In the discussion, Site Speed. How To Speed It Up?, someone joined Cre8asiteforums to ask about how to increase site speed for a particular site.

Shortly afterward, she got 6 responses. Some offered diagnostics that members ran to offer some help. Various advice was offered.

Then, the owner of the web site joined the forums!

This was a surprise. Turns out, the person asking for advice was NOT the site owner, but someone who uses the web site.  Before contacting the site owner, the member came looking for more verification of what she was finding. She wanted to send an informed alert to the web site owner.

As you can see, the site owner took this situation really well. They were not offended.

Thanks all.. we are the owners of Technomadia.com. I believe RobinS to be one of our readers who is looking for ways to help us?

I know what some of you may be thinking. “Sock puppets”. “Forum tag”. There were no warning signals to us.

As Barry Welford later wrote,

It’s a fine example of the connections that are only possible because the Internet exists and the search engines are there to help you find the links you need.

We agree.

Turns out he’s not alone. So the next question is whether or not it even matters anymore. If dropped, there is rarely a human on board that can help. And, to get a site added is just about impossible. No one seems to be on deck. Google’s directory results from DMOZ are different, so one wonders if they’re even updated at all.

What have you decided? Do you bother with DMOZ? Are you finding your sites are de-listed?

Discussion Why Am I Gone from DMOZ?.

Look Ma! No Homepage! discussions and explores. Jump in!

1. Forums are no longer where the majority of search marketers go for information.

2. Forums are not appealing to the younger generation of Internet users. They use Google to ask questions and Facebook to network.

3. Activity attracts traffic. A blog or forums that pays its content generators achieve better results and brand loyalty than volunteer-driven communities.

and more… a difficult look at what’s happening >> Time To Close Forums: New Gen Has No Need For Them. We need your opinion and suggestions.

You’ll see many people who feel that SEO is marketed using FUD, that’s Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The assumption is that all those spamming emails you receive offering to get you on the first page of Google use this. You must have thousands of web pages and thousands of back links or you will not achieve this obviously important ranking.

I realized the biggest creator of FUD in this scenario is Google itself.

Discuss Fear and Loathing on the Search Engine Marketing Trail

I’m quite convinced the Google “response” was misdirection. Oh hell. Its a lie.

There is some real disdain being felt right now for the screwy way in which Google has responded to questions about why they made this change. Google has a way of compounding existent frustrations caused by poor communication by then giving conflicting responses to issues like these.

the google reaction was weak. Something is going on. They aren’t being straight.

The wierd results for 7pac/10pacs for advertising agencies (only the plurals) have been around for a while. They were always of the ilk for the current list for Baltimore.

Then this past late Spring/Summer they started getting better with more logical businesses for various searches in various cities. Not perfect…just better.

Then Google made this change where they impacted the weight of the algo that generates onemaps or 7pacs. Far more 7pacs were appropriately showing than before.

Then the advertising agencies data turned wierd again. Then Google decided to kick SEO’s and web designers out of 7pacs.

Cre8asiteforums investigates:Google Slams Seo And Web Designers