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No doubt the author has oversimplified issues for the experts here at Webmasterworld, but the article does seem to be written with a novice in mind.
So each link on that page gets whatever PR6/40 isThis is the point that gets me. That would mean that my site which is only linked to from one page as of the last update would have a pr of less than one (linking page high pr 5 with 8 outbound links). Instead it has a pr of 4 which is what I would expect.
Powdork, you're not reading his math right.
You're thinking "6 divided by 40 equals 0.15" So a PR value of 0.15 being passed by a link. That is absolutely not what he's saying.
He's saying "PAGERANK 6 divided by 40 (links) equals whatever."
If you use Chris's power of 4, you'd see a PR of exactly 6 would need to be divided by exactly 4 links to pass exactly a PR of 5 thru each link. 16 links would each pass PR4. 64 links would pass PR3... (forgive my figures if slightly off, you get my point) So if my figures and Chris's estimate are correct:
The value of PR6 divided by 40 links equals PR3.6 (or whatever)
It's a solid article by someone who obviously has done his homework on how Google works. The only things that are open to debate are 1) how we think he should have worded things better/elaborated on stuff and 2) opinions that only GoogleGuy can provide factual data about.
I'd be delighted to have the author participate here at WebmasterWorld.
You're thinking "6 divided by 40 equals 0.15" So a PR value of 0.15 being passed by a link. That is absolutely not what he's saying.He's saying "PAGERANK 6 divided by 40 (links) equals whatever."
To find the value of an incoming link look at the PR of the source page, and divide it by the number of links on that page.
Or something like that.
The original google algorithm was a published paper, I will look out a link.
PS I also think Google ignores links from message boards
I found it interesting.
Well this article clears up everything - Like getting hit in the eyeglasses with a handful of mud. Who is Chris Beasley and where did "General Pagerank" vs. "Specific PageRank" come from?
I am Chris Beasley. I specifically said in the article that I didn't want to go into detail so I was generalizing. Generally in the English language when something is quoted, as I quoted "General PageRank" and "Specific PageRank" it means it is made up. I wasn't trying to technically explain everything about PageRank, I just wanted to illustrate how getting ranked highly is more than just getting links. I had dicussed my "General vs. Specific" example with Jill Whalen of highrankings.com before and she thought it was a good way to explain things.
"To find the value of an incoming link look at the PR of the source page, and divide it by the number of links on that page. It's very possible to get a PR of 6 or 7 from only a handful of incoming links if your links are "weighty" enough." is kind of an over simplification, don't you think?
Would you rather I posted the formula? I was trying to simplify things, it was a short article.
We assume page A has pages T1...Tn which point to it (i.e., are citations). The parameter d is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1. We usually set d to 0.85. There are more details about d in the next section. Also C(A) is defined as the number of links going out of page A. The PageRank of a page A is given as follows:
PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))Note that the PageRanks form a probability distribution over web pages, so the sum of all web pages' PageRanks will be one.
Happy now?
"Google is a newer search engine, and has never had a problem with query strings. However, some dynamic pages can still throw Google for a loop." is not exactly true.
Yes it is. Google has never had a problem with "query stringed" pages. However they do sometimes limit the number of such pages they will index from a domain. Additionally dynamic pages that put session info in the URL will pretty much stop Googlebot.
So what is the authoritative source for this article. Seems to me as if this journalist read some stuff on WebmasterWorld and composed an article. I'm no expert on SEO - more like an apprentice in his first year. And I can't claim any special knowledge on Google. But this journalist is holding himself out as some sort of expert. IMHO, he isn't one and shouldn't be writing articles about Google.
First of all I would never use anything from this forum as material. Second of all I work maybe 20 hours a week and have a six figure income solely as a result of my search engine knowledge. I think I'm more than qualified to write about Google.
It's not a bad article, despite the misspelled words and grammar mistakes.
Don't blame me, when it was typed in by SitePoint's editor she made some typos. I emailed her to fix them but she was out of the office for Christmas.
However, I do disagree with myth number 7. I've seen lots of my own pages where Google displayed something from the meta tags instead of text matching. I don't know why and I don't care. Afterall, it only takes me 60 seconds to write and insert the meta tags I want for each page. I don't think they are doing anything to hurt me but I don't count on meta tags alone for my respective page to rank well.
Google can sometimes use the description tag for your site's abstract, but not to rank you. This is a verifiable fact, if you don't believe me ask Jill Whalen or Danny Sullivan, I know Jill will agree with me since we discussed it recently, and I'm sure Danny would.
The writer postulates that the toolbar PR uses an exponential base of 4. In other words, a Pr6 is 4 times as difficult to attain as a PR5.
Does anyone have any sense that this is correct?
It has to be much higher than 4. I've seen 8 - 9 kicked around and that definitely makes more sense to me. If it were 4, I wouldn't have all the sixes on my secondary pages that I do have. This is exactly why when a writer is doing scientific research there is peer review. In order to perform experiments and draw solid conclusions, there needs to be a modicum of procedure followed. In this article all we have is a reasonably sophisticated webmaster seeing a few things and then jumping to conclusions that would never pass a peer review.
I did a an actual experiment to determine this. Considering how hard it is to do such an experiment I only have roughly 3 trials worth of data. I would not call that scientifically sound and no in place do I call it scientifically sound. Its just my best guess going on current empirical data. The article by nature couldn't cover anything and everything so instead I linked to the 40 some post thread about the experiment.
>Myth #1: The Higher Your Google PageRank (PR), the Higher You'll be in the Search Results ListingHalf true. A pr1 site is not going to beat a pr10 site. A pr3 site listed for "apple" is not going beat a pr8 site listed for apple.
If the apple site had been a pr3 or 2, it would not even have been in the running to argue about rankings. Of course a higher pr, means a higher rankings, but it does not mean it is going to trump all those with a lower pr. There has to be relevance for a term.
You'll find that I offer more than a one sentence explanation for the myths. Some people believe that if they have a PR of 7 they should outrank any site with a 6. The article was written for those people. You'll notice I never say that a PR 1 site will beat a PR 10 site, instead I simply explain that the number of incoming links is not the only criteria.
>Myth #2: The Google Toolbar will List Your Actual PageRankRounding to the nearest whole number and scaled 1 to 10. Sure it does. ;-)
Did you even read my article? I explained right under that header you quoted that the toolbar number is only an approximation. I also explained how sometimes the toolbar will guess a PageRank.
>Myth #5: Being Listed in the Open Directory Project Gives you a Special PageRank BonusSpecifically, no. Reality? Helps Big Time because ODP links are viral in nature. Those links breed with other sites that carry the odp and when people are looking for links. Including yahoo directory editors when they need to flush out a category - the odp is the first stop for them. I've had several links come right out of the odp and into Yahoo by ya'surfers looking for links.
So in other words being in DMOZ gets you more than just 1 link? Which is something I mention in my article. For DMOZ I mention how you can get listed in all the other sites that use DMOZ data, and for Yahoo I mentioned how being listed in such a directory be "viral."
>Myth #6: Being Listed in Yahoo! Gives you a Special PageRank Bonussee #5. A link from a pr3 category in yahoo, will do more for your page rank than a link from a pr8 site.
So, does it give you a "special page rank bonus"? Of course it does.
Again, you didn't read my article. I said "The only PageRank you will gain from being listed in Yahoo! is the same as the PR you'd gain from any other site of equivalent weight."
>Myth # 9: Google Will Not List Your Site, or Penalize it, if you use PopupsI don't think the jury is in on that one.
No its not.
>Myth # 10: Google will Penalize you if You're Linked to by a Link FarmUntil the infamous "hand check". Who wants the scrutiny...
The following is taken from Google's webmaster info section:
Fiction: A competitor can ruin a site's ranking somehow or have another site removed from Google's index.
Fact: There is almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. Your rank and your inclusion are dependent on factors under your control as a webmaster, including content choices and site design.
You have no control over who links to you, being linked to from somewhere will not get you punished.
Offering one's opinion is fine on a forum like webmasterworld or the discussion threads of sitepoint. However, in an article which attempted to be of high caliber, he really should have interviewed other experts and quoted them.
I am an expert.
Writing "It's very possible.." makes it a passive statement. Very weak. Wishy-washy.
Self proclaimed experts shouldn't be writing things like: "Well, this statement may or not be true." ie, "It's very possible."Instead, they should present both sides of the topic through qualified sources. This approach presents a well-rounded article in which both "sides" are given to a debatable topic.
IF he is discussing a debatable topic such as this one, he should have presented both sides and been more in depth about it.
That's my 2 cents.
I have 3 pages that have PRs of 7 with only 1 incoming link. It is possible, there is no debate on it. Either something is possible or it isn't. Is it possible to sink a shot from half court? Obviously it is. Is it hard? Yes, but it's not impossible.
Remember the goal of that section, to dispel the myth that the number of backwards links you have equals your PageRank. I think I did that quite nicely.
article gets him links from a PR5 page on promotionbase to each of his three sites (PR5, 6 & 7). His profile page on sitepoint also nets three PR5 links to each of his sites. And his profile list seven other articles on webmasterbase and ecommercebase, all linking to his three sites from PR6 pages.
From the responses to the article, it seems that it's best used as an excellent example of 'self promotion' and not, it seems, Google Mythology.
[promotionbase.com...]
It has a PR of 3 and is listed in DMOZ. Thats likely going to be the PR of my newest article once Google spiders it. So add up all the internal SitePoint links on that page and let me know if you still think I wrote that article just to get a couple measly signature links.
The reason I wrote that article is because I was tired of writing the same responses to such questions in the SitePointForums and I wanted a place I could just send people to when they asked "Why does a site with less incoming links rank higher than mine?"
So each link on that page gets whatever PR6/40 is
This is the point that gets me. That would mean that my site which is only linked to from one page as of the last update would have a pr of less than one (linking page high pr 5 with 8 outbound links). Instead it has a pr of 4 which is what I would expect.
No it means that you'd take the numerical value of PR6, and divide it by 40. I didn't include any mention of the dampening factor because I considered it too technical for the purposes of the article.
If I had meant 6/40 I would have said "So you need to divide 6 by 40 and you'll come up with .15, so the incoming links gives a bonus of .15." I meant, and I thought it was clear, that you need to divide PR6/40 where PR6 is a variable that we do not know the value of. Maybe I should revise the article to make this point more clear.
There is no way that it is only a factor of 4. That would mean that you would only need the equivalent of one million page votes to get to PR10! Or the equivalent of 1k pages of PR5 or higher with no other outbound links to make it there.
Raising it to 6 will bring it to 60M page votes for PR10, which is starting to get a lot more reasonable. 9 puts it at 3.5 billion.
Hey its my best guess based on the only empirical data I've ever seen on this topic. I'd love to get more data but it's hard to do because to get accurate data you need a control group and its hard to find a website that you can use as a control group.
Though I gotta say that I think "1 million votes" is reasonable for a PR10. Remember each page has a minimum PR of .15, not 1. And remember they keep running through iterations of the PR algorithm until the normalized sum of all pages' PR is 1. That means that many pages have a weight smaller than 1 when the results are finalized.
PS I also think Google ignores links from message boards
Unrelated to my article, but that is false and is readily verified.
It must have taken quite a bit of time to write up your post. Well done.
Again, Welcome:)
Real "experts" do not have to tell people they are. Their work speaks for themselves.
Secondly they do not use how much they earn and how little they work as a justification for being an expert. I once had a columnist on one of our sites continually writing to me on how much she earned, it got boring. We assessed her on the quality of her work. 3 years ago she set up her own website with the tagline "Experts on blah blah". It gets a couple of hits a day.
You seem a bit beligerant, and I would have problems with any journalist or "expert" on the web that does not use WebmasterWorld as one of their sources. After all, its one of the most popular, if not the most popular webmaster forum on the web. With that level of popularity, of couse you get a broad span of experience and knowledge. However its the job of the writer always to separate the good stuff from the less than good.
Finally thanks very much for all the thought you have put into the response. Where you have addressed directly queries or misconceptions of your work and facts, rather than appealing to your "expert" status as evidenced by your salary, working hours, it was useful material. Hell, if I was earning as much as you there is no way i would be sitting around writing articles on Sitepoint.
I note SitePoint itself has forums, so in some way is a competitor to WebmasterWorld. I cant help wondering how the objectivity of your comments re WebmasterWorld are affected by this.
I have one last thought. Why does this fellow need to defend against comments here on WebmasterWorld? What's to be gained?
The thread was dead and buried. Now it is (that's "it's" not its) reborn.
(1) it's not necessary to collect and repudiate every single comment anybody makes about your article, and
(2) I can think of better ways of introducing yourself than saying "I really dislike WebmasterWorld... The only people that I've seen who has any sense are [the two posters who were defending you]"
I was wondering what took you so long but looking at the length of your post I can see why! ;)
For what it's worth I thought it was a good article, just a very bad choice of title.
Your article would have been better received and more interesting if you didn't set up such trite strawmen as "myths". "Myths" to who? Much of what you wrote is basic to an extreme, but also objectively incorrect because you strawmen "myths" are only myths if don't examine them.
"The Higher Your Google PageRank (PR), the Higher You'll be in the Search Results Listing"
This sort of statement as a myth is just not helpful. Higher page rank tends to lead to higher results, but there are exceptions. Stop the presses. Pretending that there is some common myth out there that higher pagerank *always* leads to higher results is fanciful. PR10 sites do not have the top result for all words even if the words are on the page.
"The Google Toolbar will List Your Actual PageRank"
Another strawman myth. The toolbar does list your actual pagerank when you have an actual pagerank, and that rank is a rounded integer. Your explanation is what everybody knows (not counting the factor of 4 part), but to assert any of that contradicts your manufactured myth is again just fanciful.
"PageRank is a Value Based on the Number of Incoming Links to Your Site"
Including this is like writing an article to contradict the "myth" that there are Martians in the White House.
And so on. The ODP section is especially non-helpful. Your stated "myth" is plainly false, unless you are a literal lunkhead, as your own explanation shows. A link is a link if they have the exact same PR, but the ODP is mirrored which makes a link there a link with a bonus.
Except for the "myths" I liked your article as a beginner's text, but the false strawmen make it tough to take seriously. If you would have written an article focused on topics like #8 and #9, then you may have ended up with something that actually might merit the article title.
Real "experts" do not have to tell people they are. Their work speaks for themselves.
Sure, one professional SEO could recognize another. In this case you have a bunch of amateurs failing to recognize an expert. It is not the experts fault, it is because the amateurs do not know enough about the field. It takes one to know one (So to speak).
Secondly they do not use how much they earn and how little they work as a justification for being an expert.
If someone thinks that I don't have any experience or do not know what I'm talking about what can I post to prove otherwise? The person won't believe the things I write unless he thinks I'm an expert, and he won't think I'm an expert unless he believes the things I write. Its a catch-22. So I could say "Well I run 10 or so websites." But that doesn't mean a thing, they could be 10 websites that don't make a dime. So that leaves me with two things, how much I make, or how much traffic I get. I tell you what, I don't like posting how much traffic my sites get or how much I make. Why? Because when I do I invariably get responses like yours. Some people won't trust a word you say unless you follow your own advice and are successful doing it, and rightly so. Since you guys don't know me, I felt I should point out that I am a successful website publisher.
and I would have problems with any journalist or "expert" on the web that does not use WebmasterWorld as one of their sources. After all, its one of the most popular, if not the most popular webmaster forum on the web. With that level of popularity, of couse you get a broad span of experience and knowledge. However its the job of the writer always to separate the good stuff from the less than good.
Did I not make myself clear? I don't like WebmasterWorld. Most of the half-baked search engine theories I see are thanks to discussions here. I have very little respect for the information that comes out of this forum. I'm sure you've got some very knowledgable people, and I'm sure not all the threads are bad, but most of the ones that get pointed out to me are ridiculous. For instance some guy notices that a site ranked higher than him has less incoming links and he gets all in a huff about how Google isn't using incoming links before. Then other equally naive people join in the discussion and pretty soon its circulating around the Internet. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Perhaps in this case it even hurts it because the more popular you are, the more general of a demographic you have, and the more general a demographic you have, the more amateurs you have.
Also I don't have any sources, I'm not a journalist, I don't interview "experts" or do research on other sites. I never write anything in an article that I haven't personally verified to the best of my ability. Everything I write about I've personally done or observed.
I note SitePoint itself has forums, so in some way is a competitor to WebmasterWorld. I cant help wondering how the objectivity of your comments re WebmasterWorld are affected by this.
They aren't, unless it is the fact that I compare WW to SitePoint and thus WW doesn't look so good. I don't work for SitePoint, I don't make a dime from them. I write articles and moderate their forums because it keeps me up to date with Internet news and developments. My opinion of Webmaster World is based solely on threads I've read here. What usually happens is someone posts on SitePoint about some ridiculous issue and after I correct them they say "Well at WebmasterWorld they said..." and its totally inaccurate, or they'll just link to a thread here.
I'm sure you've got some knowledgable people. Maybe these forums are just so popular that there isn't always a knowledgable person around to correct the inaccuracies in some threads.
Maybe you could write an article that addresses those, instead of creating trite pseudo-myths that are basic in the extreme.
Marcia (an administrator) has a post [webmasterworld.com] just for new arrivals. When you have time, check it out.
lawman
[edited by: lawman at 2:53 am (utc) on Dec. 30, 2002]
I thought it was an interesting article. I am glad you have come to expand on your thoughts with us. I have always thought that the articles at sitepoint were provocative. I think it is always a good thing to remind people of these issues. Most of the questions about Google I answer daily relate to these.
Again welcome :)
[edited by: korkus2000 at 2:58 am (utc) on Dec. 30, 2002]
I have one last thought. Why does this fellow need to defend against comments here on WebmasterWorld? What's to be gained?
The thread was dead and buried. Now it is (that's "it's" not its) reborn.
Don't blame me, someone emailed me this link just tonight.
(2) I can think of better ways of introducing yourself than saying "I really dislike WebmasterWorld... The only people that I've seen who has any sense are [the two posters who were defending you]"
I'm blunt and brutally honest by nature. I didn't want anyone to think that I was trying to curry favor with anyone by replying. I was simply defending my work.
Your article would have been better received and more interesting if you didn't set up such trite strawmen as "myths". "Myths" to who? Much of what you wrote is basic to an extreme, but also objectively incorrect because you strawmen "myths" are only myths if don't examine them.
Huh? From dictionary.com
3. A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
4. A fictitious story, person, or thing: “German artillery superiority on the Western Front was a myth” (Leon Wolff).
Should I have said "10 fictitious beliefs about Google Revealed."?
"The Higher Your Google PageRank (PR), the Higher You'll be in the Search Results Listing"
This sort of statement as a myth is just not helpful. Higher page rank tends to lead to higher results, but there are exceptions. Stop the presses. Pretending that there is some common myth out there that higher pagerank *always* leads to higher results is fanciful. PR10 sites do not have the top result for all words even if the words are on the page.
I've seen on many occasions someone ask "Why does this site rank higher than me when I have a higher PageRank?" I assure you, the myth is alive and well.
"The Google Toolbar will List Your Actual PageRank"Another strawman myth. The toolbar does list your actual pagerank when you have an actual pagerank, and that rank is a rounded integer. Your explanation is what everybody knows (not counting the factor of 4 part), but to assert any of that contradicts your manufactured myth is again just fanciful.
I'm going to repeat a portion of what you just said, read it carefully.
The toolbar does list your actual pagerank when you have an actual pagerank, and that rank is a rounded integer.
Your actual PageRank is a rounded integer?
My friend, thats an oxymoron.
There are people out there who do not know that what they see in the toolbar is rounded. There are also people out there that do not know that sometimes the toolbar will guess a PageRank when it knows the PR of the root domain but not the page it is actually on. The article was meant to dispel those myths.
"PageRank is a Value Based on the Number of Incoming Links to Your Site"Including this is like writing an article to contradict the "myth" that there are Martians in the White House.
Maybe that was a bad section heading, I can see that, but it most assuredly is a common myth. This is actually probably the most common myth, that PageRank is based purely on the number of incoming links you have. I'm guessing you don't have alot of experience answering questions about Google because these myths come up all the time. There are lots of people out there who think this way. I'm sure even people at this forum can back me up on this one.
And so on. The ODP section is especially non-helpful. Your stated "myth" is plainly false, unless you are a literal lunkhead, as your own explanation shows. A link is a link if they have the exact same PR, but the ODP is mirrored which makes a link there a link with a bonus.
The goal wasn't to completely debunk all the myths, but rather to explain the truth behind them. "You don't get a special bonus for being in the ODP, but what really happens...."
ROTFL
You really should respect your audience Chris. Your article was written for amateurs, and several of us amateurs (by your definition) have commented. Clearly you have failed to "connect" with your target audience. So it's not all our fault.
When you are "brutally honest" Chris, you also have be "brutally correct" to get that credibility. Some of your comments re WebmasterWorld are not just plain wrong but also illogical, so how can we be expected to trust your opinions in your articles when those who know WebmasterWorld better than you know that your facts on WebmasterWorld are just plain wrong?
I've finally found someone with an ego bigger than Dvorak's :) though far less well known!
[edited by: chiyo at 3:16 am (utc) on Dec. 30, 2002]
By the way, Webmaster World is a message board that attracts people of all skill types, including rank amateurs who ask rank amateur questions. You can insult and hate people here irrationally, but you would be better off reading and learning here. If you really must "hate" Webmaster World, then why not write an article about ten significant (meaning not just a post or two) Webmaster World threads that present, in your opinion, incorrect information.
You really should respect your audience Chris. Your article was written for amateurs, and several of us amateurs (by your definition) have commented. Clearly you have failed to "connect" with your target audience. So it's not all our fault.
Not entirely true, in this case they're amateurs who think they already have all the answers.
When you are "brutally honest" Chris, you also have be "brutally correct" to get that credibility. Some of your comments re WebmasterWorld are not just plain wrong but also illogical,
Illogical? I don't think you know what that word means. Nothing I said was illogical. Incorrect? Unfair? Biased? Possibly, but not illogical. If nearly every post I've seen here is off base then it is perfectly logical for me to think of WW as a haven for newbies and amateurs. You might not agree with that observation, but that doesn't make it illogical.
so how can we be expected to trust your opinions in your articles when those who know WebmasterWorld better than you know that your facts on WebmasterWorld are just plain wrong?
They're not opinions, they facts. What I think about webmaster world is an opinion. That the Google Toolbar doesn't show your actual PR value is a fact.
And I don't care if you trust me or not, actually you probably shouldn't. Instead you should do you own work and verify what I wrote. I always tell people that you should never take anything you read in an article for granted. However make sure you actually know what you're talking about if you do comment.
I've given SitePoint articles poor grades before. One in particular I can remember said that you could have 900 characters of text in your meta keywords tag. I provided evidence that most major crawling search engines did not use the tag anymore. I knew what I was talking about and I had proof to back me up.
That is a fact, not an opinion.
Your article is made up of opinions, not facts as you say, though the opinions may be based on "facts" as you perceive them. Really its pretty hard to find real 100% known facts in this area.. That is basically the realm of observation of physical phenonoma as in physics.
If you dont believe me - I am an expert in logic, and make 6 figures annually working 2 hours a week in the field.
I expect this post to be deleted so will make it short.
Clearly you are not a journalist. Moreover, you damaged your own credibility as an expert by not seeking out or recording other expert opinions. The initial reaction on this thread which questioned your article lends evidence to this claim, whether you agree with us "amateur" posters or not.
I've never heard of a nationally recognized expert in any subject that did not monitor and consider the views of other experts in the field. In their journal published research papers or books they site other sources.
I think your article would have been much stronger if you had considered and quoted other sources.
Instead it was weak and raised doubts by a lot of people here who are obviously "lesser" than you.
I'm overwhelmed by all the 6-figure (count'em 6!) income talk. Is that 100 thousand ... dollars? Why, shazam, that's a whole bucket full a money.
I have to go redo my math on the log base of 4 which'll probably keep me busy for weeks and weeks.
On the other hand, many thanks to rcjordan for the link to the other thread. The spinoff over there of the Jack N speech from A Few Good Men was just the gutbuster I needed this eve.
Not being competent enough to know what's what, i'll just borrow a line from Forrest and well that's all I have to say about that.
Night all, it's time to tuck sickly fam members in bed.
Nice to have you here.
So, I had to chuckle when he started off his post here saying, "I don't like WebmasterWorld..."!
That said, I read his article a day or two ago, and thought it was right on the money. My only problem with it was that it wasn't clear that he was talking about Google not using Meta Keyword tags, because he said Meta Tags and wasn't specific. I emailed him regarding this and he agreed that he meant Meta keyword tags and should probably change it.
I was quite surprised to see this thread and all the negativity regarding the article. It's an article for newbies who hear those myths and believe them. Chris must see the same emails and forums posts that I see because I too am constantly answering ALL of those questions that he discussed in the article. If you guys haven't heard the question, "Why does my site rank lower than a site, when my site has a higher PageRank" well, then I don't know where you've been hiding. I see that one at least a few times a week.
It's true that you probably have a different audience here than the audience Chris's article was intended for. But when your target audience is newbies and Webmasters who barely know what SEO stands for, his article was right on the money. To pick it apart the way some of you have just seems a bit well...picky!
Let's face it...most of you here at WebmasterWorld have got to work differently than Chris does and than I do. I'm sure you must all have the same kinds of problems with my articles too. We write about what we know from our own experiences. Like I always say, there's more than one way to skin the SEO cat!
Like I always say, there's more than one way to skin the SEO cat!
That seems to be the consensus! (Ducking for cover) :)
Chris put forth an article that has been received by many folks in many different ways. Hats off to Chris for putting SOMETHING up on the Internet rather than "click here for best prices on drill bits for online services CD's"
His comments and defense are expected and I would have done the same if I had written an article of the same tone and subject. But I can't. I still very new to this and have much to learn.
On the positive side of the article, he addresses 'common myths'. This is good. It reveals Chris's understanding of the COMMON MYTH's of newbie webmasters regarding Google.
Taking Chris at his word, these are the myths some, as newbie webmasters, could be concerned with, according to his understanding.
If these myths don't concern us, then we are either: beyond it, below it or just plain "what is Google?" :)
