caveman - 9:32 pm on Jul 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

The thing is that we are severly limited as to what we CAN talk about. Leaving out specific site/search phrases we have to speak in genaralities which I am affraid is just not quite enough information for us and even them unless problems tend to be across the board.

Well it's true we don't allow specific kw or url mentions. (Spamming, whisper campaigns and outing competitors - just to name the obvious issues - create more problems than they solve.)

But while specific sites or SERP's are sometimes needed by the SE's to sort out a very specific single-site issue, it can be very useful also for the SE to hear clear descriptions of global issues. When the SE's get repeated reports of homepages disappearing, wrong subpages being shown, redirects not working properly, mega sites dominating SERP's, etc, they are pretty good at digging in to isolate the cause of such problems. (Those are just examples of general issues that have been raised over the years.)

It's also a good idea when a site owner thinks that some specific issue is suddenly occuring to try and explain the issue as they see it. Often a poster isn't sure whether an issue is his/her site only, or new and widespread, until posts are read and reacted to. I could not even count the number of times that single posts identifying new general problems have led to massively long threads that uncovered major issues at the SE's.

Most of us prefer for someone to at least acknowledge a message and failure to provide that simple courtesy can, rightly or wrongly, be perceived as arrogance particularly by people who have families to support and bills to pay but who have just seen their income disappear as a result of actions taken by someone they can't communicate with.

This is not a new sentiment, but if your income is reliant upon algo shifts in organic SERP's, it would be wise to give thought to evolving your business model. That is no way to function, if you want to sleep at night. Many of us have been there.

As for observations like the blog links, redirect scripts, etc., keep them coming! The more people chime in on a specific issue, the more likely that issue is to get rapid attention. ;-)