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Online news and the Art of Link baiting
Is it just me, or is everyone in a hurry to linkbait? Link baiting in the world of online publishing is kinda like ‘getting the scoop’ for a Brick and Mortar new outlet. I think the difference is that you don’t care if it’s THE SCOOP or that anyone else has the story. You only care about getting it out FIRST and hopefully creating a little BUZZ while you’re at it (the love me – hate me approach)
The hope is that you can get a whack of links to your story (for credibility or infamy, it matters not). This is the basics of linkbaiting in the online publishing world…
I am seeing a bit of a problem here. The SEO world was ‘a-buzz’ over the weekend over a new Google Patent that folks were disseminating. Being a bit of an ‘algo-holoc’ myself I promptly grabbed a copy of the document and started reading posts on various SEO forums around the web.
I rise up this morning to see a SEO newsletter with a lead story ‘Google's New Patent Translated’ --- WHAAAATTT? People are talking in circles over this and there is no real consensus, neither Matt nor Andy have said BOO and as such I figured ‘the jury is out’ on this. You can imagine my surprise when informed that some one had sorted this all out for us.
I started reading but never did finish because, as I suspected, it is little more that some WMW scraping, citations from the paper and some loosely woven ‘theories’ (nearly stated as fact) than any true form of patent ‘translation’ or insight into the future of Google.
In the end I would have to say the Inflammatory Headline and the speed to market with the story is most likely more an attempt at link-baiting than a TRUE breakdown of the information for the purpose of assisting the SEO community. Beware of what you're reading and WHY some one may have written it. It is a link-baiting world
As far as the Google patent, besides what we can ‘see’ from it, I think the caveat at the top of the article says it all;
“However, we must keep in mind that just because a patent has been applied for or granted, the search engines may or may not implement the patent within their primary search results” --- In other words all is status quo in the world of Google. It MAY means something or it MAY NOT. So not only is it early conjecture, it may never even be a reality in the SEO now or in the future.
Everyone get out your salt shakers and take a ‘grain’ when reading the ‘news’.
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