ryancaldwell

Google has this theory called PageRank, just like Ptolemy had a geocentric theory of the solar system.

As with any theory, as anomalies show up in the theory, Google (and geocentric theorists) manually jerryrig their theory with epicycles. Eventually, their theory is going to break down…

…but, mind you, not the reality that their theory is modeling.

In the case of PageRank, Google is manually adjusting the PageRank of high profile sites and using them as “whipping boys” to set an example. But manual adjustment is like throwing in epicycles to save a bad theory.

In reality, links will always retain value because they will always be the most fundamental metric of site popularity. And it will always be true that people will try to gain “perceived” value by purchasing links.

But that’s no different than a college education. Some terribly inept people effectively buy and party their way to a 4 year diploma (anyone can pass through 4 years of college these days) and in effect manipulate the system. They then have credentials to make themselves look valuable to gullible companies who haven’t developed a system for weeding them out.

But the fact is that this phenomenon of passing inept people through college will not destroy the college system. There is nothing good to replace it. And terribly inept people will continue to make it through, landing six figure jobs for which they are not really qualified.

The same holds true for linkage. There is nothing good to replace “the link” when analyzing “value” algorithmically. Links are the fundamental units of inter-site relationships.

Google’s epicyclic solution this time around seems be to penalize the high-profile linkers. It’s a short term solution for a theory that’s on the collapse.

Instead of manual jerryrigging, they should give up the theory and start from scratch.

A good place to start would be a proper analysis of the 4 Dimensions of a Link Portfolio?

In other words, why not buffer the PageRank of sites whose link portfolios are completely out of whack?

That would solve the problem. Webmasters would stop seeing their PageRank go up because of Text Link Ads. The TLA economy would stop perpetuating itself. The bubble would burst. And Google would have done what they normally do well: naturally force the web to conform to principles that encourage quality.

Yes, it is true that a good SEO could simulate the quality of a good link portfolio. Well, good for them. Maybe they’ll even use quality as a method to achieve the simulation…which raises the interesting question of when a simulation becomes the real thing…but that’s another story.

So lately I’ve been encountering a lot of stupid people online. And I’m testing out different strategies for how to deal with them.

The intent of this post is to collect as many strategies and thoughts in one place about how to deal with stupid people online. Because there are plenty of them. And, because the more successful you become, the more of them you will encounter.

So what makes a stupid person?

As I use the term, a stupid person is a person who meets one or more of these characteristics:

1. Rather than positively contribute to a community, they prefer to attack people who are smart and successful
2. They have a hard time thinking outside of a binary mode (either you are for us or you’re against us)
3. They are closed to complexities and possibilities that take a little brain work (i.e. stick to simple and obvious)
4. They spend their lives wishing they were someone else (often letting jealousy take root)
5. Instead of acting, they wish

Some examples of stupid people

In the last few months, I’ve been dealing with a lot of stupid people. One such person decided to accuse one of my writers of contributing blog spam. The fact of the matter is that this stupid person didn’t take the time to read the article. He read the headline, which was about pain medications, and using the principle of induction, assumed that the article was another instance of blog spam. In fact, the article was written by a professional psychiatrist who has a genuine interest in helping people with chronic pain. The principle of induction works a lot of the time, but stupid people use it all the time.

Another stupid person has been emailing me asking for a permanent link on the front page of College Startup for $80. That’s a permanent link…for the life of the site…for $80. I don’t think that I have to comment much on this to make the point. It is self-evidently stupid.

Another person emailed me asking for a link. When I made a counter-proposal, the dude accused me of being a little guy with a little penis. The working assumption was that he was doing me a favor by offering a reciprocal link exchange…that his site was more popular than my site. Seeing that my counter proposal had been made in full knowledge that my site was probably 10x more successful than his, and seeing that he proceeded to insult me…well, I take it as an act of stupidity (probably combined with ignorance).

Yet another person responded to a very specific ad that I posted for a writer. The position, admittedly, didn’t pay extremely well. However, my intention was to create an opportunity for someone who was looking to establish him or herself as an SEO expert. The person who contacted me has proceeded to go on a raging campaign against me telling lies about how I pay most of my writers. The fact is that most of my writers get paid very, very well. Most of the time, when I start a website, I take a financial hit for the first 6 months, for the sake of my writers. Instead of taking note of this glaring fact, this disgruntled individual has ignored the evidence and instead is taking a single advertised position out of context; a position for which she wasn’t even qualified, and now acts as if I treat my writers poorly. She tells others that I do this too. Stupid. Disgruntled stupidity.

So what’s the point

The point of all this is twofold. First, it should be clear that stupid people will ultimately fail. Stupid people either have nothing to offer others or they have more poison to offer than solid food. In either case, they will become isolated and alienated.

But the more important question that I’d like to address in the comment section is this: how should smart, friendly, good-willed people react to stupid, disgruntled, mean-spirited people?

Do you ignore? Do you engage? Do you insult (as in this post)?

I’m telling you that the only way to find success long term is to focus on building a brand.

I was browsing through Performancing’s archives and I came upon the above quote mixed into and lost among a bunch of comments. Not only do I stand by this comment, but I think it applies even more now than when I wrote it.

Though this has been my working principle now for about nine months, I was surprised to find that I hadn’t really written an article on what I see as the number one strategy for blogging success: building out a brand.

That’s going to change. Because I believe that developing a brand is critical to success, I’m going to write several articles on the idea, with the hope of giving some concrete tips for doing so.

Text content just doesn’t cut it anymore

Yes, your base of content needs to be text. And yes, if you are bootstrapping, you should probably start out with a text-only approach. But if you’re serious about building out your brand, and capturing an audience, then text should not be your final goal.

The fact of the matter is that you face your fiercest competition in textual content. Text is the easiest form of content to produce and in most niches, the supply far exceeds the demand. This fact is even more pronounced with Google’s recent emphasis on authority sites in the SERPS. Exact key-phrase matching is no longer the holy grail of the long tail. Goog has given the long-tail back to the rich and trustworthy.

Develop your brand with audio and video

Podcasting and video shows are a great way to start differentiating your brand from most of the rest, and to build a dedicated, demographically predictable audience (what advertisers value most).

While neither format directly monetizes as easily as textual content at this point, we can probably expect that to change as Google looks to turn YouTube into a Cash Cow rather than Cash Pig. Plus, the value of podcasting and video shows aren’t necessarily in immediate monetization. Brand building isn’t about immediate gratification. It’s about building long term equity and a large, growing audience community.

So how do you start?

The answer to that varies, but my best advice is to just jump into the deep end and try it until it works.

My friend David from Xfep not only has a great radio voice, but he also runs an entertaining weekly podcast that focuses on blogging. I’m willing to bet that David didn’t know how good his voice would sound on podcast before he tried it. But now his podcast is paying dividends as hundreds of people come back to listen each week. The Xfep podcast does wonders for setting David’s blog apart from all the “make money online” and “problogger wannabe” sites out there.

Similarly, I’ve been trying to think of ways to build the PopCrunch brand. While PopCrunch does very well with traffic and monetization, my ultimate goal is to build the PopCrunch brand into a household name (and as some friends would mockingly tell you, I’m aiming for triple digit Alexa). So what am I going to do to get there?

Well, my goal for 2008 is to launch a weekly TV Show (The PopCrunch Show) that’s similar in theme to The E! Network’s Soup. Additionally, I’d like to launch a monthly TV Show for Style Crunch, a weekly show for TV Crunch and a weekly show for HipHop Crunch.

Wait. I almost forgot;-) Just today PopCrunch launched a weekly show for HipHop Crunch, affectionately called “The HipHop Crunch Show” – and while the first episode isn’t perfect, it’s certainly damn good. And things can only get better, right? That’s what you call jumping into the deep end and coming out on the other end a pretty good swimmer. I even had my own theme song produced! This gig just gets more fun every day.

So now what?

Ah, now for the tough part. I’m already having video produced for the HipHop Crunch show (3 months earlier than I had planned). But what good is video if no one knows about it? Ah, this is where I long for the good old days of textual content and exact phrase matching. But, alas, it’s time to look for new and unique distribution channels. iTunes. YouTube. and… well, it’s time to go on an adventure;-)

My friend Dee Barizo tells me that the two most under-utilized methods of networking are Guest Posts and Interviews. I think he’s right.

The great thing about Guest Posts and Interviews is that they can be 100% organic and good for the web (nutrition for the Internet).

Next week I’ll focus on Interviews, but this week, I’d like to focus on Guest Posts.

Guest posting is good for both the writer and the blog owner. The writer gets free exposure and a free link or two. The blog owner gets fresh-thinking, outside the box content which appeals to “variety is the spice of life” blog readers.

So here’s the deal. Performancing has about 10 or so probloggers, who want to do a guest blog post on your blog. All you need to do is post the URL to your blog in the comment section of this post within 7 days, and we’ll select our favorite twenty. We’ll then not only do a quality guest post at your blog, but also feature the article in a few weeks on our site when we list all twenty of our guest blog posts for Performancing readers to check out.

So what are you waiting for? Get your blog some exposure!