Jim Dettman
jimdettman at verizon.net
Thu Aug 6 14:32:31 CDT 2009
Ken, <<3. Co-opt Experts Exchange It burns me that experts-exchange, AKA 'drooling idiots trying to charge money for non-answers', is so dominating in technical search results. They understand SEO, and are clobbering use in terms of exposure, even if they have nothing to offer. What a waste!>> I think you really need to ask yourself that if they have nothing to offer, then: A. Why are they still in business? B. Why do they have so much exposure? I don't know what you and others have run into on Experts Exchange, but at last count, there are over 200 Microsoft MVPs that call Expert's Exchange home. I don't believe there is a larger concentration of MVP's anywhere on any site. Certainly there are idiots that will spout off non-answers, but there are also a lot of qualified folks who hang out there as well. I find what seems to gall people the most is that they charge for the service and make money at it. Personally, I find nothing wrong with that. EE incorporated in 1996 and almost went bankrupt along with a lot of the other .com's that burst. But they changed their business model to something that worked and as a result, their still around. That allows them to continually work at and improve the site. As you yourself point out; when's the last time Access-D had an overhaul and why not? Outside of all that, you can earn a membership by answering a few questions a month. So if you contribute, then it costs you nothing. I've been involved with the site since 1999 (after CompuServe went more or less belly up - they sold out to WUGNET) and so far, I have not paid a dime. Of course if your looking for more exposure and something that's free, then I suppose you could try the Microsoft news groups. They haven't changed their format either, but they certainly show up in the search results more often then Access-D. Jim. -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Kenneth Ismert Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 2:55 PM To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: Re: [AccessD] Moderator Message OK, I've been harping on the way things are, so I want to offer some positive suggestions: 1. Produce web content, not email content. Our content needs to be visible to the outside world. A mail digest is hidden from search engines. Even the archive is a black hole -- I've never seen any AccessD post show up on any web search, ever. Someone tell me if they've ever seen AccessD in even the first ten pages of search results. 2. Move to a blog format. I increasingly rely on blog posts in my technical searches. I appreciate that someone has taken the care to produce a cogent post that answers a particular topic. Blog posts can be perma-linked, tagged, and categorized -- a huge boon for search engines. You also get a constant, fresh stream of new content, which boosts search rankings. One of the problems with an email thread is that you get: Question, debate, flames, baiting, then off-topic rambling near the end. Sometimes there is an answer in there, sometimes not. That's why email-thread format groups are my last option in search. But, if you reframe the email thread as an incubator for a blog post, you present the opportunity for the person with the best response to summarize their post as a blog entry. That's easy, because most of the article is already written. Everyone wins -- blog posters get web exposure, questions get distilled into a clear and easy-to-follow format, answers get vetted by a community of experts, and you gain in search engine rankings which will draw new subscribers. 3. Co-opt Experts Exchange It burns me that experts-exchange, AKA 'drooling idiots trying to charge money for non-answers', is so dominating in technical search results. They understand SEO, and are clobbering use in terms of exposure, even if they have nothing to offer. What a waste! We have an incredible pool of talent, that, given convenient tools, could handily beat expert sex change in terms of quality of content. But, if we keep hiding our light under a bushel, we really need to accept that AccessD is a private club of friends who chat about what's going on in their technical lives, and occasionally answer an Access question, too. -Ken -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com