I recently signed up for Google Alerts. Its a neat little feature that will send you news stories or links to web site content that matches your “search” query for each alert. I did the obvious alerts: search engine optimization, seo, google, msn, yahoo, page rank and pole position web. Each evening I get six or seven emails from Google with links to the information I requested.
Its been a couple of weeks now and I’m finding something quite peculiar. There are so many with so much to write on my alter topics, but very few have anything real to say. The amount of real “news” in our industry is staggeringly low.
A few days a go I got a headline about how to achieve top rankings quickly. The link went to a Web Pro News story about a writer who got good results on MSN for a keyword phrases that was also his URL. When all said and done, the very short article was really about nothing more than an opportunity for the writer to get his domain out there and provided very little, if any useful information, and none of which provided a more complete picture of the topic overall. In my opinion, this story never should have been published, other than, perhaps, on a blog such as this.
I’m not knocking Web Pro News, as they are generally good providers of quality content, but I am knocking those “writers” that make noise but really are not offering anything at all. Web Pro News should know better, but sometimes its easy to let things through, simply for the sake of content.
And before I get knocked down a notch or two, I know I’m not immune. I write a monthly newsletter and try to blog several times a week, and I know that sometimes just didn’t nail it. I this blog, I don’t have as much concern, because, quite simply, that’s what blogs are about, but for the newsletter, I always try to run them past a few other readers before publication. If they get a sense that I really had nothing to say, it gets scrapped or reworked.
What I find most interesting is the number of stories that get generated from posts on forums, posts that have not necessarily been verified or fact-checked. I’m all for writing about something you read, but please, always present it with a grain of salt… unless you have done your own fact checking. ‘seoexpertgalor’ on on a search engine forum is not necessarily a researcher, a journalist or an expert. Its just somebody with an opinion. Even names you do know as “experts” don’t always know their facts, most times they are merely stating their opinions on a particular subject.
All of this is good. Thoughts, opinions, statements, facts, etc. I’m just don’t like having my time wasted by someone who has time to write something that provides virtually no value to the discussion over all. While all this noise we have access to is wonderful, providing access to thoughts, opinions and facts that we otherwise might not have, I think an old adage, slightly modified, should apply: If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, don’t say anything at all.