I just read a post about SEO and social networks via a link in Mixx. The article itself was fine, save for some grammatical errors (but given that I am prone to grammatical errors I can’t say a whole lot). It was a quick read, and re-iterated a chunk of things I already believe (and some I don’t). Instead of the text of the article grabbing my attention though, the thing that struck me on the page though was the sheer number of social media links in the content area of the page.

The following is a screen capture of the social networking list at the bottom of the post:

So what do I see here:

• 28 icons to save the page url
• 16 icons to share the page
• a Yahoo buzz up link
• a Digg link
• a Sphinn link
• a Reddit link

Now I’m not here to say this is wrong on the part of newbornbusiness.com, because their usage of these icons is prevalent across a large number of blogs.  I’m more questioning when enough is enough? At what point do these icons and social network links just become invisible to users, kind of a banner blindness of the 21st century? Agreed, if you click the ShareThis link on the bottom of this post, you will see a full list of social networks.  I prefer this less obtrusive design, although as I set here now, I wonder which more effective (a test for another day).

Trust me, I get the importance of social networks from an SEO, marketing, and general visibility point of view. I just don’t know how visible something can be when it is visible to the point of distraction.

Just yesterday, I stumbled across a new blog about making money online the other day, only it approaches the subject from the other side – How To Lose Money Online. It’s a new site and only time will tell if it sticks around, but the blog’s lessons approach the world of making money online by talking about how easy it is to lose money online.

I’ll give it a shot and subscribe to his RSS feed. If it sucks after a couple months I’ll just press the old delete key on the feed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

So, here is where I stand on this blog (esoomllub.com):

• I will never link to a site without believing in the linked site, unless I am linking for sarcastic or snarky reasons.
• I will occasionally and without attribution link via affiliate links. Be sure, I will never use an affiliate link to a site unless I believe in the underlying site/product/service/offering. I like affiliate money, but have a personal belief in only linking in this blog to something I have or would be willing to spend money on.
• I will never use a no-follow on a link in a post on this blog.
• I will not change these beliefs without a major epiphany (ie, posts or comments telling me I am wrong for this stance are strictly the opinion of the person who wrote them — not me — and I don’t really care if they don’t conform to other’s belief)

I realize there is a sizable group of people out there who do not agree with my point of view. I support their right to their opinions. But to me they are just that, their opinions and beliefs — not laws that are handed down from some benevolent leader/dictator/god/etc. So go forth and click on my links if you choose and know that if it is a link on my site, I personally believe in the linked site enough to put it there (snarky links should be very obvious to the ready).

The idea behind Mahalo is to merge the human edited directory aspect of DMOZ with a world class search engine to provide a better search engine that is as free of spam as possible, maybe a Wikipedia type site (only with editors who know what they are talking about). Editors are expected to be paid, maybe so users won’t run into the inherent flaws of having volunteer editors like DMOZ (months of wait time for possibly never even being reviewed and the occasional back door review payments). Search results will have a human edited page mixed with real time search results. They obviously are just starting.

I did a quick few searches to test the outcomes. The first, a term that I was sure they would not have hand edited — crock pot rice (don’t laugh too much, I have a site that gets very steady if not spectacular traffic from this search term). As expected Mahalo had not hand edited this term. What was not expected was the return of a link to their Condaleeza Rice page. I’m pretty sure that Condie is not known for her cooking recipes, so it appears they just did a simple “OR” on the terms to find related results. My rising fourth grader daughter will be learning that trick this summer when I get her coding some PHP for me.

So, I followed that up with the spamdaddy term of all time, viagra. Surely that term had been hand edited to minimize spam. Wrong! No hand edited results, but there was a nice link to their Rush Limbaugh results page. Now that page was hand edited, and I can see why I may like Mahalo for some things.

After my little trip there today, I can say with 100 percent certainty, that it is possible I might visit Mahalo at some point to perform a search. I can see the value in that.

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