All this really shows is that there should be several completely independent ways of ranking search results which alternate so that it will never pay off to try to scam them all because the ROI is too small.
Gaming the google ranking system is only effective because of the monoculture.
Google's ranking blends together hundreds of variables, just one of which is pagerank. If it is so prominent, there is a reason for this: it is effective in delivering relevant results.
I disagree with that to some extent. Yes, it is still effective, but it is much less effective now than it was when it was launched.
Pagerank turned out to be the death knell to the value of linking to someone, it created an opportunity to be gamed so large that it changed the nature of the object (the internet) that it was supposed to be measuring.
A good measuring device does not 'load' the circuit to the point that it stops to function...
If you introduce a new system, it has to be at least as good as what we have now: no one would want to sacrifice relevant results.
It is wrong to think about pagerank as a single algorithm: it is a family, the common things being that these algorithms analyze the global link graph (yes, I lumped the HITS algorithm in the same family).
The problem is, if you don't use the link graph, there is not much left. There is the content, but this is not enough: before Google you could often steal someone's high ranking by just copying his content verbatim or maybe tweaking it a little. So, pagerank is actually a big improvement over what was out there before.
Pagerank can be thought as an estimation of the traffic a website gets. Suppose you can measure the actual traffic (e.g. by forcing all sites to install google analytics). That would be a pretty well gaming-proofed system, but you would introduce so much inertia - every new site would have a huge chicken-and-egg problem to overcome.
Actually, I've talked to search engine companies about syndicating content between blogs and they have said over and over again that there is no issue with this.
Everyone has a blog roll, and most blogs have a "WIN Grid" at the bottom (a feature I created at Weblogs, Inc. where at the bottom of engadget/autoblog/joystiq/etc you see the headlines from the other sites).
From what I've seen said at conference the search engines only pass a small amount of page rank from these areas so it's not a major deal to syndicate your content around.
HackADay is now owned by Mahalo (we didn't sell it to AOL in the WEblogs, Inc. sale for obvious reasons... like hacking TimeWarner cable boxes :-). There is nothing wrong with syndicating headlines between mahalo and HackAday. If we're told there is we will stop.
This is just the SEO community upset at me for saying that "seo is BS" back in 1995!
"This is just the SEO community upset at me for saying that "seo is BS" back in 1995!"
I think it's more of a case where they are upset at you for gaming them for knowledge and advice, then beating them at their own game, which, by the way, has resulted in me having a tremendous amount of admiration for you...
You've 'scaled' SEO and kept the product quality. Kudos, J.
Edit: Oh, and it was 2005, not 1995 - since you seem to appreciate people correcting you ;^)
not a conspiracy -- if your entire startup is focused on essentially ensuring your pages are top of google results, and you're a killer networker like the Mahalo CEO, you'll ensure you have someone you can call and whine at if you suddenly get blacklisted.
You honestly believe Google would ever blacklist a prominent startup like Mahalo?
I wasn't offering a counter point or opinion. I don't "honestly believe" anything. I just wanted you to explain your reasoning, adding some more information to your comment. After first read, it sounded like a conspiracy theory. (I think if someone at Mahalo can call someone at Google and get special treatment, that qualifies as a conspiracy by definition.)
I don't understand why Calacanis or Mahalo are important enough to warrant such special treatment, but I don't think I'm Mahalo's target audience. I've never visited the site. That's why I was interested in more information. Thanks!
Gaming the google ranking system is only effective because of the monoculture.