If you don’t watch the mailing list you might not know, so if you use XAMPP for dev work on Windows, check out the security warning today.

Looking at notes from SES NY, I came across a discussion of how Agencies employ people like me for their search expertise, yet don’t always know how to handle that “secret” when dealing with the client. Do they allow transparency, telling the client they have a search guy on board, or do they pretend to have all the expertise in house? And if they hide the association (as they frequently do), how does that serve the client when in fact, the closer the SEO is to the client, the better and more cost-effective the SEO? I loved this part and wish I had been there:

Sara Holoubek, a free-agent consultant, moderated the session. She asked the agency panelists to comment on the issue of transparency. Should clients be told that their Agency of Record is sub-contracting to a search expert? Should the search marketing firm have direct access to the client? Or should the agency keep the relationship under wraps and “white label” the search services as their own?

Amy Auerbach, former VP Group Director, Media Contacts feels that in general ad agencies and media buying companies just don’t have the search marketing skills and competencies required—particularly in the area of search engine optimization (SEO)—so she believes that partnering with search experts is absolutely necessary. But, according to Auerbach, the bigger question is, will the ad agency bring the SEM firm into the project at the appropriate time. She admits that there is risk associated with partnerships and when push comes to shove… many agencies tend to be conservative and keep tight control over the client relationship.

The challenge, according to Dori Stowe, former president of Tribal DDB Health, is that to be successful, the search marketing expert must be fully integrated into the project very early on. She believes that this requires transparency. Dori thinks it’s important to have a full disclosure policy and to be able to honestly say to your client, “Let me get my search expert on the phone.”

This is one of the reasons I went public with a professional profile as an SEO last July. Better than saying “Let me get my search expert on the phone” is saying “Let me get John Andrews, my search expert, on the phone”. Sure there’s some liability for having picked the search guy, but if you pick the right search guy, that liability is more than offset by the benefits of holding both the search guy and the client accountable through transparency. I’d hate to burn my reputation with your client under any circumstances, but in the face of account management blunders you might make, I can’t say I worry as much about your reputation with your client.

Of course, such transparency can be threatening to some firms and their managers. I think it follows the age-old truism: A people hire A people, and B people hire C people.

I love to compete, but I don’t hate to lose. I love to see challengers challenge, and winners win. This time, via clever but admittedly deserved hook-humility, Matt has set himself above the crowd once again. Kudos to Matt Cutts; he’s right.

Background: Hook-Humility is that age old trick of saying something humble just to get someone else to tell you it isn’t true (and thus, stroke your ego). It goes on all around you. Classic example: “Do I look fat in this?“, asks the perfectly fit high fashion girlfriend of her overweight shopping buddy.

So what did Matt say this time? Well, in a carefully-worded private opinion called “Google and Privacy“, Matt explains how he feels Google works hard to protect our privacy. According to Matt, Google works harder than other corporations to prevent the sort of privacy-invading commercialization of our Internet use and computer search data we worry about these days. For example, Matt notes:

My short answer is that from working at Google for the last 7-8 years, I’ve seen firsthand how much Google works to protect users’ privacy. I personally believe that we take more precautions and safeguards than any other major search engine.

Matt notes that Google was the only one of 30+ companies to resist a subpoena by the Department of Justice last year for search data, and that Google’s legal team won the right to not disclose user data. He’s right. They did.

Matt also notes that Google doesn’t require more than an email address and password to sign up for Google accounts. He’s right. They don’t.

Matt then goes on to compare Google to ISPs, the companies that actually know your clickstream data. Those companies like Comcast and Verizon and Qwest actually know everything about what you do and also know your credit card data, and thus your true identity. If you worry about privacy, suggests Matt, don’t worry about Google who knows only your email address, but worry about the ISP that knows and may even sell your clickstream data. And again, Matt’s right.

But then there’s the hook. The part that makes me say, “But Matt, you’re much smarter and more capable than the Verizons and Qwests of the world“. Damn. He got me. I’m complimenting Matt and Google, openly admitting how smart and capable they are. That’s the hook humility. Google is a great company. Verizon sucks, and everybody knows it. Comcast? Geesh. Do we need to even talk about them? And Qwest? The company that double-confirmed my business DSL line was installed and operational, when in fact there wasn’t even a cable connecting the entire office building to the Qwest network? And Earthlink? I don’t worry about them having my clickstream data, Matt. They wouldn’t know what to do with it, even if they could do something with it. But Google? Heh heh heh. Come on Matt. Google is wicked smart.

Yes Google fought the DOJ. But Google did it to protect Google from disclosing details of Google, right? Google only asks for an email address, true, but Google knows your IP number and Google has tons of cookie and toolbar data, so it can probably figure out the rest, no? Google could buy most ISP’s with pocket change, let alone make offers for clickstream data that cannot be refused. Hell Google could pick up GoDaddy (a privately held company) if it wanted to, and get all that domain activity data. Bob Parson’s seems edgy of late. I bet it’s available.

You see Matt, we hold you and your colleagues to a higher standard. You’re not an ISP, you’re Google. We don’t worry about you having access to our data. We worry because of what you have become capable of with your massive powers and near-monopoly status as a definer of the Internet experience for so many users. Everyone can buy guns, but we don’t fear everyone. We fear the crazy ones who are clearly capable of killing. We don’t want them to have guns, because it would be so likely that they would kill us.

When Matt compares Google to an ISP, it’s clever hook humility and it works. I admit it - Google is a very powerful, capable company of brilliant people, capable of amazing things. And you, too, Matt. You’re a great personality, friendly and thoughtful, and a good listener. You represent Google well, and do a bang up job walking the fine line between public relations, investor relations, and customer support. Even in the face of fire, you do well. And spin? I hate to impart intent, as that’s a double-edged sword I never want to see wielded by Google. Kudos to you, and the Google machine for having garnered so much forward momentum you’re basically unstoppable on your way to bigger bijillions that Microsoft, IBM, and even GE someday. But I don’t trust you Google, and that’s the bottom line.

Trust. That’s the only real tool we have. You know it, and I know it. Google wants to measure trust as a means of controlling search spam, and to maintain the advertising market it has helped create and dominate. We all need to know how we can trust a company as large, powerful, and wicked smart as Google. Yes, it would be worse if Google was openly evil, I agree. But is that really the point?

The best part comes last. There is hope. I may not trust you, Matt and Google, but I do have faith in your abilities. If you really want to show me that I can trust Google with the power it has, don’t show me how Google looks good compared to less capable, more evil companies. Show me how Google uses it’s power and brains to actually secure my personal data, not only from abuse by Google but abuse by anybody. Show me how Google rewards me for my trust, by helping the world advance the Internet to protect everyone from abuse, and encourage everyone to participate. Show me that Google is not only not-evil, but good. Even better, since you’ve got all those Ph.D.’s over there, prove it.

I look forward to the day. Maybe that’s what the FYIFV employees should do for giggles in the second third of their professional lives… form a foundation to advance the Internet along these lines and make it a safe place for everyone to trust. It would be great for business, for society, and even for Google.

References: I apologize for not providing an Internet link to a definition of hook humility, but it seems I already rank #1 in Google for it, so that would be redundant anyway. I have to give credit to Brother Harold at Chaminade High School, my first Creative Writing instructor, for introducing me to the term. I still remember my “11 common linking verbs” along with so many other aspects of that inspiring 9th grade class in creative writing.

This is a crazy environment, this Internet, but let’s not get too crazy, ‘k?

I was gazing in amazement at the current Web Too land grab on proper names, noticing how many dozens of “companies” are now optimizing their pages for their users’ proper names, when I came across this post by someone named John Andrews, a mechanical Engineer:

JohnAndrews’s Member Profile: I’ve been a member since Jan 6, 2006, and have logged in 445 times. I last logged in on Fri, Apr 20, 2007 You can click on the table below to visit the forums that I participate in. Please consider joining Eng-Tips Forums. As a member, you will be able to talk with other members, be notified of responses to your posts, and use keyword search.

I added the bold part. You know, the part where it seems to be a recommendation from me that you sign up.

This is obviously a computer-generated profile, but it actually speaks in the first person. And, it makes a recommendation that you sign up with the forum. How crass is that? I don’t know the details of that forum’s terms of service (the profile’s not mine; I’m a biomedical Engineer, not a mechanical Engineer), but I want to say to the forum owner, “dude, it’s okay to stuff your empty profiles, but stay away from impersonation, okay? Show some class!“

1. Acquire or re-jeuvenate your ADHD (consult your doctor before discontinuing your meds, please).
2. Sign up with Twitter.
3. Post a Twitter Badge to your blog (see my sidebar), connect your IM to Twitter, or ask your bank to boost your credit line and connect Twitter to your cell phone text message account.
4. Ask people to be your Twitter friend.

I’m up to step 4. See my Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/johnandrews

I’m also stuck on the utility thing…

Jill Whalen recently commented here that I was coming across as “anti-Google”. She used the word propaganda to describe the way I reported on the combination of Matt Cutt’s assignment of the spam label to sponsored links, and Google buying DoubleClick. That surprised me, but it also caused me to self-reflect: has johnon.com become anti-Google?

Nah. johnon.com has always been anti-Google. But this blog is also anti for most any abuse of power or authority. Google is just the current search monopoly. It’s nothing personal. As a tech consultant to small and medium sized businesses competing online, I have always been an advocate for the “little guy”.

As an SEO and especially an open-source-advocating SEO located in the Seattle area (Microsoft’s back yard), I am used to playing David to the Goliaths. As a technology consultant, I worked with independent software vendors who coded for the Microsoft platform, and watched as the monopoly expertly cut them off from their own markets, assumed control of their business channels, and then rather swiftly eliminated them from the gene pool. All that while playing the role of “partner”. Quick: name an independent software vendor in the accounting space on the Windows platform. Did you say Intuit? Did you say….. oh, never mind. Fact is, 10 or so years ago there were hundreds of small ISVs providing payroll functions, specialized accounting and reporting functions, tools and systems supporting small to medium sized businesses. Why are they all gone today? Don’t guess… ask them to tell you.

Nowadays Google has the monopoly on search, and search drives most of today’s traffic. And Google owns the big paid placement engine AdWords. And Google owns the distribution channel for that (AdSense). And Google is buying up the “raw materials” for the industry (analytics, checkout, DoubleClick, web master registration). This is no surprise. It’s the same thing Pirelli Tire did when it bought the rights to most of the latex-producing land in the world as a means of locking down the supply channel. Just as Corning tries to do in glass, biomedical device companies did with specialized DuPont plastics, Becton-Dickinson did with the hospital supply chain, Merck does with certain key chemicals used to manufacture generic drugs, and most strong companies do with their own industries. It’s called business. Such behavior is practically traditional for business. But that doesn’t mean it’s good.

The Internet has been unique in that small players could actually compete in markets, despite the positions and efforts of big monopolies. So far, anyway. As Google locks down search, Google becomes an attractive competitive tool to be wielded against competitors. As Google changes to become a BigMonster, it is much more likely to align with other BigMonsters than smaller, more innovative and less “monstery” companies. The Tool that is Google may become available to an exclusive club of large players. I don’t like that idea. Especially when the power Google has comes from the smaller players, who give it to Google. I think that is the definition of authority, right? It’s granted? It authorizes the use of power?

By the way I searched Yahoo! for a local service provider yesterday, and got a FULL PAGE of Yahoo directory results as a SERP. Every entry was a variant of the yahoo directory. No other options except ads. That is sad, but undeniable. Google is search today.

Is Johnon.com Anti-Google? Only when necessary, and only with the hopes of helping Google’s human employees to understand the basis of their authority, and the responsibilites that come with the power. Is Johnon.com Propaganda? Nah. If I seem to “spin” the words away from their true meaning, then I suggest that is a product of perspective, and the words from Google should be clearer to eliminate bias in interpretation. If Google didn’t have monopoly power, I wouldn’t care so much. But because Google has so much power, the words need to be clearer. Did I highlight that?

As a commercial competitor, I seek to understand my markets. If I can understand what the market is doing, I can position myself and my clients profitably. If I can understand how the market reacts, I can interpret my competitor’s activities in light of their likely performance in the market. In other words, I can compete.

A very long time ago I got into a discussion with my father about how deals are made, and how prices are set during negotiations. My father was a civil engineer working with large businesses and governments, and I was a computer networking consultant building and repairing systems for customers. I postured that the party with more information could allow the other party to set the price, providing guidance if the initial price point represented inadequate profits. In this manner, the less knowledgeable party would have to expose his value position, and thus indicate the “reasonable price” he would ultimately be willing to pay for the transaction. The more knowledgeable party had the advantage, clearly, but the important point for me was that in that marketplace it was not supply and demand nor value that set the price. The two parties did not check the offer price against a market price, but rather one-sided perceived value. And the perception of value was defined by the accessibility of information. A smart, more knowledgeable party in the transaction could afford to incentivize the deal for quick closure, as a means of preventing the less-knowledgeable party from learning more, fast enough to impact the price. I’ll offer this price, if you agree today. Otherwise, the price will go higher.

My father felt the price would be found via discussions based on value. Obviously we worked in quite different industries. Technology moved so fast, getting better/cheaper/faster while construction was old-skool, with large multi-year contracts, government regulation, and various forms of large scale collusion behind the scenes.

I recently read Bruce Schneier’s commentary on how the computer security industry suffers under a situation of consumer ignorance. I see mis-information as a core problem for the SEO industry. There is so much so-called SEO out there, mostly outdated, baseless, or downright wrong, that the accessible information is more wrong than right. A Google or Yahoo! search on SEO topics is ridiculous, for many reasons. Often accurate SEO information is considered trade secret by knowledge consultants, and thus is not very accessible. What appears in front of the inquisitive SEO consumer is mostly junk. This puts the prospective SEO client at a distinct disadvantage, and provides an opportunity for the contract-seeking “snake oil SEO salesman” to close a deal at a good profit, often without realistic accountability or other consumer safeguards in place. But, as the 2001 Nobel Prize winning economist George Akerlof showed in his famous paper “A Market for Lemons”, asymmetrical information does much more than that. It actual can destroy the market for true, quality SEO.

Akerlof analyzed the used car market, showing that the information disparity surrounding the value of a used car led to a collapse of the market as a used car market, creating instead a “market for lemons”. The used car salesman knew how good (or bad) a used car really was. The buyer could not determine that until after the car was purchased. Because of this “information asymmetry” in the used car market, used car salesmen could overprice “lemons” - the low value used cars that looked ok. Poor quality cars no longer priced as poor quality. Actually good used cars became too expensive for buyers to chance, as poor quality cars at middle-quality prices presented better perceived value and higher profits for salesmen. As non-selling good cars were removed from the market, masquerading “lemons” dominated, setting the tone for the used car market, and further blocking actually good used cars from appearing. In the end, the used car market becomes a market for lemons, not a used car market.

It seems SEO has the same problem. As “boiler-room” SEO firms cold-call companies and pitch ridiculously low prices for SEO contracts, based on old and incorrect SEO information readily accessible to consumers, high quality SEO firms start looking “too expensive”. Consumer research into SEO does not reveal better information, since that knowledge comprises a significant portion of the value SEO consulting, and is thus not freely published. The entire market for SEO services starts to become a market not for actual search engine optimization, but more a market for “snake oil SEO” than true SEO. The typical seeker of SEO services these days seems ready to sign a one year contract with little if any performance basis. I can only presume they are buying based on looks, flashy presentations, or perhaps on gut instinct after a personal interaction with the salesman. I suppose we can expect SEO firms to start hiring pretty women and smart dressing, friendly “SEOs” instead of the geeks that actually understand search engine optimization. For a service designed to achieve rankings in search results, that seems very very odd. SEO has a measurable outcomes. Unlike a used car, SEO is a service. Nobody has to sign an SEO contract that does not include a 3 or 6 months performance evaluation with hard metrics of success and a cancellation clause.

We SEOs can learn a lot from Akerlof’s paper, but that might not be enough to save the SEO market. I already see that tech-savvy seekers of SEO skip right past the fluff and ask for short term or no term engagements, performance metrics, and accountability. The price pressures are still an issue, though, because quality SEO services are difficult to find and costly to develop. Without the financial support of longer term contracts, SEO becomes classic consulting which is not very scalable until layered in a bureaucratic hierarchy reminiscent of the Price Waterhouse style of the eighties and nineties. That might not be better than where we are now, and probably supports the case for bringing SEO in-house. Once in-house, though, who will pay for the advanced training and research required to stay current and effective as an SEO?

It seems the key issue for SEO consultants will be bringing performance metrics out front a.s.a.p., to appease the interests of paying clients while satisfying the need for results-oriented pay for SEOs. Those who work on a performance basis probably know what I mean by that, and probably find it exciting (as I do). Unfortunately, it means more secret information outside of the view of the general public. Alas, isn’t that what true SEO has always been?

In my Wordpress dashboard I saw a mention of “One Day Blog Silence”. I followed the link, and saw a page promoting a “day of blog silence” in honor of those touched by the Virginia Tech tragedy. What a waste. The blog world doesn’t need silence. The families and friends of those killed and injured don’t need a no-blog-post day. Our American society doesn’t need silence regarding this event, and the world doesn’t need silence around this event. If anything, we need more talk.

If you’re a blogger, why should you be “quiet” out of respect? You should be blogging.

Blog about the outrage that a young man would be so moved by the events of his world that he would arm himself and massacre dozens of his peers, and then himself.

Blog about your views on gun control - should we allow citizen arms, and if not, how do we defend ourselves? And if we do allow arms, how do we prevent acts of armed violence? Why is our own local police force arming itself with powerful crowd control weaponry, and since it is, what should be our rights to bear arms?

Blog about the prison system, which has grown into one of the most profitable government-industrial complexes in our society. Blog about how hundreds of thousands of low-level criminals are jailed each year, while the FBI virtually stopped prosecuting white collar criminals after 9-11 because field agents were pulled over to terrorism duty. Blog about how ex-convicts can’t vote until they pay off financial debts to society for all offenses, yet regular citizens can vote even while in bankruptcy court (deep in unpaid debts).

Blog about how our American society is driven by fear and fear mongering, to the point of excessive self-ensconced individualism. Blog about how that closed-door, protect myself individualism erodes confidence and fosters the kind of paranoia that fuels radical and blind religious and political fanaticism. Banning gay marriage to protect the American Family? How about stopping the assault on non-faith-based community, as a means of protecting the American family?

Blog about how a young man, desperate for whatever reason to take action to relieve himself of his emotionally painful personal predicament, sees no better option than assaulting a helpless community one bullet at a time. Blog about the way society, whether it was his father, his mother, his neighbors, the bullies at his school or the nasty clique that excluded him from social activities, taught him to respond with bullying aggression that includes bolting escape exits, targeting upper floors, and carrying multiple hand guns “execution style”.

Courage is a powerful and poorly understood character trait, but it is invariably courage that improves the world. Have some courage. Don’t stay silent. Speak up, and do your job.

In a one-two punch sending many web masters reeling, Google has announced it is buying dominant Internet advertising system DoubleClick for more than $3 billion dollars, and deploying new algorithms designed to penalize web sites that accept paid advertising outside of the Google advertising network. In light of this action by Internet search behemoth Google, a web master would have to be very foolish to accept paid advertising that did not contribute profit share to Google machine. The risk of losing value in the search rankings is simply too great.

The DoubleClick deal has some analysts puzzled, as the $3+ Billion dollar price seems very excessive given the reported sub-200 million dollar earnings booked by DoubleClick. But when coupled with the new rules banning sponsored links, reviews, and articles unless they are registered with Google first, this move makes sense. Google might be able to own all Internet advertising by effectively banning everything not included in the combined monster network of DoubleClick + AdSense. It seems that is what has begun.

Even Google-loving web masters are concerned because of the way these new rules were announced by Search Spam Team representative Matt Cutts. While Matt stated that there were “tons” of ways to report sponsored links, articles, and reviews so they wouldn’t earn Google’s wrath, he only named two of those ways. One of them was quite complex, requiring multiple layers of pages (some redirected with specialized computer code) to funnel traffic according to whether or not it followed sponsorship. It’s isn’t clear that many web masters are capable of implementing such sophisticated schemes. The second method mentioned by Matt Cutts included the use of a controversial HTML tag attribute introduced by Google without sanction from the HTML standards body known as the W3C. This places web masters in a professional predicament; do they adhere to professional standards, or bow to the Google rules instead? The new use of this attribute also seems to contradict Google’s own previous description of it’s intended use.

To put it mildly, web masters are confused and frightened by the new actions by Google. In many cases, Google controls as much as 95% of the traffic coming to web sites. Sweeping changes like these can destroy web-based businesses unable to decipher the new rules or get into compliance fast enough (if that is even possible). The danger may be greatest for business owners, however, who know even less about the technical details of web sites. Previously accepted practices like linking to other websites are now high-risk, as Google threatens to devalue sites that link out under sponsored arrangements like discounts, membership or even professional courtesy.

Does your web design firm “require” a link on your web site, back to their web site? According to Matt Cutts, the Google Quality/Spam team manager, those back links will now be detected and labeled by Google as “search engine spam”, and your site will suffer in the search rankings. Matt doesn’t give a time schedule for the new rule, but does say that Google has not only already developed the detection algorithms, but is actively testing them right now. Matt has asked people to send in reports when they see such links. It seems that Matt wants those “sure thing” sponsored links so he can test the reliability of the new penalty algorithms.

The practice of including links back to web design firms is an old one. Commonly you get two price options for your web design: price one, which does not require a back link, is much cheaper than the second price. The second price includes a requirement that you credit the designer firm with the work, by way of a promotional advertisement Google is now calling “paid links”. According to Matt Cutts this past week, it is that price break that makes the link illegal in the eyes of Google, and Google will diminish the value of sites that include such links as a way of dealing with them.

Naturally there is a good deal of discussion on the web right now about this flex of muscle by TheMightyGoogle. Non-profit agencies that link to their sponsors and donors are looking at Google penalties for doing so, under the new rules as described by Matt Cutts. So are membership organizations which list their paying members on their web sites (with back links to member’s sites). It’s all illegal under the new rules.

The new rule also hurts web hosting companies , who commonly provide reduced cost hosting for selected projects or customers, often non-profits and good causes. Sometimes they require a back link, but many times the grateful customer gladly places such a link as a means of saying “thanks” for the help. Now, that link will hurt the charity, as Google calls it “spam” and takes action to devalue it, whethe rit really is a padi link or just looks like one (or is reported to be one by some oddball Google fan out there). Geesh. This is getting scary, no?