All things come to an end. That’s the great lesson of life, and a bittersweet one as well. Tomorrow, very simply, won’t be put off forever.

Classified Intelligence (CI) said in its latest client report that the shift to the Internet for information represents, perhaps, an end to the era of big printed books filled with everyone from auto mechanics to zydeco sellers. People have opted for the desktop and the mobile device; the advertisers who make yellow pages directories profitable have not missed this.

CI senior analyst Joe Michaud said the yellow pages model of once-a-year buys to keep pace with competitors left it vulnerable to innovators who could nimbly serve customers in a more favorable way. Michaud likened the situation to newspapers, watching helplessly as readers departed while online classifieds sites pulled in the ads people would have once paid the paper to run.

The choice became clear for competitors, in Michaud’s opinion. A little innovation, a little cost efficiency, some willingness to give up massive print revenue margins, and a drive to reach businesses whose operations are well-suited for mobile and online consumers to find, formed a model for delivering information and earning ad revenue with an Internet presence.

Several vendors like Planet Discover (owned by Gannett), Travidia, and Local.com’s Premiere Guide all want to cater to local media sites to deliver ads for those markets. They are giving people what they want when they visit a local TV or newspaper website, ads with local relevance.

It’s difficult to think that someday, those thick directories won’t be slamming onto porches and welcome mats on an annual basis. End of an era, but if my mobile phone can deliver the same information as a big book that doesn’t leave the house, it won’t be missed. Things change all the time.

However, probably a month after I created this article the post was flagged and nominated for deletion because it appeared as “spam” and appeared to have a “lack of credible sources “. After this first warning, I took a hard look at my post and even looked to the current Wikipedia post for “Advertising Agencies” as reference. Surprisingly, the two posts were very similar in nature. A top level view, followed by sources and links to agencies.

So not exactly knowing how to make it appear less like spam, I decided to beef up my sources, add a few more agencies to the list, and try again.

That’s when I got the following message:

“Please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia policy on reliable sources. Blogs are especially mentioned as not reliable sources……Also, please stop adding links to agencies to the page. Wikipedia is not a link directory – and Wikipedia is not a soapbox for advertising.

As of now, there are no sources whatsoever about Social media agency. And I fail to see the notability of that term, it is used by some blog posts – in blogs that seem to be advertising said agencies. If you want, we can have deletion discussion of the article.”

After this note, I decided to start a deletion discussion of the article – hoping to continue to improve my article and appease this Wikipedia warrior. However, I didn’t get the chance. Despite my rationale and my questions for clarity in my deletion discussion, my article was abruptly deleted. You can no longer find “Social Media Agency” on Wikipedia.

I know that Wikipedia has its own culture. That’s been made even more abundantly clear during this adventure. There’s a growing battle in Wikipedia between the “deletionists” (folks who believe that the bias toward new entries is to delete them unless they can prove their value) and the “inclusionists” (folks who believe server space is cheap and there’s no harm with a definition that only comes up when someone actively searches it). Clearly, I’m an inclusionist. I love the hubris of the deletionist: “I fail to see…” Yes, clearly you do.

Despite what the Wikipedia warrior believes, social media agencies are real. Ford Motor Company just hired one and awarded it their “global social media account.” But according to the Wikipedia warrior, they are writing checks to a fiction.

So I’d like to know your thoughts – do you think there should be a post on Wikipedia covering the “Social Media Agency”? Would you find it helpful and informative, or would you also view it as spam?

Comments

Gadgets are now shown in more of a search result style, along with snippets and such, as opposed to the former plain thumbnails grid*. This also gives more room to instantly show the author information, which is linked to a revamped author page.

Author pages are now bundling all gadgets identified by one email address, as provided in the module XML author info. If you have different gadget categories, you might be able to separate them via email addresses like john.doe+triviagadgets@gmail.com, john.doe+newsgadgets@gmail.com and so on (the plus operator is supported by Gmail and will still send all messages to the same account, where you can then handle them using Gmail’s filter options).

The search functionality is also still available, and you can mix and match sorting (hottest, most users, or newest) with categories (like all, news, tools, lifestyle). Adding a gadget has become easier than before, because when you click the “Add it now” button there will be no additional security warning to approve anymore… the gadget will be instantly added.

The only thing that seems to be missing on the new homepage is the quite crucial former “Add by URL” link to add a gadget of which you know the URL, but which isn’t yet indexed in the directory (though you can still use the official developer gadget to add by URL; and if the URL is indexed with the iGoogle directory, you can also retrieve the module by searching for the URL).

*A bit more like our old Google Modules.com actually.

[Thanks CHW!]

Comments

Google Slams Paid Links? Good or Bad?

No one except Google really knows for sure why PR dropped for these sites but it certainly looks like an extension of September’s paid directory massacre. This time Google targeted some well-known sites in the search marketing world and mainstream news too.

Sites include niche blogs like Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Roundtable, ProBlogger and nationally prominent sites such as WashingtonPost.com and Forbes.com. (More here)

>>> Should Google penalize sites that sell links? Comment here.

The reactions around the web fall into four categories. Again… these are not my opinions, just a synopsis of what I have read from hundreds of comments in blogs, articles and forums.

1. Google Is Justified
This should come as no surprise, after all Google warned us. Paid links hit at the core of why we all love Google … its quality search results. Google is perfectly justified in taking steps to protect the integrity of its SERPS.

Lowering page rank of those who sell links levels the playing field for all of us who don’t sell them. It is Google’s search engine and they can do what they want in order to keep it great and even improve it. Your Thoughts…

2. Google is Out of Control
Google sells links and should not penalize others for selling them too. Why should Google be able to tell me how to link and whom to link to? What is wrong with linking and why should I have to put a no-follow tag on a link when I genuinely like a site? How does their algorithm know that I received payment for a link?

Google is simply out to crush competition. Don’t they remember their roots? It was the webmasters who were the first adopters of Google’s search engine. It was us who made you rich Google!  One blogger called it a Google "bitch slap!" Is Google retaliating against me for criticizing them in my blog?

Is Google the next Microsoft? All of us lowly web peasants should ask forgiveness from our beloved Internet King! Google, you are a competitive monopoly who should realize that your actions impact the livelihoods of thousands of Internet entrepreneurs. Agree?

3. Why Me? Please Give My PR Back!
I don’t sell links anymore. I have removed all the links that look like they are paid. Now please reinstate my page rank! I want to thank all of my sponsors and I hope that they will keep this PR drop in perspective and continue advertising with me. I really don’t sell links, I am simply thanking my friends and partners for their support.

I am sorry I did not take your prior statements more seriously. Google, I thought that you were talking about link farms, not quality content sites like mine that sell a link here and there. I literally spend 60 hours a week writing unique content and I have now removed the links that look suspicious.

I was just kidding when I suggested my page rank loss was because I stopped using Adsense. I have written you asking for my page rank back and I am waiting for your response. Will pleading help?

4. Denial and Deflection
This is only part of an overall page rank adjustment. When the dust settles my page rank will be back to normal. No one should pay attention to PR anyways, it has nothing to do with the value of your content.

Google is doing this for show, it is not at all reflective of their internal page rank used in the search algorithm. My pageviews have gone up, not down since my page rank was lowered. I didn’t lose any sleep over it and you shouldn’t either! Do you agree?
— — —

Is Google justified with lowering the page rank of sites that sell links because it messes with their search results? Or, is Google out of control and simply protecting its turf as some have suggested? Should Google quickly reinstate the PR of sites that stop selling links? Does page rank really matter anymore? Will a lower page rank eventually cause a drop in traffic?

Please give us and our readers your thoughts and comments….

Such customization requires ceding a little of the search experience to Google; people have to be logged in to Google to benefit from the Search Add-ons. Google Operating System noted how a subscribed link will be triggered when queries match a pattern for the add-on.

To see these specialized results, people subscribe to the link provided on the Search Add-on creator’s Google Co-op profile page. Get enough people to subscribe, and the add-on could be added to Google’s directory of subscribed links, where more people should be able to find it.

On the security side, Google’s patent application for the Subscribed Links/Search Add-ons described how they will counter potential issues like destructive output text, or induced overflows of the system.

Only a few Search Add-ons appear in Google’s Add-on Directory, unsurprising due to the relatively unknown nature of the service before today. We don’t see it as a worthy competitor yet to the Smart Answers used at Ask.com, as Google has few add-ons available and requires one to be logged in to use them.

Responding to request for comment as to why the directories in question had vanished from the search results and whether Google was penalizing paid link directories especially, a Webmaster Central source replies:

There’s no "outright penalty" for being a directory, but we do value, as I’m sure you’ve heard, "unique, compelling content."

Directories can run into the problem of not containing original information. Should the webmaster believe their site has fallen in search results, there’s no reason they can’t add more "unique, compelling content" to help their site rise.

So there you have it, though it’s still not an answer (and we really wouldn’t expect one) as to whether the directories affected most were the result of the paid links reporting form.

But we can assume from that answer that Google is treating link directories much the same way it treats splogs and spammy websites. As long as the directory has some value to the end user (i.e., the content is king philosophy), then there shouldn’t be any beef.

Further, as is true with any site, if penalized by Google (and if Google search results are a major goal), directory owners can add content and resubmit for indexing.

The site never came out of Beta before this sudden plan to end the service. The reason for ending this service is not yet very clear. There is simply a message on the site that reads “Yahoo! apologizes deeply, but we will be closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007.”

However, some rumours are there in the industry that Yahoo! is planning to make some big changes in their entertainment division, including potentially shutting down Yahoo Music’s subscription service and Yahoo TV.

Yahoo! Podcasts was launched some two years back to allow users to search and listen to Podcasts in different categories, subscribe to them, and rate their favorites. But it was not able to gain popularity as there were no RSS feeds and one has to login with a Yahoo! ID in order to download audio files instead of listening to them through a pop-up Yahoo! audio player.

There are some alternative podcasts services which might be benefited by this new.

Comments

"a search on dmoz (the Open Directory’s nickname) does not return the home page in the search results.

Similarly, searches for open directory or open directory project also don’t list the site at the usual dmoz.org address. Yes, the screenshot shows a page at search.dmoz.org — but normally, the home page would be listed at www.dmoz.org or just dmoz.org

(as you can see at Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask, for example)."

The best part is that ‘a search for www.dmoz.org‘ does not even show results of the Dmoz home page. To add more insult, the home page does is not even included in Google’s cache.

Comments

Finking On Paid Linking?

The reason that speculation has arisen is that though there was a seeming spate of directories hit, the number of them – up to 60 or so that we know of – is relatively small compared to the number of directories out there, hundreds or thousands passing on PageRank.

One theory suggests that people are using Google’s controversial paid links report form, implemented last spring to a furious response. However, shortly after Matt Cutts’ invitation to report instances of paid links, Cutts clarified that he and Google’s webspam team weren’t interested in reports on directories, only instances similar to what he cited on his blog.

Nevertheless, Cutts followed up that question with some rules of thumb for evaluating a directory’s value:

- Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site.

- What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.

- If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.

Webmaster Takeaways

Paid link reports are not     automatic Mind your link neighborhoods Don’t sell links that pass     PageRank Google doesn’t like being     gamed Penalized directories may be     a message » Give our readers your take

That may or may not be a lot to consider, and given that a select few directories have been affected, it may be a cue that Google is considering it more than before. It may be just a strong message being sent, a warning to clean things up.

Rand Fishkin ups the considerations with a lengthy post at SEOMoz entitled "What Makes a Good Web Directory, and Why Google Penalized Dozens of Bad Ones." The most interesting suggestion is that Google is manually taking down directories that violate its guidelines, and not necessarily with a strategy that involves spam reports, but rather by taking what might be obvious cues:

Banner Ads [for paid links] from Your Directory on SEO Sites – It’s like waving a flag with a voice-activated, wind powered speaker that yells "ban me! ban me!" Sure, you might get clicks and money and submissions, but you’ve gotta know that search quality team members read SEO blogs, too – so if you do this, make sure your directory is ready to be manually reviewed by search engineers.

Marketing to Webmasters – If your forum signature at Digitalpoint (sorry to stereotype, but it’s just so true) contains links to three directories you own, you’re probably in possession of three obviously manipulative directories. I’m sure there’s a couple exceptions, but if I were Matt Cutts, I’d just tell one of my quality control guys to go spend a few days trawling DP for directory domains.

Speaking of DigitalPoint, some there seem to agree that they’re being targeted, and are smelling "rats." One such forum member says:

I have been in touch with a lot of directory owners, free and paid.

Also blog network owners and many have lost PR and SERPs ranking.

I think it is simply from Googles new ‘Report Paid Listings’

For those who report paid listings, DP is a gold mine for these rats.

It’s important to note also that Cutts says the reports, if used, are not fed automatically into the webspam algorithm, but are only starting points for review, suggesting a report is not automatic guilt.

Until Google speaks up though, we may not know whether people are finking on paid linking, or if Google just sent the directory world a message via some notorious suspects, but webmasters will be free to speculate until they do.