Jul 28 2007
Rand of SEOMoz attacks Aviva Directory with a base less statement!
In June Jeff wrote this post on his blog which made Rand out razed. The discussion was about the fact that should SEOMoz’s Page Strength tool be put in the Quick Buck Crew, this website lists the people who cheat, scam and do everything for money!
Well what the issue was that SEOMoz built a tool named Page Strength Tool whose function was to tell the strength of page which by calculating IBLs, they never were correct with this tool! Jeff and many webmasters helped this tool to get popularity among the others on the net. Rand then made that tool used by free members only once a day and for premium members where you have to pay them to use that tool they kept unlimited usage!!!
Now after a month Rand came back up with his white board friday and sued Aviva directory by saying that they are not an authority site based on the fact that they don’t rank for the terms in the title of Aviva Directory which happens to contain “Information Web Directory”. Well as we all know Jeff does brilliant promotion for his directory. He has been in the front page of Digg more than once and has received a lot of organic links! Well every body knows that domain age, organic IBLs are the chief factor of gaining authority!
Well as everybody has a friend John of v7n takes a good participation in this contest. He gives his brilliant SEO insights in this post and a good discussion starts in this thread. Then Rand himself replies to this thread and says doing such type of protection was out of character!
It doesn’t suit a reputed SEO to talk like that on a public forum!
Then we found that Bob Mutch of seocompany.ca joins to protect rand by saying that rand is correct and Aviva is not a authority site (lol he couldn’t make the difference between authority domain and authority site) in this post. John made valid points in his replies but bob kept on disagreeing in this thread and this thread.
Then Mike also had the same view that “Web directory” was a worth less keyword, as the traffic coming from it would be worthless in this post.
Then I too got my boots on and went in to give my opinions of solid analytical reasoning why rand’s opinion was baseless, incorrect, pointless, inconsistent and even not to bob’s own belief!
What i felt is that this is very true! You just can’t judge a website for it’s being authority or not on the base of it’s not ranking for the title terms which are too competitive. If Jeff had known that his directory would be in such a deep trouble for not ranking for his title terms he really would have looked in to the matter and did the SEO of his directory. Well anchor text IBLs are the chief factor of SEO this is again proved. But just mix things up (bob even didn’t knew this, I had to tell him that it is good to mix up things…hehe)!
Well whatever happens to this discussion, let your mind be clear about whom to listen and whom to not! Otherwise you would be losing a hefty sum and get nothing in return!
Manish Pandey,
Proud Member of Frogengine Blog Network.
3 responses so far
3 Responses to “Rand of SEOMoz attacks Aviva Directory with a base less statement!”
Thanks a lot for your contribution to the Frog Engine Blog, Manish. Just a reminder to everyone: Posts made by guest bloggers are not necessarily but can be a reflection of my own opinions as well.
Here is another blog post: Rand Fishkin the troll defense.
I hate to sound like I’m bashing him, but I’m definitely not. I have absolutely nothing against Rand, but believe that forums and blogs out there should be educational and no matter how many people we network with, there comes a time when the simple truth has to be told. Him “using Aviva as an example” was a very bad move since it discredits his own PS tool.
I have also tried to call him actually after reading his comment on this blog post of mine, but couldn’t get thru.
My opinion is that the PS tool has contributed to a lot of people wasting money on worthless directories. I have seen a good forum thread over here.
Manish, unless I missed something somewhere else, you completely mis-characterized the sequence of events. Jeff did not write the QBC article you linked to, Jeff wrote on his own blog, and in the post that Jeff wrote, he clearly makes this statement:
Well, it should go without saying, but frankly the position taken by the Quick Buck crew is asinine.
Jeff then goes on to talk about he thinks it was a bad idea on Rand’s part due to him losing a great piece of link bait. I cannot possibly see how or where you could assume that Rand did what I wrote about because of Jeff’s blog post. He commented on there and I would hardly call his comments outraged.
Attributing false motives to the situation kind of diminishes the whole thing, you should really research more before posting and make sure you double check your facts.
Well Michael, I didn’t write anything about Jeff writing the QBC article. You mis-understood that part. I was saying Jeff was talking about the controversy, if rand be put in the blacklist of QBC or not, but his personal belief was that…
“it is his tool and he could do whatever he likes even offer cheating wives and upskirt videos…” and again adds…
“I worked hard to make it popular in the directory community and help get it used as a standard in measuring the quality of a directory. I have to admit a certain feeling of betrayal.”
Then there comes the part where people joked that Aviva’s PS is 0.5 and rand/seomoz has banned aviva (which was a joke by john)… this made rand to again respond and clarify that: “The tool shows me a 6.5 - and we would NEVER manually adjust someone’s score; it’s preposterous to suggest it.” Well it was just a joke after all!
Well that was the end of all the discussion…then suddenly after a month rand takes a turn and gives all sort of information about Aviva that it is the most useless directory to submit your site!
I don’t know why did he just turn up again against Aviva, when there are so many other directories out there!
