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I met their CEO a couple years ago - seemed like a good guy. It always seemed to me like their new name is an SEO nightmare, though.

jonknee 11y ago
A Google search for "chef" has them as the #2 hit (both logged in and in Incognito so it's not just because I'm a programmer). Seems like they have the SEO under control.
- dougk16 11y ago
  Sure, but the question is how much capital they had to put towards getting that #2 spot. I'm an SEO newb so have no idea, but my guess is a fair amount.
  - proksoup 11y ago
    I'm sure the effort they put into SEO matters also ... but ... I would bet more important though is their search and mind share. More people searching for chef that are actually searching for them. I think the only way they got as far as they have is because of that search volume, not necessarily their content or the links to their content. I am basing this on absolutely nothing, just theory ... curious what others think or know?
- proksoup 11y ago
  That's interesting that you saw them as #2 in incognito. I just searched chef in an incognito window and got them as #1. I wonder if my assumption about incognito search results being non-personalized is false.
  - acveilleux 11y ago
    They might still take language preference and geography (from IP) into account... Here in PEI, Canada, if I search Chef in incognito, they're #4 and the first 3 hits are for the movie Chef from 2014.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    I think it's probably geography. I'm in Seattle FWIW. The number one hit is a movie from IMDB: "Chef (2014) - IMDb". The SEO shouldn't actually be too tough because people are quite a bit more likely to link to Chef the company using the word "chef" than anything about cooking. And hey, Google went with "Go" which is nearly impossible to SEO and it worked out.
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      And hey, Google went with "Go" which is nearly impossible to SEO and it worked out. Though they do have the benefit of being Google. A significantly smaller team might have had better success than the original Go!, but that's not saying much.
- anon987 11y ago
  Sure, but expand out and try stuff like "chef cookbook" and "chef knife" or try to find Chef jobs on Indeed.
  - ErikRogneby 11y ago
    add devops to your search.
SonicSoul 11y ago
for me it comes up as #1 and #2 by searching for "chef" in incognito. only #2 on duckduckgo but it's almost off the page on yahoo. have to scroll down one page to see it on bing. I guess they targeted Google the most!
myhandle 11y ago
They seem to have backed off, but last I looked at them they were just trying to coin every single food phrase as some new facet of their infastructure. "Sprinkle a dash of seasoning to your soup to make a recipe and build a cookbook, or order delivery instead!". I felt like a housewife getting sold to by a door to door salesman.
- kristopolous 11y ago
  I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the documentation on a sliding scale between "uselessly academic" and "meaningless marketing". It looks like they've gotten a bit better. Now if they could only increase the contrast of their copy beyond 2.15, it might actually be readable.
lamontcg 11y ago
The new name was entirely due to Chef the product having vastly more name recognition than Opscode the company. "So, where do you work?" "Opscode" "Oh, never heard of them what do they do?" "Server configuration management" "Oh, kinda like Chef or Puppet then?" "Uhm, somewhat like that first one, yes..." (Or just confusing Opscode and Opsworks, which was equally bad from a name recognition standpoint)

jonknee 11y ago

A Google search for "chef" has them as the #2 hit (both logged in and in Incognito so it's not just because I'm a programmer). Seems like they have the SEO under control.

dougk16 11y ago
Sure, but the question is how much capital they had to put towards getting that #2 spot. I'm an SEO newb so have no idea, but my guess is a fair amount.
- proksoup 11y ago
  I'm sure the effort they put into SEO matters also ... but ... I would bet more important though is their search and mind share. More people searching for chef that are actually searching for them. I think the only way they got as far as they have is because of that search volume, not necessarily their content or the links to their content. I am basing this on absolutely nothing, just theory ... curious what others think or know?
proksoup 11y ago
That's interesting that you saw them as #2 in incognito. I just searched chef in an incognito window and got them as #1. I wonder if my assumption about incognito search results being non-personalized is false.
- acveilleux 11y ago
  They might still take language preference and geography (from IP) into account... Here in PEI, Canada, if I search Chef in incognito, they're #4 and the first 3 hits are for the movie Chef from 2014.
- jonknee 11y ago
  I think it's probably geography. I'm in Seattle FWIW. The number one hit is a movie from IMDB: "Chef (2014) - IMDb". The SEO shouldn't actually be too tough because people are quite a bit more likely to link to Chef the company using the word "chef" than anything about cooking. And hey, Google went with "Go" which is nearly impossible to SEO and it worked out.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    And hey, Google went with "Go" which is nearly impossible to SEO and it worked out. Though they do have the benefit of being Google. A significantly smaller team might have had better success than the original Go!, but that's not saying much.
anon987 11y ago
Sure, but expand out and try stuff like "chef cookbook" and "chef knife" or try to find Chef jobs on Indeed.
- ErikRogneby 11y ago
  add devops to your search.

SonicSoul 11y ago

for me it comes up as #1 and #2 by searching for "chef" in incognito. only #2 on duckduckgo but it's almost off the page on yahoo. have to scroll down one page to see it on bing. I guess they targeted Google the most!

myhandle 11y ago

They seem to have backed off, but last I looked at them they were just trying to coin every single food phrase as some new facet of their infastructure. "Sprinkle a dash of seasoning to your soup to make a recipe and build a cookbook, or order delivery instead!". I felt like a housewife getting sold to by a door to door salesman.

kristopolous 11y ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the documentation on a sliding scale between "uselessly academic" and "meaningless marketing". It looks like they've gotten a bit better. Now if they could only increase the contrast of their copy beyond 2.15, it might actually be readable.

lamontcg 11y ago

The new name was entirely due to Chef the product having vastly more name recognition than Opscode the company. "So, where do you work?" "Opscode" "Oh, never heard of them what do they do?" "Server configuration management" "Oh, kinda like Chef or Puppet then?" "Uhm, somewhat like that first one, yes..." (Or just confusing Opscode and Opsworks, which was equally bad from a name recognition standpoint)