesn't seem to me that you need to read 12% of the stuff in the interweb to have an effect on 12% of the interwebs search results. This update concentrated on specific sites that are... well... hub sites, like ezinearticles.com and hubpages.
      
      Pretty much anyone who has written on the internet professionally has used one or more of these sites at some stage.
      
      Certainly for hubpages, most authors have adsense... they simply select people who have the most views in adsense... and review an article from each of these people that had the highest views.
      
      I'm not saying that this is what they've done here....  or that even if they have done it, it is the only thing they did... but hubpages has only 200,000 published authors... and many of them are duplicate author profiles which adsense would pick up.... I would guess 20% of these authors produce 80% of the views... so it requires reading maybe 20,000  hubs.
      
      Is that a lot of money? Yeah. It is. But google is worth billions.

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         MyWebsposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         An even easier approach would be to just review the 621 hubs that get over 10,000 monthly views.  http://hubpages.com/stats
         
         Those 621 hubs represent at least 6.2 million monthly views, probably quite a bit more since those hubs get the most views and those stats top out at 10,000.

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4. 71

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   manual review of 12% of the search world is unbelievable for a company who built their company on an algorithm. It would be unscalable.
   
   Its just another theory. Im not sure how Grizz even has an adsense account anymore and Im pretty sure he gets a check from Google's PR and Propaganda department now to make up for the massive loss to his splog empire after he received manual review.

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      Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It does seem a stretch of the imagination to think that google manually reviewed a huge portion of the web.....but who knows? I wouldn't say it was impossible.
      
      Anyway I want to start a thread where we compare notes and theories on what has happened to our content and see if we can work out what google wants - what's been penalised and what hasn't. Maybe we will see some patterns (she hopes) .

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         Amanda Severnposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         
         
         Your earlier comment got me thinking Susanna. One of my most popular hubs (about researching old paintings)has dropped a fantastic amount of traffic in the last few days. I just checked, and I'm still on the first page, but I've scooted down a bit, and EHow is above me.

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            Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Uurghh - eHow. Sorry to hear that Amanda but at least you're in good company

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         sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         It is pretty clear that right now some of HP's magic sauce is not being counted. Not penalized, just not given the boost it previously had, this may reappear , its too early to know.
         
         If a site, hub,eza etc. had a backlink profile that was dependent on 2.0 properties that were effected then it would fall from that loss of authoritative backlinks.
         
         Some of my hubs and sites that fell are in such niche and specialized terms that its hard to believe anyone would ever care to manually review that vertical and I dont think ALL of them would be assessed this badly
         
         Google does do manual review, but I actually think this theory is plain silly -
         
         If there really was a human moderated search engine that could handle the current scope of the net I would gladly use it exclusively as a searcher, id even pay a monthly fee to pay for staff but ....as a webmaster I would put a nice big image of me and obama hugging as the banner (photoshopped of course) along with a photocopy of my degree in political science and community organizing with minors in fine arts, religion and philosophy (yes, it actually says all that) [which really means i know nothing] but it will look great. Ill stick my bowlathon trophies from cub scouts and my eagle badge for good measure

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            Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Lol to that last bit I would use that search engine too.
            
            I think you're right that there is a high likelihood that some of what HP has created in terms of site structure has been devalued (what's eHow's like in comparison since they haven't taken a hit?) and also links from web 2.0 have been devalued too (def in my view) but I still see some of my hubs holding onto traffic and serps, so I need to work out why they are and others aren't. They are subject to the same HP structure as the ones that have tanked I don't have a lot of backlinks from web 2.0's either - the odd one, but nothing worth mentioning.

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            1. 71

               sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               eHow use javascript nofollow links to sculpt page rank - this isnt supposed to work an dis the type of thing that would be assumed to be manually penalized.
               
               the webmaster forums discuss its use but I cant find any links becuase google is broken.
               
               this is the best i could find: http://www.sammynams.com/ehow-com-and-jsnofollow-tags/

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                  Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Hmmm, read the link - I kind of understood it even though I'm not really that techy when it comes to the intricacies of website creation. Thanks for digging it out for me

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      Lissieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Sunfoprged you may want to read Griz's response to this thread http://makemoneyonlinegrizzly.com/make- … y-example/

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      1. 71

         sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I wish the entire post had been quoted as the issue of scale and the (stated) importance of googles reliance on the algorithm was relevant.
         
         But, Being on the bad side of someone with his experience and fanbase doesnt top my "things to today" list

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            Lissieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I did it deliberatly so that some people may get out of the little hub world (not directed at you personally though) and see the bigger world !

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               sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               I think that is important, I tried to do the same and if I ever add a thrid part I would reference your article as i did read it and maybe throw in the Griz mention and theory!
               
               But this week is about keeping the sold performers nice and new and full - anything that is languishing now may just be a casualty that i will have to clean up later.
               
               
               ...and the ants go marching on

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5. 95

   Susana Sposted 13 years ago

   The info in Griz's post might explain why my popular article on falling out of love, which is about 1500 words, is well structured, reads well, has 80 facebook likes and a fair number of comments, has dropped from 1 to 4. The top result is now from psychology today and written by a PHD......but.......the info is not actually very good!
   
   wikihow's article is also above mine now, but it's actually on a different issue which is "how to fall out of love" - a related topic but not what searchers are looking for when they type in falling out of love. It does have 644 FB likes though.
   
   Also, above me is an about.com article geared towards teens with one paragraph of text and a rubbish quiz.
   
   Anyway this does raise some interesting thoughts about how we might possibly improve content, but if I don't have a PHD will I ever get back to Number 1, lol ?

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      bgamallposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Oh the guy has a phony doctor? That is what phd stands for you know.

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6. 71

   sunforgedposted 13 years ago

   I applied for research purposes

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7. 93

   Amanda Severnposted 13 years ago

   Google needed to be improved, and I've often wondered how they might do it. Employing a whole army of moderators seems extreme, but it would certainly make for a higher quality internet. My (slight) worry is that it could also make for an elitist internet, where qualifications are more highly regarded than a passion for the subject and an ability to self-edit and do solid resarch. Not all of us here have armfuls of university degrees, but it doesn't mean that we're turning out inadequate articles. Equally, someone might well have a PhD or whatever, and still turn out rubbish.

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      Uninvited Writerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Exactly...

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      K9keystrokesposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Well said.

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8. 60

   webgainposted 13 years ago

   Google was thinking nothing. but you must think about Google.

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9. 62

   Lisa HWposted 13 years ago

   Or, what about this theory:
   
   After just discovering yet another crop of copies of just one Hub pasted "all over the place" (and discovering that it has been stolen since - like - 2008 and 2009), I can't help but wonder if a whole lot more people have had a whole lot more Hubs stolen that they've never discovered -  and if a whole lot of duplicate content is being attributed to HubPages that shouldn't be...   
   
   (The Hub in question hasn't ever shown up on here as "duplicate", and it's been around for years.  OR, do I just not know anything about this duplicate/rankings stuff?    )

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      sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      webmasters are reporting that duplicate content seems to be effecting both the copier and the copies - except when its not.
      
      helpful?
      
      if that stays true then it would mean HP would have to start taking over DMCA and copy protection for its writers as duplication of existing content will hurt the entire site

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         Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         It's helpful in making me feel as if I'm not the only one feeling like it's a problem too big for people to say, "Oh well, there's nothing anyone can do about it." 
         
         A couple of things that have one of my Hubs are private blogs - end of story (except, as far as I know, for whether Google would now favor a small site with "good" content...).   There's something disturbing about thinking "content farms" are being penalized (when a lot of the stuff on them - or here, whatever this is called - is actually original content that's decent in quality) and little, individual, thieves still have stuff showing up in searches. 
         
         I know all this new stuff is new, but it seems to me if a row of the same thing shows up on a Google search,  it all shouldn't be showing up!   Maybe in time it won't.  For now, one Hub can show up (mine did show up at the top), but some of those sites have names that look a lot more "impressive" than HP.  As long as they aren't completely bounced out of searches there's the likelihood people will select the one that looks most legitimate/impressive to them.   Of course, I didn't even try to figure out how these people may have beat me out on the search-engine thing by doing a better job of that end of things than I did.
         
         That aside, the stealing-stuff thing affects a site like HubPages in another way too.  For example, there's only so much "quality" I'm willing to post on the Internet at all (in terms of serious research,  things I really don't want stolen, etc.).  As it is, my Hubs aren't what I'd like them to be because of that.  I put in effort and try to write something worth reading (but within the limits of posting what "wouldn't be the end of the world" if it were stolen).   Essentially, I'll admit to the stealing factor making me limit the degree of seriousness and research I'll put into anything.  It's not that I don't take HubPages seriously.  It's just that I take my better writing very seriously.    As a result, I'm not too thrilled with the stuff I have on here; and I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking it isn't "top quality material".
         
         Maybe it's just me, but if I thought what I write wasn't just up for grabs for the whole world to steal, I'd approach things completely differently.  As it is now, it already stinks to lose earnings/traffic even when people steal what I don't care about.

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10. 78

    skyfireposted 13 years ago

    Data from chrome add-on can help speed up manual review and in this review there are high chances of good sites getting slaps. Take case of wisegeek for example, they got slapped in this manual update. I don't think it's algorithm update because if it is and google is expecting research level articles then boosting authority of ehow/about and some other property is useless move. Why not boost ranking of Britannica/Wikipedia or university web pages instead ?

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       sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       eHow does a have system of reference links in place.
       
       You know i never saw a wisegeek page in my lfe until they were mentioned as falling in the serps after the algopalypse. Did they really actually rank well?

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          skyfireposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          I found some of their articles in much better quality compared to about.com/ehow. (I found their health articles in google results by the way). I don't know how many months it'll take for them to even get close to page #3 for those search terms now.
          
          I think there are some other problems as well like usability/navigation confusion/ad-annoyance.

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       Susana Sposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Initial stats show that Britannica and wikipedia did benefit

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11. 79

    Uninvited Writerposted 13 years ago

    I posted about a week back how ugly the articles were on WiseGeek with text ads right in the middle of articles making them almost unreadable.

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       sunforgedposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       yep - i think that is the first time I saw wisegeek myself, the articles content seemed fine though and as a premium publisher their format would have been approved.

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12. 60

    R-J-Tposted 13 years ago

    I would take note of anything Grizz or Allen say, they are very clever guys who have been doing this for ages.

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13. 75

    Lissieposted 13 years ago

    After this thread I am swearing off forum threads for at least a month - there is just so much noise around at the moment its getting in the way of making money (yes my sites are doing well thanks).
    
    @Marisa - Google has always done spot checks with humans - the so-called "manual review" - its an admission that there algo doesn't work in terms of distinguishing good and bad content. Google usually does a review when a competitor reports you - or when a company makes the NYT.
    
    AS for quality - look at the evidence in front of your eyes- look at the serps - I did - the results weren't pretty

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       Marisa Wrightposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I know that, Lissie.  Griz's original article implied that Google had manually reviewed the whole internet to decide what would and wouldn't get slapped, and I was merely pointing out how ridiculous that would be.
       
       He's addressed that in his reply, by suggesting that Google merely did a random sample of each rev-sharing site and slapped them on that basis.  That's more achievable, pity he didn't explain that more clearly the first time.

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14. 74

    Richieb799posted 13 years ago

    Im sure it was just the algorithm change that affected people but as long as you have good content and thanks to Hubpages high PR I believe most quality writers won't be affected... 
    I noticed a drop which has now returned to about normal, since I have 1000s of quality backlinks, I wonder if Ryan Kett has returned top normal because he was upset, anybody know?

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15. 95

    Susana Sposted 13 years ago

    Eww - gross....lol
    
    I agree, I love writing stuff in easy to understand ways for those who can't deal with the more Phd dissertation style of fact giving. Using your example the trucker may be able to explain things better than the tire manufacturer. If so I want to read what he has to say!  If google goes the way of high brow info a lot of people will be turned off.

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16. 78

    skyfireposted 13 years ago

    I prefer credibility part in any article for obvious reasons (info from quacks, misguiding etc). I've no objection for boosting credible sites like Wikipedia/Britannica or research sites/journal sites etc. But there are some points that force me to think about different viewpoints. You don't always search for any information based on credibility but more for personal opinion. Desperate buyers looking for 4-5 star rated products are going to miss many personal reviews on search results. These result pages are now dominated by shopping sites and personal reviews are pushed to page 2-3-4. So anyone with affiliate site/review pages is actually competing for place 7, 8 or 9 in first page. LOL

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17. 79

    Sufidreamerposted 13 years ago

    The whole credentials thing does sound a little daft.
    
    If I want information written by people with credentials, I use Google Scholar - perhaps they should publicise that a little better

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18. 63

    prettydarkhorseposted 13 years ago

    Maybe they want to boost Google blogger
    The older articles, big companies online sites, big social networking sites won, but the smaller affiliate marketers - home based workers and uprising content writer sites lose. If I want to research about cancer I will go to sites like National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, American Medical Association and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention etc.
    
    Moving away with reviews of people who actually use the product is not good.  Like amazon, forty percent of their sales come from affiliates.

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19. 78

    skyfireposted 13 years ago

    Sufi, Google Scholar is good for papers but not for advice or conversation. We're assuming that most of the surfers are tech savvy to search for credible information which is not the case. One more point is that we can't ask any questions to writer or even read the replies of previous readers on those credible sites. Large percentage of topics require healthy discussion to some extent and not all credible sites offer public interaction on those pages for many reasons(e.g. trolling/spam etc).

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       Sufidreamerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I'm not disagreeing, but the idea that it is possible to rank sites using only qualified writers seems to be an unworkable ideal. Dietary 'expert' Gillian McKeith happily used her doctorate qualification for extra kudos and book sales, until the fact that she bought it online surfaced. How many of the manual rankers, if they exist, will be able to follow the paper trail and check qualifications?
       
       Lord Sufidreamer, PhD, MBE, Ruler of the Entire Universe.

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          EmpressFelicityposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Ah yes, Gillian McKeith - hardly a great advert for her own advice is she?  She's the most unhealthy-looking nutritionist I've ever seen
          
          Totally agree with you on the credentials thing - it's bloody silly.  And it's also unfair on the non-accredited people who publish articles that are well-written, but are done from a personal perspective.  I'm thinking maybe of someone who's had - say - breast cancer writing a hub or two about her personal experience of breast cancer - the treatments, what worked for her, how she coped with the medication etc. etc., and where she went for help (support groups etc.).  Such an article would be immensely beneficial to anyone else in the same boat, and surely doesn't deserve to be googleslapped merely because the writer doesn't have an MD.
          
          

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             Sufidreamerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             Very good point - as a few others have pointed out, being an expert does not make you a writer. I have edited/proofed a lot of academic papers over the years and the majority of academics, whilst brilliant in their field, cannot write.
             
             Sophia - interesting point, although I think that there will always be a market for good writers. If this idea of expertise is true, bearing in mind that we are all trying to piece things together and arrive at conclusions, ghost-writing articles may well be the way forward. You write an article for orthodontist and she puts her name on it - job done!
             
             Freelance writing went through tough times a couple of years back, when the economic crisis started and people lost jobs. The freelance writing sites were flooded with desperate people prepared to work for pennies, dropping rates for the rest of us.
             
             Eventually, once clients realised that quality writing is worth the extra money, the market collapsed and those writers who were not good enough failed. It was a case of the market culling the herd.
             
             Harsh, but that is the way it goes - pro writers will survive, but we may need to adapt and tough it out for a while.

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                frogdroppingposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                Yup, that's the one Sufi.
                
                I've also written a lot of stuff for the 'experts' over the last year or so. They had the knowledge but couldn't convey it, so they hired me to write it for them.
                
                Did they pass me their knowledge? Give me some pointers? Something to work off? Nope. I had to research the information then deliver.
                
                None were unhappy with what I wrote and consequently published my work under their own expert name. So of all the experts showing up round the 'net - how many are actually writing what's getting read?

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                   Aya Katzposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   Frogdropping, that's absolutely right! It just so happens that I am an expert on a number of subjects, but I also can write. Do you think that my fellow experts ever gave me any credit for being able to write so that ordinary people can understand? No, they actually thought that if I didn't increase the fog index, I was somehow less of an expert!
                   
                   Most experts get help from ghost writers, but give little credit to the writers. The same goes for politicians. They don't write their own speeches anymore. If a politician had to actually be a good orator, that might be a substantive test of their true value.
                   
                   Dependence on authority and expertise instead of good writing is a step back to the middle ages.

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    ThomasEposted 13 years ago

    Oh, wow, I have learned something... this is quite cool...
    
    Go to the advanced search section in google. There is now an option of deciding what reading level you will display for searches.
    
    Click on the annotated reading level...
    
    What responses google is providing you with depend... a lot... on how well it thinks you read
    
    You get completely different SERPs for people with advanced, intermediate, and basic reading levels.
    
    They are cleaver bar-stewards, I'll give them that.
    
    No idea if this is the big change... or not... buy it would explain why some people see massive changes and others not. Simply not writing at the appropriate level for the query.

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       Aya Katzposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Do they ask us to tell them our reading level or do they decide this themselves??

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          ThomasEposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          You can specify the reading level in the advanced options, but I think the system basis it's assumption on what you have read in the past.

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    skyfireposted 13 years ago

    +1.

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    rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

    and the big companies already use sponsored links, so it looks like $$ to me.. all those social media tabs on articles help sites rank higher with a lot of 'likes' and 'recommends', etc. With some sites, like newspapers, magazines, you can't share it on FB like before, it has that FB recommend, so those numbers look good to G. I usually just share something I've read from my FB feed rather than recommend it on the website page.

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    Sophia Angeliqueposted 13 years ago

    RIP writers.
    
    Where once upon a time we were paid for the time we spent on research and could, therefore, et write well informed articles, now we are lucky if we get paid pennies. 
    
    This means that few of us can spend the days and weeks researching the articles.
    
    So, people who hire writers often hire experts in a particular field. They may, or may not, be able to write well. That is not the point. The point is that they have the information.
    
    That pretty much makes writers extinct.

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    Karandaposted 13 years ago

    I did a search on HubPages on How to Make Croutons, there were a few, but one stood out above the others. I then searched Google and eHow got top billing and second place. It was a very basic, atypical how-to.
    
    The difference? the eHow article had 37,000 likes for Facebook. Any connection?

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    DaNoblestposted 13 years ago

    After reading the article I guess I now know nothing at all about anything I spent many years doing. I must not be a writer either despite having a Major paper publish something I wrote at 17.
    
    It means nothing that I was reading and understanding Plato in High School, nor how I spent years working on an educational program that (successfully) taught geometry to elementary children. Even making a 100 page instruction book and numerous business presentations to various educational organizations before age 20 mean nothing...
    
    That I choose to write in a simple manner to reach a broader range of people and hopefully help them understand what I am saying makes me a simpleton...
    
    My many thousand hours experience creating and producing music is irrelevant. Despite being able to teach others as well...
    
    My ability to troubleshoot, build, and repair computers is not enough...
    
    The graphic design work that I do is lacking "professional" quality even after thousands of hours I have spent actively designing.
    
    Why?
    
    A simple answer really. I am not an "expert" since I have no degree. No piece of paper stating that I know this or that.
    
    I would prefer that what I produce and have experienced first hand speaks for itself, not to be pre-approved or rejected based on "credentials". It seems that I must not be "expert" enough for some to qualify in the ability to create good content.
    
    I am sorry for the rather long rant. I could probably go on for hours more but I will stop here. The subject of being an "expert" has been bottled up inside of me for many years.
    
    The quaility of the what is in the content is what matters, not how big of a name the person or company posting it has. Hopefully google realizes this soon.

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       Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       An expert is someone who knows their stuff as far as I am concerned. Having a piece of paper to acknowledge someone who has spent many years in a classroom is no more or less a qualifier of someone who is an expert.

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          DaNoblestposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Thank You. I agree with you. The real irony is once many get out of school and go career hunting most employers want several years experience for decent positions. The new grads end up starting at the bottom with whatever they can find due to lack of experience.

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       Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       DaNoblest - your writing speaks for itself. I would rather read your stuff than an 'expert'.
       
       Let's hope that one day I will be able to find it.

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          Karandaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Ouch!

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          DaNoblestposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks Mark. I have read your successful Hubber hub so I should be on the fast track to top search positions and huge profits in no time!
          
          Dont worry I believe in you Mark. Keep trying and one day you will learn how to use this internet thingy. Many adults such as yourself have the web knowledge of a 10 year old so dont give up! =P

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             Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             I think I may have been misconstrued.  My earlier post was me being supportive.  The only dig intended was at Google.
             
             I probably do have the web knowledge of a ten year old though.  Although one that is interested in Russian gay pornography for research purposes.

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                DaNoblestposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                I understood you Mark.  I know you were being very supportive. My fault for the bad attempt at humor =]

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                   Mark Ewbieposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                   We could go on like this for a while
                   
                   Dammed internet communication - I'll never get the hang of it.

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    frogdroppingposted 13 years ago

    Hey Aya
    
    My thinking is this: I'm not sure that Google really are looking for 'authority' when it comes to who the author is or isn't. The guys that work google know damn well that the 'net is made of millions of pages of content that is, for want of a better word, ghostwritten.
    
    There is no way of policing credentials, none. It's far too big a job and not their focus. What is is to deliver the best possible match according to the users search terms, end of.
    
    Frankly they're making a balls up and as one or two have already said or alluded to, it could all be related to appeasing the big boys anyway.

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       Aya Katzposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Frogdropping, I know that Google doesn't care who the writer is. That would be fine, if they cared about how good the writing was, in terms of helping the reader find the information he needs.
       
       They are not delivering the best possible match. They are giving too much weight to the authority of the site, and that's just another kind of credential.
       
       My point is that all credentials of any sort are suspect. If somebody were a great doctor or lawyer or scientist, they wouldn't need credentials to prove it. They would be able to say what the facts are and how they came to their conclusions and let the reader judge if it makes sense or not.
       
       The authority game is a form of corruption.

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    frogdroppingposted 13 years ago

    I agree. And most of the experts out there are earning more than enough not to have to bother with writing online for a living (hello google?!), so it's kinda moot anyway.
    
    All I meant was that I doubt google cares about who's writing stuff so much as (agreeing with your view) the authority of the site. Or perhaps - the financial implications of not floating them into the best positions.
    
    Corruption is everywhere, always has been and always will be. We little people have just got to figure out how to keep on keeping on

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       Mishaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       The Word Of Frog was spoken

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    rebekahELLEposted 13 years ago

    Last night I was talking with my son who heads up the ecommerce division for a national company. He deals with Google reps, ad reps, etc. and had a conversation with a SEO consultant. The man said, HP got slammed because of the amount of poor quality content and black hat SEO tactics. Although HP is classified as a content farm, we may not see it as one because we compare it to others, but in their eyes, the amount of spun content and the poor quality articles are enough to get slammed along with the rest. Is it fair? I don't think so. But I hope HP will get rid of what Google doesn't want, and make it harder for people to open/keep accounts.
    Someone earlier made a point which was brought up last night, the amount of articles coming out on the same topic at the same time looks spammy. IDK, HP has a lot of work to build the reputation so advertisers will want to advertise on our articles.

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    jrcemailposted 13 years ago

    I saw those ads and was looking to sign up but got lazy.  Now I know that was Google....wow!

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    IzzyMposted 13 years ago

    I would think being told you have the web knowledge of a 10 year old is a compliment!
    
    Kids are way ahead of us on all things to do with technology.
    
    haha but they can't write as well as us )

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