Comments on: A Letter to the SEO Community: Nobody Owes You Anything

By: Matt Ridout

Matt Ridout — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:57:48 +0000

@ shor – you came close

By: Wil Reynolds

Wil Reynolds — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:07:45 +0000

Lisa,
Darn you, I don’t comment a lot on your blogs, but this one made me do it. I loved it. I am actually jealous at how well you write and the topics you tackle.
Personally, it is good to know that these guys don’t thing SEO all freakin day long! I still LOVE Cutts’ post on the dog that looked just like firefox’s logo! One of my all time favorites.
Keep bloggin guys/gals, on or off topic!

By: shor

shor — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:05:46 +0000

I think the ‘offtopic’ posts help define the SEOmoz ‘personality’ and help (most) SEOmoz readers relate to the bloggers. The ability to create that type of personal connection… well, that’s blogging gold.

PS. I’m pissed that my Moz post about breasts didn’t make Matt R’s list

By: Asia

Asia — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:14:52 +0000

There you go! off-topic once again!
I agree wholeheartedly – I like reading personal tidbits about people on their blog. Makes them seem real.

By: Gary Beal

Gary Beal — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:48:52 +0000

I agree. Drag us in with a nice juicy worm, but don’t deliver fly larva and starve us. Our time is valuable as well.

By: Matt Ridout

Matt Ridout — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:24:04 +0000

I look forward to seeing some new content and a new tool at seomoz rand.

By: Rick Galan

Rick Galan — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:17:38 +0000

Lisa – I agree with you 100%. I think if you care about the people that you are reading, then the personal posts become more interesting to you. Rand’s most recent Snippets from 30,000 Feet is one of the best articles that I have ever read on the SEOmoz blog. And like others have mentioned here – if you don’t like that type of content, don’t read it. Can you imagine reading every post from every blog that you follow? Some people have a day job..

By: TheMadHat

TheMadHat — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:11:53 +0000

@Kim totally agree. I don’t blog for the free drinks. In fact, I’m fairly sure anyone who can afford to attend can afford to buy their own drinks.
1. Networking. We like to network
2. Helping out. We like to help other marketers because we all were n00bs at some point.
@Rand, I’m a premium member and I don’t mind the off topic posts. One suggestion I would make is having a “premium blog section” even if they were published on the public site (there may be one, just not sure, if you check my twitter feed right now you would now why). I can skim the articles and figure out it’s about Rebecca and some fact about what it’s like to work for you. Place all the good stuff in the premium area just for good access. Like a top posts sort of thing. (and no offense to rebecca, i think she’s an excellent writer and also contributes great things)
I’ve been promoting your premium membership and will continue to do so because I think it’s well worth it. If others don’t find it so, well they can go read mr chow can’t they…

By: Kim Krause Berg

Kim Krause Berg — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:09:20 +0000

"You and I both know that people blog conferences for the large numbers of free drinks that other attendees purchase for them."

This is total crap and really hurts people like who work their asses off, for free, at conferences, and pay our own way to do it.

As for off-topic blog posts? I love them. When someone is writing for free and I visit of my own free will, what right do I have to tell that blogger their off-topic posts doesn't suit me?

Rand and Matt...I expect them to always be themselves and whichever part they want to share is fine with me.

By: randfish

randfish — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:12:39 +0000

We do have a new tool launching this week that hopefully you’ll enjoy Matt. We’ve also been consistently adding tips and the knowledge base just surpassed 500 entries. The link directory grew from ~80 to over 150 sites and now features categorization. You might have also noticed that the tools are now running at nearly 100% accuracy, compared to the low point in August of 60% – we’ve put a lot of work into the technology side of things to make that smoother.
The guides are slow in coming, but I’d say that the expectation we hoped to create was a new guide every 3-4 months. I’ll double check our marketing copy to see that it’s clearly stated.
And yes – obviously we don’t have or want any off-topic material in premium content.