Blogs and Google Juice: Google deems John Dvorak trivial compared to A-list bloggers
I started enthusiastically reading John Dvorak’s columns back in 1984, at my first job selling IBM PCs and Mac 128k computers from a storefront in Seattle. I have always enjoyed his candor and attitude despite the fact that he has been so wrong, so many times. I still have the 1984 column where he derides the Macintosh mouse as being like a “joystick” and how it tries to make computing like “a game”.
In his latest piece he makes a wrong-headed jab at the more prominent bloggers:
“The influential bloggers should be defined here. These are people whom you’ve never heard of, but whom other influential A-list utopianist bloggers all know.”
Hey John, it’s more than the other utopianist bloggers who know these guys. Look at the Google mentions for a handful of the “A-listers” as defined by the Open Media 100, and see how the compare to you. I just grabbed the first 6 listed here and then threw in Robert Scoble as he is one of our co-conspirators. Here are the mentions Google sees for the following searches:
“joi ito” 775,000
“robert scoble” 610,000
“dan gillmor” 561,000
“doc searls” 553,000
“dave winer” 401,000
“clay shirky” 399,000
“john dvorak” 58,600
To his credit, I should mention that “John C. Dvorak” (which is his usual byline) finds 69,500 mentions. If you add that to the 58,600 he gets close to having half the mentions of Clay Shirky.
I find this remarkable. Dvorak has been pounding the keyboard since the day the World Wide Web came online, and was one of the first and most prolific contributors of ongoing content to the Web. I suppose the issue was that he failed to recognize early enough that all those non-syndicated pages he coughed up for years are deemed comparatively irrelevant by search engines.
The how and why of maximizing Google juice will be covered at the next Blog Business Summit. Tell us where we should host it.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes and Dvorak has more readers than the rest put together. Your point?
Oh, I forgot.
“…. maximizing Google juice …”
Your point is promoting your scam.
It’s feasible that Dvorak consistently being wrong has lessened his impact.
Dvorak is an idiot. He has no insider information and is a provocateur. He is immature and rather dim witted as well.
The fact that search engines rank you highly gives you power, but it doesn’t mean that people are interested in what you have to say.
I can fully appreciate what Dvorak talks about. Outside of a certain inner circle, nobody knows who Scoble is.
Somebody, somewhere (probably Scoble) decided that the benchmark for the relevance of blogging was how many references their website gets. This is a quantity over quality issue. I can see why some people are excited. Their generation gets a chance to take control of the message from the previous generation. In the end, we’ll have the same problem as we do now, just with different people in control (I am part of the generation that is taking over).
Yet again, it’s about power.
My point is:
1) Google is the single most significant resource for finding things today.
2) For whatever reason, Google has far fewer references to Dvorak than the A list bloggers he describes.
3)It’s all part of my insidious scam to help people maximize their impact on the web through evil blogging.
This means, then, that if Google falls from grace, or decides that there is a better way to rank search results, the influence of bloggers changes. The bloggers had better not criticize Google TOO much
They won’t be evil as long as they don’t need to be.
As for Google being the most important resource… from my point of view, I agree. It’s probably what most bloggers use, too. But, what is its market share? Most of the figures I’ve seen put it at less than 50%.
I stop reading Dvorak long time ago. He is funny but his articles are too often lies from the technical perpective.
…and I so soooo tired of “big company x buying big company y” histories.
The web is a world. I used to read Dvorak in the early days (mainly becaase I liked his ranting that always turned out to be wrong, which made him funny), but he is so off radar now. The A list continue to dominate this space. Who gives a sh*t about the offline tech audience anyway? (if there is such a thing)
I actively seek out the non-A listers (heh, not even the C-listers) - after all I’m probably only a triple-Z lister or something, if I’m even on a list…
“Worthing” someone by their Google popularity is too simplistic. Sure getting your page linked is important, but let’s not get into what a human’s worth by a computer algorithm’s perspective.
“Let’s see what Dvorak is worth next to 6 A-listers” (paraphrase). Only it’s not really is it?
I get a measly circa-1500 references on Google. Am I bothered by my self-worth? Not a bit. It just means that less people get to see me throwing my toys out of the pram on a rant than get to see Scoble doing it, for example.
Having said that, Mr Dvorak does seem to have a bit of an axe to grind.
Finally, I love the irony of the throwing of an ‘insult’ like “Dvorak is an Idiot … He is immature and rather dim witted as well.”
This proves nothing of the sort. This proves only that “PageRank” is biased continuous and repeated linkbacks. If John Dvorak published every single piece of his at Dvorak.org rather than at PC Mag, Mac User, MarketWatch, Forbes, NYTimes, LA Times, then his pagerank would be as high as those other guys, but he’d but a fraction of the name recognision. Who the hell is Joi Ito in the first place? I bet more people know who Maureen Dowd is. Yet Google ranks her under Clay Shirki! (Who the hell is he? Could you give me a link, so I at least know who these nobodies are?)
This is like saying Senior Cheerleader Megan Palmer is the most influential woman in the world because all the students at Thurgood Marshall High School is talking about her.
“Outside of a certain inner circle, nobody knows who Scoble is.”
Do you mean the certain inner circle that includes the readers of The Economist? That inner circle?
Number of Google references means little to nothing.
Why think that Google or any search engines are the primary manner in which people find online information?
I rarely Google anything. I find it far more credible to link to and then from reputable sources.
I already did a comparison of how many hits various paired words got versus each other. Meaningless if a certain name gets more hits than another name.
How many of those search engine results are credible, valuable, meaningful?
And a search engine only spiders about 2% of the web anyway, at best, from research I conducted months ago.
John C. Dvorak wrong about many things?
Well, when you write about lots of things, the more you write about, the more chance there is you’ll be wrong about something.
And “wrong” is often subjective. What one person considers “wrong” is what another could consider “not fulfilled yet”.
When someone says the car was a huge improvement over the bicycle, I can say that statement is “wrong” because the car has increased America’s dependency on Arab/terrorist oil, decreased health and fitness, and made us lazy and pampered.
I totally agree with Andy that many C listers are a treasure trove of info. I also assert I put forth provactive posts to help raise the visability of our business blogging conferences.
For those that pooh-pooh my Google mention analysis:
Okay, forget Google:
MSN:
18,282 containing “john dvorak”
18,785 containing “john c. dvorak”
98,411 containing “joi ito”
Yahoo:
84,400 for “john dvorak”
125,000 for “john c. dvorak”
1,340,000 for “joi ito”
According to this, many more people write about Ito than Dvorak. I make no value judgements on this. They might be saying great things about Dvorak and lousy things about Ito (doubtful…). Nonethless, I suspect Ito may soon be saying about Dvorak that he’s one of those people “you’ve never heard of”.
Also, search engines are how computer literate people find things today - period. No one can legitimately deny they are a critical resource.
Heads up: if you still go to the yellow pages first, you’re probably posting to the wrong site. Fire up your modem and head to the Cat Fancy forums.
To the person wanting to know were Joi Ito’s site is, I would advise him go to google and type in “joi ito”. It’s an amazing tool!
What I found most interesting about the article was that it actually criticized the blogosphere rather than offering the usual techno-fluff, cluetrain love-in praise. I think that maybe a first. Cheers to Dvorak in that sense, for ripping on a medium that too often takes itself to seriously. As blogging matures, that a-list mentality will diminish, as well as the amount of “blog like me” manifestos.
Considering criticism and pb@pb.com’s comment, what exactly is our scam?
I had a go-around last year with Dvorak when he did this same dismissive, no-nothing sort of attack against instant messaging. He’s a clown. See this (http://www.corante.com/getreal/archives/2005/06/06/john_dvorak_on_blogging_tagging_and_all_that_fringe_lunacy.php) as to why we should just ignore this buffoon.
I’m a huge fan of John Dvorak and his ability to step on toes and push buttons. But it doesn’t stretch his analytical skills, it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Plus being critical all the time, every time, is monotonic. I like being critical and I like being enthusiastic about some things. I might end up being wrong on both, but, I like the range better
I never liked Dvorak and now, after reading this post…. I hate him
Let’s see, there have been people who were not “popular” (compared to contemporaries) and were murdered by the democratic crowd of fools: Jesus, Socrates, etc.
No. Google references are totally worthless in judging anything, especially a blog.
I like Google very much. But I will tell you this: many “google references” are inacurrate.
When I Google “Steven Streight”, I get lots of hits that are people mis-spelling the word “straight”.
Just an example of the fallibility.
I really like John C. Dvorak. He’s smart enough to put images on EVERY post, which adds interest and is creative. I do that too, with 99% of my posts.
Those who “hate” him: loser schmucks who have accomplished nothing compared to Dvorak. When you can list credentials and achievements like Dvorak, then come and criticize him. Until then, shut the hell up, underachiever twerpazoid.
Did I annoy you? I’m not anonymous, so it’s no fed crime.
How many A-listers are “clinking”, “clique-linking” to bolster their little cult?
How many comments on A-list blogs are butt kissing?
There are many ways to evaluate a blog. Google references is not one.
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