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How My Mom Thinks Search Engines Work
- run4yourlives 13y agoEveryone should "Take a non x out for coffee and ask them what they think x's do". I've had two/three different careers (dependent on definition) in my life, and each one of is immersed in its own echo chamber 99% of the time. This is one of the major reasons industry leaders can't innovate worth a damn.
- SatvikBeri 13y agoAgreed. For a while I basically made a job of applying 5-year-old tech innovations to an industry that was 15 years behind, which was pretty easy and extremely high impact.
- TheSOB88 13y agoThis is sort of what I want to do with my life.
- matt_brushlabs 13y agoSomewhat relevant, but a friend of mine had a weekly cup of coffee with someone she didn't know as part of her final year in college. Entertaining and an incredible way to gather wisdom, from my perspective. http://52cups.tumblr.com/checklist http://52cups.tumblr.com/checklist
- sharkweek 13y agoThis is an incredible project, thanks for sharing
- incision 13y agoSo true. I can't say enough for looking through someone else's lens regularly. I think I discovered this years ago overhearing my mother's interactions and frustrations with the IT department at her job. It helped shape my own perspective on technology as a tool to serve and enable.
- bhartzer 13y agoWow, an SEO post mentions HN in their post and gets on HN. Even programmers should take out non-programmers to lunch. Not just coffee.
- elorant 13y agoHis mom knows more than the average social media expert out there.
- PavlovsCat 13y agoI am very impressed actually, some are crazy smart guesses IMHO.
- dohertyjf 13y agoBest comment ever
- geon 13y agoWell... Social media isn't very closely related to SEO, is it?
- kreddor 13y agoHis mom sounds pretty smart actually. I imagine that most people know even less about how search engines works.
- neltnerb 13y agoShe knows more than me, I thought that page rankings were based on how many people link to your site, not how many actually visit. Who knew?
- sharkweek 13y agoOP here -- You are correct, it is mostly about who links to your site -- but things like bounce rates and whatnot do affect rankings as well; hence the partial credit being awarded
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago>but things like bounce rates and whatnot do affect rankings as well // How do Google, say, use bounce rates - they do have bounce rates for folks using Analytics, and I guess they could guess some form of bounce rate by analysing search clicks but they'd be missing data for lots of pages and lots of visits on pages they could get a rate on. So, do you have any insight in to how they or Bing or whoever do it in practice; or is it just a guess? SEOmoz ranking factors, http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-7 http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics..., (and other pages there) suggest it's based on clicks on SERPs that follow after a visit to your site. Is that the/a known method or just the most speculated method. Seems it could be potentially abused, so for example the "are you sure you want to leave this page" (onbeforeunload) type warnings will clearly elongate the page visit duration.
- czr80 13y agoPeople who click a search result and then immediately return to Google.
- ambiate 13y agoIt is funny he mentions observing hacker news to understand the audience and potential criticism. It is 100% of the reason I visit this site. I want to understand and interpret this audience. There is a fountain of knowledge in these comments from a broad spectrum of users.
- VLM 13y agoEither that, or he thinks we're his mom. (More likely answer is a ploy to get upvoted to get coverage here. Worked.)
- obviouslygreen 13y agoThere is a fountain of knowledge in these comments... (insert bidet joke here)
- guelo 13y agoIf you were running a SEO shop, how would you try and get to the front page of Google? "I’d write lengthy fluffy articles that, even though they didn't say anything interesting, they used the word SEO a lot and made SEO people feel special somehow so that it got linked from other sites that SEO people visit. Maybe I would even semi-attack a popular site like Hacker News in order to link-bait the site into linking to the articles."
- sharkweek 13y agoOP here -- ahh the infamous top comment on HN; always good for a great mood killer to an article that was, simply put, really fun to write
- geon 13y agoYou wouldn't believe the flaming I got for writing an easily digested (pun intended) article on password encryption. Apparently that is for Bruce Schneier only. You have to agree the comment was funny though.
- sharkweek 13y agoAbsolutely -- and trust me, the SEO industry is full of so much bullshit I have come to expect a lot of hate by association alone. Someone even made an aggregation site for it! http://shitbound.org/ http://shitbound.org/
- white_devil 13y ago> the SEO industry is full of so much bullshit I have come to expect a lot of hate by association alone So you don't think HN's view on SEO is unduly negative then, after all?
- sharkweek 13y agoI think HN's view of "bad" SEO is spot on, but there are plenty of agencies who present legitimate strategies that have long term and lasting effects on rankings as opposed to going for the quick loopholes that Google will just inevitably punish in the next algo update.
- danbmil99 13y ago30 year tech veteran here, and I my answers would have been precisely the same
- onan_barbarian 13y agoDon't tell my mom that I work in SEO. She thinks I'm a piano player in a brothel.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- spajus 13y agoAnything related to advertising and getting people to do something they didn't intend to is evil. SEO is on a borderline, and when you start growing links to your site, it crosses it. I especially don't like those shitheads who come to blogs and post a "relevant" comment with a link to their services - I carefully mark them as spam and report their profiles.
- orangethirty 13y agoYou should ask random people how search engines work. It is a hobby of mine these days, and its quite entertaining. One young lady told me that se thought Google had a bunch of secretaries answering all of the queries. I did not laugh, because that actually is how things are still done in a lot of places.
- fbnt 13y agoI think that one of the most valuable points this article makes is the "keep it simple" message, the apple ad example is particularly spot-on. It's great advice especially when you're trying to promote/market a new service/app/whatever. When you're into product development, you'll always tend to be slightly technical when you describe it. Removing any technical reference during the first approach is good to bear in mind. Unless you're aiming to a particular market, 99% of your users won't be that savvy.