Salon article?

Anybody else notice it?

[GoogleGuy]

Hey, Salon has an article pointing to WebmasterWorld--congrats Brett. :) To read the article, I needed to watch an Ultramercial for Microsoft, and the ads had search boxes for Ask Jeeves, but it was an enjoyable read. I'd be curious what people thought about it..

---

link: [salon.com...] (-bt)

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:26 pm (utc) on June 25, 2003]
[edit reason] added link [/edit]

[Marcia]

>>Salon has an article pointing to WebmasterWorld

Thanks, GoogleGuy! Hope they said nice things - is there a URL so we can read it?

[lazerzubb]

[salon.com...]

To see the range of emotion that Google can inspire -- everything from fear, anxiety, irritation and anger to, more rarely, unbridled exuberance -- the best place to check in is the Google News section of WebmasterWorld, an online forum where webmasters and search engine optimizers congregate to discuss the search site.

[Jenstar]

In its May update, Google switched from an index it called Cassandra to one named Dominic. (Google gives each successive index a name in alphabetical order, in much the same way that meteorologists name hurricanes.)

I thought it was interesting the article attributes Google to the naming of the updates, and not WebmasterWorld...

[vitaplease]

Looks like you've got yourself another nick, Mr online ambassador! ;)

[Shak]

I was going to read it until they gave the creidt to Google for Dominic etc etc.

Do they not realise that all those Pizzas I ate, combined with everyone else's partying at Dominics in Boston is what gave it its name.

rant over...

Shak

[Krapulator]

HILARIOUS! The link from the first page to the second one mentioning Webmasterworld is titled "Can a gaggle of crackpots affect Google listings?"

[mil2k]

The webmasters kick and scream, and GoogleGuy, the company's online ambassador to the webmaster world, tries to calm their fears and answer as many questions about the changes as he can, while remaining, out of necessity, somewhat coy about Google's ranking scheme.

Now I Know why you noticed this article :)

Congrats Martinibuster on being quoted :)

[keeper]

hehe, WW even gets a mention in the robots.txt
[salon.com...]

[HayMeadows]

Should be an interesting year.

[vitaplease]

In all, despite some small mistakes, I find it a good article on the recent Google developments and what might happen in the near future.

That quoted "comparitive search engine results" Veritest/Inktomi report [veritest.com] was new to me.

Good that WebmasterWorld gets some credits.

[wanderingmind]

Pretty decent piece in Salon there. Gets tthe overall picture more more or less clear for those who don't eat, breathe and live on WW!

They till seem to think that the monthly google-dance is going to continue, though...

[le_gber]

Great article giving so insight on what to expect in the future (near?)

What do you guys think, will microsoft develop search capabilities in windows?, will yahoo! dump google in sept or deliver a mix of result from G and Ink?

Leo

[heini]

Vita:
[webmasterworld.com...]

All in all one of the better articles on the current search engine scene.

[Dolemite]

My reaction:

• This is all too true, but in some cases justified:
  

  Then there are webmasters and people in the "search engine optimization" industry, folks whose livelihoods depend on ranking well in Google. With so much riding on the whims of one firm, these people are constantly, pedantically, obsessed with and irritated at Google...

• Google isn't nefariously scheming against anyone, but they are indeed "no longer a plucky underdog," and to answer the article, noone should root for them at this point. Keep in mind they have been tremendously successful at a time when few companies can do more than survive, and quite a few can't manage that...but we shouldn't begrudge them their success, either. We just need to see them for who they are: a company trying to turn a profit. That many of our own ventures depend largely on Google is just a sorry truism of the SE industry, especially at a time when Google is going through so many changes or having so many problems, depending on what you believe.
  
• Google is becoming nearly monopolistic in the search engine field, and I look forward to the day when Yahoo/Ink becomes a reality and even (*gasp*) M$ tries its hand at its own SE. Competition will benefit those of us on the other side of search queries by providing more viable sources of traffic.
  
• My own personal opinion, reinforced by the study [veritest.com] cited in this article, is that Inktomi is and will be a worthy competitor to big G come September when Yahoo will likely make the switch.
  

[Xoc]

The funniest thing in that article (great article, btw), is that it seems to think that Google names their updates. It mentions updates Cassandra and Dominic!

[shrirch]

The good part is that there will be competition when the switch does take place. The bad part is we don't know what the face of the competition will look like. Unless a YahooGuy or an InkGuy shows up here... us small webmasters with no-budget or hobby sites have a lot to worry about.

I'm VERY also worried about the spider that Inktomi has out there which has pulled the index page of many of my sites (which were moved from older sites with 301 redirects) about 8000 times over the last 2 months.

The inktomi spider has just figured out the new "site map" and has started crawling deeper over the last 2 weeks.

I'm betting that there is going to be blood on the floor and fecal matter on the ceilings when Yahoo makes their switch.

<insert ob remark about the article>
Great job Brett.... been following you since your days on the other site several years ago, and never did go back to there once this site was launched. If you see this, can you let me know how I can try and get my old ID back (same name without the 'rch'.

GoogleGuy, you have been a PR juggernaut of sorts here and have earnt the gratitude of thousands who cannot pick up the phone and call their sales rep.

Thanks. Now can you please open your Asia HQ in Hong Kong. :)
</insert>

[Chris_D]

Hey martinibuster - where are you?

Still out autographing copies of Salon?

: )

A good read.

Chris_D

[Dolemite]

Unless a YahooGuy or an InkGuy shows up here... us small webmasters with no-budget or hobby sites have a lot to worry about.

Exactly how do you think that would help?

Maybe you enjoy being confused by search engine employees?

[killroy]

Hmm the Salon guy who contacted me (but didn't get back to me :() is noted as "has never posted". So Either he's lurking only, or he created a second alias to send stickies with ;)

SN

[shrirch]

Maybe you enjoy being confused by search engine employees?

Nothing to do with confusion. You have to build your own filters and learn to glean bits and pieces of information. You also have the comfort factor of knowing that some out there cares.

A good part of what makes google cool is its geek heritage. Right from when slashdot promoted it to early google-friends email blasts that went out talking about updates.

When was the last time someone from MSN or Yahoo (pick any engine for that matter) fielded questions and attempted to pacify people? Its PR ... it could be an illusion but it does create a perception.

[jimh009]

"Its PR ... it could be an illusion but it does create a perception"

I think it might be a little more than that, too, although PR certainly has something to do with it. Google, by being an active participant, probably is able to pick up lots of little interesting things that they can then use to improve their algorithim. By hearing info "off the streets" about how their algorithim affected things, they can then tweak and improve.

If Google didn't participate, lots of interesting things I suspect would never "come to light", so to speak. Hopefully, Google will continue to post here, as I always find GoogleGuy's post interesting and often times funny to read.

I suspect from time to time all the good ideas members post here are also taken into consideration by Google. At a minimum, it always gives Google something to think about.

Just my two cents worth.

Jim

[Dolemite]

Nothing to do with confusion. You have to build your own filters and learn to glean bits and pieces of information. You also have the comfort factor of knowing that some out there cares.

A good part of what makes google cool is its geek heritage. Right from when slashdot promoted it to early google-friends email blasts that went out talking about updates.

When was the last time someone from MSN or Yahoo (pick any engine for that matter) fielded questions and attempted to pacify people? Its PR ... it could be an illusion but it does create a perception.

What, are folks from all other SE's banned here?

Seems to me they could come in and read our posts just as well as GG...I know Ink and FAST employees post here as well.

Geek heritage or not, remember you're dealing with a billion dollar company, set to go public, and the majority of their "caring" is for that bottom line.

Sure, GoogleGuy has helped some people out when Google has taken a dim view of their sites, and that I can appreciate, but for every one person he's helped, there are 1,000 others that have been inexplicably dumped with little to no recourse. Is that caring?

The fact is, I don't expect them to care, but when they make claims about how they want to improve communication with webmasters, I expect something resembling that to materialize. Maybe you'd say "take what you can get," but if what we can get is limited to coyly reassuring, feckless forum posts and a handful of black-hole email addresses then I would rather leave it, and accept things as I know them to be.

[martinibuster]

Hey martinibuster - where are you?

Having nightmares about psychotic cows intent on trampling me... It's 6:30 am over here.

And you gotta appreciate that drawn from life picture of GoogleGuy they put in there.

I gotta go meditate...

[Stefan]

I expect WW will soon be blessed with an influx of post-salon new members coming to link up with the crackpots here.

If the guy who wrote that is a lurker, then you'd think he'd know about the changes to the update process.

On Google you're #1 now martinibuster, after this... the sky's the limit :-)

[gopi]

Congrats Martinibuster and Ashwin (vibgyor79) ... You guys are famous now :)

[rfgdxm1]

>HILARIOUS! The link from the first page to the second one mentioning Webmasterworld is titled "Can a gaggle of crackpots affect Google listings?"

I sure hope they weren't thinking of me personally when they wrote that. ;)

[loanuniverse]

OMG!

Who is Googleguy in this picture?

[salon.com...]

*Looks around bewildered as his site gets pr-1*

[martinibuster]

Chicago was in that article, too! He got in some pretty authoritative quotes there.

How'd I end up talking about the 49ers?

[loanuniverse]

Can someone sticky me the article, somehow the firewall at work is preventing me from accessing it even after trying to watch that Microsoft commercial three times.