Sebastian No Longer Moderator

[sebastian]

MODERATOR NOTE: Split from here in 2006 Search Predictions.

I am sure this will be <snipped> by the other Mods who fear search engine support consequences due to my confrontational message delivery but facts are facts. THEY LIED ...as I expected they would and the DTC is the same piece of garbage it was almost 5 years ago. ...5 years dudes and dudettes ...that's a long time and a sad example of corporate BS.

5) Last prediction - Danny and Elizabeth will get sick of my constant aggression towards the search companies and pull my MOD status. It seems I should be keeping the "higher ground". ...yet after over a million bucks spent with these companies, I feel I have deserved the right to call a spade a spade.

[dannysullivan]

I am sure this will be <snipped> by the other Mods who fear search engine support consequences due to my confrontational message delivery but facts are facts

I'd normally take this up with you privately, Sebastian, but when you throw something so apparently damning out there like this, it deserves a public response.

To my knowledge, you haven't been edited in any way like this by me or any other moderator. As to how you might get edited...

Danny and Elizabeth will get sick of my constant aggression towards the search companies and pull my MOD status. It seems I should be keeping the "higher ground". ...yet after over a million bucks spent with these companies, I feel I have deserved the right to call a spade a spade.

Sick of criticisms? No. Sick of you suggesting that somehow I or the forums might cower behind fear of the search engines being upset? Yes.

I don't know how many times by now I've had to reassure you that won't be the case, and I think actual actions -- IE, the fact you haven't had stuff pulled -- would have gotten that point across to you by now that we've stood behind you.

You've not had anything significant pulled, that I can recall. I think on a few -- and very few -- occasions, some comment was edited that was more ranting rather than constructive criticism. That's the same as we might do to any member, since mods don't get free reign to act differently.

In contrast, some of the threads you've started have been featured. The 10 Reasons Yahoo Should Kill Direct Traffic Center was an excellent discussion and example of this. That stuff is golden for forums. If anything, we want more of it, not less.

Yep, you've had search engines push back at your tone. It hasn't been because primarily that they don't want to be criticized, in my view. It's because if they are going to take part in a discussion, it's hard to do that if they feel they're walking into a place where they won't get a fair hearing at all. And the tone you've often set hasn't given that.

Yet again, of course, you know that Elisabeth and I have also pushed back and said that in some cases, it's hard to see how the tone might be different. If you take Overture, when there's string of repeated outtages, "discussion" isn't that useful. Just fix it.

You don't have any exclusive on being critical about search engines, nor do you occupy the only high ground in this. They deserve plenty of criticism, and they've gotten it from plenty of quarters, including here, on SEW in general and from me personally for ages. This site and SEW is not built around having "search engine support." It is built around having the support of its readers -- and that means doing the best by your readers, not by search engines.

Overall, you've struggled I think walking the line between being a forum moderator -- someone who has to keep discussions productive and within forum rules -- and someone who wants to be a leading, outspoken member. So I'll make the prediction come true even before 2005. You're back to being a member of the forums, rather than a moderator, but for entirely different reasons than you predicted.

For one, I find it hard to have someone remain on as a moderator who simply has so little faith in his other mods as well as the admins that we're supposedly all in the pockets of the search engines. We're not, and we deserve better respect than that.

For two, activity logs show you haven't done any moderator actions since April for your areas, so we don't seem to be losing much there.

Most important, I don't think your heart is in being a moderator. You want to be a campaigner -- and honestly, I want you to be a campaigner. I'd absolutely love for you to keep on hammering away on the search engines in the areas where they deserve it, drawing from your own personal experience. You can do that just as well by being a member here, rather than a moderator. In fact, you can do it better. So please, with all honesty and good intentions, keep with that. It will be welcomed.

I've also now split this into a new thread, in case others want to discuss.

[rustybrick]

I personally always loved your threads sebastian. I hope you keep them up. They do make a difference to the SEM community.

[WilliamC]

I agree with rusty, keep it up seb, theres too few of us left

[dannysullivan]

And to be absolutely clear, I agree with rusty and williamc. I want you to keep it up, too. you're just going to be better at it if you aren't a moderator. people don't need to be moderators to have big voices.

[sebastian]

Danny, Elisabeth ...and others.

I understand your position and expected this reaction. Is my heart in mod-ing? Naw, you are absolutely correct. It's not. It was - but it's not now. This forum, like many of the others has become a chatty club chock full of "me too" responses and repetitive threads.

Regarding my "campaigning" as you call it. I EXPECT THE COMPANIES IN WHICH I CONTRACT TO OFFER ME RELIABLE SERVICE. period. ...and when they don't, I believe my fiduciary responsibility lies in the arena of my company and it is up to me to get action when action is needed.

I believed this board was a perfect arena for this due to your known status in the industry and the fact that it's not a just some search company's support email address that we all know are completely ineffective. I saw this forum as a place where the engines would take notice from the same people that were using their products in the most complete way and respond promptly and effectively with solutions.

But, I was wrong.

You never come right out and say it, but I'd love to see you admit to everyone here that the engines have lied to you. Lied to all of us ...over and over again. They have lied publicly on this board and they have fallen far short in their promises of change. Why would you believe calling them out for it is wrong? Instead you say,

Yep, you've had search engines push back at your tone. It hasn't been because primarily that they don't want to be criticized, in my view. It's because if they are going to take part in a discussion, it's hard to do that if they feel they're walking into a place where they won't get a fair hearing at all. And the tone you've often set hasn't given that.

Fair hearing? Sorry for this cheap cliche, but if you can't take the heat - get out of the kitchen. They are taking my money to the tune of thousands of dollars a day and have been for over four years. Again, at those ad spends I deserve the right to be direct, frank and to-the-point with these companies regardless of "how it makes them feel" or if it makes them uncomfortable.

You may not like my delivery, but I am rarely incorrect in my statements. My points, especially in my thread "10 reasons Yahoo should kill DTC" exposed almost 50 problems with an archaic interface that to this day have only barely been addressed. ...and I take offense at these companies bringing PR trained wordsmiths to this board to write paragraph after paragraph of "we are working on it"-type garbage. As you just said in your post - "just fix it" - but they don't - so I continue to hammer them.

But man - you know all this and you know I will not change. I came in here and built my company from non-existent on the search engines to a multi-million dollar entity in which we just sold in September. For me bro - it's all about business and not chatty-kathy threads, silly "on-location" SEW reports about who said what and constant bickering about "you can't say this or that".

I am proud of the way I communicate. I am proud that I cause waves and spark action and more so proud that I am not just a wind-bag, but someone who does the research, offers suggestions and aggressively studies new and emerging solutions to solve problems.

Yep, of course I will still a remain member of this group albeit no longer as a mod. I am not one to be "run out of town" because someone may not like me. I have learned over the course of my rapid business growth that many people won't like you - especially if you make them uneasy or uncomfortable - but as long as you are honest, effective and intelligent they will respect you.

I am not a member of this board to make cyber-buddies. I am not looking to be liked. I am not out to win the support the of the search engines to sponsor my traveling circus and I am certainly not out to tiptoe into meaningless conversations.

I am a member because since 1997 or so, I believed in you (Danny) and your constant dedication to search waaay before search became a popular field of business and study. I wanted to be a MOD when we began this thing because I expected a strong level of "screened" involvement rather than just the same old sign up - respond to email - you're now a member approach.

Oh well ...the short of it is I respect your decision and gracefully bow out of the MOD role { as if I have a choice :-) } I appreciate that you can craft such a polite and public "exit letter" for me ...but you will never convince me that you are neutral regarding the very companies that sponsor you. I feel I know too much about business to believe this to be true.

Thanks and I am sure we will be talking in the future.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Sebastian, I agree with many of the issues you critizise the engines for and I have often expressed them too. I hope you'll still find time to make some postings here as I know many members have appreciated much of your input so far.

> are taking my money to the tune of thousands of dollars a day

Well, in all fainess, Sebastian, couldn't you just as well say "your are giving them money ..." - I mean, it's not like they force you to send them money, right I know it's difficults to abandon Google with the dominance they have on most markets but it IS still volentary to use AdWords - so far. You can stil just chose to spam them organically. Thats for free

I completely agree that you have every right to complain, as you do, for the service (or lack of service) provided for the money you actually pay. I don't hope you feel such posts are not welcomed here - they are! I have made many posts over time critizising the engines and I intend to continue to do so when I find it neccesary.

Stay around

[sebastian]

Thanks Mikkel; however, what I mean by "taking my money" is that thry seem to have zero problems accepting payment from me regardless of how crappy their interface or interface(s) are. Sure, I wouldn't be paying these bills if it wasn't a positive ROI and a necessary evil for online success. ...but I am also not one to leave money on the table and if minor tweaks and enhancements could improve the efficiency of it's customers, any company should allocate resources to making that happen ...and expeditiously i might add...

This is what we are not seeing from some of our search "partners"

In all fairness though, Google's game seem really tight lately. Always fast, always immediate for ad creation which is critical for time-sensitive businesses and new features being released constantly that are actually "features".

A new "feature" at Yahoo! breaks everything else.

Ho Hum...

[dannysullivan]

This forum, like many of the others has become a chatty club chock full of "me too" responses and repetitive threads.

You've said that before, and I said I don't necessarily agree, but I guess it's up to everyone to decide.

I agree as a long time vet, I've got a big sigh whenever I see another of those keywords-in-the-domain name things that come up. But my perspective is that I understand you've always got new people coming in. It's boring to us; it's a puzzle to them.

As a mod, my response is to nip those in the bud and push people back toward the threads we've already had on that topic, so the newbies get the answers and the community as a whole doesn't spin wheels covering the same ground.

I believed this board was a perfect arena for this due to your known status in the industry and the fact that it's not a just some search company's support email address that we all know are completely ineffective. I saw this forum as a place where the engines would take notice from the same people that were using their products in the most complete way and respond promptly and effectively with solutions.

But, I was wrong.

Two comment on this. As said before, I hope you still personally feel it is that way, in the sense that you can address these topics. I think the entire community, including myself, more than welcomes anyone addressing the sticky issues. If it's an issue of whether you feel the search engines will actually take notice, that's not something I can control.

In the case of Yahoo, I think the answer is easy. They're introducing an entirely new system. They've said as much. I know they've noticed the complaints here. You know that. Others know that. Heck, I routed a New York Times reporter over to the thread you started as a great example of advertisers worried about the state of their system. But the hard answer is bringing the new system online. I don't want them to repair the broken old car. It's time for a new one, one that works the way you and other advertisers want it to work, and one they get purchased as soon as possible.

Why would you believe calling them out for it is wrong?

I never said that. I never said it was wrong to call them out, and you do me a real disservice by saying that. For someone who says they are "rarely incorrect" in their statements, you're flat out wrong here.

What I said was, as a moderator, part of your role is to foster discussion. If you want that discussion to involve all parties, then setting up an antagonistic tone as a moderator makes that difficult. I can call someone out but still make them feel comfortable presenting their view.

That's not something you want to do. That's why it made no sense for you to stay on as a moderator. Wearing both of those hats is simply too difficult for you. You've viewed trying to set a tone for discussion as a sellout. It's not.

You may not like my delivery, but I am rarely incorrect in my statements.

Didn't like the delivery as a mod, never questioned your statements being incorrect. And to your point about if they can't stand the heat, that's exactly what Elisabeth and I have said to Yahoo in particular over that DTC thread. We did nothing but support you in it. In fact, that's all we've continued to do, which is why it's amazing/disheartening that you seem to feel so hard done by.

As most, we said to Yahoo that as a moderator, you could have adopted a better tone. But we both also said that given their own self-admitted problems, your tone wasn't that surprising, you're voicing fair frustration and real, solid isues and that the best way they could deal with it would be to (1) participate and (2) solve the problem.

I appreciate that you can craft such a polite and public "exit letter" for me ...but you will never convince me that you are neutral regarding the very companies that sponsor you. I feel I know too much about business to believe this to be true.

Then you know squat about me.

I could give you the standard line, and anyone who wants it can read my disclosures over here. Short answer is that I'm not paid off of advertising revenue at this site, nor do I get paid off the sponsorship of conferences that we run. I'm paid off of people being members, people actually attending shows, and the best way to serve them is NOT to be treating the search engines as some type of protected creatures.

The cyncical response is to come back and say, "I don't believe it" or "Sure, but you know not to rock the boat."

OK, let's go back to your "lies" they've told and tie that into me being in their pocketbooks:

Yahoo Paid Inclusion: No, I don't believe it has no impact on the search results, as Yahoo keeps saying it does. I've written a number of articles on the topic complaining about it for literally years now. I'm to the point where I feel like people may be sick of me talking about it. And yet, it's wrong. It's wrong because I simply have heard too many stories of where paid inclusion has knobs and dials and quality ratings all of which can be tweaked if they want them tweaked.

If I so loved Yahoo, I'd just ignore it. I certainly wouldn't have mentioned it when they won the Search Engine Watch Awards, last year. Most people who give out awards hope for a PR boost out of it, so they don't tend to say negative things. We not only said paid inclusion disclosure needed to change but warned it might cost them a chance to win next year. Oh, and going against the popular vote and not awarding to Google probably wasn't the smartest non-neutral move to make to win hearts and minds over there.

Google Hijacking: They still have not fixed the problem, and I still harp on about it, nor am I alone. Google Regains Its Hijacked Listing; This Was A Big Deal, Folks! has a campaigning-style headline especially because this was a continuing major Google screw-up and one they needed to solve.

Search Engine Ad Reps: Friend or Foe? covers a session at the traveling circus as you called it that we did in San Jose. It's not exactly the type of session you do if you're trying to make your sponsors happy. Neither Yahoo or Google would sit on it, though they should have been there on the stage. Over and over, the people who have built their businesses were telling of getting screwed, not knowing if they could trust the search engines, finding they were having accounts getting stolen by the search engines themselves.

More stuff? I dunno, guess I could sit back and run through the archives of stuff that's ticked me off. The whole Google says don't cloak but then has a series of exception and excuses for others they allow to do it or for when they want to do it themselves is annoying, as I've written about. Same thing with the Google knowing letting spam through when they decide the overall intentions are good.

The entire LookSmart charging a flat fee and then trying to spin recurring ones way back when sucked. That's what I wrote at the time. And this was back when LookSmart was still a big deal. They screamed at the ad side and conference side they'd be pulling ads and sponsorships. Jupiter, who owned us back then, said they didn't care. Neither did I. It was a bad program, a bad move, and if they wanted to pick up their stuff and go elsewhere, see ya.

[dannysullivan]

In Chicago, it got passed to me from someone that one search engine marketing person was talking to another discussing that if they couldn't influence me on the sponsorship side (I guess they can't), they'd start making demands for changes with the threat they wouldn't participate, which would then cause people not to turn out.

Newsflash, any search engines reading this. People turn out for good programming. That can include you, but it doesn't have to. It especially doesn't have to if you're giving out non-answers. All that type of activity does is incent me to fill your time with front line markers (like yourself, Sebastian), who will share real stories and solid advice on how things go.

Make no mistake. Having search engines can be a draw. But I start out each and every day assuming that I've got to produce a web site or a conference with NO search engine cooperation. That's my baseline, and that's what I think keeps me honest. My activities don't revolve around whether I'm going to have GoogleGuy (or YahooGuy, or MSNGuy) pulling in the punters. In particular with GG, we didn't have him here when we started and we still only get the very rare visits. Despite that, I think are thriving anyway.

So Sebastian, I might not be able to convince you that I'm neutral. Actually, I'm not. I'm not neutral on issues where I think the search engines are wrong or right. I am revenue neutral. I'm not going to take a position because I think it will make me money. I'm going to take a position because I think it is right position to take. And I'm going to try to be fair to people, give them a voice, even if I disagree because I also think that's the right thing to do.

Overall, I constantly live in a worst case scenario where I'm prepared to walk away from what I do if I felt like I was having to compromise my integrity . And I could walk away, in an eyeblink. I think back constantly to a line from the book Burn Rate where Wolff is being told by some VC they'll crush him, he won't be able to do anything. His response was he'd go off and write about something else. His world didn't revolve around that business, nor does mine around search. I'm a writer that came into search, that loves search, that lives too much for it but ultimately understands search is not the only thing I can do, nor will I sell out to keep doing it. In the end, I hope you can believe me, I hope my readers and others can believe me, but the person that knows best is myself, and I just won't let that happen.

Which brings it back to you participating. I've said it over and over, but I'll say it again once again. Keep calling it as you see it. You're hardly the first person I've supported doing that, and I certainly will continue to do so. I want you to do so, like so many others here. You just don't need the hassle of being a mod hanging in your mind as something holding you back.

[sebastian]

Refreshing display of integrity.

You must type fast as hell... I posted my response, vented to a colleague and came back to both your follow-ups.

It's all good Danny. ...one thing you are a little confused about is your comment:

We did nothing but support you in it. In fact, that's all we've continued to do, which is why it's amazing/disheartening that you seem to feel so hard done by.

I know y'all backed me up. We talked about this via voice and I respect that. I don't feel "hard done by". I realize my maverick approach is not conducive of what you want as a MOD and I'm cool with it.

I guess at the end of the day for me to get what I feel I need out of forums just doesn't exist. A public arena, which included only members who could verify significant participation and ad spend in the industry so as to really garner the attention of the search engines.

But when you see a bunch of broken English, screen names like X|phish|X, one sentence responses and useless discussions it's easy to see why the engines would just think forum people are a bunch of geeks with too much time on their hands.

If the subject material always focused on business, efficiency, problems and solutions from only the folks in the trenches ...and I mean deep in the trenches, from known, respected and/or big-spending companies I (we) might actually get the attention and thus resolutions we desire from our search partners.

Again, it's all good bro - I said it once and I'll say it again - I respect you - but I will believe as I believe and I will write as I write as long as I have two hands, a keyboard and a brain.

[Gurtie]

Originally Posted by sebastian

I guess at the end of the day for me to get what I feel I need out of forums just doesn't exist. A public arena, which included only members who could verify significant participation and ad spend in the industry so as to really garner the attention of the search engines.

Well to be honest for those of us whos clients can't spend hundreds of thousands and still want a fair hearing that doesn't sound like Nirvana either.

imho SE's spend plenty of time listening to companies with 'significant participation and ad spend' and not nearly enough to the other 98% of companies out there who have equally genuine concerns.

[sebastian]

Well to be honest for those of us whos clients can't spend hundreds of thousands and still want a fair hearing that doesn't sound like Nirvana either.

Perhaps not; however, the issues that smaller spenders have would most likely be the same or similar to the problems the larger spenders are having. In fact, the problems are usually magnified on larger accounts.

Either way, like it or hate it you have a better chance of being attended to when you are spending significant dollars with a company. It's the same in any industry whether it be banking, finance or the coffee shop down the street.

Business 101 - The more the customer affects the business, the better treatment the customer gets.

And in media it's rampant. I have been involved in media for over 10 years and have been on both sides where advertisers use their ad spend to threaten sales managers and owners to accommodate their needs.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by dannysullivan

ultimately understands search is not the only thing I can do, nor will I sell out to keep doing it. In the end, I hope you can believe me, I hope my readers and others can believe me, but the person that knows best is myself, and I just won't let that happen.

Bravo! Well put.

When you have your internal compass set correctly, it doesn't matter what people think- you know you are still on the right track.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

A public arena, which included only members who could verify significant participation and ad spend in the industry so as to really garner the attention of the search engines.

Sebastian, you are welome to build such a forum but it has never been the goal of this forum and I hope it never will. I just don't think it would work.

I also very much disagree that small spenders have the same issues as larger spenders - just smaller. Let me give you just one example: Advertisers in Denmark versus US. We are ALL small spenders compared to most US spenders but we have many issues and problems that you don't have. To say that our voice is not important or should not be heard is stupid to me.

Besides, this forum is not just about paid solutions - organic search is a big part and here we spend all the same with the engines: ZERO