by Scott Howard | Nov 25, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
I just discovered something that I should have known about before today.
I had nearly 100 spammy links on this website.
No, I wasn’t the spammer.
There were a combination of Comments and Trackbacks from others that were using articles I had published as link bait to either get traffic to their website, or fool search engines into thinking that their site was credible.
The first was easy to spot. Someone would leave a comment often filled with keywords and a link that they wanted a reader to click on which had nothing to do with the subject of the article.
The second is really stupid. Google and Bing/Yahoo have updated their algorithms to avoid giving these trackbacks any credibility. As a matter of fact, they may even hurt the credibility of the original article.
Here’s an example:
The link goes to an article I wrote and it seems harmless, except the website that posted this is not a credible site.
2 questions arise:
1. How do I know if this is happening to my site?
2. How do I clean it up and stop it?
I guess that’s 3 questions.
This site is built with WordPress. If your site is built with WordPress, sign in, go to the Dashboard, scroll down to the Comments and take a look.
I had 17 pages of over 300 comments. I reviewed all 17 pages, and every comment to see if they were genuine or spammy. If they were spammy, I unapproved them and marked them spam. Then I deleted them permanently
Next I went to the Settings section on my Dashboard and looked at the settings I had for Discussion. I changed the Comment Moderation to hold any comment that includes 1 (or more) hyperlinks. I get an email notifying me of these comments now. I can look at at and decide if it is spam or genuine as they occur.
by Scott Howard | Oct 15, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
I’ve been meaning to write this article for awhile.
It was inspired by a presentation that Robby Slaughter shared at Blog Indiana in August 2011.
I had lunch with Robby last month and a few days later found the link to his presentation, Remaining Productive While Using Social Media.
Click on the link above and you’ll see the 20 slide presentation Robby shared.
What stuck out when I saw it live was the 90-9-1 principle that Robby explained.
90% of the people who read what you write online only want to read. Robby calls them Lurkers.
9% of the people who read what you write will interact with you on occasion.
1% of the people who read what you write will interact with you a lot.
When you apply this a a blog, as I did, I realized that it was ridiculous to measure the impact of what I was writing by the number of comments I received on the blog. Granted, at that time I was pushing out more than 30 articles a week on several ScLoHo blog sites.
Some articles were Google magnets. They contained information that folks were Googling and at one point if you Googled “ScLoHo”, there would be over 200,000 results.
For the past year, I have been working on rebranding myself away from ScLoHo and focusing on my given name of Scott Howard.
That is why I bought the ScottHoward.me domain and have been using this site since October, 2011.
Scott Howard is a common name. A year ago none of the Scott Howard links on the first page of a Google search pointed to me.
Now there are usually 3 of the top 10 Google Search results that point to me. They include my LinkedIn profile, my Twitter account and this website.
This rebranding that I started a year ago was not to eliminate the ScLoHo brand.
My goal was to merge the online identity of ScLoHo, with my in person, face to face identity as Scott Howard.
I am happy with the results. Instead of posting 30+ articles per week, I post 3 each week.
Going back to the 90-9-1 numbers for a moment.
I have been surprised by what people know about me, but it’s that 90% that read but rarely respond online.
Also instead of comments being posted on my website, I find because of my use of Twitter primarily and Facebook secondarily, Twitter and Facebook get more comments and allow me to be conversational.
I have said this to my radio clients for years, “Blog to build your online reputation”. Google likes your blog posts.
And now I also say use Facebook and Twitter too. People like to talk with you online.
by Scott Howard | Sep 6, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
This is a special Thursday Thoughts.
I publish (post) new stuff on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but every once in awhile, I will add an extra article if it is timely and I don’t want to wait. I schedule the updates to this site in advance and have some waiting in the wings for December already.
Yesterday Amber Recker asked:
Amber Recker @amrecker
So Twitter, how do you feel about social media certificate classes and training programs?
And here are some of the answers:
Kevin Erb @kevinerb
Training programs=good. Cert classes=meh. Depends, I guess, but mostly…meh.
Scott Howard @ScLoHo
Training =good. Certificates = worthless =no standard
Derek Pillie @dpillie
Isn’t that the problem though? Energy should be directed to developing standards of practice in social
Scott Howard @ScLoHo
Yes, but each platform should offer their own certification(FB, Twitter, LinkedIN, Pinterest)
Derek Pillie @dpillie
Something like the old MCSE cert is fine, but a “social media cert” should be about practices, not platform
Scott Howard @ScLoHo
that’s like measuring morality vs knowledge
Kevin Mullett @kmullett
the thing of it is, clearly other traditional forms of education and certificates suffer the same issues.
and IMHO, it shouldn’t be just SM without a broader understanding of online & offline marketing. Clarification, SM alone without direction or background on tying all together is diminished
There were a few other comments but then I asked Amber why she asked the original question and her reply:
Amber Recker @amrecker
In the last week, 3 people have asked me if a class being offered at a local college is worth it.
Good, because Amber and everyone else in this conversation do not need to take a class, everyone of them can teach a course on social media.
However this brings up a bigger question of accreditation.
We want certain people in our life to be able to prove that they are capable of doing the job they claim to be able to do.
The doctor has his degrees hanging on his wall. The mechanic has his ASE certification. The lawyer is a member of the bar.
All of these involve some degree of government oversight and regulation.
Venture into the computer world and you can earn certifications from Microsoft and Apple for passing knowledge based tests.
The standards are set by the companies that offer the accreditation.
Now we know that there are some bad doctors, bad mechanics and bad lawyers. Often this is due to a lack of following a moral compass, not incompetence due to ignorance.
There was a time in our history that you did not need accreditation to be a doctor, lawyer or mechanic. Many where self-taught, others were mentored, and some were fakes and con-artists.
Did government involvement rid us of the bad apples? Not really. I like being able to trust my life to a professional, but it take more than just certification. I recently switched dentists and my new guy found treatment options to take care of the cause of a problem instead of just dealing with the symptoms like my old dentist was doing.
I recently got a 2nd opinion on some major car repair work and saved a bunch of money. But it was not just the $$$ it was trust that won me over.
Bottom line regarding regulations and Social Media:
- Because I don’t want government involved and screwing things up, (and taxing us, etc) I don’t want them involved.
- Because the social media technology is continuing to change faster and faster I believe standards should be set by the companies who are giving us access to their platforms.
- The best way to find a social media professional is to evaluate their work and conduct which is available online.
Your thoughts?
by Scott Howard | Sep 5, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
A few days ago I was having a discussion with a friend about claiming your name on various social media platforms. He thought I should delete my Pinterest account since I don’t use it.
I disagree. I wrote last month about the importance of owning your domain name and I believe the same is worthy of consideration in the social media world.
For me, the name I claim is ScLoHo.
Why?
Scott Howard is too common a name and I wanted a unique identity to separate me from the other Scott Howards in this world.
The origin of ScLoHo can be found here: http://www.scotthoward.me/about/
If you don’t claim your brand, or name on social media platforms, then you could have someone else claim your name and create confusion as to who the real “Joe Smith” really is.
I’ve got two sites you can use to check for your name/brand:
Namechk is one that I used a few years ago: http://namechk.com/ but it appears to be missing some pretty important social media networks like Pinterest.
So, do a second check at KnowEm: http://knowem.com/ They’ll try and get you to buy premium services but I don’t recommend doing that.
By the way, I have done some weeding out of my social media accounts. I killed my MySpace account this summer but I’m keeping Pinterest as a personal bookmarking site for my own use.
by Scott Howard | Aug 22, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
Yesterday my friend Brian Gallagher posted a comment on Facebook and tagged me in a comment along with another friend, Andy Welfle.
Before I had a chance to see what Brian was up to, Andy hopped on Twitter and sent a few tweets about the article that also mentioned another friend Doug Karr and Amy L Bishop whom I don’t know.
Brian saw an Inc magazine article written by Minda Zetlin entitled, “5 Reasons People Unfollow You on Twitter“ on August 10th.
Turns out a Tweet that mentioned myself and all of the others above was used as an example of what not to do.
Here’s the quote:
3. Your tweets are in English, but I still can’t understand them.
Consider this tweet from earlier today: “RT @ScLoHo: RT @awelfle: @AmyL_Bishop @douglaskarr and what about @scloho? #solomo #yolo #BIN2012 //Yeah Doug? What cha think of @ScLoHo ?”
The article continues:
I’m sure that means something to someone, but not to me. I don’t mean to pick on @ScLoHo–I looked up his timeline, and the rest of his tweets are considerably less cryptic and more appealing. But if all or most of your tweets are full of abbreviations and inside messages, only insiders are likely to follow you. Of course, that may be what you want.
Thanks for the rest of your explanation Minda.
There is a special language that sometimes pops up when reading someones tweets. I don’t use cryptic language most of the time but this deserves an explanation.
(I find text messages more cryptic than most tweets).
RT is shorthand for Retweet. A Retweet is like a Share on Facebook. Twitter allows us to retweet what someone else has tweeted and give credit to the original Tweet author. (If you modify the tweet, then change the RT to MT).
From looking at this tweet, I believe it was Andy Welfle who originally wrote this tweet which I retweeted. And it is all out of context.
I don’t even know the entire context because this message that was part of a conversation inspired by a conference that Andy, Amy and Doug were all attending 100 miles away from me on August 10th. The conference was Blog Indiana 2012. I know that because of the hashtag in the tweet #BIN2012.
My guess is that Andy joined a conversation between Doug and Amy about acronyms due to a comment that a Blog Indiana speaker had just made. Andy added my Twitter handle (ScLoHo) and that’s how I got involved.
But it’s not really as mysterious as it sounds.
Let’s take this out of the social media world and imagine it in the face to face social world.
Doug and Amy are talking about something they just heard and Andy happens to walk over and hear their conversation and add his 2 cents and drops my name. Normally that would be about it.
But because this conversation is happening online via Twitter, it is more public than the original closed room. I get an alert that my name was mentioned and I decided to retweet to others who follow me.
I really don’t mind being mentioned in an article titled, “5 Reasons People Unfollow You on Twitter“, especially since Minda mentioned that the rest of the tweets she saw on my timeline were appealing.
And thanks for the inclusion in an Inc Mag column. I’ve been quoted previously by the online versions on the Wall Street Journal and Fast Company along with a few lessor known publications.
Minda’s article is pretty good and I suggest you check it out by going here.
If you are a newbie to twitter, I wrote this article just for you last year. Twitter Terms for Newbies.
And if you want to connect via Twitter anyone or everyone I’ve mentioned, here you go:
I’m Scott Howard also known as ScLoHo
Andy Welfle
Douglass Karr
Amy L Bishop
Minda Zetlin
Inc mag
and Brian Gallagher
by Scott Howard | Aug 20, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
The C version of Clout has been around a lot longer than K version of Klout.
Klout was launched in 2009 as a tool to measure your social media influence. Wikipedia says:
Klout scrapes social network data and creates profiles on individuals and assigns them a “Klout score.” Klout currently claims to have built more than 100 million profiles.
They have been criticized for their methods of measurement and not revealing exactly how they come up with a persons Klout score.
Every once in awhile they revise their methodology and scores either drop or rise due to these changes. Last week mine jumped several points upward.
Those who are more highly involved in these metrics of social media than I want to be are often comparing their numbers and figuring out how to game the system.
It’s silly.
Actually it’s stupid.
While I pay a little attention to the metrics and methods, I am more focused on the real relationship values.
Clout has been a word for several hundred years and refers to power and influence that a person has and can’t be measured with metrics because one persons clout is different with each person they know.
Last week I had a brief interaction with my friend Joe Noorthoek. Joe is the marketing guy behind a local lawn care service. Joe uses the Twitter handle @LawnBoyGreen and has established himself as a humble, knowledgeable, and involved member of our city.
Joe is not from Fort Wayne. Joe moved his wife and family here from Michigan a couple of years ago and somehow became involved.
I believe it was Twitter and the relationships built via those conversations that got Joe connected. We have a monthly Social Media Breakfast on the last Tuesday of each month and Joe like myself, is one of the alumni that have been invited to speak during a panel discussion. Just that achievement in my mind launches Joe into a local celeb.
But even though his business is lawn care and his twitter handle refers to that part of his life, that is not the focus of what he says online or face to face.
A quick review of about 3 weeks of tweets and not once was there a promotional tweet attempting to sell his services. Yet if you ask Joe about the value of Social Media and his work, he’ll tell you how valuable the relationships built via Twitter have become.
I know about Joe’s family, his ambitions and his beliefs. And because of that, he’s on my short list of lawn care pros to recommend to others.
Klout vs. Clout. Be sure you are striving for the right type of influence.
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