2000 Bloggers, a recent project by Tino, the self-proclaimed “Blogger Links Benefactor” has been addressed by Technorati in a recent post, stating: “these things are ultimately detrimental to the social fabric as they dilute our attention.”
And in that post a quote from another blogger on this exact topic:
“There’s a crazy meme going on which has the potential of turning Technorati ranks upside-down. Now, that may sometimes be good, giving fresh views more visibility, like Seth Godin or Steve Rubel’s recent initiatives. The new 2000 Bloggers craze is nothing comparable though: it’s random, viral, and has to potential to turn links, the glue of the blogosphere completely meaningless.”
Ian Kallen goes on to note:
“However, “join us and use these links” memes such as 2000 Bloggers is really a disservice to rank measurement systems and thus this decision to change our indexing policies in that regard.
We hope these changes and many others that we have cooking will help you tap into the blogosphere to find the conversations, information and people you’re looking for.”
What about authority? Technorati ranks inbound links based upon authority. If this blog has no authority, then devalue the links coming from it.
I would agree that this is not the best way to generate links, the major search engines have been working making adjustments to their algorithms because of this for years. I think that this sheds a light on things to come (like the spin off 2kBloggers.com) within the social net that the Internet is becoming.
Do you have any thoughts?
Do you agree with Technorati, or do you think that is was inflated?
What about the attention that is likely to come from this?
Will the black hats jump on to other viral campaigns such as this?
Should this have been addressed by Google, parent company of Blogger?
Would this diminish trust in social sites, like blogs, and the links they contain?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
As a fellow 2000 blogger I did not take part in an effort to generate links. I did not even add the code to my blog, however I think Tino had a great Idea. I looked at it as “social networking” a way to meet my fellow bloggers.
I have to admit that I had some concerns with all the incoming links and though I was seeing an increase in traffic, I did not see one in readership so I wonder what would be the outcome of the project. I also had some concerns with Google thinking it was a link farm. I still do.
Rose,
Thanks for the insight.
I understand your concern with people adding the code for 2000 bloggers to others blogs and the links that could be considered spammy links. The code is viral, but the root concept of the project was not.
Links are potential acquisition, for you is readers, is the basic point of links. Like any other marketing, link building is only valuable if you reach your target audience.
By the way, it was a link farm and I think that the people publishing the code were the perpetrators, however, in my personal and professional opinion: “the only link that will hurt you, is the link you publish on your website (or blog).” The only implications that being linked from a link farm or other useless site is if this is the only links that point to you.
I think that it wasn’t marketed as a viral product, but it quickly developed into one. There are many viral products that I have seen in the social realm of the Internet, and it does not appear to be slowing down any time soon!