Here are some other points:
- Squidoo brought this upon themselves by leaving their system open for the past year, even when folks were pointing out that their platform was being used a spammer safe house.
- Squidoo ignored the problem and only addressed it in the past 10 days.
- This is not, as Seth Godin's blogged, a new problem. This didn't just happen in the past week, this has been going on for a loooooong time.
- Squidoo has another huge problem I fear: the lack of transparency and labeling of what's an advertisement. This will be the next big reason why they get dinged by Google--or is this the real reason!? Maybe Google is not dinging them because of the spam, maybe it's all the paid links that look like editorial. Hmmm.....
- As many people have pointed out Seth Godin wouldn't join the discussion about the problems that have taken place over the past six months.
- Mahalo is NOT a competitor to Squidoo. Squidoo is an open platform where people can publish their own guides to the web, Mahalo is a search service where we create *one* page for each term. If you go to Squidoo and type in iPod or Paris Hotels and compare that to Mahalo you'll understand this instantly. Squidoo is a publishing platform like blogger or Geocities, we are search service/directory (I've stopped calling it a search engine since we do editorial). We have guidelines for each page and a very specific editorial process--Squidoo is a platform company. Ugh.
- I give all spammers, blackhat SEOs, and deceptive marketing companies a hard time. I have done this for a loooooooong time. I did it when Gawker bloggers took junkets where their subjects paid for their bloggers travel. I did it when PayPerPost was launched, and when Vibrant Media came out. I've come out against blackhat SEOs forever. I am NOT pointing out Squidoo's problems to take down a competitor because they are not a competitor--this is my passion. Anyone who read this blog knows I hate deceptive marketing, spam, and blackhat SEO.
- In fact, I like the concept of personal publishing and I like Seth Godin.
- I really do hope that Squidoo solves their problem quickly and that Google restores their rank.
- Squidoo did this to themselves. They knew about the problem and ignored it for a loooooooong time. They could have addressed this months ago and they didn't.
- I salute Google if they did in fact take action to protect users. That being said, I hope they respond quickly if Squidoo solves the problem.
- I think Google should warn folks if they are going to do this, and I'm wondering if they did or not. Matt care to comment?
Note: As I mentioned above Mahalo is a search service NOT a search engine. I've realized that calling it a search engine is causing a massive rift in terms or perception about the service and I don't want to be intellectually dishonest. We are not an "engine," we're a service. We write editorial and as such we are move like About.com, the Yahoo Directory, and Wikipedia. Fine, let's close that issue out. I'll stop calling it a search engine, folks can stop telling me it's not: it's all academic anyway.
1. That pretty much the gist of what I was trying to say here as there really needs to be a clear definition, otherwise there is confusion: http://www.calacanis.com/2007/06/04/loic-interviews-me-about-mahalo/#comments (Post #4)
"I'm a lot more clear on what Mahalo does after seeing this but am wondering how this space is going to be defined. This lack of a concise definition of what the space is and therefore, what Mahalo does, has created some confusion on what exactly Mahalo is all about... I think a lot of the negative feedback is based on a misunderstanding of what Mahalo is and what it is not..... the most common preconception I've seen is that Mahalo is trying to replace google; essentially that Mahalo is trying to compete head to head with google.
You say that is it not a search engine or a search directory, but a search service. I think "search service" falls flat and as you set out to define a new space and it is important that you define the space in a way that tells consumers what Mahalo is and how it can help them. Perhaps people will catch on to what Mahalo is about simply by “mahaloing” things or perhaps there is a term that can help them understand the value Mahalo can bring them… essentially Mahalo is a search filter in the sense that it is filtering out the long part of the tail in search to increase search relevancy, but how do you communicate this to consumers? Is it a defined search, revised search, interpreted search, filtered search, clean search, pure search, screened search, refined search, clarified search, developed search, enriched search, cultured search, intelligent search, proficient search, or simply a mahalo search? What is refined search, cultured search, filtered search, and enriched search combined into one word in Hawaiian? It will be interested to see how you guys nail this down, it may be as simple as getting users to “mahalo” (verb tense) so they can see for themselves, but a clearer definition couldn’t hurt...."
T
Posted at 12:03AM on Jul 12th 2007 by Trace Richardson