Aaron, I understand what you're getting at, but I've already got a tremendous amount of world-wide visibility because of my non-SEO activities. I continue to share facts and research data freely, and I don't start flame wars in blogs.

I think most people would agree that I cross the line occasionally, just like anyone else. I'm not going to argue with that position.

Right now, my chief concern is to help innocent Webmasters figure out how to get their sites back into Google. I am convinced the spammers are way ahead of them in that process.

I still invite people to contact me privately with URLs of sites that dropped out of Google the week of July 22-25. I will not disclose the URLs or names of correspondents.

The profile I have compiled, based on the Web sites I have been able to examine, indicates that Google seems to have targeted sites using breadcrumbs, Javascript ads, and possibly excessive white space and/or excessive wrapping of minimal text between large ad displays.

There are a couple of borderline sites which just barely fall into that profile, and perhaps they fell out of the index as a result of lost inbound links (from the delisted SpamAd sites).

Those of us outside of Google will probably never know exactly what happened. But I think it's worth the effort to help people get back into the index, if all they did wrong was to appear (to a piece of software) to be too similar to several classes of Web sites that had no business being in the index in the first place.

You may not have got linkage data out of that one thread, but you did gain mindshare, which makes your name more memorable and easier (or harder) to link to or reference on the next occassion.

You got a mention on my site out of the deal.

Thank you, Aaron. Have no idea of how you associate anything I've posted at ThreadWatch with link building, but I'll be happy to look at URLs people have for sites that have vanished.

I have posted an updated profile for sites that have dropped out of Google since the week of July 22-25 at Cre8asite (look in their Google forum), if anyone wants to read the gist of all that.

Those of you who started the arguing over at Threadwatch, please don't be disruptive at Cre8asite. I'm just looking for information, not more silly bullying (and private messages are fine -- I won't disclose URLs in public if people ask me not to).

not often i find someone annoying enough to let them know, i just wish Michael could do it with less words, then i could skip to the next post a bit faster.

Amen to this post, Aaron. 100% agreement. Kind of ironic (or is it strategy) as his every post seems to completely discount links as anything more than a minor factor. IMO he's one of those guys who has had success with content and on-page optimization for low-competition terms and has never really had to compete in tough competition where links are a must.

I've never met Michael or anything, so I can't say that I dislike the guy too much. However, I really dislike his writing for the simple fact that he tries to rewrite fairly basic concepts into lots of jargon and overanalysis. That and he bolds almost one word per sentance in his articles at SEOmoz. Even if his content is great, his formatting pisses me off so much that I often skip it. It's not as bad as it once was, but it's still annoying.

Obviously he's a pretty smart guy, but it just seems like sometimes he tries to write a lot smarter than the topic requires. I could see him writing a textbook on SEO and having it be used in college classes, but then real SEO's calling the book garbage for the fact that it's mostly jargon, filler, and overcomplication.

For a while he wrote a lot about "golden pages" and how important they were when really he was mostly talking about link bait that happens by accident. His article was long and had lots of bold text. Really, it was only a few charts and a cover page short of a TPS Report.

Sorry but the cheesy avatar photo is enough for me

Interesting. I came here researching Michael after I stumbled across "seo theory" which confused me to say the least. I have to say though, I spent more time on there and I read more posts than on seomoz this week, but it was useful to find this post by your self aaron to weigh up his "authority" ;)

It's always interesting to listen to a polar opposite opinion. Maybe it's just me, but i was a bit confused with Michaels writing which to me is a bit contradictory, or perhaps if it was a bit less long-winded (and didn't keep asking me if i "got it" without actually explaining something) I would have understood it better.

One minute he says there's no "trust" in se's, next he seems to advocate get quality trusted links. Confused me to say the least. maybe i sped-read important bits.

While I agree with him internal linking is of paramount importance, I am always hesitant to even listen to someone who just discounts whole sets of ideas (but isnt this the way progress is made - bucking against the trend?)

Your point about mindshare is a very relevant point.

It definitely got me thinking though - and I'm not sure how annoying he actually is on forums etc :)

Aaron, it's funny how some of your assessments completely withstand the test of time. I didn't read this particular post when you made it... someone just found it tonight and sent it to me. But damn if it isn't still dead on. :D

I think you and I are both quite realistic and well grounded...which leads us to perceive many things (and people) as they are :)

He is one of the give me proof crowd, that always wants all your proof while he makes crap up and throws it out there as fact.

Wow, Aaron. Amazing that this was posted 4 years ago... and nothing has changed. I've no idea what happened to him when he was just a little baby Troll, but it must have been terrible.

hehehe. no doubt Dan!