So I got an infraction for posting something in the Google forum. Yes, I can see if I read the forum description that I was posting in the wrong forum. But ya know, I was pretty much following the heard. My post was about the curious changes in serps. And the post got moved to "reviews"? "For anything that is specific to you and requires someone to go look at whatever it is." My post was not asking for anyone to look at my site I was just adding some data to the ongoing discussions about Google and their lovely and confusing search engine. So I really do not think my post belongs in "reviews" but rather the forum for discussing Google the search engine... but where is that? I have been on the DP forums for a while and I have read many many dozens of threads in the Google forum about, Google The Search Engine, serps, indexing etc. What changed and what did it change to? Here is the offending thread/post in question http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=1279693#post1279693 -- And just for fun here are the current first page Google forum threads. Are not most of these also in the wrong forum? Related Links Sandboxed right after using StumbleUpon How [if possible] are you able to gauge your future PR? Sudden Rise to No 1 Next PR update Fake PR ? How can i tell ? Backlinks taken by google is less than yahoo and msn The NEW Google! Let's face it: Google does not work any more and is THE WORST search engine The New GoogleTalk released! Google Site status Wizard - no mention of last indexed date. June 27th Screw Up Fixed My God. Google is created video Adsense Ads....... June 27th revisited Is submission to Gogle base helpful for a blog? Question About Expanded Search Result New Google Lab: Music Trends Is google like all domain Be an american for a day Adam Lasnik to explain the site: bug... Site: diff from Data centres Top level and country level domains! Being sort of cockblocked by google and its making me sad Domain Name Aftermarket Banned By Google Google Talk IM!! Misleading Google search partner? multiple gmail accounts Matt Cutts On Myspace? What's up with digg.com? Google adsense in search results
Following the heard is definitely not an excuse. Just because someone else perhaps got away with something doesn't mean you can as well. Report them instead. Yes, Google, AdSense and recently General Marketing seem to be the dumping grounds for threads started by people who don't wish to think a bit longer than 2 seconds about where to best put the threads. We don't like it either. Just keep reporting them and we'll clean as much up as we can. Your particular thread definitely is so much focussed on one single situation that it's useless for anyone else to study and draw conclusions about for their understanding of Google. As soon we we see a thread outside of reviews that says 'My site', 'I', "I did this', 'On my site', 'My site in Google' etc. more than a couple of times, we move it. If you really want to discuss SEO and SE behaviour, it should be in the SEO forum and be kept very general. Rather than I, I, My Site it should be about 'when this and that was added', 'it then moved to position X' etc. in very general terms.
My two cents: When you make a title major SERP changes for me it sounds like it is personal not global. I must confess I am the worlds worst at categorization. I could never have been a librarian. Many misplaced posts are posted in the Google forum since that is the first forum in the list. I have heard Shawn say he moves about 50 posts a day. That does not include the posts moved by the mods so it is an ongoing battle to keep posts organized.
Fair enough Yes I agree that following the heard is not an excuse and that is why I mentioned it even thought I didn't overtly criticize myself for it. I guess it just seemed to me that since the MSN and Yahoo forums are combined company/SE forums it wasn't intuitively obvious that the Google forum would not. Yes, yes I can read in fact but I am talking about intuition. Possibly it would make more sense to make the Google main forum for Google the SE, and have a sub-forum about Google the Company? If it is that chronic of a problem that 50+ threads a day need to be moved... And also, with all due respect, I still do not understand how my post could fit into the "review" forum. I was making an observation about MY site true, but it directly relates to Google and its SE. I didn't ask for help, mention my domain etc, I just made an empirical observation about Google logic. Free free to tell me to shut up
Shut up! It's fine speaking your mind, we need your feedback to keep improving. I always look at it like this... If an outsider comes in and wants to learn about Google, would they benefit from reading your thread? I don't think so. Same with all those what I call trivial AdSense celebrations. Is someone really interested in someone telling they just got their first cheque? I tend to move them to General Chat - they're about their personal stuff, not about AdSense. The main point is, where lies the focus of the thread. If you can summarize it in one word or phrase and that is 'Google' then fine. If it summarizes as 'My Site' then it's a Review of your site. Even if you don't ask others to review it, your thread basically is your own review and telling the rest about how it did in the SERPs etc.
Ok! *mumbles quietly in the corner* well what I really wanted to do... even though I didn't tell anyone... was talk about Google, but no they just wont listen to me.... ...if people could just hear in my mind what I was saying they would understand... ...and fear me.... *mwahahaha* Anyway, I think I will take a short time to re-asses my command of the written word and attempt a re-post in the correct forum at a later date.