Don’t despair. This isn’t “magic” that made your name appear on someone else’s blog and rank in Google. Perhaps if you asked a few of your blogging buddies to link with the term “Scott Karp”, you could probably restore your rankings.

It’s basically a computer so taking it out on the only community that understand’s it isn’t very Publishing 2.0 (or smart).

“people distrust Google and SEO” your quote Scott.

Try telling that to my clients (I can pass on some details if you would like to confirm for yourself).

Why do so many people use Google? Does the end user really distrust Google, or is that something you made up?

Scott, get out there and start studing, who know’s you might enjoy it.

Knowledge is power, adapt or die.

Sort of, but with a few important, if nuanced, distinctions. First, my post is not going to rank on any Google search results page, so it’s confined to my current readers, and will quickly fade into history. Second, I have a way of correcting the outcome — at Aaron’s prompting, I posted a bold correction to the post, which through RSS was again pushed out to my readers. So if I decide I was too confrontational in the title, I can admit my mistake and take it back. In my most recent post, I have further admitted that mistake and promised not to do it again. Your post, on the other hand, will forever live in my Google search results.

Aaron,

No worries, I will update the post.

Once the freshness boost drops off if it does not pick up many more links it will rank worse.

I accidentally wrote better (where worse belongs) in the first post…must have been tired when I did that. Sorry on that.

But the reality is that you chose a route that not only publicly disagreed with me, but also had the consequence, even if unintended,

So didn’t your post titled “What Gives SEO’s a Bad Name” not do the exact same thing for the SEO industry… even if unintentional?

But doing so in such a way where you knowingly rank that post in someone’s search reputation is, regardless of intentions, an escalation.

Wait, so let me get this straight, you still believe that I wrote that post simply to rank for your name?! Wow, that’s incredible.

Oh, come on, that’s like being a firearms expert and saying I didn’t know the gun was loaded. I see it as a matter of online ettiquete. It’s one thing to write a post openly disagreeing with someone. But doing so in such a way where you knowingly rank that post in someone’s search reputation is, regardless of intentions, an escalation. Which is why I reacted so differently to your comments here than I did to your post on Threadwatch. The substance was exactly the same — a very valid observation that I was factually incorrect incorrect in my post. But the tone was different. Just as there’s a difference between saying, with all due respect, Natasha, I disagree, and saying, Natasha, you’re a total idiot, you’re so wrong it hurts. Disagree is disagreeing, but how you say it makes a big difference.

That all said, YES, your advice (and that of many others), to start talking to SEOs by phone and stop inciting riots in public is VERY sound, and I intend to pursue that route. See my most recent post.

The fact that you even considered that I wrote that with Google’s search in mind says alot more about your character than mine; and I won’t bother defending myself, because I think none is necessary. As I offered previously, please feel free to email me if you have any questions about SEO. As you have said in both this post and your previous post, you would like people to offer you well meaning advice, here’s my advice to you: Why not simply ask an SEO what is going on before posting something that you surely know will incite a riot?

BTW: There is no SEO Mafia. And I don’t think SEOs who are busy working would care enough to rank for your name.

It’s not SEO specifically… it’s the 200,000 + links coming into my domain that gives copyblogger.com authority (benefit of the doubt) with Google. Most “SEO” is about attracting incoming links and building site authority. There’s not much hidden behind the screen at this point.

BTW, if you *do* want me to write a post about what a great guy you are, I will. Just let me know.

http://www.tribbleagency.com/?p=154

And, regarding my name in the title of post, that might lead me to think that Natasha did it that way with Google search results for my name in mind. That would lead me to conclude the “messing” with some people is in fact much worse than messing with others

I’m absolutely sure Natasha wasn’t being malicious but I think you’ll find SEO’s do everything ‘with Google in mind’. Like other professionals with their skills, it becomes subconscious after a few years. We live, breathe and sleep search engines. For example I’ve always found SEO professionals to be amazing effective at finding information online, probably because of our feeling for the ‘right’ keywords.

To that extent ‘messing’ with the SEO industry can be dangerous. They are more likely to write relevant and well themed links and material – we do this for clients every day. You won’t often see an SEO link with the keywords, ‘click here’.

As Aaron says (and he is a v. authoritative SEO) this link will probably drop down the rankings in time. However there is a new thread now on TW so expect to see that shortly

The TW thread has 66 outside links coming into the URL in question.

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.threadwatch.org%2Fnode%2F12224&bwm=i&bwmo=d

If you look at the sites that those those links come from, they have some status of their own. If you compare the TW URL to the site beloe the TW URL (BlogHerald) you will see that it has 10 incoming links to the URL from outside the domain

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogherald.com%2Fauthor%2Fscottkarp%2F&bwm=i&bwmo=d

If we compare these two to the number one result (this domain) we will see it has just shy of 10K links coming in.

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.publishing2.com&bwm=i&bwmo=d

SEO for a minor phrase (And with all due respect Scott, your name is a minor phrase) isn’t rocket science (my god I agree with Did It) and is simply Google’s algo working at what it does and believes is correct and proper.

Knowing how this would play out, with the benefit of hindsight is what SEO and reputation management is about – May I suggest listening to a show on Web Master Radio and then maybe giving me a call.

http://media.webmasterradio.fm/episodes/audio/2007/SP020507.mp3

I once titled a page “the Daniel Brandt toolbar” to give attribution to Daniel for creating a tool. Then he sent me a hate message about how I was cashing in on his name and created a hate article about me. So I changed his article title to include web spammer in it as well. He and I both rank for each other’s names and probably will for a long time due to the authority of our domains. Is that the best solution? No, but it is not uncommon for people to disagree and for people to try to knock you down.

Google’s algo currently places a lot of weight on core domain authority. Threadwatch has a lot of authority. And the relevancy algorithms may also add weighting on fresh documents (and weighting on old established trusted documents). Once the freshness boost drops off if it does not pick up many more links it will rank better. Was it intentional ranking for that phrase? I didn’t intend it to, and I am not sure if Natasha did, but it’s ranking will probably fade over time, unless a big issue is made out of it and controversy causes more people to link at it.

Anyone can do this though. Not just SEOs…many political bloggers do this. Many people who are challenging the views of others do this. If your titled was “Natasha Robinson – What was the Point?” you would probably rank well for her name too.