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Self-Consciousness & SEO
By Julie | June 19, 2007
…or, “Just use the internet to do illegal downloads and porn like the rest of us,” says my pal Jawa.
Being an SEO means being self-conscious about your own actions and the actions of others on the Internet. At least it does for me, possibly because it’s semi-universal, or possibly because I am a freak with a degree in literature and in navel-gazing fiction writing.
A friend posts to their personal blog about the ‘worst online shopping experience ever’ and links the offending retailer? I comment and explain how to no-follow — because even if you go for negative anchor text, there’s still some link equity to it for the site targeted.
I like a book, or a restaurant, or buy a shiny new bike part? Well, I can post about it and no-follow, or post about it and not link it because I like it, but not in THAT way, kind of like being in junior high and liking my square dance partner but not like boyfriend-like, just in that ok-as-a-square-dance-partner and this-phys-ed-unit-is-stupid way.
My mom reads an online review? I do a text analysis to determine if it’s real or totally bogus, written by the owner, and then I tell her about inherent bias in user-supplied reviews.
A friend posts a picture of their cat? I suggest taking it to a LOLCat generator, or using the video feature on their camera phone to help further pollute the electrons of the universe with more grainy video/image of pets.
My bike club has web site hosting problems? I look at the domain headers and sigh a lot.
Life would sure be simpler if I did something sane for a living, like garbage collection.
Topics: SEO, blogging, cats, domains, local search, porn, social media, video |
June 20th, 2007 at 9:33 am
That’s funny, I thought you were a garbabe collector. Don’t you collect garbage from the field?
June 20th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Julie - Having grown up in a family involved in garbage collection (complete with Mafia tie accusations from crazed neighbors, despite a very non-Italian last name), and having worked a couple summers for Waste Management myself after my parents got out of the business, I can say that even garbage collection has its moments of not being so simple or sane.
Of course, it was usually a lot easier to leave those moments at the office then it is in this world…but some of those moments also involved maggots, very foul smells, and finding out just how dirty and disgusting some people can be.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Well, I mean sane in the sense of ‘actively contributing to society.’ The removal of waste often seems far more vital, and less self-conscious, than the process of manipulating electron streams in remote databases for the retrieval by the masses.
If I stopped optimizing, it would be less catastrophic than if WM didn’t pick up all the trash in Blaine next week.