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Machines optimized for market efficiency and profit don't have ethics, and do not promote businesses that do. How much we will allow ourselves to trust personalization and quality scores?

"They knew they were being lied to, but if lies were consistent enough they defined themselves as a credible alternative to the truth. Emotion ruled almost everything, and lies were driven by emotions that were familiar and supportive, while the truth came with hard edges that cut and bruised. They preferred lies and mood music...." - J G Ballard, Kingdom Come

As ads and content continue to blend eventually there will be some type of blowback where websites that are driven by passion will keep taking marketshare from sites that lack passion. If you have a hobby the odd are you are passionate, spending a lot of time on it, and may also be spending a lot of money on it. Why not align work and play?

If you turn your hobbies into businesses at the very least you get a tax write off, but on the upside you might create a sustainable profitable business model.

Andrew Goodman recently posted about SEO industry reputation woes, but the real reason for the problem is the self serving agenda of search engines. Don't underestimate the marketing of the search engines, which outside of their own link buying and selling, generally like to hint at this equation SEO = spam.

People spam everything though - media creating biased news, misquoting interviewees, blending ads in content, ads as content, free votes driving communities, deceptive article titles, spinning numbers from small sample sets, bogus posturing formated as research studies, etc.

Look at how much Google had to clean their PPC ads. Yet we don't associate PPC service providers as people pushing thin content arbitrage sites, fraudulent search engine submission services, and off target cookie stuffing offer spams. Should we?

If spam is hosted by Google, ranked by Google, and displays Google ads, then why the need for outsourcing that fault? Why can't we just call those people Google affiliates and leave it at what it is, Google = spam?

Some people claim that Google is out for the best interest of their users, but why the need for cost per action ads that are only labeled as ads on a scroll over? Ads cloaked as content are what is best for users? In a couple years we will see:

The game is now to manipulate consumers not only to click, but to take some further action. And I don't use the word 'manipulate' arbitrarily. This is about turning the web into one big pile of junk mail, aimed at getting you to sign up, buy, or commit to something that you hadn't necessarily wanted.

It looks as though Scoreboard Media is pumping out better content than Tropical SEO. This post is no exception.

I’m constantly amazed at how many of these “SEO Firms” with the big followings generate little to no income from their own projects. If there is a stronger signal of quality for a lack of confidence in their own ability, I can’t think of it.

If anyone with more than 3 years of experience is allocating more than 50% of their time to consulting, I’m going on record as doubting their skills.

Why is it so important for a consultant to market their own sites?

• During periods of uncertainty having limited obligations creates easy income opportunities - one reacts to the market quicker.

• So we can do risky stuff without risking client sites. Not testing limits is intellectually dishonest and defeats the purpose of calling oneself an optimizer.
• Better pay. Building growing passive income streams is far better than getting paid by the hour.
• Growing passive revenue streams help the consultant get a baseline for their value and ensure they value their time.
• A reasonable consulting rate filters out the worst potential clients while attracting high value clients.
• Passive revenue streams allow us to be selective with clients, working with the rare client worth taking on, and extracting enough profit from them to deliver them significant value.
• We learn how to spread ideas better if we are pushing things we are passionate about. It is hard to be passionate about a client site and see their full potential unless I pushed myself first. We learn when...
  • good ideas spread;

  • when good ideas do not spread;
  • when we see garbage spread; and,
  • when we see things backfire.
  • Seeing junk spread and figuring out why some good ideas do not teaches you much more than when the market acts as you would expect.

Via SEL, Google beta launched a distributed pay per action ad network, and are accepting publisher sign ups here. More background here and here, including a new ad format, text links:

Text links are hyperlinked brief text descriptions that take on the characteristics of a publisher's page. Publishers can place them in line with other text to better blend the ad and promote your product.

For example, you might see the following text link embedded in a publisher's recommendatory text: "Widgets are fun! I encourage all my friends to Buy a high-quality widget today." (Mousing over the link will display "Ads by Google" to identify these as pay-per-action ads).

Though the maximum length of a text link is 90 characters, we've found that shorter links perform better because they allow the publisher use the link in more places on her/his site and in different context. The maximum length is 90 characters but less than 5 words is best. Even better, just use your brand name to offer maximum flexibility to the publisher.

If they push this as hard as they did AdSense or search it is going to teach advertisers and publishers to create efficient conversion oriented content and sales funnels. It will fundamentally change the structure of the web.