Sphinn is dead! Sphinn is dead!... oh wait, I mean ..... the Sky is falling!the Sky is falling! Or at least that seems to be the consensus if you watch the twitter-sphere and blog posts that are popping up all over.

To my fellow Sphinners, I figured I would take a brief moment to post my thoughts. I have invested 3 years and many, many hours over there. Enough to be in the top 10 for pretty much every category. When things went south (engagement died after 2.0 launch) I even suffered the slings and arrows of mates asking, “Why do you still bother with the place”. In short, it is one place that has had a major affect on my life from many angles.

So, we have no more voting. Is it a knee-jerk reaction? Is it the right move? As with many I do see some problems with it and don't even know what to make of the resulting model. But it is true that engagement is down. They need to try something I am hard pressed to call it a forum, because that would imply we can start a thread. Instead of being force fed which topics we can choose to engage over. That being said, those admins I have talked to at Sphinn have hinted it may come back.

But that is neither here nor there. At the end of the day this is Sphinn's decision and they should have the right to do so. Yes, I know about all the festering venom that is going on today. Believe me, I have been inundated with it. But really, I don't want them or anyone else telling me how to do business, thus I shall support their decision to mandate their own business model(s).

So just chill ok?

So, that is my official stance. I have talked to some Sphinn staff over the last few months and I know their hearts are in the right place. This isn't some shill for Search Engine Land. This isn't about the 'old boys club' crushing the little guy. This isn't about the editors pimping their friends and stamping out their enemies. This isn't a power grab....

This is a group of people making what THEY feel is the best decision moving forward with their site. Let it go. If I can let it be after the investment I have put in, so can you.

We shall see where it leads and reserve judgement until then... Ok?

Updates; some random notes along the way

Will they keep submitting? - one of the stated problems was a low number of votes and content quality/diversity. One commment i read that has me thinking was, "I don't know if my more recent submissions got lost in a server glitch or were moderated out, but that reduced my interest in making any more submissions.". This is a good point. If it turns out that a lot of folks are submitting things, that are deemed unworthy by Editors, they will stop using the site in short order. This will likely limit the core of submitters and potentially lose some of the new faces/content (not to mention potential engagement) Sphinn is seeking to find.

Social Voice - another idea that's been floated a fair bit it to have/leave Twitter/Facebook buttons. This one is interesting but can lead to the same problem already in place; voting advantages more established players bring. Yes, see how I didn't say 'voting gangs'? Why? Because it is about as nasty a term as 'link bait' (I prefer 'magnet' these days). I know there are posts (here and other popular sites) that are 'meh' to me that get a lot of Tweets etc..Thus I divert to the masses. But using this approach on Sphinn would likely just produce more of the same.

Who's the keeper of the flame? - and the above point brings us back to editorial diversity. As I said, I tend not to always know what will be of interest to the search space. I have authors that come to me and ask, "Do you think this post is good endouh (for the Trail)?". I generally tell them to throw it against the wall and see what happens (as long as it is reasonably thought out). I am constantly surprised that some of the posts go anywhere, but they do. This highlights the fact that we don't always know what is best and now Sphinn has left that in the hands of the few. We will have a more limited editorial slant towards things in all likelihood.

Hybrid approach - on the original Sphinn thread Icredibill had an interesting idea, "You could leave the Sphinn voting intact, just not make the voted items automatically move to the front page. Leave the voted items under "Getting Hot" and then make the front page an editorial decision. That way members can see what other members think is hot vs. what the editors hand pick and nobody loses." - that's not entirely bad but isn't too far off what we have now. Would it have the desired effect? To have members voting more. I doubt this would do much to increase that.

Engagement is down every where - and that's been a fact of life every blogger has seen since the rise of Twitter and Facebook (of note). And yes, comment spam is up, (damned SEOs!!). But does that mean I am shutting down my comments like some people have (note; I guess that makes me an attention whore). Voting was a socially engaging part of the site. I am saddened to see any removal of potential involvement. Even if an article was shilled to the front page, the surrounding engagement on why it sucked, was at least remarkable.

Swiming upstream - another concern a few folks had mentioned, and Andy and I touched on in the thread, is that comments would be fragmented. This has also been a problem. Do I comment on the post or the Sphinn thread? I generally do the former as I don't have the time to do both. I hope that we will see more from Salmon which would be GREAT for situations such as this (tie in the fragmented commentary on the web).

I call bullshit - I was also reading some rather meaningless 'great move, I look forward to commenting!'. I looked at the folks saying that and they weren't commenting/engaging on the site much lately.. it came off as some industry ass kissing. Give me a break ok? I wasn't sitting around there just subbing and voting. I have more than 600+ comments, more than most. I don't see this change bringing back those that already weren't egnaging. Unless of course the rock star ass kissing is the motivation. BAH!

Building a better mousetrap - and what about evolving the model further? I'd like to see broader categorization like we used to have like Search having sub-categories such as; Link Building, Content Strategy, On-site, In-house, Technical and so forth. Then, we could also have more intuitive tracking tools that I could subscribe to only certain sections. If we have everything lumped under 'SEO' it makes it harder for me to really tailor the content to my liking. If the interactions are chopped in half (commenting being the only avenue now) I would like to see some more enhancements to make Sphinn more useful to me.

Editor diversity - oh man... I may be subjective here, but PLEASE get a real geek on there folks, ok? Since the drama started last week I have kept saying that when I submit something of Bill's (or someone subs a patent post from here), they go nowhere on Sphinn. Oh yea, put twitter in the title, go on a rant about so-and-so, and WHAM it's gold. But the actual geeky stuff SEOs can actually learn/evolve from? Nada. So, Matt/Michele/Danny, please get some diversity of editors. This does present to oportunity for more diverse content on Sphinn. But representation from all sectors needs to be present in the editorial staff or diversity will only contract IMO.

Mass submission - there is an oportunity here for another improvement. In the past I would have to go back to the site over and over because we weren't encouraged to submit 4-5 stories in a row. But for me, because of my RSS activities for the newsletter, I would like to drop by a few times a day and submit a handful of stories. I was certainly guilty of not submitting each interesting post I found each day. That is because I would have to do it 4-5x each day and time is paramount in my busy world. So I hooked my Google Reader 'shares' to Facebook/Twiter and I am done.. sharing is much easier that way.

Things are a changin' - and yes folks, it really isn't a social site anymore. It is a new model and Danny put it simply with, "Yes, and it marks the departure of Sphinn from being a social media / social sharing site. It's becoming an editorial site." - so you might as well get that into ya and get on with life. Google makes an algo change, we adapt and move on. We search peeps should be good at that.

Not all is as it seems? - Another interesting comment was (by BrianL), "...part of the issue has to do with the software itself. There are times where for no apparent reason, we can't log in. I've seen widgets on stories that I wanted to vote on that gave an error when clicking to vote." - I know this to be a fact and I'd appreciate any comments on the point. After Sphinn 2,0 launch I know A LOT of people stopped using Sphinn because of the problems logging in etc... This surely has played into it.

You still have a vote - for those that are concerned about the editorial nepotism and OBC (old boys club) I submit to you that indeed you can still vote. Just stop using the site. At the end of the day traffic/visitors is a vote. Not happy? Then use yours... stay away.

And so my friends, I will at least give it a chance. What have I got to lose? Nothing really. As for those worried about their content getting less visibility, well you really shouldn't be counting on any one source for your traffic. Never and I mean NEVER let Google be your clients core traffic source... and don't let Sphinn be. Here on the Trail we're always seeking new ways to get more visibility and this won't be much of a problem. Just work on creating interesting/remarkable/informative content and the rest will sort itself out.

Nothing to see here my SEO brethren

(Guest post from Marc Bitanga)

As anyone NOT living under a rock would know, there has been all sorts of hype around Twitter, and rightly so. Recently Danny Sullivan reported from Twitter’s Chirp conference that Twitter has reached 19 billion searches per month. Wow. Not bad! That’s a big number for a 3 year old company. Here are some staggering stats:

• Twitter is processing over 50 million tweets/day
• The 3 year old social network has over 100 million users
• There are over 70,000 registered apps that use Twitter’s API
• In 3 short years, they’ve reached over 10 billion tweets

So the figures are there to back up that Twitter is a game changer. But is it a Google killer?

As this information was published, there was quite a bit of oooh’s and ahh’s over this very large figure. With some suggesting that Twitter search could support a profitable pay per click advertising platform.

But we’ve got to ask. How good is Twitter as a search engine? Does it rival Google for information retrieval? Would a Twitter pay per click platform rival Google Adwords?

The Twitter Search Engine Test

19 billion searches per month is undoubtedly quite impressive. Especially when considering that figure outpaces both Yahoo & Bing combined. Since Twitter search is being compared to Google, I was curious to find out whether Twitter can rival Google as a search engine. And whether pay per click advertising is a viable way to monetize Twitter search.

I ran a few quick test queries to study Twitter’s search engine prowess.

A popular and profitable sector for Google is the travel & accommodation category. I used this as the basis for the test. Let’s Look for a Hotel in Seattle….

Search Query: “Seattle Hotels”

The 10 most recent results seemed to have some useful resources. However, the results lacked credibility. Here are some observations:

• Twitter search retrieves results from anyone tweeting about the subject whether or not you are following the user profiles. Therefore the results haven’t been curated by your network of friends. The network that you follow is probably Twitter’s biggest strength and resource for personalization, but it isn’t being utilized in their search engine.
• There’s no real algorithm to see here other than the most recent timeline. This can be easily gamed by spam accounts.
• Another issue with Twitter’s search results is that if a tweet contains a link they are usually cloaked by shortened URLs. Viewing shortened URLs from your network of friends is fine. But viewing a list of shortened URLs from a list of unknown users can be iffy.

Search Query: “Seattle Marriott Hotel”

No search results for the search query. If Twitter is serious about attracting advertisers to a search based pay per click advertising platform they’ll have to be a reliable source for information. If the search engine doesn’t retrieve any results for the most basic of search queries, then it isn’t much of a resource.

Search Query: “Seattle Marriott”

The results were a grab bag of different types of tweets.

• There were some foursquare results from people checking into a Marriott location.
• Some results were for job postings for the local hotel.

But let’s break it down further:

• Twitter contains quite a bit of noise. Such as foursquare tweets that aren’t really helpful to a random person searching.
• Twitter search doesn’t attempt to decipher the user’s search intent. From a logical perspective, a person searching for “Seattle Marriott” is likely looking for accommodations, not a job.

Search Query: “Seattle”

I tried a much broader search query more out of curiosity than anything else. Again, not the most helpful search results.

Overall Findings

And the result? Google doesn’t have anything to worry about for the time being. Twitter is not a search engine.

I ran a several more search queries with the mindset of a traveler, both from a national and local perspective. I found the experience to be hit or miss. If you try to use Twitter in the same manner as you use Google, Bing or Yahoo you will likely be disappointed.

Here is why:

• Twitter search doesn’t have an infinite index. You are limited to the messages that people broadcast and the links they share. As a result there are gaping holes when performing some basic search queries.

• It’s not reliable. Since the twitter index contains gaps, it’s not a reliable source of information. This makes you think twice before using it for practical purposes.

• It doesn’t have a very sophisticated algorithm, which leaves it open to spam. Here is what we know about Twitter’s search algorithm:
  • Search queries will typically yield a set of results based on the most recent timelines.
  • Twitter will promote the most popular tweets (messages that have been retweeted several times), even if it is a few days old.

• The search engine doesn’t analyze the intent of the person searching. This results in a broad spectrum of search results for certain queries.

• Twitter search has a duplicate content problem. If you happen to search for a phrase that’s contained in several retweets, Twitter will show those messages in the search results.

• The search results lack credibility. Two factors add to this credibility issue.
  • Spam accounts – Accounts with no avatar or with names that look suspicious.
  • Cloaked URLs – URL shorteners hide the real URL. This isn’t an issue if you trust the person sending the message, but when presented with a link from an unknown user you might think twice before clicking it.

• The Twitter index contains too much noise. Conversational tweets between users also occasionally appear in search results.

Twitter’s search function doesn’t fit the mold of a search engine. It’s quite simply a site search feature for an extremely popular social network. Does this mean that the search engine doesn’t have any value? Twitter search does serve a purpose. It’s an excellent source for finding information for real-time trending topics such as:

• The latest celebrity or pop culture news – The death of Michael Jackson
• Commentary related to current events – 2009 Iranian protesters
• Natural disasters – Recent California earth quakes

Twitter has mentioned it has no plans to have a comprehensive index. They will likely focus on improving the relevancy of real-time tweets.

As for whether Twitter can monetize the use of their search engine, without access to keyword research data it’s difficult to tell user behavior and user expectations from Twitter search. However based on these findings, Twitter has a bit of work to do to improve the relevance of their search engine before it can be considered a Google killer.

About the Autor; Marc Bitanga is the SEO Manager for EA Sports. Marc has managed SEO and PPC campaigns for agencies as well as in-house teams. His passion for search began over 10 years ago when Google Search Appliance was first released. Although search marketing is his main focus, he’s also active in web analytics, conversion optimization & social media. Read more from Marc on his online marketing blog.

Information Sources:

• Twitter; 50 million tweets a day! - Techcrunch
• Twitter snags over 100 million users - Economic Times
• Twitter registered created - New Statesman

SocialDeck: The Key to Cross Platform Gaming For Google.me

Enlarge

Yesterday I wrote Is Google's Social Gaming Strategy a Facebook Killer? and today with the purchase of Waterloo Ontario based SocialDeck the Search Giant moved further along in its' plans to create a cross device Social gaming platform. SocialDeck’s experienced engineers have been porting games across multiple devices and developed a non-game product called Spark which provides social networking for players across Blackberry, iPhone, and Facebook.

The new Google algorithm Brand Update

Recently Google confirmed that they updated their algorithm for, as a Google spokesperson stated, “for searches that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain.” Barry Schwartz and Matt McGee had some excellent write-ups on Search Engine Land and are certainly worth reading.

How does this affect SEM on the brand-orientated SERPs?

The obvious answer is this update makes impossible to offer alternative suggestions to the “brand”. Not just organically, but through paid search as well. It has effectively blocked others from competing with a brand on Brand-SERP*. This is a very aggressive version of the “Vince” algorithm update. Bing is doing this as well.

Google Vs Facebook?

After I wrote Does Google & Verizon Framework Agreement Save Net Neutrality? I searched on Google for the phrase 'Eric Schmidt Social gaming' and got a very interesting result! We've said for weeks on RadioDojo that Google has a Social Gaming strategy in play. Why wouldn't they? Social gaming is what is driving the increased usage on Facebook. Smart phones are enjoying brisk growth and Google's Android flavor is at the head of the class.

Google Buys Social Startup Ångströ

Enlarge Angstro Home Page

Friday Seems to be Announcement Day At the GooglePlex

Since July Google has been on an acquistion spree buying Social Networking services including its  3 rd consecutive Friday Purchase of social search startup Angstro, In the post announcing the sale there are a few hints about the reasons for and what the the fit is with Google. The bolded text below was added by me for emphasis.

Almost four years ago I set out to solve a deceptively simple problem: 95% of the Google Alerts I received about the entrepreneur Adam Rifkin were about the Hollywood movie director instead.
I worked with Salim Ismail, another “pub/sub” pioneer with a disturbing doppelgänger to co-found Ångströ and unlock the power of your social graph.

With the help of investors like CommerceNet and advisors such as Avery Lyford, our team shipped apps to discover hot new photos on Facebook, improve Caller ID by using LinkedIn profiles, adding style and links to Twitter, create a real-time social address book, and a slew of other services (some of which are open source).

Which would seem they mostly bought Ångströ out for their experience as engineers. There definitely seems to be a pattern to what Google have been buying the last three or 4 months. Small social startups with experienced engineers at scaling Social platforms.

Google made its 25th acquisition since CEO Eric Schmidt’s declaration nearly a year ago that the company was looking to make a purchase a month. Google’s early purchases were spread across many businesses—from mobile to video compression. The company is on an even brisker pace of acquisitions if you include the mobile and other assets being purchased in VC's held by Google or Google Principles.

4 years geeking and still yakking away!

Another year has passed which means it's… blog-iversary time. If you’ve ever wondered about the screwed up domain name (HuoMah = FireHorse) well....

Huo Mah (or Ma) = Ho-ma : (or if you feel adventurous = Who-oh-ma) - It means of course; Fire Horse - and the Blog, inventively enough; the Fire Horse Trail

It stems from my years as an avid practitioner and student of the Martial Arts and Chi-kung. It is merely my Chinese astrological symbol – more on that here.  This should also help clear up my penchant for eastern flavours and honorable offerings as well….

Anyway... on with the party!

To date we've put in some 500+ posts from myself and the guest bloggers and over 3800 comments. Over the last year we had more than 160 000 (unique?) visitors and over 200 000 page views (not including the Dojo).

"I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit, I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”" - - Hemingway

 

Some high points of the last year

SEO Training Dojo – probably the biggest news, not to mention labour of love, was the launch last fall of our ass kicking SEO community. And the best part? I have probably learned more than I have taught. If is nothing short of AWESOME (inside joke). Here's our mantra!

More SEMMY awards! - We (myself and Dojo peeps) had 14 SEMMY nominations and I was fortunate enough to win in the 'Technical SEO' category... which was super groovy!

WebMaster Radio – I managed more appearances there including once on SEM Synergy and Webcology a few times (3 on each total now)... Which is always a blast. I hope to do more again soon. (it also got me thinking... more on that shortly).

Trail on the grow – another, more recent development, is the addition of new full time writers here on the trail. I am quite stoked about the move and look forward

We Gypsies get around – I have also been writing in a few places including Search Engine Journal, SEO Bullshit, WordStream and coming soon, Search Engine Land. A huge thanks to those folks for having me on!

SEO Dojo Radio - we also recently decided to get vocal with the (Dojo Radio) SEO podcats which was born from the members prodding. We used to hang on voice after Friday Chat and peeps thought our ramblings would be worth sharing (crazy nutters they are). So we are 7 weeks into that experiment.(check it out)

And really, so much more. It might be my advancing age or just the massive amounts of 'awesomeness' that surrounds the place, but I am sure there more I've forgotton. Ultimately what is life without people? The ultimately goodiness that was the previous 12 months...365 days...8760 hours..525 600 minutes... is the great people I have met, and old friends enjoyed. WAY to long a list to put here.. but ya'll just make it worthwhile (and thanks to those special ones that pick me up when I want to give it up)

Popular Posts

Here are some of the more popular posts from the year that was... No, not ordering by what I liked, this is what was getting the most interest;

My Big Ass List of SEO Blogs – man, what a poor choice in title's. Ever since I have been getting search referrers for 'big ass' related queries...sigh.

The SEO guide to Google personalized search – an entry that seems almost an annual thing for me. We looked at how personalization works and where it is headed.

18 Must Follow Link Building Experts on Twitter – this was one of the most popular posts, and short and sweet at that! Much thanks to Melanie on this one.

Google re-ranking and personalized search study– this was a post where we went over some of the data from our last round of research into Google flux and personalizations. And have no fear, we're currently organizing round 3!

Google Analytics tips for SEO – while not really my forte, it was part of a 3 part series I had on some GA goodies for the SEO world. Certainly an area everyone should be up on by now.

YouTube Optimization and Universal Search – is a post from Terry that is still one of the best of it's kind. If you aren't up on Video and Universal, this is a great place to start.

SEO Benchmarks and KPI – back to the data again huh? Here we have a compiled list of measuring metrics that the entire SEO Dojo gang worked on a while back. Great stuff there is deffo strength in numbers! (get it?)

Understanding linking intent; the spam connection – one of the few geeky posts borne from patents/papers to actually make the list of 'most popular' posts from the last year. Come on folks, I know it's boring, but there is GOLD in them thar hills!

Facebook and SEO – and of course, how could this one miss even if it just pood poo'd the whole thang? It has search AND social in it... duh... no brainer. But I did actually anjoy the ride... A worthy addition.

And there are some of the more popular posts from the past year. I say 'popular' because I can't really choose my favs since they're like children to me; I love them all euqally.

Looking ahead

It’s a safe bet that the Trail will continue to be active with more uber search geekiness and plenty of new guest riders to keep it interesting. While there isn’t as much ranting going on a there once was, surely something in this whacky industry will get me going at some point as well.

Thanks again to all the fine folks that have supported us, the thousands that promoted the trail and of course the MANY wonderful peeps I have encountered over the years, (easily the best part o’ blogging).

Cya next year…same time, same place – m’kay?

Is it relevant yet?

Well it seems that Google's realtime search is growing up. Although the name might be misleading as it seems to only search Twitter. But the question remains, does it matter? Will it have an impact on search and SEO? I decided to poke around and see for myself just what we have here... so mount up folks and we'll go for a ride.

UPDATE; Tony let me know in the comments that it is also picking up FB,as well as FriendFeed (here) They just seems to have less weight. I also noted that a 'site' operator also works;

...anyway, on with the journey...

As any long time readers of the Trail would know, not only do I have an obsession with search engines, but also search evolution. One such evolution over the last few years we've seen the rise of Real Time and Social Search engines.

Google got into the RTS (real time search) last year and as of yesterday, it found it's own home as a vertical. But the question remains, is it relevant and what does it mean to search professionals?