What I conclude from Mia's experience and my own, as well as the comments of some others in this thread, is two things: 1. there are sufficient concerns about the use of the Coop to be cautious about using it - Yahoo's response does not say the Coop was the reason for the ban but they certainly hint at that - in the past, others have had suspicions that it happened to them as well in Yahoo 2. my experience and that of several others suggests that in Google using the Coop is of little or no benefit and that removing it results in little change in Google rankings - that in turn, suggests that Google is not penalizing Coop links (as Yahoo may have done) but provides strong suspicion that any potential benefits have been discounted My overall conclusion: The Coop was a nice ride while it lasted but it's over and has been so for a while.
Would have to whole-heartedly disagree there. I use it extensively and it is still very effective .. you just have to know when and how to use it to get traffic and it may help in rankings and in getting and staying indexed. In my (siginificant) experience, it's only a problem if you jump in and go overboard with the weight relative to your other backlinks ... and this would be the case regardless of the source of the links esp. on new sites.
My experience matches Nitin's on this one. I am still seeing boosts in the Google SERPS from assigning co-op wieght to pages. Of course, I have not been careful about assigning co-op weight, which could be related to some of the oddball problems I have had over the last year. I'll be more careful from here on out.
I still feel if Shawn could code the coop to allow you to assign weight by actual number, vs. a percentage, things would work a bit better. The problem with the percentage weight assignments are, one minute you could be at 300k in weight and another (at re-validation time) 25k. 10% of 300k is a lot different than 10% of 25k. It is the uncontrolled fluctuations that get you... My 2 cents.
minstrel, it's interesting to note your disregard for generating traffic through other engines besides G.
It's not actually a disregard. However, my focus is based on two things: 1. I find that when I rank well in Google, I pretty much always rank well, or at least decently, in Yahoo and MSN as well. I've not been in a situation yet where a top 10 ranking in Google isn't at least top 20 everywhere else. 2. I find it easier to rank well in MSN and Yahoo. Therefore, if I crack the tough nut, I've usually also done what I need to crack the easier ones. 3. The vast majority of my traffic comes from Google.
aha That explains it then. So do you reckon if you were to make a comparative study of two exact same sites (exactly same link profile) with one making use of the coop, and the other one not, you dont think the site with coop would have an edge in the Google SERPs?
First, see my earlier post where I explicitly said I wasn't advising anyone to dump the Coop but was merely reporting on my observations and experience. I only had the Coop running on two sites, both of them forums. Based on my experience, I seemed to get an initial boost on at least one of them (for the other I was already ranking 1 and 2, or 2 and 3, or at least top 5 for relevant keywords anyway so I probably couldn't expect much of a boost). By late 2005, I was beginning to think that the initial effect had disappeared and was getting worried about some of the things I was seeing and hearing about Google. At that point I removed the Coop from both sites and as I've said saw essentially no changes in rankings with the Coop links removed. So for me, I'd have to answer "No" to your question. Different sites with different demographics may see other results. But I just don't think the Coop ads were having any impact at all for me by late 2005.
Assuming that there is a right way to use Coop, I personally find that it's a bit cumbersome and time-consuming (and a bit stressful) to configure Coop; distribution of weight, modification of ads, etc. I personally find that I could focus my time and energy on other things than configuring Coop.
The best part about being your own boss is if you're really having a bad day and you're just pissing yourself off, you can fire yourself. Then, when you realize there's no one left to do the work, you can beg yourself to come back. Of course, since your feelings are hurt, you're going to hold out for a raise. That will get you angry because it's so transparently greedy and extortionist but you know you have no choice so you agree. Then once you're back to work and realize how much more money you're making now, you're filled with joie de vivre. To celebrate, you take the day off and enjoy the sunshine with a nice bottle of wine or a few pints of beer. It all seems to work out somehow, in spite of the stress.
That's exactly what I was asking for in another thread, it would make things so much easier to configure.
Ok so the bottom line is nobody has ever to produced anything from a search engine or a credible source saying that digitalpoint coop is bad (unlike many lead you to believe) correct or did I miss something?