B6S.net

I started doing “this” back in 1997.

“This” means creating websites, promoting them and monetizing on the traffic (as opposed to creating websites for other people’s business need). It’s a pretty common business model for most of us.

The Age of Webmasters

Back then, we were called webmasters.

As a webmaster, you were expected to have a variety of skills, including:

1. Web Design
2. HTML coding
3. “Advanced” coding skills (or at least how to hack away at javascript)
4. Search engine optimization know-how (it was pretty basic back then)
5. Social media skills (at the time, it was participation in online forums mostly)

We were jacks of all trades. We had to know how to work with Photoshop, flash, HTML editors (or the code itself), run newsletters and much more.

Oh, and we had “websites” – remember those? Just good ole’ HTML web pages, where you had to change the HTML code and re-upload files via FTP to keep them up-to-date.

The Age of Bloggers

Things sure have changed!

Websites today are complexed dynamic creatures, relying on a variety of technologies to deliver unique customized pages to each visitor. They do a lot of clever things. One of them is that they allow users to interact and leave their own key-print.

What’s more, design standards have changed. You can no longer get away with cheesy web pages with animated gif’s for a background (thankfully, I may add!) Visitors expect a higher level of usability and an overall sleek look. To a great extent, design has become the realm of professional web designers and coding these smart sites has become the domain of professional coders.

These changes brought along the CMS’s, or Content Management Systems. And these beget Wordpress – a fully customizable and relatively easy-to-use CMS.

So, what’s left for us, content publishers? Well, mostly, but not only, creating content.

We write, we promote, we interact with the net. We have the ability to quickly and easily update our websites.

In fact, our websites are now called blogs, and we call ourselves bloggers.

So, How About You?

I still consider myself a webmaster first, and a blogger second. I still enjoy tweaking code and design and I still create static web pages too.

I think the title I prefer the most is a web publisher.

How about you? Are you a blogger? a webmaster? something else?

Haven’t done  a news & views roundup in a while, so time to check my RSS reader folders and link to some good webmasters reading material.

Search Engine News

Bing’s Stefan Weitz: Where Is Search Going? Weitz provides some interesting insights about the future of search engine development, and no, social media is not the main topic he discusses here.

The Buzz Not Quite Dying Out

But it’s taken an interesting turn over the past week, as more people got upset with the perceived breach of their privacy. Google Getting Wrong Kind Of Buzz:

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging that Google’s new social networking service Buzz violates federal consumer protection law.

Of course, it didn’t take long for this headline to show up: Class Action Complaint Filed Over Google Buzz

Google responded by saying  “With Buzz We Failed To Appreciate That Users Have Differing Privacy Expectations”

Pete Cashmore provided a nice overview of Buzz, taking into account both the privacy issues, in his CNN column:

Google Buzz: What is it good for?

Still mad at Google? You may like this article published on Gizmodo:

How To: Escape From Google’s Clutches, Once and For All

Facebook

I enjoy Facebook as much as the next person, and apparently both me and the next person have been complaining about it being slow and at times unreliable. Looks like Facebook was listening:

How Facebook Became Twice as Fast (But Still Not Fast Enough)

Can’t have the good without the bad. That annoying Farmville game seems to be going stronger:

FarmVille Wins Social Networking Game of the Year Award

FarmVille Surpasses 80 Million Users

I really hate Farmville. It’s not just the annoying messages in my stream, but the very nature of this game displaying the false idyllic facade of farms, when in reality, the food production industry is a big-money cruel machine of mass production at the expense of animal welfare.

If you dislike Farmville for this or any other reason, you may need this -

HOW TO: Block FarmVille on Facebook

Other Stuff

Google Maps Adds Businesses in 30 African Countries

Ok, you may not be visiting Africa anytime soon (or maybe you will be), but I appreciate the fact that Google is taking the time and effort to do this. Google Earth/Google Maps were invaluable to me on our last big family trip in the US. It just feels good to know that the same kind of information is available elsewhere as well.

Can you imagine your world without the little green bar?

You may just have to get used to the idea as many SEO experts think this exactly where we’re heading.

Google has been hinting about this for a while now. Google reps have mentioned this on their webmasters FAQ a while ago -

Don’t bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s useful for you as a site owner.

In a more recent move, Google sends us yet another hint. Google Webmasters Tools no longer displays you Pagerank. Yup, the most official indication of your Pagerank is now gone.

The next logical step for Google to take is to remove the green bar from their toolbar as well.

The World without Google Pagerank

Granted, your average web surfer has no idea what pagerank even means. Yet, what about that part of the web dealing with constructing and promoting websites and blogs? how will the disappearance of Pagerank affect us?

Here are some possible effects:

1. No more endless blog posts and forum threads about “when is the next pagerank update” followed by an endless stream of “My pagerank went up/down!!!” when it actually happens.
2. No more stupid replies from webmasters/bloggers who won’t exchange links with you because “your blog is only PR2 and mine is PR4″.
3. No more sites that exist solely to let you know what your pagerank is.
4. No more relying on this so-easy-to-manipulate metric when buying/selling websites.

In other words, the thing to say once Pagerank is gone is: good riddance.

What do you think? Can you live without knowing what your site’s PR is?

So, what is up with the much awaited Caffeine?

Back in November 11th I had blogged about Matt Cutts’s announcement that Caffeine won’t be launched until “after the holidays”. At the time, Matt said Google decided to wait with the launch of their highly acclaimed new algorithm update out of consideration for webmasters. The idea was to keep the search results stable over the high season of shopping time.

It didn’t really make sense to me back then. In my post, I said that if Google had a better algorithm, producing better and faster results for end users, they should not avoid launching out of consideration for webmasters. After all, there’s only so much web traffic and one webmaster’s loss is another’s gain.

Well, it’s been over two months now. And almost two weeks into 2010 and still no sign of Caffeine.

In Israel, with major holidays coming up twice a year, the term “after the holidays” takes on a special meaning. “After the holidays” being the ultimate excuse for all those things you plan on postponing endlessly and forever.

No, I don’t think Google is going to postpone the rollover forever. I do wonder what’s making them wait so long though. Is it the recent China business? or were issues with caffeine itself the real reason behind the “after the holidays” delay?

Uh oh… not another post about the dofollow issue?

Blame Extreme John who just posted about removing nofollow blogs from his RSS reader. Since even the mighty Google thinks I’m an authority on the subject (this blog is ranked in the top ten results for “dofollow blogs”), I figured I need to give my input… again.

In his post, Extreme John refers to mutual linkjuice gifts and a “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” concept. I’d like to present a slightly different angle on this. I don’t dofollow with other bloggers in mind – I dofollow with surfers in mind. Here’s why.

The Heated Dofollow Debate

If you look at Extreme John’s post and the following comments, you could easily get the impression that most webmasters passionately support dofollow. In my experience, this is not the case.

Take Sitepoint Forums. If you want to start thread with lots of replies, use the word “dofollow” in the title. Supporting dofollow on blog comments over there is a surefire way to get flamed (no pun intended). If the people are in a good mood, they’ll just tell you you’re wasting your time. They could also mark you for a spammer.

To be honest, they have a point. Dofollow blogs can become spam magnets. Just visit the darker side over at the DP forums and run a search for dofollow blogs. Spammers all over the place, selling lists of dofollow blogs along with spam bots that will do the dirty work for you.

Thus, my first instinct was to go nofollow, because that’s what the “good guys” recommended. But then I gave the matter some thought and you can read more about my conclusions in this post. Bottom line – nofollow blogs get as much spam as dofollow blogs and it’s up to the blogger to click the “spam” link and trash the spam comments.

One more point for nofollow supporters to consider

Google (and other Search Engines) keep telling us that serving different versions of your page to surfers and search engines is a big No No. That’s why cloaking is a good way to get your site banned from the SERP’s.

I argue that the nofollow tag is in fact a form of cloaking. It’s showing your surfer one thing – a link to another site – while telling the search engine to ignore that very link.

If you think the link is bad, don’t have it on your blog. That’s part of your blogger duties and that’s why you should always monitor your comments and have spam filters in place.

If you think the link is valid, legitimate and useful to your visitors, there is no reason in the world to hide it from the search engines.

Nofollow has in facr become a tool for linkjuice channeling, aka link sculpting. By definition, it creates one picture of the web for users and another for search engines.

Now, if Google, or anyone else, wishes to devalue comment links in their algorithm, or to disregard them completely, that is entirely up to them. As a web publisher, I just want to have a clean page with no behind-the-scenes changes in the code that my surfers can’t see.

I’ve been a web publisher for over a decade now. I have “regular” websites and I have blogs. Often, both formats have the same basic functions: providing information and generating affiliate sales.

Static websites have their own advantages. They can be simple enough to be written in plain HTML code; they can be (nearly) hacker-proof; they don’t need updates and can be a “launch and forget”  project. And yet, with more and more projects I find myself opting for a blog, rather than a static site.

Why? because I think in today’s online environment blogs are easier to promote.

Static websites and blogs do share many promotion techniques. For example, you’ll be wise to do your basic SEO for both; and direct advertising will be just as effective for either form. However, with a blog, you get a few additional features which I will review in this article.

RSS Feeds

Blogging platforms all come with RSS feeds built into their system. Once you set-up a blog, whether using Wordpress, blogger or another platform, an RSS feed is automatically created. Encourage your readers to subscribe to your feed and make it easier for them to do so by offering it through Feedburner too. You can also use your feed to promote your blog on Facebook, Twitter, and similar services.

Directory Submissions

Yes, you can submit any kind of site to most directories. However, “regular” directories with endless static lists of links are so 2004. The have been drastically de-valued in terms of link quality and, with a few exceptions, they send very little traffic, if at all.

With blog directories, the picture is slightly different. For one thing, you have an array of niche specific blog directories providing you with more places to submit to. Moreover, with blogs, you have more dynamic directories which list specific posts and often offer a social media platform along with it. You get more traffic from these, and in some cases, like with Blog Engage, you also get valuable link juice.

Blog Comments

Most blogs encourage their readers to comment on posts and you can leave your link along with the comment. While most blogs place the nofollow tags on comment links, many still offer dofollow links (like this blog!). Even with nofollow, your link is still valuable and can drive more targeted traffic to your site. Yes, I said site, and not blog, because you could also promote a regular site this way… which brings me to the next item.

CommentLuv

CommentLuv is a popular Wordpress plug-in which automatically generates a link to your last blog post. While CommentLuv links are often nofollow, they do carry some SEO benefit, since they use your long-tail post title phrase. For long search queries, with little competition, these links could make a difference.

Blogroll Exchange

Some people will tell you link exchanges are dead. True enough, most webmasters, myself included, tend to ignore your run-of-the-mill link exchange requests that pour in via email. Blogroll exchanges, while technically just as much a link exchange as any other, are treated differently.

Interacting with a blogger, via comments, and then offering a blogroll exchange can be a very effective way to build links. In my experience, this is especially true in niches that are not related to web publishing.

A Sense of Community

While blogs have some technical features that make promoting them easier, the thing that really sets blogs apart from static sites  is the sense of community. When blogging, you showcase yourself as a person, creating a sense of intimacy not just with your readers, but with other bloggers as well.

When you’re “a blogger” rather than just a webmaster, you become part of the bloggers community. In the end, this is what makes blog marketing easier: when people sense a “you” behind the site, they are more likely to share and help you promote your blog.

Got more techniques that are unique to blog marketing? Please do share them here in a comment!

A short history of nofollow and dofollow:

1. Google comes up with the brilliant idea of using links to sites as indicators of site popularity/authority/importance. If you have more links pointing to your page, it’s more likely to score high in Google search results, providing you with more traffic.
2. Webmasters start the links race – trying to get as many links pointing to their website as possible.
3. Spammers abuse the concept by automatically adding links to their site from any place they can. Social media sites, including blogs and social bookmarking sites, become prime target because they allow visitors to “leave their mark” on a site.
4. Blogs are inundated by fake comments that are nothing but automated spam.
5. In an effort to stop the spam attack, Google announces the “nofollow” tag. Once attached to a link, this tag “cancels out” the link’s search engine optimization (SEO) effect.
6. Wordpress and other blogging platforms add the “nofollow” tag by default to all comments.

Now, here’s the problem:

Spammers have not stopped their spam comments. Using automated scripts, it costs them nothing to try and even with no SEO benefits, if their link is up, someone may just click it.

Blog comments however, have been cut out from Google’s picture of web activity.

I see no reason why on-topic useful and meaningful comments should not reflect on the commenter’s website. If he’s an active commenter in the market, doesn’t that lend more authority to his website?I think the “nofollow” on legitimate comments is helping no one.

My finger isn’t pointed at Google. The Google people just provide us with tools and then do their own thing of trying to get the best search results for their users. Fair enough. I think it’s up to bloggers to get rid of the automatic “nofollow” tags on their blogs. Moreover, I think the people behind Wordpress should at the very least provide an easy option in the Wordpress settings to switch the nofollow tag on or off.

Just to clarify: I do NOT want to see spam comments on any blog. Blog owners should and do fight back using spam filters such as Askimet for Wordpress. In my experience, Askimet is very effective in keeping out 99% of automated spam. As for comments that do go through – this is where the blog owner needs to stay involved, reading the comments and getting rid of any spam.

So, I’ll be doing my small share by disabling the nofollow tags on this blog and other blogs I run. If the blog is active and I want comments, I’ll be taking the time to review comments and weed out any spam that Askimet didn’t catch.

With a clear conscience of doing my share, I’ll move on to doing what many of us webmasters are already doing: seeking out dofollow blogs (i.e. blogs that disable the nofollow feature) to interact and add insightful, meaningful and useful comments there, along with a legitimate link back to my own blog. More on how to find these blogs in another post.

ETA:

Following some advice I got from Ed on PeculiarBlog.com who went back to nofollow, I’ve come up with some commenting rules for this blog. I am looking forward to comments and discussions, but anything that does not follow my own quality criteria gets canned.