wsj article about Google today

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[webdevsf]

Looking on the front page of the wsj today, there is a longish article on Google and controversies over PageRank and link farms. Nothing new to the Webmaster world community tho!

[nonprof webguy]

It's available via Yahoo Singapore:

Google Becomes Web's Gatekeeper
[sg.biz.yahoo.com...]

[cjtripnewton]

I got a little bit excited when I pulled my WSJ out of it's orange wrapper this morning and saw the word Google in the upper right-hand column. The excitement didn't last. Nothing much in the whole article that hasn't been said before repeatedly. Lots of space alloted though. At least the WSJ is paying attention.

[skiguide]

no, nothing new to us here, but we're definitely happy that WSJ is putting some of these issues into the mainstream business community. it's better that large companies know what NOT to do for SEO, particularly when getting ready to drop tons of cash on an unethical SEO firm that gets them banned from Google. Maybe it'll get them thinking ahead of time at the site development stage.
we sat in on a interview with the writer & one of our clients that had this happen and came to us to fix it- it didn't make it in the story, but neither did several other sources that contributed, so maybe there will be some sort of follow up.

we just found the last bit of the article interesting as the example site owner was complaining about spending $70/month in AdWords, when sales of 2 products would cover that.

[GoogleGuy]

I think the WSJ talked to a lot of people before they wrote the article. The headline on the online edition is something like
"Web Sites Try Everything To Climb Google Rankings" :)

[agerhart]

Nothing much in the whole article that hasn't been said before repeatedly.

That seems to be the general concensus.

I think the WSJ talked to a lot of people before they wrote the article.

From what I heard, they threw away the notes they got from their interviews.

[sun818]

Reporters rarely get it all right. But for the limited time they spend researching a subject, I'm amazed that they are able to grasp complex concepts in a short amount of time and write in a way so that non-techy people can understand. That is quite a feat.

[mayor]

<yawn> How old is that information? A year? Two years? Stuffing metatags, hidden text and trying to trick Google with link farms and Google bombs are yesterday's news.

Webmasters scurrying to queue up for the ball at Yahoo/Ink and Overture/Alta Vista/Fast and MSN/Looksmart/Ink/whoknowswho is todays news.

The Web is still amazing and evolving at blinding speed. By the time news makes it to print, it's obsolete. That's why I dropped my WSJ subscription a couple years ago. Yesterday's news is in print. Today's news is online.

[vik_c]

Anyone spending an hour on this board could write that piece. It has nothing new.

[rogerd]

>>Today's news is online<<

The online WSJ is pretty good, actually. I dropped my subscription, though, when they eliminated personal search folders. In essence, you could set up keywords (like "widget marketing" or "My Name") and any relevant articles would be cataloged. For time-limited readers, it was a superb feature. Sure, I could key in a half-dozen search phrases every day, but that's far less convenient. (Sorry to go off-topic. I thought they put the Google story in lay terms very well.)

[skiguide]

>>Lay terms.

Exactly. The target audience for WSJ is business decision makers, - if this story helps to tell higher-level executives, CEO's & CFO's who want to know how (or how NOT) to come up on Google, that's great because they are the ones to make the decisions about hiring SEO firms, and to some degree they need to understand the good, bad & the ugly-

i'm just not sure it effectively does that, particularly with some misinformation, but as someone said, journalists just don't get it quite right all the time, despite having talked to several quality resources.

[oilman]

the yahoo version is only about half of what showed up in the wsj story. Just and FYI

[minnapple]

I was contacted by the web site owner, but I swear, it wasn't me!

[chiyo]

OK so own up guys. Which one of you guys is Joy Holman?

For me it was a great article. The business world in general is not as aware of these issues are us, and it gives some good publicity to the Web marketing world, and most importantly more cred to us and SEOs in the eyes of our clients and the people who read it.

[EquityMind]

For me it solidified a deal I have been working on with a major ecommerce site. They actually informed me of the article this morning and 'Hello!' funny it stated everything I had already told them about the right and wrong way to do SEO. Great when the WSJ backs up what you are saying. Looks like I'm getting the account.

[Brett_Tabke]

>Joy

Ya, Joy reads here. There's a thread somewhere last year where she brought up the issue in passing. We've looked and looked and can't find it.

> I think the WSJ talked to a lot of people
> before they wrote the article.

Ya - including several admins here and a mod of this forum.

My days as a background source are over - anon WebmasterWorld mod.