Google PageRank Update

As of today, Google has updated its toolbar PageRank. That clicking sound you hear? It’s all the SEOs scrambling to check their sites, and the angry blogging from people who didn’t get what they thought they deserved.

After three months in existence, we’ve debuted with a PR 4. I’ve done little to no SEO on this site, no link-building, and wrote about what I knew (or at least had an opinion about).

Not bad at all. Cheers, big G.

Goodbye Ads

The Noisy Channel by Daniel Tunkelang is probably the most intelligent, thoughtful blog I know of on the subjects of blogging, the interwebs and related matters. As such, and with the sincere desire that you visit his site now, and with apologies to Daniel in advance, I will quote his latest post in full to explain a decision I made this weekend:

The Internet Is About Freedom

March 22nd, 2009 

I was in a bit of shock when I saw that the top story on Techmeme was a post on TechCrunch entitled. “Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet“. After all, TechCrunch is an ad-supported site–something I admittedly had to confirm using a browser without an ad blocker.

But my confusion subsided when I realize that the TechCrunch post was actually a guest post by Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Here’s the outline:

1. There Must Be Something Other Than Advertising

2. Advertising will fail

3. Advertising will fail for three reasons:

• Consumers do not trust advertising.
• Consumers do not want to view advertising.
• Consumers do not need advertising.

4. Alternative models for monetization are available:

• Selling content and information.
• Selling experience and participation in a virtual community.
• Selling accessories for virtual communities.

In my case he’s preaching to the converted, and I don’t see why his arguments should be so controversial. But clearly they are in a world where the ad-supported model dominates to such an extent that most people don’t imagine any other business model is viable. I hope his post helps persuade a few skeptics.

Finally, I love his conclusion:

The internet is about freedom, and I suspect that a truly free population will not be held captive and forced to watch ads.  We always knew that freedom comes at a price; perhaps the price of internet freedom and the failure of ads will be paying a fair price for the content and the experience and the recommendations that we value.

This weekend I had already decided to remove the text ads from this site, and Daniel’s post this morning is a great example of serendipity, since he explains it all for me.

I would only add this: there’s nothing wrong with commerce or capitalism. I have a number of other sites specifically dedicated to selling things. But this site was intended to be informational and/or entertaining. And as such, there’s no reason for me to force ads down your throat. So I’ve decided to go all PBS on you.

But much like PBS, I will continue to shill for a connected service that actually contributes to this blog: my web host. So I’m leaving the little banner that promotes them. That seems reasonable, since it actually has something to do with this site, unlike the supposedly “relevant” text ads.

So there. Goodbye ads. You’ve annoyed me on other people’s sites, and you will no longer annoy other people on mine.

SEO Advice for Bloggers

When it comes to Google, Matt Cutts is the man. Not only is he the head of Google’s Webspam team, he is the oracle who confirms or denies the swirling rumors of sandboxing, site penalties, Toolbar PageRank updates, and everything else search engine optimizers spend all day obsessing about.

This morning I ran across this video of Matt at a conference discussing SEO, with a particular focus on Wordpress blogs. Though experienced SEOs should know most of this info, there will be something in here that is new to almost anyone, and beginners in particular will benefit.

And as a bonus, a more advanced talk from SEO pro Stephen Spencer on “SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make”: