Always controversial John Calcanis believes that his newly released human-edited Mahalo 
search engine is going to offer top search results and be the next top engine that people will use alongside Google. Big name investors like Mark Cuban are on board, so it is possible that we will see his entire Dallas Mavericks basketball team special guest star as 12 of the existing human editors after being eliminated (embarrassed) quickly from the NBA playoffs.
My question is, will the search query “why did Dirk Nowitzki choke during the playoffs” be fairly answered?
The whole premise of building a team of 40 human editors that will hand-build quality search results for only the 
top queries (human bandwith issues) to combat spammy search results has about as much appeal as Mr. Garrison’s controversial but “extra enjoyable” method of steering his newly invented “Segway” transport in that South Park episode when he was fed up with long lines at the airport.
Basically, I would rather take my chances weeding through a few spammy machine-driven Google search results and find the handful of results that are most relevant to my search over some editors (that might not be an expert in a particular topic) telling me what sites are most relevant.
We all know Google doesn’t have perfect search results, and they have assigned experts (top educational institutions and experts in the field) to rate sites via their Google Coop system for important search topics such as Health related-topics. Unfortunately, these results are not featured on the same results page and the featured-links to see these hand-crafted results often goes unseen and mistaken for ads when people are searching Google for information.
Danny Sullivan makes a great point when he says “Overall, the best solution probably isn’t all human or all machine but some combination of the two.”
Until then, if Mahalo’s algo team can give me a better reason than Google or Yahoo! on why the Boston Celtics got screwed with the 5th pick of that 2007 NBA lottery, I’ll jump on board cause us boys in Boston are seriously searching for answers. Any thoughts Dirk No-Win-Ski?
May 31st, 2007
Posted by
Frank Antonellis |
Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engines |
one comment
Many big brand sites rely on flashy designs to try to capture their audience. The problem as we all know is that Flash can’t be crawled effectively and spidered by search engines. They might pick up a few links, but not much that will help. Bummer right?
All of a sudden Flash agencies and designers start throwing out the SWFObject.js solution. This is a JavaScript function that will contain text within a Div Layer and display it if someone doesn’t have Flash installed by adding crawlable text for search engines to index. Web developers will argue that the SWFobject is a valid alternative for websites to get past this Flash crawling issue. The arguments for using this Object is that as long as the information presented in these hidden DIV layers are identical to the text in Flash, there is no problem at all and search engines will not penalize the website.
The thing is, if reported, how confident is an SEO that their website won’t be banned for using this, even if using identical text? With frequent updates and facelifts to any site throughout the year, especially a big brand website, it could eventually turn into a less knowledgable person inserting a “harmless” keyword here, or a keyword there, not thinking much of it or understanding the consequence. As we know, one of Google’s commandments says that all content on an HTML page should be visible to users.
Google engineer Matt Cutts nor any other search engine representative have not made any direct comments about it (that I could find at least). This only gets me thinking, if you are an SEO consultant or firm out there, is it safe to approve or suggest the use of this SWFObject.js when this hasn’t been directly discussed. Is it responsible, if you are a paid consultant for a company, to recommend using this object? I would take the safer route, unless I found information that said otherwise, especially if it wasn’t a website I owned. But then again, is it okay to just build everything in Flash now using this technique?
May 22nd, 2007
Posted by
Frank Antonellis |
Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing |
one comment
I am not sure why I like reading the latest news about Second Life, the online virtual world, other than deep down inside I must really want to drop everything going on in my current life and start an alternate existence in a virtual world where I can escape everything and acquire a lightsaber. Kind of like when I was a kid and I really, really, really wanted to be Han Solo and would give everything up on planet Earth to live in Luke Skywalker’s hometown of Tattoine. I was 7 years old.
I had a great discussion with Search Expert Amanda Waddington in Boston’s Logan airport before the last WMW Conference in Las Vegas in November, and it was during that conversation where she introduced me to the potential marketing opportunities that exist in this virtual world. She also discussed it in one of her sessions at the conference and although I found it to be a bit of a stretch at that time, at last count, Second Life has 165,000 users. What the hell do I know!
Playboy must be listening to Amanda because according to 3PointD, they are one of the next to join the online commmunity and create their own presence. Just when 165,000 geeks think they can escape a real world of rejection, their second world is introducing virtual Playboy bunnies named Mandy & Candy. Time to save up for the Virtual Ferrari.
May 14th, 2007
Posted by
Frank Antonellis |
Metaverse Marketing |
3 comments
Neil Patel is turning into quite an interesting character with his latest blog. I think the guy is only like 22 (fascinating when a guy can “earn his bones” at such an early age, gotta love the Web) but has gained much attention with his networking skills and social media ideas that he has made quite a name for himself in the Search world. I found his latest blog entry to be great on how being shy doesn’t pay off and how he makes a point to “meet one new person everyday.” It’s a great attitude and I absolutely can see how he has made this work for him. Although I work from home, I guess it’s a great enough reason to convince my wife why I need to drive to the local Hooters this upcoming weekend. Right? ;-)
May 11th, 2007
Posted by
Frank Antonellis |
Social Media Marketing |
3 comments
