Twitter Is A Public Forum, So Be Mindful How You Quote Me
SeoBook is a search engine optimisation (SEO) blog founded and edited by Aaron Wall. The site covers SEO marketing tips, search analysis and, quote, “whatever rants come to mind.”
Aaron Wall is a respected SEO expert and a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences. He is also on Twitter.
I’m a subscriber to SeoBook for one simple reason – a lot of the articles, either those written by Wall or his guest posters, are fantastic. I try and share and lot of strong content on Twitter and have tweeted links to SeoBook on several occasions.
When you visit SeoBook, the site utilises a pop-up window feature that advertises a free course entitled “7 Days To Success”. The pop-up goes on to describe how this has been downloaded by many thousands of people and you can claim your free course simply by completing a form.
No harm in that, and certainly nothing unusual about it. Lots of websites uses pop-up windows to promote and attract business. Seobook’s pop-up also contains two links in the bottom right – “Ask me in a week” and “Don’t ask me again”. This is great, as it allows the user to bookmark the pop-up to remind them at a later day, or remove it entirely if they don’t have any interest.
The problem is it doesn’t work.
I’m a regular visitor to SeoBook, and each time I hit the site, I get the pop-up. And each time, I click on the “Don’t ask me again” option. But it doesn’t make any difference at all – it always asks me again.
As said, I’ve shared SeoBook content with my Twitter followers, and several of them in the past have contacted me about the pop-up window, claiming it is a nuisance because you cannot get rid of it. I figured this was something that Aaron may not be aware of, so on Friday I contacted him about it on Twitter.
Aaron responded yesterday, asking if I had tried clearing my cookies (I had), stating, “If I could replicate the problem I might spend a bit of resources on fixing it.”
I responded to Wall saying that the pop-ups didn’t bother me as much as they seemed to bother some of my followers, to which he replied:
This took me aback a little, to be honest. I wasn’t really sure how to take it. Had I caught Aaron on a particularly bad day? Was this how he always was?
Here is the rest of our conversation:
What you may see from here is how Aaron seemed to lose sight of my original polite enquiry – that the “Don’t ask me again” link on the pop-up does not work – and focused instead on the “cheap asses” and “whiners”. Whether he works eight or 80 hours a week on his site is immaterial; if something doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I’m not in any way computer illiterate – as I said, I get the same problem in both Firefox and Google Chrome.
Clearly this is something that is dear to him, as yesterday Aaron wrote a long article on SeoBook, “Who’s Opinion Matters?” where he discusses problems he once had with low self esteem, and how “worthless people” used to take advantage of this, losing him “millions of dollars”.
This is all well and good and everybody is of course entitled to their opinion and perspective. My issue is that Aaron quotes me in this article, and does it in a way that complete ignores my initial approach to him, making me appear to be one of those people he so despises.
“I get blowback every week or 2 on Twitter about someone who feels embarassed to Tweet a link to our great content because this site has a pop up on it.”
He says, including an image of the second tweet I sent to him yesterday. You’ll note that I never once said anything about being embarrassed about sharing SeoBook content – my enquiry was, again, and quite simply, that the option to remove the pop-up permanently did not work, neither for myself or others.
Indeed, I became aware of Wall’s article through my RSS reader when I woke up this morning, and when I clicked through to the site itself, you can guess what happened. Yup, I was greeted with the pop-up again.
Note the current article in the background.
This was despite clicking on the “Don’t ask me again” link yesterday during our discourse.
Wall then goes on to say that visitors to his site who are “too lazy to click the ‘don’t show again’ link then they are too lazy to participate in the site or business in a more meaningful way.
This is quite a ridiculous statement for a number of reasons, but it is rendered even more ludicrous by the fact that “laziness” has nothing to do with the issue. If the pop-up could be successfully removed by everybody – not just Wall himself – then this conversation would never have taken place.
Aaron then goes on to make some other points relative to his article, about how he now only focuses on ‘real customers’, rather than the “penny-less Twitter users who are unhappy getting for free what others gladly pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for”, which once again illustrates how spectacularly he missed the point of my approach.
I encourage you to read the article through in full to get a solid grip on the language Aaron uses to describe the visitors to his website. Specifically, it appears his point is that he is content to ignore the opinions and enquiries of any visitor who does not put a dollar in his pocket. Pay attention to this comment, too.
It upsets me a little that an individual of Aaron’s reputation would so blatantly misquote and bastardise my communication with him on Twitter to further and promote what is evidently a long-established (and stewing) niggle of his. His actions tarnish my reputation, too, slight as it is in comparison, and I’m left shaking my head a little at his decision.
What did he hope to achieve? That by publicly attempting to put me in my place he would make me and the other “cheap asses” and “whiners” see the error of our ways? I can only assume his largely derogatory comments about Twitter mean that he has yet to see the value in content shared on that network. While it is certainly true that only a relative percentage of your followers will have any genuine interest in something to which you link, business is business. I fail to see how Twitter traffic can be any more “worthless” than that from other blogs and websites that link to SeoBook, especially when you consider some of the folk who use the platform.
Overall, this has been a very disappointing experience. Suffice to say it is clearly not in anyone‘s interests to link to SeoBook in their tweets, because even if Aaron showed an interest in determining the cause of this issue with the pop-up box in order to fix it, he’s made it comprehensibly apparent that this does not matter. After all, why should it? Nobody wants Twitter’s worthless, bitchy, whining, penny-less users visiting their site, do they?
UPDATE: Aaron was gracious enough to post his follow-up to my article both in the comments and on his blog, and has removed mention of my name from his post.
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I don’t understand the bit about my pop up’s “don’t show me this again” link not working for you. I have multiple computers and use 5 different browsers (Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer, & Safari), and it ***always*** works for me. I have tested it dozens of times.
I think the last person who bitched about my pop up was a person who was begging me for coverage on my blog (that I gave them) only a day prior to them making a nasty comment about the pop up, which seemed like an ahole thing to do.
I probably was still frustrated at that person when I wrote that blog post.
I was not trying to harm your reputation (I was pointing out that I thought the people whining to you were worthless in my eyes – and I still think that BTW). You didn’t say you were embarassed or frustrated at me, but you brought the opinion of generally worthless people to me, so I responded in a way that I hoped they would likely see it. And I bet they will, particularly after this blog post
My point was that if you think the content is good you shouldn’t have to justify the pop up. Who cares if a site offering tons of valuable content for free has editorially controlled ethical advertising on it (as opposed to some AdSense ads for colon cleanse and Acai Berry Diets and Obama tax stimulus grants propped up through reverse billing fraud)? What makes the sleazy ads delivered by Google legitimate and a great site marketing itself not ok?
People need to get over themselves and realize that people who have an online business are there to do business…not to please freeloaders who bitch at the price of free.
If you would like me to edit the image to remove your name from the quotes that is cool by me. I just wanted those people to know that I thought they were aholes, and since you pinged me instead of them I guess that sorta got placed onto you a bit. I meant no harm to you (particularly now that I saw you were a former bouncer and bond trader…hehehe).
The truth of Twitter (to me) is that generally I think for most smaller companies it does pull away link equity and link diversity because of their bogus use of nofollow. In the long run I still see it as being a fad because it is so temporal and people quickly get burned out on it.
I used to get lots of coverage from bloggers which would have lots of recommendations in them and direct links. Both of which helped lead to direct and indirect sales, while establishing a lasting footprint on the web. But twitter coverage is pretty useless because 1 week later there is no traffic and (since there is nofollow) no links. Its much more like pay per click than SEO, but also less focused, less targeted, and of much lower value. It is generally more akin to StumbleUpon than traffic that has any real value.
Many of my sites have a variety strong competitive advantages. I put Twitter on that list exactly 0 times. From a long-term marketing perspective I still see Twitter as being quite worthless. It is more of an entertainment channel than a real marketing channel.
Aaron
Thanks for your amicable response.
To clarify, any issue I had was not with the use of the pop-up window – as stated in my article it’s a very common and generally accepted way to market one’s content – but simply that I couldn’t get rid of it! It seems the “Don’t ask” link works for the day in which you click it but is forgotten on the next. I’m going to leave myself logged in to SeoBook and see if that rectifies the problem, but even if this works, it would not be a solution for a visitor who is returning without registration. My concern was that if the option to remove a pop-up is not honoured, it can begin to look like spam. Hence my initial message to you on Twitter.
I’m not going to debate with you the finer points of traffic value because you know a heck of a lot more than I ever will, although I do think you might be underestimating the value and lasting impact of Twitter. Time will of course tell whether it is a fad or the beginnings of the next era of information distribution, but as I said thousands of visitors is thousands of visitors – some of these must have value for any website.
Moreover, I don’t actually disagree with the overall stance of your article – it’s quite well-documented (by Tim Ferriss and others) how applicable something like the Pareto principle is to the customers of most businesses, how about 20% always pay on time without hassle and are responsible for about 80% of your profits, whereas the other 80% have to always be re-invoiced and chased up, and do all the complaining and fault-finding, while only accounting for about 20% of the pot. You’ll get no argument from me here – I’ve experienced it myself as a City analyst. Those that pay the least – assuming they pay at all – often demand the most.
I suppose it was simply the nature of your response that threw me off-guard; to be honest, I would have forgotten about it entirely without your follow-up blog piece.
I would be very appreciative if you could remove my name from your article, certainly if it isn’t going to impact the tone of your piece and the general purpose. As you will be well aware online reputation is increasingly important, and I’d hate for the many visitors to SeoBook to consider me little more than a schleb.
Again, thanks for your thoughtful follow-up,
Sheamus
I wish I could replicate the pop up issue not working because then I could likely fix it!
Your pic was removed from the post, and the links to your tweets were removed as well (since I was guessing the URL showed your name there too).
No hard feelings on my end Sheamus. Hopefully there aren’t any back
No, we’re all good. Thanks for making those edits.
Sheamus,
I can understand if you like what this guy writes about, but (in my opinion) he is wrong and getting away with it. As a reader and subscriber of Twittercism I have to admit that I am disappointed at you letting him be an a**hole to you. However, if this is because it will affect your business in a way, then that’s your decision.
I think the point here is NOT that you are having an issue with the pop-up. It is that he did not get his daily medicine and took it out on you, who seems to be a loyal reader of his.
Just my two cents…Great post by the way…
Juscelino M. Acevedo’s last blog post..Access Multiple E-mail Accounts via Gmail
I very much appreciate your support Juscelino. As I said to you on Twitter, I prefer to approach these things amicably, and I think that has proven itself to be the correct path in this instance.
I am not here to judge how you handle your business. I simply don’t appreciate “important” people acting “important”. I am don’t criticizing and look forward to your posts in my e-mail.
Juscelino M. Acevedo’s last blog post..Stop Being Cheap…Spend Your Money
I think the point here is NOT that you are having an issue with important people. It is that you feel unimportant, and took it out on me.
I was honestly done commenting on this issue, but you cannot tell me how I feel without knowing a single thing about me.
As a matter of fact I do not know a single thing about you either, however, it is one of those “first impression” things. Unfortunately, my first impression of you was a horrible one, because of how YOU reacted to something.
Does this mean that you are a bad person? Not necessarily, however, based on the way that you are defending yourself and the article that you wrote, I see you in a certain way, which is not too positive.
Please be certain that there is no reason for me to have anything against you. However, it is my opinion that you and I will never see eye to eye on most issues.
The web can be a minefield of misunderstandings, and people who work as hard as you (and Aaron) will get rather saddle-weary and maybe snap back perhaps a little too harshly.
Glad you guys worked it out. I too ‘worked it out’ with a famous Google blogger who replied to my email entering his competition with a neutral request to follow the rules as stated (no prob, my bad) and signed off “Thanks a bunch!” – his favorite and amiable signature.
I took it as sarcasm (hangover from school days) & blogged my offense; he spotted it and claimed innocence. We shook hands & I corrected the post & apologized.
To finish, how about this, by a councilor in my home city – ironically and coincidentally named ‘Aaron’ (I kid not) but second name and city withheld to protect us all. From my little parody op-ed:
“Tourism is only good if it is a benefit to our city,” Cr **** said. “Attracting a stack of tourists who spend nothing is not what we want to achieve.”
“That’s not parochialism, it’s just basic economic reality and that’s when the ratepayer reward would come in. The financial constraints of local government left little alternative.”
[Google for the full story]
There’s no pleasing these hard-headed business people!!
For what it’s worth: I visited seobook.com on Sunday, using Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and IE7. In each case I selected “never ask again” when the pop-up appeared. I revisited the site in each browser on Monday and the pop-up didn’t appear. I revisited each site today (Tuesday) and the pop-ups DID appear in every browser. In all cases, the cookies weren’t cleared from my browser. I noticed quite a few cookies set by seobook.com were set to expire in 48 hours, so I guess whatever scripting is behind the pop-up uses those instead of something set far into the future.
Thanks Mark – that’s a useful analysis, if only to prove I’m not insane.
Let’s face it; some people are not willing to admit that taking a positive approach to conflict is in their best interest. To them conflict means fighting. The problem isn’t with disagreements but with how they are resolved. There is a way to disagree without being disagreeable. Interestingly enough, you both just showed everyone how you manage conflict, how you view customers (or potential customers) and your own customer service styles. Your actions spoke loud and clear and were recorded for everyone to see. In the end, I’m glad you guys worked it out amicably.
You’re a class act, Sheamus. I admire how you handled first bringing it to Aaron’s attention, and then the resolution. Well done, my Twitter friend.