If you're going to make a post to use.perl.org to game search engine optimization, you have to actually say something like "I like Perl programming", or "I enjoy programming in Perl". Or maybe, I don't know, have some real content about programming Perl, why you program Perl, why programming Perl makes your job easier, how programming Perl saved you a lot of money, or how programming Perl let you finish before the project deadline. Why waste time optimizing Google for a bunch of script kiddies reinventing stupid web applications who don't care what you think anyway?
Of course, the next trick is to get everyone to link to your Perl blog, so you need to set up new planets to constantly replicate every post multiple times. One Planet Perl aggregating Perl blog posts about Perl programming isn't enough. Set up several. Everyone can have their own. Get those links out there.
Now that you have that out of the way, you need to add your comment spam to every one of the top blogs in the search results so you get more links to your favored Perl blogs. I like Tim Bunce's Perl blog, even though it's mostly not about Perl and mostly about why advocating anything is fraught with peril and usually full of lies and personal agendas.
Of course, this is just as bad as what everyone else does and why search engines suck so hard now. With the flood of information whose only purpose is to affect search engines rankings, it's tougher to find any real information without some serious keyword kung fu. I guess it's fine when our group does it though, because we are us and they are them.
People trying to manipulate search engines and blogs to make a couple of pennies in adsense revenue are starting to seriously interfere with people who are actually looking for, or trying to publish, meaningful content. I know what you are saying re: planets too. I am subscribed via RSS to quite a number of blogs and I often see the same story 3 or 4 times on my reader because various planets will pick it up. If it wasn't because they are such a simple way to find new blogs that may be of interest I would have dropped them a long time ago.Once upon a time [Nick Denton's] blogs merely pointed at things and made smart-arse comments about them. 'Now there's loads of that on the web,' he says, 'and what's missing is substance. Everybody is looking for something to link to.'
Re:Should we say Perl programming on a Perl blog?
brian_d_foy on 2008-05-01T04:43:13
Well, you have actual content.:) Re:Should we say Perl programming on a Perl blog?
pudge on 2008-05-01T22:55:45
Adding the term 'perl blog' to my perl blog, for example, and linking to other perl blogs I read, seems to me more like Search Engine Optimization than Search Engine Spamming to me.Maybe so, but I still won't do it. I've had several calls to put the word "blog" on useperl. I shouldn't have to dumb down my site for Google's sake.
Of course, I can afford to be a bit bullheaded about it, because a. I don't care about hits, and b. useperl has a ton of googlejuice anyway.
Re:Should we say Perl programming on a Perl blog?
jdavidb on 2008-05-02T12:34:29
The attention useperl attracts has always amazed and sometimes frightens me. I can remember a time when it seemed like every single site I mentioned here got hacked immediately. I decided never to mention any other sites I ran or participated in for fear the same would happen.
:) [Wouldn't have been a good idea due to subject matter, anyway.] Then I became amazed at just how quickly Google indexed new useperl content, and this has only gotten faster. Search for a Perl subject (or indeed, just about anything we've discussed here) and you're likely to find a useperl link at the top. Search for "Perl blog," and you're not. Oh well.
:) Re:Should we say Perl programming on a Perl blog?
brian_d_foy on 2008-05-02T13:48:50
The top google hit for "perl blog" is Planet Perl, which is just as good as it being use.Perl since that is where most of Planet Perl's material starts.:)
