I would like to extend a sincere “thank you” to all you publishers out there welcoming posts and comments on your publications. Seriously… thanks.

ThreadWatch was the first community site that I felt actually welcomed my contributions. I had been involved in most of the forums at one point or another, but ThreadWatch was the first where I actually enjoyed posting, and that was largely because I honestly felt my input was welcomed and appreciated. For some reason, unlike those other forums, a TW post projecting a new idea or an other-than-typical perspective did not elicit a series of counter attacks from loyalists dedicated to some mission or cause or perspective or Leader. Of course times change, and people change. TW changed hands because the people’s perspectives changed. TW changed because different people ran it. TW closed because of people… within the industry, as well as those running it.  But you publishers filled the void.

Every time I post a comment to someone else’s publication, I marvel at how cool it is that someone let’s me do that. Seriously… whatever I want to say, they allow me to say it. Sure sometimes I get moderated (rarely), but those useless publications are rare compared to the majority who consider it in stride and allow the conversation to take place. Out of respect, I publish my own blog at www.johnon.com for the long-winded opinion stuff, but it is YOUR publication that welcomes my input (whether I execute the option or not). For that, I thank you.

Someone emailed me today and called me curmudgeon-y. So I looked it up. Grumpy old man. Hah. I am not that old, and I am not grumpy. And I dislike that SearchEngineLand has labeled it’s hard-core SEO blog roll as “Old Fart SEOs”. I like appearing there, but I don’t like the label. Yeah yeah, all in fun. I also go this email today after my last post:

Looks like you’re doing everything possible not to get invited to the “select” PubCon parties

I suppose my blog is not as “SEOMozy” as many search industry blogs. I read this comment on SEOMoz today :

Showering love on a community is one of the best ways to generate a reaction - it’s a win-win proposition for the author and the readers!

followed by this:

linking out and praising the community is a great way to generate buzz! Some quality links there too - everyone should check out the whole list.

and this:

As to this being one of the best communities - I’m totally in agreement. Particularly as far as the signal to noise ratio goes - this community has the highest signal and the least noise in the industry. Both in the blogposts and commentaries.

Really? Let’s all just praise each other and everything will be win-win for all of us, eh?

Well I come from a background in real research and hard core Engineering (Big E, not little “e” like all those Google “engineers” and “software engineers”). Accountability is built-in, not optional. And when everyone just says “everything’s positive”, it sets that stage for complacency, laziness, and other tools of deception. If in fact SEOMoz is the highest signal to noise ratio search industry community alive today (a claim I do not make), it is surely not because of a stellar signal to noise ratio. It might be because the politics of the search industry prevent a truly high signal to noise ratio community from thriving. Is that win-win?

What happens when everyone is rosy and everything is great and we all pat each other on the back and say “good job!” and nobody is curmudgeon-y? Well, in the news this week we see :

Last week, the UK government announced the biggest loss of personal information in the UK’s history. Two unencrypted computer disks containing the personal records of all families in the UK with a child under the age of 16 went missing en route from the Revenue and Customs department to the National Audit Office. UK’s Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, stated that, “[t]his is an extremely serious and disturbing security breach.”

The disks comprised Revenue and Customs’ entire collection child benefit payment data. The disks were being sent to the National Audit Office using an internal courier system, but documentation of the transmission was not recorded or registered. The child benefit data listed on the disks includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people. Revenue and Customs chairman Paul Gray resigned after the announcement of the breach.

That’s financial and personal data on every family in the UK with a child under 16, lost to accountability. Over 25 million people were legally required to hand over personal information and bank account information to their government, and that government shipped the data around unencrypted, unscheduled, untracked, and lost it. Based on the comments made by the government officials, including the one that resigned immediately, that same government assumes it is the hands of criminals. And the follow up is they plan to limit what they collect next time, but include your biometrics. Let me ask you this — can you revoke your biometric? Is it physically possible for you to get a re-issue of your biometric if it is stolen? And this will be better?

What’s going on? We can assume that if criminals wanted that data, it is valuable. The system keeps going, and you lose.

Complacency. Things are ok. It’s win-win. Everything’s good. That curmudgeon-y guy who was complaining  last year about having to hand over personal data for central archiving, with no legal assurances for protection? Just an old fart, probably.

A few years ago every complaint about Google was labeled a conspiracy theory. Posters who cautioned of trusting Google were labeled “contrarians” and said to wear “tin foil hats”. AdSense was buying webmaster loyalty for pennies on the dollar. Now, in 2007, things have changed. I won’t point to some of the available information sources I have now, because they are ridiculously irresponsible. Want to know every domain ever registered by PUT-YOUR-FAVORITE-SEO-HERE? It comes cheap today. Want to find out the affiliate tiering of PUT-YOUR-FAVORITE-AFF-MARKETER-HERE, with her upline and downline? It can be had for pennies on the dollar compared to its value. The public tools for competitive intelligence are a joke compared to what can be had through “channels”, and what Google has because you all give it to Google for pennies on the dollar.

But this is the competitive SEO/Search marketing industry. What about us?

Is it possible to knock someone’s web site down in the SERPs without their involvement? No, of course not, right? Everything’s good, everything’s ok. Good job all around. And when a business is knocked out and loses 65% of the traffic it had, what then? That loser should have diversified, right? Big mistake keeping all the eggs in one basket, right? And of course no accountability for why Google dropped the site. If your search marketing contract is worth $100k per year, and generates $1million in client revenue, is it worth $25k to knock you out?  That’s $100k in Chinese money, and much more in other currencies in locations where very talented people operate computers attached to the Internet. Services can be procured.

The majority of my professional work involves working with corporations that hired advertising and marketing and SEO agencies but soon found themselves stuck with unexpected dependencies, large bills, ill-defined contracts, and Internet performance below expectations. My work is very positive — identify the fluff, trim the fat, help the corporation find the loopholes and hold the providers accountable for the initial goals and objectives. It is interesting and challenging work, to say the least. If you are a search marketer or SEO chances are good that I am on the other side of one of your contracts, helping your client to help you do your best work, while they adapt to help provide you with what you need to do your best work. The goal is success, as it was supposed to be when you were hired.

So keep doing good work and working hard. In the mean time keep asking the hard questions, and reconsider how quickly you might be “rewarding” those in our community who “showering love on the community”. Word on the street is, there’s an agenda being played. Did you know?

Shall we wait another quarter to start introducing yet more advertising on the web, or can we slip it in now? We’ve barely gotten past the “paid links are evil” debates. PayperPost is not completely dead yet, and TLA and it’s sister companies are still alive. But since there is really no other way for the commercial web to grow than to allow sponsorships, paid promotions, and “advertising”, I suppose we can just push forward again. Maybe, just maybe, people are busy enough that they (finally) won’t complain as advertorial replaces content (?).

So this is now content, even though the publisher is a PR agency paid by the client running the promotion, the post links out liberally and directly, and everything is disclosed somewhere in the fine print. Sphinn it even, because it’s content, right? (There I go making friends again). But seriously, all the banter about paid links and sponsorship needs to go away. But as long as Google’s actions (supported by certain public voices in the industry) actually harm people’s businesses, there will not be any end to the debate. If it’s about selling page rank, then make that clear. If it’s about sponsored posts, make that clear. If it’s about nofollow, then go ahead and enforce nofollow. Once everyone is freed from the shackles of Google paranoia, they will promote when they are enticed to promote, and limit their contributions to meaningful input otherwise. It’s the natural law of conservation of energy (greed plus laziness). Let it happen! It will be good!

I would like to propose an algorithmic solution to Google’s paid links problem, at least for the specific case of blog comments. It’s simple. Study the text of the blog comment, and flag it in a binary fashion as either completely positive, upbeat, and complimentary, or not. Then weigh it accordingly in the Google ranking algorithm. If it is like this:

“great post, great article. That (seminar/ebook/list) will surely help me succeed. Good stuff I can use! Thanks!”

then it is obviously spam and any associated link needs to be ignored. If it is anything else, allow it. See how it works? If you are a friend, you won’t say anything negative in the comments. But if you know that saying something positive will result in no-link-for-you, you probably won’t bother writing a comment. And if you actually have something useful to add to the conversation, you won’t care about the back link and probably won’t care too much about “being friendly” either. With tuning, this algorithm could actually flag this as spam:

“Nice find, Lee. I know it’s promotional for your client, but it’s good to know about and people will want to attend.”

which is good. That comment is follow-on promotional. Sure it’s eligible to be published on the web like everything else, but any associated back link needs to be removed from the “trust” equations as long as those trust equations are being used to squash competitors and destroy valid commercial endeavors around the world. This comment was just a friend helping out a friend, right? Maybe one of those “strategic alliances”? That’s fine, but Google, don’t credit that link if you’re discrediting other links as “paid”.

In time this new micro-algorithm might even be able to recognize this as worthy of credit:

“Sorry Lee, but this is such a promotonal piece I have to de-sphinn it.”

Keep that link, for that is a valid comment, and contributes to the health of the web. It’s clearly not positive, and not likely to strengthen any friendships. Why else would anyone have posted that, except to make a statement? Credit that gal with a back link for her courage!

Now back to wikipedia. I’m a big fan of several of the “back to Mine” groove CDs, having appreciated them since the dawn of the Back-to-Mine concept many years ago. I was exploring drum & bass in the clubs of Vancouver, experiencing what became “vibe” and “groove” and “chill” when I discovered asian underground and my first Back To Mine collections. I want to bring some to Vegas so when I go “back to mine” at the Hilton I can chill the way I like to (maybe sans friends after this post!). So I Googled Back to Mine. Number one is the publisher and #2 is this wikipedia advertisement. Nicely done. A full page promoting the Back To Mine series of CDs, with all collection covers neatly displayed along with the artists and links to their pages. The text cites the history, the company behind the label, and links to the vendor website backtomine.com. This is modern day Internet advertising and promotion. And because it ranks at the top of Google, it is search marketing very well done. Likely fan-generated, requiring just a touch of polish once in a while from a PR person. Google does the rest.

Woven throughout wikipedia are pages promoting the artists and their CDs, all reminiscent of what BillBoard or Motown was publishing back in the day (cover art, artist bios, stories, poetry… all added value for consumer of published music). Here’s one of my favorites — Orbital’s Back To Mine CD. UnderWorld is another favorite, as is Talvin Singh, although it seems Talvin isn’t on anyones promotion list these days. No external links and not very well written copy.

Google ranks wikipedia well almost universally, and more and more wikipedia is the new promotional spam of the web. Could it evolve any other way?

Update: For those interested in the music, none of which is linked by wikipedia, check these out:

• Tabla Beat Science (mp3) defined some of asian underground genre initially http://www.uprisemgt.com/artists/tbs/media/tabla_beat_science_palmistry.mp3
• Outcaste is a good place to explore the current and past world of British/Asian fusion (use IE).  Try Badmarsh&Shri’s Signs if this is your first exposure.

I have been using BaseCamp for a handful of smaller projects during the past year. At $49/month for secure access, it has been very convenient but borderline productive. I like to stay informed about emerging technology, and while I use ActiveCollab for hosted projects, BaseCamp has been super easy for smaller clients and low-activity, longer term relationships (where information might be archived for a long time, accesses infrequent but by different people, etc).

Last week while traveling I misplaced my primary business credit card. Rather than worry about it, I stopped into the nearest bank branch and reported it lost, requesting a replacement. No worries… 6-10 days in the mail. A few days later my Basecamp subscription tried to renew itself. Oops. Invalid credit card. I received this notice:

Hi John- We just tried to process your monthly Basecamp Plus subscription for $49, but your credit card (xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-XXXX) transaction was declined.

The reason given for the declined transaction was: “The payment could not be captured: This transaction has been declined”

HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
First, you and your clients will still have access to Basecamp for the next 6 days so you’ll have time to update your card information.

UPDATE YOUR CARD
You can update your credit card info or enter a brand new card at: https://XXXXXXX

WE’LL TRY AGAIN IN 3 DAYS
We’ll try to charge your card again in 3 days. If it fails to go through again, we’ll try once more 3 days later. If it fails that time, your account will be frozen until you log in and enter a valid card.

NEED TO CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT?
If you wish to cancel your Basecamp account, log in to: https://XXXXXXXX Then scroll down to the “Need to cancel your account?” section. Next click the “Please cancel my account” link. Once you cancel you won’t be charged again.

If you have any questions, please email us at support@basecampHQ.com

So I replied to the email address they provided, explaining that 3 days was not long enough to replace the card:

Hi guys.

My cc was stolen and I processed a request for a new one tuesday (7-10 days to get it). You have a 6 day policy… that won’t work for me. Is it a firm policy? I could use another card if necessary but that messes up the business books so I figured I’d ask. Otherwise I’ve been happy with the service.

-=john

Now I could go use another card, but in this case it would be a personal card or a card assigned to a different business. I’ve been a customer for almost a year, why shouldn’t I get a few days to replace the card? Anyway, I never got a response and on the 3rd day I got another warning and on the 6th day god froze my account:

Hi John-

IMPORTANT NOTICE
We’ve sent you two emails, and given you 6 days to update your credit card information, but unfortunately your card is still being declined.

YOUR ACCOUNT IS TEMPORARILY FROZEN
Your account has been frozen until you can provide a valid credit card number.

NOW WHAT?
Next time you login, you will be prompted to enter the new card. Every one else will be denied access to the system until this has been done.

So, I entered a personal credit card, reactivated my account, and will now transition away from Basecamp completely.

What was the final straw? No response to my email. Freezing my account including access by others. Imposing a 3 day waiting period for a credit card update. All careless, “I don’t need your business” decisions from the “BaseCamp Team”.

Time to move on. ActiveCollab has been great and very easy. Time to leave Basecamp to the corporate people.

Resources: Basecamp, ProjectPier, DotProject (a One-Click-Install on Dreamhost), ActiveCollab

It’s time to talk about yet another seo conference: PubCon Las Vegas. Yet another week of travel. Yet another chance to open the overnight bag and remove the laptop, remove the little plastic bag with shampoo and shaving cream, and remove my shoes so I can shuffle through airport security in my socks (ever notice how filthy that carpet is?). Yet another sterile hotel room. Yet another “opportunity” to eat way-too-large restaurant servings and get way-too-little exercise. Here in the Pacific Northwest we define “exercise” as getting outside in the rain and wind and sun and sea breeze/mountain air, not “climb onto the exercycle in the air-conditioned hotel weight room and watch TV while sweating”. Can you tell I am weary of travel ?

Yet that is what this is… with SES, SMX, several related industry events and now PubCon, we need to seriously consider whether all this travel is worthwhile or an effective use of time. So let’s take a look at PubCon Las Vegas:

• traditionally an SEO/SEM conference heavy on web entrepreneurship (lots of independent operators)
• a very serious annual get-together for many experienced players in the SEO space (at the bars, not at the sessions. Many don’t even register for PubCon). Would I be invited or even aware of these gatherings?
• bigger every year, to thousands in attendance this year (how’s that Friday Pub thing going to work with thousands of attendees?)
• billed as “the affordable conference” , it’s still $900 registration fee, r/t airfare, and 5 days hotel and food/drinks. When you add it up, that “affordable” reg fee represents less than 20% of the total out of pocket expenses for attending

As an independent consultant, I haven’t gotten business from past PubCons. That doesn’t mean they weren’t fun or interesting, and of course PubCon represents another chance to see people from other cities. But if you don’t generate business, is it worth the cost? Remember for me it’s not about “I met so-and-so and the one tip she gave me was more more than my expenses” because I’ve already been to SES/SMX and several related conferences this year, and I interact with lots of these people behind the scenes every day.

PubCon has similar sessions to SES and SMX, although mouch more from the look of the agenda. However, they run concurrent tracks so you trade variety for accessibility. You can still only attend what you have time to attend.

Similar speakers to SES and SMX. I don’t frequent WebMasterWorld so I probably don’t appreciate the opportunity to meet the players behind the handles as much as others might.

Help me out here… why drop another 2-3 grand to attend PubCon Las Vegas this year?

Update: Looking at the PubCon agenda pages, I don’t see any Google party? I don’t see a Yahoo! party, but Yahoo! is a premium sponsor? What about MSN? I don’t see any vendor parties listed at th ePubcon site… seems odd, no? There is an SEOMoz thing, but it is listed as “unofficial” (?) and overlaps the Google “meet the engineers” thing. There was an SEOMoz party at SMX. At SES, there were a few web pages dedicated to party activity. At SMX there was a “networking” section to the website showing events and parties. At Ad:Tech NYC there was a vendor party section, with plenty of activity. Also, I see that there is a “Friday pub” pass available cheap… which means what, exactly? I always thought the Friday pub thing was “exclusive” to conference attendees. Not like there’s any shortage of things to do in Vegas, but surely there are vendor activities other than what is apparent?

Resource: There is a Search Conference Website up, but it isn’t very active yet. Perhaps it is worthy of participation by those looking to plan their conference activities?

Okay, so I understand search is politics and I have long been an advocate of the “Google is not your friend” philosophy of life, but as a professional search marketer I have not been this disgusted with the search industry in many years.

I was reviewing my DiamondsDirect.com post and noticing that Google had (manually?) corrected all of the embarassing bits I noted in that post, while avoiding acknowledging their censorship of the web via profiling (parked pages, innovative methods etc). In the past I have vocally encouraged Google’s support for creativity and the expansion of the web. But for many years I have also noted that Google’s business model leads it towards biased censorship and anti-competitive practices. It looks like we are seeing plenty of that now.

While looking at DiamondsDirect I realized it was owned by not just a domain parker but Digimedia, an innovator. And I followed a link to the new Ever project, which I also consider quite innovative. If you haven’t heard about the Ever project, it’s a new approach to user-generated content behind the ever.com domain. You can be whatever.ever.com such as bravest.seo.ever.com. Yes, that’s Squidoo on the back end. Innovation? You betcha. Spammer? Hardly, especially since Google isn’t indexing it. But innovation challenges everyone, of course that should include Google. Some great questions come to the forefront as projects like Ever.com get banned by Google. What happened to organizing the world’s information? What percentage of fresh web content will Google index? How can Google sucessfully censor the web under the guise of quality assurance?

It’s so easy to label something spam and move on. But I have news for you. Search Google for “the ever project” and you won’t find it. You’ll find a few blog mentions, and at #5 you find this SEOMoz page. Look at that page - it’s a landing page pitching the SEOMoz Premium Content membership program. Unique content? Relevant content? Worthy of Google inclusion and ranking?? Hardly… this is the content that outranks even the Ever.com FAQ page for relevance for searched on the Ever.com project (emphasis added):

Building Links with the Ever Project: ClarityChris wrote 3 days, 23 hours ago Do you recommend building keyword-rich pages on the new Ever Project off Squidoo? Are there any downsides? Thanks. Answer This question was answered (51 words) by the following members of the SEOmoz staff: rebecca If you would like to view the responses to this question or ask your own, you’ll need to sign up as a Premium Member. Premium Members can ask the SEOmoz staff questions and also have unrestricted access to our SEO knowledge base.

That’s search spam. So now that I have highlighted it, will Google remove it? Of course SEOMoz can say “we didn’t intend it to be indexed; Google decided that” and they can even now say “we’ll noindex that to improve the quality of the web” but seriously folks, are we all so stupid? Google is saying Ever.com is spam, Squidoo is spam, shopping portals with innovative user interfaces are spam, and promotional landing pages that fail to deliver on the search promise of “what is the ever project” are worthy?

Argue all you like about whether page content at the ever project/squidoo is relevant and search worthy, but you have to face the truth that the project itself is indeed search worthy for queries about the project itself. It’s user generated content - like so much else on the web. Organize it. But ban entire domains? That’s clearly censorship, and anti-competitive.

Innovation is not spam. We need innovation. We need AJAX and we need innovative user interfaces for shopping. But misleading landing pages are spam. Is this really so hard? As I noted recently I expect TheNewAntiCompetitiveGoogle to start throwing that spammer label around a lot more as they try and cover up their anti-competitive practices. But seriously folks, are we blind? Are we so stupid Google can put this past us? The more I see of this the more I hate Google, and I really, really want to love Google.

Every time you go to google.com and search, you are handing your perspective to a middleman with a vested interest in managing your access to information. Under the guise of Quality Scores, Spam Prevention, and Search Quality, Google is obviously censoring the web we see. Where will it become unreasonable? Unethical? Illegal? Where does Google draw the line, and is that acceptable to us?

Side note: Sebastian is a very smart guy. He pays attention, and works hard. He innovates. But take a look at how distracted Sebastian is by Google’s anti-competitive behavior? He’s right on the money about Google’s consideration of affiliate links and content, but because he’s correct he cannot reach a conclusion suitable for recommendation. In trying to understand Google’s business practices, I’m now leaning towards the word slimy. Hard to believe that has happened.

As SEO has grown, I think the standards for the SEO profession have gone down. That’s not unexpected for any industry seeing rapid expansion. One hopes that over time, as millions of real estate people study for their new careers as “search marketers”, things will get better. But then, there is the Press.

The Press seems to want to sensationalize SEO and search. If SEO is so hot, the coverage must be hot, too. Right? Normally, industry leaders and those knowledgable of the field can help corral the press into “keeping things real”. If coverage is too outlandish, then someone, somewhere will refer to that outlandishness, and, via inference, help curtail it. Except when there’s pandering.

Pandering is the act of “giving them what they want”. If you sensationalize a story to make it “more exciting” because your readers are looking for exciting material, you are pandering. And if the sensational coverage happens to be about YOU, and you allow that because, well, it’s good for YOU, than that, too, is pandering. You are giving the Press what they want, so they can give the readers what they want. Everybody’s getting what they want, right?

Wrong. If the message is skewed, then nobody is getting what they really want.

Just this week, USA Today published “Gray Googlers Strike Gold”. The article shows retirees how others just-like-them are making easy money with web publishing, because Google AdSense is so lucrative. Pandering to the Age Wave, with the hot topic of Search and Money. Of course, it is unrealistic (sensational?). The article presents a rosy picture of success on the web through Google ads:

The Internet may be a young person’s medium, but the retired and those nearing retirement such as Alonzy have found that they can work the Web just as well. Sometimes, such “Gray Googlers” can live a richer, more financially rewarding life than when they were supposedly working.

There’s more fairy tale buried in there as well. Take this segment describing an engineer making $800/month from his power supply web site:

Take Jerrold Foutz. The former Boeing engineer, 75, started a website a few years ago devoted to one of his passions : switching mode power supplies, which help drive, for instance, the inside of video cameras. He put Google ads on his smpstech.com site four years ago. After just one month, the first Google check was for $800. The second check totaled $2,000. “I thought, ‘Wow,’ ” he said. “This was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me. Something I thought would make $50 a year now equals my Boeing retirement check.” That comes out to around $25,000 yearly. Foutz’s experience is not an anomaly.

Now I don’t doubt the report, but I doubt the reporting. Four years ago, when AdSense started, the payout was very high for many specialized markets. It was not uncommon to see payouts of $15 or more per click. The first month earned $800 and the second $1200? Very likely. But to equate that to $25k per year and suggest that it is not an “anomaly”? I’d like to verify those claims. Looking at the site as it is now, I don’t see a big earner. But I do see a note from Mr. Foutz himself, addressing this USA Today article. It seems Mr. Foutz is a webmarketer.

According to Mr. Foutz (who doesn’t say anything bad about the USA Today article), things are not quite as rosy as described. In a nutshell, he outlines 9 years of web publishing work he carried out prior to starting his AdSense experience in 2003 (the “four years ago” cited by USA Today). He describes his countless hours of work and several web site ventures, and summarizes with “The trip was fun, but notice that it took over nine years — and I already had written a lot of the content before I went on the Web.” That’s a far cry from USA Today’s Jefferson Graham’s account: “former Boeing engineer, 75, started a website a few years ago devoted to one of his passions : switching mode power supplies, which help drive, for instance, the inside of video cameras. He put Google ads on his smpstech.com site four years ago. After just one month, the first Google check was for $800. The second check totaled $2,000.”

Pretty severe sretch of the truth, isn’t it? I also find it interesting that Mr. Foutz is now selling “how to make money on the web” programs from his website, including an amazon affiliate link known to pay out mere pennies per sale. Could it be that all those AdSense blocks on the page (he has the 2 more than maximum allowed?) aren’t paying out so well anymore for Mr. Foutz? Of course not, but let’s tell the AgeWave of retirees that there’s gold in them thar hills!

The USA Today article goes further, but I think the real fun begins in the comments. Linda Buquet, a quality individual whom I have watched in the affiliate space for many years, starts off the reality check very politely with statements like (emphasis added):

“I teach people how to make a living online and have the #1 ranked Affiliate Marketing Blog. I just blogged about this article. I always love success stories, but I agree with some of the other commenters that the article just makes it sound too easy.“

After Linda, we see a lengthy comment from the featured “Grey Googler” himself, Jerry Alonzy of NaturalHandyman. His comment is apparently trying to “fix” the sensationalist skew of the USA Today article without offending. Mr. Graham’s article featured him up front and center, as a “Grey Googler” striking Gold:

As an independent handyman at the mercy of weather patterns near Hartford, Conn., he’d always made a decent income that rarely grew. Then he found Google (GOOG), and his life changed. Alonzy, 57, now makes $120,000 a year from the ads Google places on his Natural Handyman website, and he couldn’t be more thrilled. “I put in two, maybe three hours a day on the site, and the checks pour in,” he says. “What’s not to like?” In return for placing its ads on websites and blogs, Google pays Web publishers every time one of its ads are clicked. Those clicks help keep Alonzy and his wife living comfortably and talking about moving to Hawaii. “All I need is a laptop and a high-speed Internet connection, and I can live anywhere.”

But in the comments, Jerry himself chimes in and adds (emphasis added):

“in my opinion, the article does make the whole process seem a little easier than it is. In fact, making serious money with any website, whether you simply offer free content OR sell a product, requires tremendous amounts of time and energy. It is not easy but it is possible. I think this article demonstrates that, and I stand by it regardless of what the many cynics think. … I was quoted as saying that I worked a few hours a day and the “checks pour in”. Though that is true to a great extent NOW, the fact is I wore two hats for nearly 10 years as a full time handyman and website developer. That’s seven days a week, most days from 4-5am writing and posting…, a full day’s work and then back in the evening to make calls and answer emails. I still work 7 days a week to be sure the site is always available and to answer emails, edit articles, etc. Occasional site-wide edits have had me working long days for weeks or months straight. If you think that’s easy, I have a bridge to sell you! I’m just now reaping the benefits of years of unpaid labor. Of the past 12 years, I made a profit on three. All the other years I lost money….“

Wow. Another featured success story admitting it took many years of hard work and years of losses… none mentioned in that article. That’s quite an apparent misrepresentation, no?

Just a few days ago I said I fully expect a strong PR campaign from Google during the next 90 days, painting a rosy picture of web success on TheGoogleProgramme, striking down SEO as evil and high-risk, and promoting Google partnership. Is this part of it? Is this a “framed issue”? Is this a ’sponsored article”?

Another article I read this week that fits into the emerging GooglePR Conspiracy was more local to me: the Seattle Times. In the Northwest Business & Technology section, in an article entitled “CEO puts fresh face on SEO“, Brier Dudley highlights Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz, but frames it in an oddly pro-Google and anti-SEO way.
The pandering in this Seattle Times seems less “framed” than the USA Today work, but is equally skewed. For example, Brier Dudley says that

There’s no use pining for a search utopia, free from commercial influences. That’s like wishing for affordable housing in Seattle or a zero carbon footprint. The best we can hope for is that search engines keep getting better and more precise, and that SEO is dominated by legitimate, transparent players.

How convenient. Although this is not in the Editorial section of the Seattle Times, the author seems to have a very strong opinion that SEO should be dominated by Google partners (or at least players who show all of their cards to Google?). Last I checked, Google is one of the least transparent organizations I deal with. They are also among the most profitable. Where did this skewed “reporting” come from? Who is framing this issue as pro-Google, and pro-transparency, via the Seattle Times?

And while I accept that SEOMoz might have 50,000 members, is there any basis whatsoever for the reporter to suggest that “More than 50,000 search-marketing experts are registered users of his [Rand’s] site”? Really… as if. The day every member of SEOMoz is a “search-marketing expert” is the day I sign up for the Premium Membership. Seriously. But I don’t want to nit-pick. The biggest problem I see is this article takes a pro-transparancy stance on SEO, without attributing it to Rand or anyone for that matter. It is reported as if it were fact! Oh, and of course, it finds a way to highlight Rand and SEOMoz as good while painting SEO as bad. In the beginning, the author describes Rand as a “fresh face” for SEO, and so aligns him with the SEO industry:

“he’s become a star in the mysterious world of search engine optimization, the realm of consultants and hackers who tweak and manipulate Web sites to make them more prominent in search engine results.”

Later, the author separates Rand from that same SEO industry by painting it black:

With Fishkin appearing in national media nowadays, his demeanor is helping to improve the reputation of SEO. It’s a controversial industry tainted by spammers using SEO tactics to game search engines and peddle Viagra, gambling and pornography.

Wow. Rand Fishkin, the Face of SEO = Good. SEO = spammers peddling viagra and gaming search engines = Bad. Nice work, Brier Dudley.

As I said earlier, maybe Rand will pop in and clarify some of this, but I will also note via Rand’s transparency, that he just returned from a visit to Google, and that he hopes to someday be acquired by a major search engine. He also notes that SEO is fifth on his list of 5 ways to get new business. I’m confused. This seems like a pro-Google fluff piece, but coming along with a friendly profile of Rand, the CEO of an SEO firm.
Things are changing fast in SEO world.