Comments on: Personalization Won’t Be The End Of SEO

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:34:14 +0000

I see that NameCritic got the gist.

Ammons, thanks for your input. As NameCritic says, the algorithms are vaguely defined by all except those who write them. As an SEO practitioner or webmaster who was not involved in the writing of Google’s algorithms, we are all operating in the dark in some sense regarding how the algorithms work. Our only tools for figuring them out are our collective wit and experimentation. Then, the closest we can get is an inductive inference. Just when we think we’ve got it all figured out, the search engines go and change their algorithms and we have to start the scientific process all over again.

Oh, and for the record, I never said every highly ranked website, nor have I suggested it, is worn out and keyword stuffed. But those sites do appear at the top of some searches. Can you deny that?

By: namecritic

namecritic — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 06:55:33 +0000

lol @ammon. I suppose you understand and know google’s algo. It is vaguely defined to all but those who are involved in writing it, so the post was correct. Unless of course you are going to reveal that you wriote google’s algo and plan to reveal it to all of us here. I await your revelation.

By: Ammon Johns

Ammon Johns — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:29:32 +0000

Nick said: “Instead of relying on some vaguely defined algorithm, you might actually get results for things you are interested in and not just some staid, worn out keyword stuffed site.”

Sheesh! You moan about Lisa Barone’s writing style then throw your toys out of the pram in a literary sense about the algorithms built by some of the brightest scientists in the field of Information Retrieval, presumably because you’re not very good at understanding them.

Hav you considered that maybe with your opinions about “vaguely defined algorithms” (which are not at all vague to those who devise and define them in pure maths) and the suggestion that every highly ranked website is “just some staid, worn out keyword stuffed site” that maybe you’re focusing on the wrong field?

I thought this was going to be a search engine optimization journal and instead I find a search engine pessimism sulk. Maybe you should adjust your meta tags or something?

By: Chris McElroy aka NameCritic

Chris McElroy aka NameCritic — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:17:54 +0000

Personalized search is also going to facilitate geo search as well. Those doing geo-seo will benefit from it in my opinion.

By: Gary Brown

Gary Brown — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 07:13:57 +0000

Yes, as a newbie, I've done most everything you've mentioned. For me, getting ranked on search terms was the key. I've done that with zero page rank. All it takes is links. Just about any kind of link seems to work. Don't ask me why. Yuma Insurance / Flagstaff Insurance / Insurance Prescott