It used to be that forums like WebmasterWorld.com and DigitalPoint.com were the “underground” of the SEO community. Those in the know shared tips, secrets, and hard-earned knowledge with other practitioners of the not-yet-commoditized “dark art”. For a newbie looking to break into the SEO industry, these sites were a gold mine of information and cutting-edge tactics.

Many of us learned SEO by hanging out in these forums, practicing what was shared, and experimenting with our own ideas. It was relatively easy to see what worked and what didn’t. Over time, it was also clear who the real experts were and who was just there to shout louder than the others.

Today, these forums are flooded with amateurs and speculators that are looking to become the next SEO kingpin. True, there are some great threads on beginning and advanced tactics that anybody can study. But, in the recent years more and more threads are nothing but dangerous and misleading speculation posed by amateurs and conspiracy theorists.

For example, two threads on recent suspected Google ranking updates include such classic lines as:

“I think i’m gonna hire some arabs to bomb google..”

“ - SEO has been directly attacked with most black hat filters being lifted just to complicate things even more.
- Commercial sites are being devalued so they have to buy Adwords.
- Google has monopolised PPC with their Yahoo “purchase” (let’s be honest, this was the only way they could take over Yahoo without getting into trouble with anti-competition laws).
- Results are being rotated so that people give up trying SEO and buy Adwords.
- Results are being rotated to confuse users so that they look harder on the page and hopefully run into more adverts. (opinions?)”

“Crawler speed dropping recently, switching results and so on are all linked to the new algorithm. It is a learning algorithm (AI anyone?) which is why Google are hush-hushing so much during this quite obviously HUGE software change.”

Quotes like these are not productive (or accurate) and could be misleading to anybody just starting to learn SEO. Perhaps the only lesson to be learned from these conversations is a repeating theme that has never, and will never, change:

“Google is totally unpredictable!”

Thank you Captain Obvious! ‘Nuff said.

Honestly, I never thought I’d have to write this post after leaving Comcast’s Triple Play program in favor of AT&T U-Verse. I had hoped to contact the company and provide this feedback through a feedback channel that does not involve calling Technical Support, which I have had to do 4 times in the past 5 days. Unfortunately, there is no such feedback mechanism on the site, so this is the best way I can think of to reach out and touch someone at AT&T.

As a customer, I am frustrated and extremely inconvenienced by my inability to upgrade to HD service because of their systems’ incompatibilities. As a marketer, I know how to reach my intended audience, which in this case is anybody at AT&T that wants feedback on their services.  Having been involved with a lot of online marketing, reputation management and PR initiatives, I know that somebody at AT&T or one of their marketing or PR agencies is listening.

Here’s a recap of the situation:

• January 16th: I canceled my Comcast Triple Play account.
• January 23rd: AT&T installed U-Verse 200 TV and Hi-speed Internet package. Great service techs and speedy, expert installation. Kudos.
• January 23rd - March 15th: I was very happy with the service and didn’t experience any of the service outage problems I had with Comcast.
• March 15th: I bought a new HD-capable TV and wanted to upgrade my AT&T TV service to receive HD channels. I was willing to pay the $10 additional monthly fee and was happily surprised when they gave me a free month without even asking for it. The sales lady was nice and the process went smoothly. I was told my new HD service would be turned on within 2-4 hours.
• March 16th: Still no HD channels so I called Tech Support. Apparently the previous order had been canceled with no explanation so they put in another order and said to expect a phone call when the work was completed, within 24 hours at the most. I chalked it up to human error and was willing to forgive and forget.
• March 17th: Still no HD channels and no call from Tech Support.
• March 18th: I called Tech Support back and found the second HD order had been canceled as well. Weird. They looked into it, conferred with Sales and ultimately referred me to Tier 2 Tech Support. Tier 2 was also nice and figured out that the problem was due to the HD service address database not recognizing my address. That’s the incompatibility that is preventing me from getting HD service. Their databases aren’t synched. That seems like a pretty basic thing that should have been considered before they launched the service. I have no idea how many other people this affects, but all of the reps said they have seen a few cases before. My case was escalated to “The Ovals”, whoever they are. The Ovals are supposed to take care of it, and Tier 2 asked that I call back in 24 hours to check in on the progress. They were sure it would be resolved by then. Again, I waited patiently and called back the next day.
• March 19th (today): I just got off the phone with Tier 2 support again, who checked with The Ovals and told me that the fix could take 2-4 WEEKS instead of the 2-4 hours I was originally quoted. Their suggestion? Call back 1 or 2 times a week and have Sales try to re-order the HD service. If it doesn’t go through, we’ll know that The Ovals haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.

Wait, what? I have already spent nearly 2 total hours on hold and in conversation with Sales, Tech Support and Tech Support Tier 2. I’m not allowed to talk to The Ovals. Now I have to call back twice a week for a month? I asked Tier 2 and there is no way to make a note in my account to have them call me when they fix it. Ouch, very ouch.

Here’s the rub. I understand that technical glitches happen. That’s what Tech Support is for. I asked Tier 2 guy if there was any way I could leave feedback on the frustration and wasted time I’ve experienced this week. Nope. I checked the U-verse website and again, no Contact Us forms or phone numbers that didn’t take me back into the Tech Support or Sales channels I’ve already been through.

As a marketer, I realize that there are people within AT&T that would want to know about these problems with their incompatible systems and Tech Support’s inexperience in dealing with this situation. Unfortunately there aren’t any surveys or feedback forms on the website for this type of input. So, here it is.

AT&T, I’m not mad at you yet. I’m still going to wait for my HD service to be fixed. I will call you back in a week or so, but I’m hoping that The Ovals can get this fixed soon and not place the burden on a paying customer to follow up continuously at my own inconvenience.

I will keep this post updated as the situation unfolds.

Dear Comcast,

By the time you read this, I will have already canceled my Triple Play account. Don’t bother trying to find me…you already know where I live. I couldn’t put up with your frequent internet outages anymore. I called you several times and somebody different picked up each time, making promises I knew you couldn’t live up to. You see, my cable internet connection is my lifeline to work, friends and family. As a search engine marketing consultant, my job is next to impossible to do without access to the innerwebs. I think we should see other people.

What’s that? The rolling service outages aren’t your fault? Just another lame excuse to cover for the fact that you have been jacked into by all of my neighbors too. Don’t think I didn’t notice the 3-4 times a day that we failed to connect, always at the most inopportune times.

We did have some good times, didn’t we? Your cable TV and land line phone services were fine. Oh yeah, except when the power goes out and you disappear again. And you were a pretty cheap date. The $99 monthly promotional charge was almost too good to pass up…until I realized that you were about to raise it to about $130 in another few months. For what? Because we would have been together for a year at that point? Are you trying to drive a wedge between us because you are afraid of commitment, or do you think that you have me wrapped so tightly around your little finger that I couldn’t dare leave you? Is that how you treat a faithful partner?

I need somebody more reliable. Somebody that I can count on to be around when I have deadlines to meet and internet-enabled conference calls to sit in on. Somebody that won’t get more expensive over time. So, Comcast, I’m moving on to AT&T’s new U-verse system starting next Wednesday between 12 and 2. They can offer me what you can’t - a faster internet connection that won’t flake out at the first sign of stress. Plus, they offer just as many channels so I know I won’t get bored and I don’t even have to pay extra for a DVR or multiple receivers. To top it off, I hear they are very low maintenance so I anticipate a long, healthy, mutually satisfying relationship.

Surprisingly, you took the breakup pretty well. I expected much more of a fight and promises to be more faithful and cheaper. It was too late for us at that point. You got your revenge by pulling one last trick…disabling my internet service the moment I hung up the phone. I thought it would take you at least a few days to pack your things and go. Now I’m left with nothing until AT&T comes around next week. I wish I had planned that a little better.

Sincerely,

Andrew

P.S. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime. Can we stay friends? I think you have some growing up to do, but some day you will make somebody very happy and I will be just a distant memory. Who knows? We might have a future together at some point, but for now I just need my space.

One of the most exciting things Google did last year was give business owners access to their listings on Google Maps. The Local Business Center interface makes it easy to add your business to Google’s database or update your existing business listing in Google Maps. Once you verify that you are associated with a particular business, you can add or change all of the information about your company including the address, description, business categories, operating hours, payment methods accepted, the actual placement of the marker in Google Maps, and many other facets. Sounds like a dream come true for small businesses, right? Not exactly. Stay tuned.

Let’s think about what must happen behind the scenes for this to work flawlessly. Google has to aggregate, de-dupe, normalize and filter several large data sets from disparate sources, without a unique, standardized identifier for each business. Navteq provides the maps. Data aggregators like InfoUSA and YellowPages.com compile the business listings. Epinions, Judy’s Book, CitySearch and othes provide reviews. If there is one thing Google excels at, it is exactly this type of data compilation.

So why is the Google Maps Help Group for Business Owners clogged with reports of incorrect information? Business owners that have verified their listings and updated their information frequently find that the data they typed in themselves is no longer appearing correctly in Google Maps, if it appears at all. For any offline business, having the wrong address or phone number suddenly appear in Google Maps can be a crippling turn of events. Compounding this problem is the ridiculously long periods between data updates. Google is only batch updating the Maps and Local Business Center data every 3-4 months. That means that if you find incorrect information about your business it could stay that way for 3-4 months before you have a chance to correct it. There is only one moderator in the Help Group and she is trying her best to keep up with the influx of new questions, requests and confusion/frustration. I get the impression it’s not her full-time job either because of her infrequent, rapid fire posts about known bugs and specific examples of what to do/not to do.

I have experienced this first hand with a client’s 80+ business locations. I created and uploaded a bulk file with each of the listings’ information and sat back to wait. After a couple months the upload seemed to work and our listings appeared in Google Maps….right next to duplicate listings from other data sources, some with incorrect or outdated phone numbers. Additionally, even though I painstakingly added operating hours and other details for each location, that information did not make it into Google Maps, and hasn’t in the 3 updates since.

I could go on all day with examples from the Help Group, but I thought I would turn this into a productive post by offering some suggestions to Google:

1. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. The Local Business Center can be a very powerful tool for businesses, but only if it works as promised. Currently, the risk of incorrect information showing up in Google Maps might be too high for some bricks and mortar businesses to assume.

2. Provide more help in the Help Group. Maps Guide Jen has been great when she’s available, but it appears that she is not able to address Local Business Center issues on a full time basis. Small business owners that are not very tech savvy are not going to understand the issues behind the problems we’re seeing. They will seek support and expect a response.

3. Fix the bugs faster. My last listing said one of the locations was verified on December 31, 1969. I am pretty good at history…Google was not around the year man landed on the moon. I raised the issue in the Help Group and I’ve been told that it is a known bug and I am unable to update my listings until it is resolved. So, more waiting.

4. Update the data more frequently. I understand it is a monumental task to update all of the Maps databases, and I’m sure you’re working on it. But 3-4 months between pushes is too long when you’re talking about business owners’ livelihoods. Can you imagine what would happen to your business if the Yellow Pages had incorrect information for your business? If you’re not ready for primetime, roll back the Local Business Center and just use the original data sources. At least that way there are fewer issues with duplicate listings, incorrect/missing data and inconsistent information.

5. Get better at de-duping the data. Noboby benefits from 3 duplicate listings in Google Maps search results. Currently it seems that data provided by the business owners are prioritized below other data sources such as InfoUSA and YellowPages.com. Why not trust the business owners more and only use their data when it is available? I see this issue frequently in the Help Group.

The Local Business Center is a big competitive advantage for Google, and they claim to have hundreds of thousands of businesses participating already. Do the cases cited in the Help Group represent just a small percentage of the total Local Business Center listings? Or, are the problems underrepresented because business owners aren’t paying close enough attention and/or not reporting them? Based on my experience, I would assume that there are many, many more problems than we know about.

Hopefully Google resolves these issues sooner rather than later, or stops promising things that are not fully baked. But then again, even though Google ceremoniously took Maps out of beta, it doesn’t mean that it is ready for prime time just yet.

I’m not ashamed to admit I have one reality show weakness. You can have your American Idol, your Dancing With The Stars and your So You Think You Can Dance, but don’t mess with my America’s Got Talent. Sure, all four shows get good ratings (for summer programming) and draw very talented competitors, but I am getting tired of their formulaic approach to competition. We all like watching the tragically untalented singers, dancers, jugglers, magicians and mimes. If you’re like me, you can relate more to them than to the eventual winners. Keep those videos rolling. We can also appreciate the previously undiscovered talent that eventually emerge to make the final rounds.

What gets me is that the producers feel like they can (and should) stretch 30 minutes of content into a 2-hour season finale, all in the name of selling more ads. They know they have their audience hooked, and cramming a few more sponsor vignettes or commercial breaks won’t hurt anybody, right? Wrong. How many times have you heard a variation of this common lead-in, “And the winner of this year’s (insert show name here) competition is……..(pregnant pause)……..coming up after the break.”? You know it’s coming, the studio audience knows it’s coming and the producers wisely cut to commercial before the audience’s groans reach the mics.

The reason I bring this up is simple. TV is a passive medium. Sitting through another 3-minute commercial break isn’t going to actually kill anybody, but stringing together several in the last 15 minutes of a reality show finale doesn’t help cement a relationship with a particular viewer either. Personally I use the breaks to hit the head, check email, grab a snack or take the dog out. The sad thing is, desperate advertisers know this but continue to pump money into a medium that fails to reach audiences like it used to. I’m not saying TV advertising isn’t effective anymore, it’s just becoming less so.

Online, it’s a whole different ballgame. It’s an active medium. People expect instant gratification and aren’t afraid to click away to find what they want elsewhere. A site that introduces too many roadblocks before a conversion is going to lose visitors to the competition. People visit your site with a goal in mind. Many times, that goal is to give you their money. Don’t do anything foolish like put unnecessary ads, shopping cart pages or surveys in their path. Eliminate or consolidate as much “stuff” as possible and your customers will reward you.

TV producers haven’t figured this out yet. Stuffing more ads into a program might help them make up for their smaller audience size, but in most cases they are only creating more dissatisfied viewers that will significantly cut their TV consumption once they get a taste of instant gratification on the web.