SEO: Costly, Noisy, and Uninteresting
February 15, 2009
I enjoy reading the comments from aggrieved search engine optimization wizards. I know SEO is a big business. I met a fellow in San Jose who boasted of charging “clueless clients” more than $5,000 a month for adding a page label and metatags to a Web page. Great work if you want to do it. I don’t. I gave talks for a couple of years at various SEO conferences. I grew tired of 20 somethings coming up to me and asking, “How do I get a high Google ranking?” The answer is simple, “Follow Google’s guidelines and write information that is substantive.” Google makes the rules of its information toll road pretty clear. Look here, for example. Google even employs some mostly socially acceptable engineers to baby sit the SEO mavens.
I am not alone in taking a dim view of SEO. I have spoken with several of the Beyond Search goslings about methods to fool Mother Google. These range from ripping off content from other sources in violation of copyright to loading up pages with crapola that Google’s indexing system interprets as “content.” Here’s an article that I keep in my ready file when I get asked about SEO. I love the title: “Make $200K+ a Year Running the SEO Scam.” I also point to an SEO “expert’s” own tips to help avoid the most egregious scam artists. You can read this checklist from AnyWired.com here. Finally, navigate here and look at the message in words and pictures. The message is pretty clear. Pay for rankings whether the content is information, disinformation, good, bad, or indifferent.
My suggestion is take a writing class and then audit a course in indexing at an accredited university offering a degree in library science. Oh, too much work. Too bad for me because I have to wade through false drops in public Web search engines. SEO is contributing to information problems, not solving them.
In Washington, DC, a few days ago, I heard this comment, “We have to get our agency to appear higher in the Google rankings. The House finance committee uses Google results to determine who is doing a good job.” Great. Now the Federal Web sites, which are often choked with data, will be doing SEO to reach elected officials. Wonderful.
SEO is like kudzu. I’m glad I confine my SEO activities to recommending that sites use clean code, follow Google’s rules, include content that is substantive, and update information frequently. I leave the rest to the trophy generation carpetbaggers.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
HiQube Update
February 15, 2009
Beyond Search miniprofiled HiQube here in May 2008 when it was launched as a new company. HiQube emerged from Hicare Research (http://www.hicare.it or http://www.hicare.com), which had been bought by Altair Engineering in January 2007 and renamed. Here comes the shuffleboard. In September 2008, Altair and Hicare (which Altair had supposedly absorbed), announced an agreement to continue their business intelligence work independently–both using the HiQube technology.
In my opinion, what the agreement boils down to is that Altair received full ownership of HiQube while the Hicare founders got their company back, and both now have the right to all the software assets of HiQube. Altair and HiQube are moving into engineering software, and Hicare is sticking to its business intelligence product, Lillith. It seems a bit foggy, as the same vague news release was posted on all three sites. Neither hicare.com nor hiqube.com have posted a news post since the one in September (although Hicare had a Lillith update in October). This url–http://www.altair.com/hicare –happily delivered up a 404 on February 14, 2009. But Altair seems to be chugging right along. If more substance becomes available, I will pass it along.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Microsoft and Luck, Fate, Whatever
February 15, 2009
I read eWeek’s Microsoft Watch column by Joe Wilcox tagged “Microsoft’s 10 Unlucky Breaks.” You can read it here. The hook for the write up was Friday the 13th, an “unlucky” day. Mr. Wilcox romped through a collection of challenges, gaffes, and fumbles. You will want to read the top 10 unlucky breaks in their entirety, but I want to give you a flavor of the analysis.
For example, Mr. Wilcox points to the lack of “luck” about Microsoft’s share price. He also flagged “the Google economy”. And he identified the World Wide Web as another unlucky factor.
Let’s think about Microsoft and “luck”. I am not certain the word “luck” is the appropriate one to describe the challenges and issues identified by Mr. Wilcox. I recall reading a play in college with the interesting title Oedipus Rex. Oedipus “knew” that he was going to whack his dad and then marry his mom. As Oedipus reacted as a thinking person with some emotional triggers, he did indeed off pops and woe his mother.
The point was that good old Oedipus “knew” what would happen and then he made decisions that delivered his mama to the marriage bed. At the end of the play, poor old Oedipus figured out the consequences of his actions and embraced a life without YouTube.com. Teiresias’ comment sticks in my mind: “It’s a terrible thing to be wise when there’s nothing you can do.”
Microsoft seems be operating within an ecosystem in which failure is predestined. Let me recast these three points in Sophoclean terms:
- Microsoft’s share price. This is a reflection of investor perception about the value of a company. Microsoft’s share price has been in the value stock range for years. Keep in mind that Microsoft had and still has a monopoly of the enterprise desktop operating system. The company’s revenue is north of $65 billion a year. The company is profitable. Yet there’s that share price. That’s not a matter of luck. The share price is an indicator of perceived value. Actions and decisions create the perception. No luck involved.
- The Google economy is not a matter of luck for Microsoft. In 1999, Microsoft hired some AltaVista.com talent but decided to follow a different path. Google hired some AltaVista.com talent and went a different way. Microsoft decided and took actions that today have significant impact on the company’s competitiveness. Google was able to overcome its early mistakes and act opportunistically to implement another company’s business model. Microsoft hired one of the Overture wizards and made decisions that keep Microsoft far behind Google. No luck. Just actions based on what Microsoft executives believed to the appropriate. This is not luck; this is decision making that did not pan out.
- The World Wide Web. No luck there. Microsoft smothered Netscape with “love” and then watched or sort of watched as the Google moved into Web search, then Web applications, and then into the enterprise. Now the Microsoft managers have to get out of the NASCAR grandstand and behind the wheel of a race car. No luck involved. Microsoft watched and now has an older race car which seems to defy souping up to beat the Google’s ride.
I think the unfolding of events documented in Mr. Wilcox’s good list is little more than worry beads that remind me of decisions and actions that have created the present situation. The only predestination is that Microsoft has not learned from its past. Now, like Oedipus, it is in some sense, blind.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Enterprise Software Pre-Buy Checklist
February 15, 2009
Enterprise software is a sector showing signs of stress. Some enterprise systems don’t work very well regardless of which vendor’s system is in a data center. Other vendors are gobbling up companies, disregarding the energy depletion that occurs when acquisitions occur. The talk is about synergy, not performance enhancing supplements required to make the deal work. Some buyers are following the “Fire, Ready, Aim” approach to decision making. Other idiosyncrasies exist. I found the Inside ERP “Midmarket ERP Solutions Checklist”, a two page write up interesting. You can download the paper here, but you will have to register to get the document. I don’t want to reproduce the full checklist. I do want to highlight three items and offer a comment about each. Most of the items in the checklist apply to enterprise search and content processing.
- Who is the owner of the project? Good question. In my experience, most organizations rotate “owners”, creating an ownerless situation that helps increase the likelihood of cost overruns.
- What is the specific business problem the system must solve? This basic question is usually answered in clumps of problems. The problem with clumps is that like a shotgun blast no single pellet will kill Bambie. A blast can wound Bambie, not get the job done in a clean, efficient, humane manner. Most enterprise search systems would the information problem and then create havoc as the procurement team tries to chase the wounded problem to ground.
- Will the enterprise system adapt to change? In my experience, enterprise software expects the licensee to change. The result is an SAP type experience which grinds down the customer. Once the system is installed, who has the energy to repeat the process?
As I read this checklist, I said to myself, “That cloud computing approach looks mighty appealing.” Snag the white paper and look at the other items. Soul searching time arrived as I worked through the list.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Google’s Radio Ad Failure
February 15, 2009
If you are interested in Google’s failures, you will want to take a quick look at “BIA/Kelsey Commentary: Fratrik on Google’s Departure from Radio.” The is a “free” consultant write up, so keep that in mind where you read the article here. The write up provides a mini analysis of how Google fumbled the ball and withdrew like Jackie Smith, former Dallas Cowboys’ received, famous for dropping a pass that would have won the big one. Google is a digital Jackie Smith when it comes to radio advertising. The most interesting comment in the write up was:
“Radio operators were never comfortable getting in bed with Google,” he said. “Among other things, the Google model asked for information that broadcasters thought was confidential. It also required the purchase of equipment. I heard the pitch when it was first launched, and I couldn’t see how this would be successful.” Why didn’t Google’s entry into the radio advertising market work out? “The initial read three years ago was somewhat positive – they were going to use their core strengths in Internet scalability and transactional efficiencies to attract buyers and sell inventory that local stations were unable to sell. But, even with their model and their reach to many more potential advertisers, they could not sell enough to make it a profitable business line.”
The notion of “comfort” is important. When Googzilla is not comfortable with its potential customers’ comfort with Googzilla, Googzilla says, “Adios.” Kelsey Group write up points out that some broadcasters are embracing digital ad technologies. That’s encouraging to some but not me.
Here’s why.
Traditional broadcasting companies are in the same boat as dead tree publishers. The demographics and the costs of their business model are like a current rushing down the Green River. If you go with the flow, you get carried along. If you try to paddle against the current, you fail, walk, or dock. Googzilla did not just exist; Googzilla wrote off an entire business sector as unable to “get it.” Trouble looms for traditional broadcasters I fear. The Sirius XM financial challenge is a harbinger. Kelsey Group’s article omitted this nuance which surprised me.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Google Calendar: Alleged Data Vulnerability
February 14, 2009
Daily Yomiuri Online (a pal of the Associated Press so I won’t be quoting the story) published Google Calendar Suffers Data Leak here. Details are sparse. The incident involved items of personal information. If true, the GOOG continues to struggle with the details of its sprawling online systems. When I see more information from non AP sources, I will offer more links and some commentary. In the meantime, who is looking at your Google Calendar’s personal details. I pulled my Web site calendar and stopped using online calendars more than three years ago. One of my clients in the intelligence community shared some interesting information with me. Looks to me as if those data were pregnant with meaning. The goslings are okay? What about your clutch of calendar items?
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
Mysteries of Online 5: Information Flows that Deconstruct
February 14, 2009
I have some edits to stuff into the Outlook section of my new study Google: The Digital Gutenberg, but I saw another write up about the buzz over a Wall Street Journal editor’s comment that “Google devalues everything.” (Man, those categorical affirmatives are really troubling to this old, addled goose. Everything. Right.) The story in TechDirt has a nifty sub head, “From The No Wonder No One Uses It Department”. You can read the story here. I agree with the whining about the demise of traditional media’s hegemony. For me the most interesting comment in this article was:
The value of the web and Google is that it lets people look at many sources and compare and contrast them qualitatively. Putting up a paywall is what devalues the content. It makes it harder to access and makes it a lot less useful. People today want to share the news and spread the news and discuss the news with others. As a publisher, your biggest distributors should be your community. And what does the WSJ want to do? Stop the community from promoting them. I can’t think of anything that devalues their content more.
TechDirt and the addled goose are standing feather to feather.
I do, however, want to pull out my musty notes from a monograph I have not yet started to write. As you may have noticed, the title of my essay is “mysteries of online,” and this is the fifth installment. I am recycling ideas from my 30 plus years in the digital information game. If you are not sure about the nature of my observations, you will want to read the disclaimer on my About page. Offended readers can spare me the jibes about the addled nature of my views in this free publication.
The future of traditional media. The ground opened and the car crashed. The foundation of the road was gone, eroded by unseen forces. Source: http://gamedame.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/car_sinkhole.jpg
What’s under the surface of the dead tree executive’s comments and also driving in part the TechDirt observations are some characteristics about electronic information. More people have immersed themselves in easy and painless online access. As a result, the flow of “real time” has become the digital amphetamine that whips up excitement and in some cases makes or breaks business models. I want to summarize several of the factors that are now mostly overlooked.
Information Has Force
The idea is that in the post Gutenberg era, digital information can carry quite a wallop. Some people and institutions can channel that force. Others get flattened. My father, for example, cannot figure out what a newstream is on my ArnoldIT.com Overflight service. He simply tunes out the flow because his mental framework is not set up to understand that the flow is the value. One can surf on the flow; one can drown in the flow.
Will these kids read dead tree newspapers, magazines, and textbooks as I did in the 1950s?
Evri Revs Up with a Dead Tree Client
February 14, 2009
I was surprised to receive a news release from an outfit that was off my radar. The company is called Evri and I think it is located in Seattle. The company’s top dog is a former Amazon wizard named Neil Roseman. The core of the news release was:
[The] washingtonpost.com will start adding the Evri content recommendation widget to all article pages beginning this week. The Evri Widget launches on article pages as they are posted on the site with the goal of helping washingtonpost.com’s readers discover related content from the newspaper and from across the Web that complement the articles they are reading.
To me, this means that Evri is a text and content processing company. Its system generates See Also and Use For references for stories on the Washington Post Web site. Links illustrating the technology are:
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021301044.html
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021301596.html
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021301656.html
According to the new release:
Evri (www.evri.com) is a technology company developing products that change the way consumers discover and engage with content on the Web. Led by CEO Neil Roseman, Evri is a team of engineers with broad expertise in natural language processing and machine learning, who have delivered many successful Web products for great companies, including: Amazon.com; DoubleClick; Microsoft; Real Networks; Sony, Yahoo and more. Neil joined Evri after more than 10 years at Amazon.com, most recently as Vice President of Software. Evri is based in Seattle, WA and is funded by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital.
Paul Allen was in the news at the goose pond this week. Charter Communications, another Paul Allen venture, filed for bankruptcy. You can read the details here. My list of more than 350 content processing company now includes one more. More information as we receive it here in Harrod’s Creek.
The goslings and I congratulate the Washington Post on making the leap to automated systems. I wonder if the train has left the station. Newsweek seems to be limping and the last time I visited the Washington Post Web site about five minutes ago, performance seemed sluggish. Your mileage may vary. Network latency is a good way to explain architectural issues.
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
SharePoint Performance: Start Prepping for SharePoint Fast ESP
February 14, 2009
If your SharePoint installation is a bit of a slow poke, you will want to start gathering tips and tricks for improving SharePoint’s performance. The addled goose wants to pass along a use article by Robert Bogue called “Fundamentals of SharePoint Performance – Disk, SQL, and Network.” You can access the write up here. There’s no easy way to summarize dot points and tips. For me, the article was a useful checklist. Based on the Beyond Search goslings’ experience with our pal SharePoint, you will need a zippy system when you plop the Fast technology into your SharePoint environment. Start now with Mr. Bogue’s write up.
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
Cloud Computing’s Challenges
February 14, 2009
If you have 15 minutes this weekend, you will want to download and read “Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing”. You can get a copy here. Some of the challenges are blasts from the past which continue to kick the tail of 20 somethings with more confidence than knowledge of system architecture. One example is the difficulty of scaling quickly. The discussion of the challenges is interesting. For me the most interesting section was “Elasticity: Shifting the Risk”, which begins on page 12. The list of 10 challenges struck me as a useful checklist for evaluating the current Microsoft data center initiative. I then looked at the 10 challenges as a yardstick for Google. I found the comparison a helpful tool in figuring out what each company must do to remain contenders in the cloud scape that is forming.
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
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