Klein België?
13 05 2007The meaning of the posts last week?
I want to start a subdomain rioporn.johnbaeyens.com to boost my pagerank.
Now that you all know how Peter and Bart boost their pageranks by abusing copyrighted information from others, no one can blame me boosting my pagerank with homemade porn.
And now that I understand how Cindy got her Pagerank and visits, I’m considering to tag my feed on every Not So-So page. Nothing wrong mentioning credetionals, but tagging off-context feeds is… well… kind of simplistic. After seeing the smetty abracadabra work, I’m considering to tag my feed on every Not So-So page. People will think they’ll get a feed with their friends latest tips and tada… johnbaeyens.com in their newsreader.
Not done of course; but it is what the supposedly Flemish ‘Blogmasters’ consider to be the way to go to become a “Metatale influential”.
I’m just shocked that sofar I’ve only found 2 Blogs (Luc and Veerle) which got their 5 Pagerank without using any despicable (pasting copyrighted content in subdomains, mentioning their blogs feed on completely off-topic subdomains) tactics.
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I don’t get you John: why not go for linklove instead of making enemies all over the place?
John: There are more Belgian blogs with a +5 PR. Michel Vuijlsteke has suggested some after your request in the comments on his blog.
@Clo: why go for linklove if you don’t appreciate the way they’ve gotten their links? At least this is causing a bit of a stir - whether that’s intentional or not.
Btw, John: I left a comment for you on Blogologie.be on the Reputatiemanagement post and Michel Vuijsteke’s blog.
So, the very motivation why Belgian Bloggers Blog is really the PR7 drive?
At all cost?
This is not about me, I couldn’t care less what becomes of this Blog. That’s why it seems I seem to be the only one who can (dare?) to ask questions like these?
Bloggers copy Paola video’s in the hope to get linklove. But how many of them would know where Het Paleis is located when you would ask them? How many new young people will really end up in the Meistraat thanks to the stunt?
Wasn’t a flyer in 10.000 Antwerp (physical) mailboxes more cost effiecient?
It can be measured, and eventually it will be measured, one day.
Isn’t it a matter that concerns all of us:
Who is our readership? Do we want to cheat people into entering their feed into their newsreader in orde to boost our Feedburner stats? Why?
On which postings do we refuse to spend time?
Which practices are unacceptable?
Do we allow our fellow linkloved Bloggers to copy en masse copyrighted content? Why (not)?
Why are we (not) itchy when our own copy gets copied? Do we have content?
Or are we just, headless copying anything which steams into the small Belgian Blogosphere at the cost of spending time with our girl/boy friends?
Are we really all doing this to proof we are the ‘biggest’ and ’smartest’ at all cost?
And if yes, why?
John, you keep making it sound like everything I (or Peter or Cindy) have ever done is wrong. That is not the case.
I’m not the one to judge all that. I like each of you very much.
I’m just asking each of you on those very precise events if you think those actions are ethical in the perspective of the objective?
example
Peter: yes, I think it’s ok to copy en masse copyrighted content on a subdomain to boost my PR.
Cindy: yes, I think it’s perfectly ok to tag my personal Blog’s feed into the Oostende startpagina so that people looking for info on Oostende end up with my feed in their newsreader; even though I hardly ever write something on Oostende on my personal Blog
Transparancy.
@Kevin: my posting mentioned I’m looking for Blogs with a pagerank higher then PR5. Sofar, the only ones which obtained their pagerank without doing ‘dark voodoo’ (SEO is perfectly sane, i refer to feed-misleading on other domains, copying copyrighted content on subdomains) are lvb.net and veerle.duoh.com.
If you think these tactics are perfectly OK, fine for me, discussion closed.
But sofar the question remains:
1. Is it OK to copy content (copyrightec content) en masse on a subdomain in order to boost your subdomain. Especially if the result of that boost is figured in the file Adhese takes out to their advertisers? Transparancy?
2. Is it OK to put the feed of your personal blog into a oostende landing page on a different domain? People seeking info on Oostende end up with the feed of your personal Blog, which has nothing to do with Oostende, in their newsreader. Again the result of that boost is figured in the file Adhese takes out to their advertisers? Transparancy?
If you were a marketing manager, about to spend money on an Adhese campaign, would you think this is “OK”?
Ok. I thought PR 5 was enough. I had a PR 6 before I changed everything to point to the domain without the “www.”. How did I do that? With a relatively popular Wordpress theme and some free icons. No SEO-voodoo. I hate that shit.
I don’t care about other people’s PR as long as it doesn’t effect me. Maybe that’s why it seems like you’re the only one asking these questions. I’ve reported numerous sites to Google because they were cheating.
No, it’s not ok to use copyrighted content in a way that’s not allowed (by not linking to the source, the author or whatever constitutes a legal way of using the content).
No, it’s not ok to mislead people in order to boost page views / readership.
Off-topic: I think you need to reflect a bit before writing a post. You seem driven by impulse which makes it hard to understand what you’re trying to convey. I had to read that previous post (in which you mention one of Peter’s other blogs) at least three times before I knew what you were actually talking about. Or maybe that’s just me. Don’t Link to a Flickr screenshot of a site without linking to the site (even in plain text is fine). I like to get my facts straight, but you’re making it harder for people “to get on your side” if you make it hard to get to the actual evidence.
Offline remark taken at heart. Indeed hard to follow the thin red line when you don’t have the complete thread top of mind (which I suppose no one has).
What I wish to come to in my article to be publised is that all Bloggers which Adhese or Metatale ‘present’ towards the advertisers/marketeers, should sign a code of conduct, a charter, a manifesto.
That code of conduct should mention all the ‘not ok’ topics we could think of. The 3 examples I took are just exemplary (of people I greatly admire by the way).
It would make the whole Belgian Blogger community much more credible as a medium.
@John: “all Bloggers which Adhese or Metatale ‘present’ towards the advertisers/marketeers, should sign a code of conduct, a charter, a manifesto.”
I don’t agree.
1) For Adhese, bloggers should agree with an “acceptable use policy” or “terms of use”. Compare Adhese with Google Adsense. If your site is selling or promoting booze or pr0n, you get cicked out of the Adsense program, because Google considers the association with those things bad for their image. So, some things could be declared off mark. But Adhese should not interfere with the way bloggers are promoting their site, especially not if it is done with offsite techniques, e.g. an offsite link to a feed. It’s none of their business. Adhese advertisers buy space not because of the PR of a blog, but because of the focus and the visistors. Personally, I’m prepared to sign “terms of use” or an AUP, but I’m not willing to sign a “manifesto” which restricts the way in which I blog or the way in which I promote my blog. By the way, recently Adhese asked their bloggers politely to participate, for free, in a campaign which was not politically neutral (women’s pay day, a campaign with an implicit request for government interference into the way in which wages are determined - I don’t consider that politically neutral). So if we start signing contracts or ‘charters’, maybe bloggers should require Adhese to sign some ‘manifesto’ too.
2) As far as I understand Metatale, Metatale does not “present blogs towards advertisers”. Metatale will sell metrics about blogs to advertisers. IMHO a blog should have the possibility to “opt out” of Metatale, but Metatale cannot demand bloggers to sign some charter. Of course, Metatale could penalise bloggers if they boost their ranking with fishy techniques, just as Google penalises sites for duplicate content or participation in link farms. It is up to Metatale to discover or detect those fishy techniques.
It look likes the trackback to this post doesn’t work. My answer can be found here:
http://www.smetty.be/2007/05/14/boswachter-of-stroper
I invite everybody to have a look at the statistics of the pages you mentioned and decide for themselves if they can be responsible for my pagerank and visitors. Also have a look at the non-optimalisation of my weblog.
I blog about a lot of niche topics. Those things bring me high in Google. And besides that, a lot of people just like to read me. What’s wrong with that?
Interesting discussions, thank you John.
But please: a code of conduct, a charter, a manifesto?
Are you kidding?
Why does ‘the whole Belgian Blogger community’ have to be credible as a medium at all?
@Robin: ‘the whole Belgian Blogger community’ is my way of describing the group of Bloggers which are being presented to advertisers, or wished they also were, in other words (almost) all of us/them. In my case signing any document stipulating what I can’t do would be against my very nature. But then again, signing a contract with Adhese for any personal Blog would be equally (against my nature). My meandering ethics are my charter, ha !
That being said, people who have an Adhese campaign running on their site are by definition ‘labeled’. They are a ‘hero’ and presented with their ‘Adhese ID presentation’ to marketeers which decided (or not) to advertise on their Blogs.
@Luc
Merci voor de punctuatie: een AUP zoals we die bij PING hadden is inderdaad het adequate formaat.
Maar op zich hoeft dat voor mij zelfs niet.
Adhese mag perfect ook aan hun adverteerders zeggen:
“Onze heros mogen alles doen om nog een grotere hero te worden. Ze mogen copyrighted copieren op hun (sub)domein, de feed van hun blog hiden op andere sites, … Wij controleren dat niet en als we erover ingelicht worden ondernemen we niets. Een hero is een hero, onvoorwaardelijk. Wij hebben helemaal niets te maken met de taktieken die een Blogger gebruikt om hero te worden en hero te blijven.”
Mijn enig punt is dat er geen weg in between is. Of er is een AUP of er is een eldorado. Beiden zijn fijn voor mij. Maar naar adverteerders toe de impliciete veronderstelling opwekken dat het label ‘hero’ ook een kwalificatie van kwaliteit/ethiek is misleidend.
Mijn vraag naar Adhese toe is dan ook:
1. Komt er een AUP?
2. of is het standpunt van Adhese dat hun heros alles kunnen doen voor de cijfers, no limits, inclusief (bijvoorbeeld) het copiëren en masse van copyrighted content op een subdomein.
C’est tout: 1 of 2. Als ik dat weet kan ik verderschrijven.
[…] There’s a discussion going on about SEO in the Belgian blogosphere and posts are popping up left and right. I know squat about SEO which might explain my measly Google PageRank of 4. What I do know is that putting feed URLs for site A in the headers for site B is a no no. […]
@John: Je zegt dat er maar twee keuzes zijn, en je stelt deze twee keuzes voor met twee extreme standpunten, karikaturen bijna. Google had lange tijd als bedrijfsmotto “do no evil”. Kan een dergelijke richtlijn, gewoon je gezond verstand gebruiken, niet volstaan, zeker bij pioniers als Adhese? Als ik mij goed herinner hadden we bij PING in het begin ook geen AUP en is zoiets organisch tot stand gekomen. Ik zou zeggen: laat Adhese verder pionieren, en als Adhese de nood voelt aan een AUP zullen ze daar zelf wel mee afkomen. Laten we bloggers en pioniers als Adhese niet te snel onder bureaucratie bedelven asjeblieft. Ja, Adhese cultiveert een informeel scouts-sfeertje, en volgens mij is dat de juiste manier om bloggers aan te spreken en aan te trekken.
@Luc
Karikaturen versus eufemismen.
Ofwel zegt Adhese dat er regels zijn, ofwel zijn er geen. Ik zie geen tussenwegen.
Nogmaals, beiden zijn voor mij prima.
Navigeren tussen Scylla en Charybdis met een scoutspet op? Neen, dat zie ik niet als een alternatief. Ik hou teveel van mensen die kleur bekennen.
En dan komen we meteen op de essentie van de zaak; kunnen / durven Vlaamse Bloggers met opgegeven kin nog zeggen waar ze mee bezig zijn.
Kan Cindy met opgegeven kin zeggen/schrijven:
“Op oostende.startpagina.nl staan 2 feeds. De eerste feed is een feed met Blog postings rond Oostende. De 2e feed die vermeld staat is de feed van mijn persoonlijke blog, smetty.be. Ik benoem die feed niet als smetty.be, noch “Cindy Desmet”. Ik Blog op smetty.be zelden over Oostende. Onderaan de pagina noem ik een link naar mijn Blog wel “Cindy Desmet”. Wanneer bezoekers van oostende.startpagina.nl de pagina toevoegen aan hun newsreader krijgen zij default niet de Oostende blogposts, doch wel de post van mijn eigen Blog.
Ik vind het absoluut verbazend dat John Baeyens dit opmerkelijk vind en zie geenszins in hoe bovenstaande voor de bezoekers van oostende.startpagina.nl of gent.startpagina.nl misleidend kan zijn.”
Als Cindy (en elke Blogger) eeniedere feitelijkheid met opgegeven kin kan scanderen is er geen probleem; dan zijn we allemaal echte scouts (dan heb ik het over de Baden-Powell versie); jij had het waarschijnlijk over onze Belgische KSJ
Als iemand me vraagt waarom mijn vrouw S. geen Belgische nationaliteit wilt, dan antwoord ik toch ook gewoon ‘dan betalen we veel minder belastingen in België, terwijl we voor een peuleschil compleet medisch verzekerd zijn in België en Brazilië’ en niet ‘ze is emotioneel gehecht aan de kleur van haar paspoort’?
We doen allemaal extreme dingen (ik vind die linktaktiek op oostende extreem, bezwaarlijk ‘experimenteren’), laat ons dan ook extreem opkomen voor onze eigen keuzes.
Kin in de lucht !
Sorry dude: PR 6 without abracadabra
I didn’t knew it, just checked it.
And my blog isn’t optimized at all. This is something in the pipeline for serveal months now .. :/
Hey John,
De bal is aan het rollen. Zowat gans klein België is over je aan het scrijven op zijn/haar blog. Het zijn niet altijd lieve woorden, maar de meeste blogs linken wel naar dit artikel. Mooi mooi.
Abração,
Claudio
A tip: Netsensei.nl has pagerank 6. Although he uses a Dutch TLD, he is a Belgian blogger. $.02
No one cares about their PageRank. Most bloggers are geeks and love stats, that’s why they like checking pages. I’d rather have a tight and responsive community of readers that knows what they are talking about than being dugg to the moon, getting a massive pagerank but ending up with -not exactly the community you wanted-.
Look at Smashingmagazine and read the comments.. depressing to say the least.
A PageRank is a pretty useless ranking. We have to work towards targetting the right people and not just many people. Many advertisers/marketeers still make this mistake, but I think there is where Adhese is smarter. I think they value blogs on its content and readers and not on stats or pageranks. So, it’s important for bloggers/sites to have a well defined target audience that can be matched with products/services from advertisers, rather than spending time on tricks to boost up traffic and thus pagerank.