WebProNews

I've always felt that comments have the ability to enhance articles, as they expand the conversation and often provide more thoughtful insight into the topic being written about. Of course this is not always true. There is plenty of spam, and always a fair amount of unconstructive criticism, name calling, and general ugliness. But it's a small price to pay for making content more community-driven, which still overall, I feel is more useful to the end-user in the long run.

With this concept in mind, I'd like to present you with some of the most popular WebProNews articles of 2008 in terms of discussion. I'm not going by page views, or inbound links. I'm going simply by the amount of discussion that was generated from each in the comments sections. This is the stuff WebProNews readers have felt passionately about, or felt that their own two cents were worth adding to. Feel free to continue the discussion on any of them (or the overall list in general). Discussion is always welcome and encouraged here, even if that means we have to delete some ED pill links.

Let's do this countdown style because it's more fun that way...

25. Spitzer Scandal Sheds Light On Web Prostitution

03/13 - New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's scandal exposed a huge industry of underground activity. 

24. EFF Sues President Bush Over Internet Surveillance

09/21 - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush and others in his administration for the illegal surveillance of emails and telephone calls without a warrant.

23. Blogging Success Takes A Few Months

08/15 - The popularity contest of blogging and gaining links and traffic doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and work.

22. This Cesspool We Call the Internet

10/11 - Google CEO Eric Schmidt refers to the Internet as a Cesspool. Justified or not?

21. 10 Ways To Increase Pages Indexed

Jason Miller runs down some things to help you get Google to pay more attention to your site.

20. Google Devaluing DMOZ and Yahoo! Links?

10/08 - Google stopped suggesting that you should be listed in relevant directories in their webmaster guidelines.

19. Google Offers Inbound Link Advice

10/13 - Google’s Maile Ohye confirms what SEO experts have been saying for years: content and inbound links are most important, and in that order.

18. Retailers Panic Over Google Site Search

03/24 - Google draws both praise and criticism after making it easier for people to search within a small number of sites by adding a second search box to the top results for those retailers.

17. Craigslist: Little Ads, $81 Million In Revenue

04/03 - Craigslist is doing quite well for minimal advertising.

16. eBay attracts more complaints

12/08 - Problems for buyers stemming from a holiday contest add to the criticism over eBay, which ad previously been generated more by sellers.

15. American Express Guide Calls SEOs A "Waste"

03/15 - Comments from the Credit Card company ruffled some feathers in the search engine optimization community.

14. Rumor: Dmoz Selling To BOTW

09/19 - It was rumored that BOTW was looking to buy DMOZ, and speculation over Google juice was a hot topic of discussion.

13. What Google’s Matt Cutts Sees In 2009

12/07 - In an interview with Mike McDonald, Matt Cutts discusses some changes that lie ahead for Google in the new year.

12. eBay To Move To PayPal Only In Australia

05/13 - Talk of eBay going PayPal-only anywhere was sure to get people fired up.

11. Top 10 Ways To Raise Your Site In Google

02/15 - Jason Miller talks about some things you can do to improve your search engine rankings.

10. Congress To Make eBay A Rat

09/24 - Three bills in Congress would require online marketplaces and auction sites to secretly police affiliates suspected of selling stolen goods.

9. Cuil Crashes And Burns At Launch

07/28 - A so-called "Google-Killer" launched, but it crashed right after. Not a good start.

8. Yahoo Patent Filing Sheds Light On PageRank

01/16 - Yahoo dabbles in ranking algorithms that incorporate more user behavior data.

7. AdSense Earnings Down?

02/05 - AdSense earnings for many mysteriously dwindle.

6. New York Goes Gangsta With Tax Law

05/06 - Online retailers doing business in New York would be required to register with the state to collect taxes, or face audits for prior quarters for failing to register.

5. Will Personal Search Turn SEO On Its Ear?

11/17 - SEO Bruce Clay talks to Mike McDonald about how search engines will be changing in 2009, and how SEO will be affected.

4. Searching For America's Next President

07/04 - People just love to get into heated political debates, especially in an election year.

3. Should You Stop Blogging?

10/21 - Someone calls blogging dead, and people are always going to react.

2. Seller Boycott Fails To Impress eBay

02/25 - Sellers boycott eBay. No policy changes made. Sellers furious.

And the WPN article with the largest amount of discussion in 2008 is...

1.  Google Answers Some Tricky Questions

11/10 - During a live chat Q&A, Googlers Matt Cutts and Maile Ohye, among others, faced the burning questions of webmasters around the world. Together, they put to rest some fears and myths, and confirmed some speculations.

And There You Have It.

We've posted thousands of articles over the course of the year, and these 25 were the ones that people had the most to say about. It was fun to go back through the archives and put the list together, as well as go back over some old comments that WebProNews readers have left for 2008. You have left your mark on the discussion, and your voice will remain in the archives for future generations to study. Thank you WebProNews readers for your contribution.