In Search Of Stuff

Keyword Density Of Sandbox Articles Aparently Proportional To Density Of Authors

UPONG, in a continuation of their stated goal of doing cutting edge SEO market research and intelligence to provide more of the research UPONG members couldn’t be arsed doing for a public that couldn’t care less, has revealed the first extensive study into articles on the so called Google Sandbox phenomenon.

“So many articles are written on this contentious issue”, El Presidente Michael said. “and we at UPONG felt that while the world didn’t need Yet Another Sandbox Theory (YAST for short), it sure as s#$@ needed an analysis of all the so called analysis. I think you will agree, the results were shocking.

The fictional study, utilising cutting edge imaginary tools that analyse the form, structure and original content of articles, including running the articles through anti-plagiarism software and word matrix generators, the UPONG survey, titled “The Industry With One Brain And Far Too Much Bandwidth”, unveiled shocking trends

“Unbelievably”, Michael said, “the average originality of thought is so low as to be almost non-existent. The plagiarism algorithms that we ran the articles through showed a strong likelihood of plagiarism in close to 98% of all articles. At first, we put this down to syndication or perhaps a few DMCA violations, but this proved incorrect, as despite their similarity, all articles were ;original’ in so far as new piece’s of writing, there was just a complete and utter lack of originality of thought.”

What UPONG found even more surprising where the types of words used. “The patented UPONG Bullshit-o-meter™, a tool we pioneered to detect and out peddlers of BS, man, that tool was flashin’ its lil red light Hollywood B-grade movie access denied style all night long.” .

The Bullshit-o-meter™ was going nuts because its statistical analysis of words known to be frequently utilised by scamsters, as well as common phrasings and exaggerated claims, encountered many irregularities.

“Looking at the data”, Michael continued” you will see that several terms are overused, many others that are hideously under-used, and some that should have been present simply were not used at all.”

Particularly surprising, according to UPONG’s press release, was the almost complete lack of doubt, or almost anything that was less than certainty.

“No one used the word possible / possibly. Amazing. A theory without the word possible is like a fat man sans man boobs. Unheard of! Either the SEO community has no idea how to do research or present ideas, or they are so advanced in their reverse engineering that issues such as detailed research and doubt are simply not required. Whatever it is, that level of confidence has to be admired, if nothing else!”

The research also produced, in signature UPONG fashion, this tremendously helpful radar graph.

1 comment February 26th, 2006

Myths and Disinformation in SEO World Traced to Deliberate Leaks from Alta Vista

There are many prevalent myths that never seem to quite die out when it comes to search engine marketing. Although most of the seasoned industry experts are quick to debunk these theories, no one can remember quite how they started or how to stop them from infecting newbies.

Isos has uncovered an informant ( referred to as “Deep Scoot” for his own protection) who was employed by Alta Vista “back in the day” and has shared some disturbing information with us.

“Alta Vista liked to screw with webmaster’s heads” said Deep Scoot with a laugh. “I was in charge of the Office of Disinformation, and my job was to come up with believeable sounding bullsh1t and feed it to the public. I gotta say, I was really good at my job and I’ve never enjoyed a job more.”

When pushed for specifics, Deep Scoot pointed out one of his favorite “releases.”

“I gotta say, this one has lasted longer than any other myth I created,” Deep Scoot related, beaming with pride.

Back in the year 2000, there was an article on AltaVista describing how the keyword meta tag was rated by the search engine spider. The document mentioned that the words in the keyword meta tag has the same value as the other words on the web page itself, except for one very important case: if your meta keyword tag contains keywords that do not occur in your main web page, your page will be penalized. The document went on to say that your ranking may improve if you use both the title tag and relevant first few lines in your web page without any meta keyword tag.

~How to Improve Your AltaVista Search Engine Ranking

“I mean look at it, it’s pure genius! By putting it out there, then removing it we created reasonable doubt that we ever said it in the first place!” Deep Scoot chortled. “We created a paranoia surrounding meta keywords that lasts to this day! Use ‘em, get better results or penalized, don’t use ‘em and be safe but miss out on a real SEO advantage. It’s a paradox that still troubles newbies to this day… and that was over 6 years ago!!”

That’s only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the smoke and mirrors that was Alta Vista… and a legacy of confusion and conspiracy theories.

We asked industry guru Matt Cutts of Google about the idea that a search engine would deliberately leak incorrect information, but his secretary said he was “in a meeting” and couldn’t come to the phone. (Just to set the record straight, we heard him in the background saying “Hey, watch what happens when I do this!” followed by gales of maniacal laughter… )

Next article… more common myths traced to the Office of Disinformation at Alta Vista. Stay tuned…

1 comment February 6th, 2006

ISoS Dress Up Self Promotion As “Research”

In Search of Stuff have conducted ground-breaking research into their own Blog.

“We wanted, nay we dreamed, of breaking new ground”, blog contributor Michael Motherwell said. “But there really wasn’t much left to report on, so we decided some in-depth research into ISoS was the best bet. We figured, hey, if everyone else is dressing up self promotion as a “white paper” or “research”, why can’t we?”

The results of this research were inconclusive though, with Michael making up all the results himself. “Research is hard work”, he said. “First, you need to contact people, then you have to care about what they say and, quite frankly, the answers usually just aren’t that funny.”

The results made up include the following quotable sound bites:

1. Scottie posts less, but is far more thought provoking. “Sure, I make up funny stuff, but really, where is the heart?” Michael said. “That McDs stuff, that was some good, quality, thought provoking analogy! Bravo!”
2. Funky diagrams and Excel spreadsheets are time consuming, but Radar graphs are inherently funny.
3. ISoS now officially most quoted response when fobbing off dumb forum questions. “This really makes us proud”, Michael said. “When we started ISoS, we wanted to do something different, and being an answer to the unanswerable is something to be proud of and, dare I say it, release as official research!”
4. The word “Dongle” is also inherently funny, but to avoid strange looks, should not be said loudly near parents with small children whilst walking the dog
5. Trapezoidal is a frighteningly common adjective
6. Culturally sensitive gags not nearly as funny when explained. “U - PONG, as in stink. Get it? U-stink, cause you don’t like shower or change or stuff and, and… Sigh. You see what I mean?”
7. If you post an email address, people will send you emails, no matter how silly the topic (thank you Paul and Torka)
8. ISoS nominated for best use of “SHAZAM” in a user comment on a Blog. “This we never expected, and we need to thank Bob a lot for this immense honour.”
9. Google images is a rich source of graphs, equations and other humour inducing pictures. Use wisely
10. JavaScript alerts like this one, whilst moderately amusing, consume far more time than their comedic value deserves, and provide a very poor L2ER™ (Laughs To Effort Return). On the bright side though, they can be reused multiple times (see navigation to the right)
11. Many people, as Regurgitator say, like old stuff better than our new stuff

So there you have it. Ground breaking, fictional research! Feel free to add your own in the comments, but be warned, if it is any good, I am gonna steal it and put it back into the Blog and take all the credit!

Add comment October 14th, 2005