Beginning to hate SEO/SEM blogs...

[glengara]

Mostly useless hyped-up fluff designed to garner votes from their social media buddies simply to puff up their own profiles, it's a giant circle jerk...

[AussieWebmaster]

there are some like that but blogs are also social tools so the intercation of friends and people who know each other is part of it

[Marcia]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

there are some like that but blogs are also social tools so the intercation of friends and people who know each other is part of it

That's what glengara said, only his is closer to what I call it.

[sem4u]

There are more good SEO/SEM blogs out there than ever before. You just need to pick and choose what to read. Sure some people are just trying to raise their profile and comment on each others blogs, but that is the nature of the industry at the moment.

[Bhumika]

Originally Posted by sem4u

There are more good SEO/SEM blogs out there than ever before. You just need to pick and choose what to read. Sure some people are just trying to raise their profile and comment on each others blogs, but that is the nature of the industry at the moment.

I agree with it but that's the truth.

[jimbeetle]

Can't agree with you more, glengara. The rash of crap that's popped out over the past few months is astonishing.

I still have my comparatively few old reliables on my feed reader, haven't discovered more than a small handful of newer ones that make the cut.

[glengara]

Just did a quick comparison between the Google page of a well known SEO/SEM blog aggregator and the Google forum of a popular webmaster forum.

The former had 25 threads with a grand total of 12 comments while the forums' first 25 threads had about 700 replies.

With both covering similar subjects and probably having some commonality of readership, that's some difference.

[AussieWebmaster]

True... and that was always how it was but blogs like seomoz and even Sphinn etc. have taken alot of those forum people... there will always be forums - the good ones will never die- but the blogs are becoming more popular these days

[glengara]

Since you mentioned Sphinn, I find it strange how few comments the entries receive, a cynic might suspect comments were no-followed :-)

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by glengara

Since you mentioned Sphinn, I find it strange how few comments the entries receive, a cynic might suspect comments were no-followed :-)

what you didn't check....

[glengara]

Looks the same set-up as on most forums with comment/post linked to the user profile, I can't comment there for some technical reason so never dug too deeply...

[Discovery]

I have to say I have never found any value from the content nor the model of a blog.

I have stumbled upon a couple travel related blogs where the blogger gave detailed accounts of the places they had visited and this proved useful to me. However, this could just as easily been done via a website or forum.

A bunch of rehashed news, plagiarized analysis, re-writes of Google/Yahoo/MSN announcements and top 10 ten lists for idiots.

It's MLM Gone Wild on SEO. Everyone thinks they are the next Godin or Sullivan.

Looks to me like a needy group of pretenders.

But hey, not all negative here, if you think its not all a big CJ fest - you stand in the middle and proclaim it isn't so.

Discovery

[chris1]

I think blogs and sites like Sphinn are an excellent way to find great content. However, the self promotion and the fact that you have to wade through lots of fluff, crap and ball-washing to get to the great stuff is annoying.

I think that right now the pros outweigh the cons at this point.

[AussieWebmaster]

the crap is everywhere.... read many newspapers or watch tv news etc lately

[glengara]

Some posts are being sphun without even being read, IMO if a post is not worth a comment it's probably not worth "promoting"...

[dannysullivan]

There's plenty of commenting on Sphinn. Look here:

http://sphinn.com/comments

I just counted -- over 300 comments in a 24 hour period. Then out of curiosity, I looked at the active posts at WebmasterWorld for the same period:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/active.htm

Those came to 184. That surprised even me, because when I've looked at both in the past, Sphinn had plenty of activity, but WMW was still way ahead.

By the way, a cynic doesn't have to guess that comments at Sphinn are nofollowed. They are nofollowed, as we told the community there after the community itself discussed the change before it happened.

The issue about stories being sphunn without being read has come up in the past. However, I can tell you it doesn't seem to be the case from the stats I see of people coming from Sphinn to Search Engine Land. I covered this in our recent stats review:

http://searchengineland.com/080102-195756.php

People from Digg spend like 18 seconds on average when visiting. Those from Sphinn spend over three minutes. That's a lot of time and indicates to me that indeed, folks are reading stories. SEW has hit the Sphinn front page several times -- perhaps they can look at their own stats and see if there's a long time duration as well.

Also, part of the reason a story can go hot is based on comments along. It's part of the formula. Indeed, a story could go hot entirely based on lots of comments.

Personally, I love seeing lots of comments on stories -- and I'll I can say is that there's plenty going on.

[glengara]

It's the blogs I was moaning about, Sphinns' showcase simply reflects the present obsession with anything "social".

As a sociopath it annoys me, not to mention the references to SEO 2.0 and Social Media Optimisation :-)

[AussieWebmaster]

Interesting numbers danny.... and solid link drops

[Discovery]

Blog Comments Vs. Forum posts/responses. To me there is no comparison. I'm not just picking this out on Sphinn but on virtually all blog rating style sites - comments are quick "me to" and "I agree" one sentence kind of comments. Many blog comments are simply a form of ego stroking for future Sphunn considerations.

At forums like SEW you get meaningful responses, many with rich detail and insightful suggestions. More importantly these are posted with no hidden motivations, outside of exploring the issue at hand fully amongst ones peers.

You will frequently see original threads with only one or two responses on SEW because the response is so precise and detailed that the original question or statement has been answered or responded to fully. What you will also see is that these threads will also have a few thousand visits implying that the question and answer was relevant to a lot of visitors.

I also like the way a forum contains the conversation and lays it out into a nice chronological thread. Blogs and their comments tend to be an odd collection of semi-related links to other self promoting blog posts which tend to present a lot of overlapping information. I would rather have moderators steer the focus of a forum's content/conversation rather than have an open system that can be manipulated determine what is of value.

Discovery

[Mel66]

Danny, glad to see the info and comments on Sphinn. Very interesting and informative. This has been a great thread so far.

I have to agree with Discovery, though, in that the issue I have with Sphinn (I hesitate to call it a problem, just an issue) is that it's really, really hard to separate the wheat (good, informative posts with new and useful information) from the chaff (self promotion, rehashing of old news, name-dropping, meaningless top 10 linkbait, etc.). As a very busy SEM, I don't have time to sort through all of that. It just seems easier to skim and get the meat from a forum than from a social media outlet like Sphinn.

That said, social media serves its purpose and is not without value. It just feels to me like high school a little too often though, with all the cliques and popularity contests.

My $0.02, or probably less.

Melissa