Does Warrior Forum Require Members To Be Shortcut Artists?

[sporkmarketing]

I just spent the last hour cruising questions about SEO here on this forum (I'm an SEO consultant for a living), and I'm amazed at the number of people talking about "spinners" and "bots" that have been debunked in the SEO community years ago.

Even the most casual review of authoritative SEO advice - like the SEOMoz "SEO for beginners" article series - would show that these SEO tools are nothing more than junk.

Seeing as how there are dozens of people actively pimping these crummy programs, I have the following question:

Does Warrior forum require some of it's members to be shortcut artists who avoid real work at all costs? Cause from where I'm sitting, I see a lot of foolish and/or lazy people wasting time and money on tools that don't work.

[Tina Golden]

Originally Posted by sporkmarketing

Does Warrior forum require some of it's members to be shortcut artists who avoid real work at all costs? Cause from where I'm sitting, I see a lot of foolish and/or lazy people wasting time and money on tools that don't work.

Wow. How hard did you work to create a paragraph that seems very intent on slamming just about every member of the forum? Not to mention the administration.

[sporkmarketing]

Originally Posted by Tina Golden

Wow. How hard did you work to create a paragraph that seems very intent on slamming just about every member of the forum? Not to mention the administration.

Not hard. Took maybe two minutes.

But seriously, do you disagree with what I've said? Are you one of these people pushing SEO software that doesn't work, or are you oblivious to the fact that this is going on?

If I was a passionate member of the site like you are, I wouldn't stand for people using this site to sell junk. It's really bad.

[fprint]

My problem is that a lot of people come to these forums to learn something and sometimes its hard to tell what is good information and what is bad. For instance, I'm not interested in black hat methods or scrapers bots etc, but without technical knowledge or expertise in that area of some sort, a newbie wouldn't know if what is on offer is white or black hat. They think they are learning from the experts, but are they learning the right things?

[orvn]

I have learned a lot from WF, but it took me some time.

When I first began reading here, I have to admit, I initially encountered a great deal of B.S. which was difficult to discern from the discussions that were actually useful.

Petty and unsubstantiated threads revolving around forum signatures, profile links, blog commenting and article spinning dominate the discussions here.

It took me a little while before I learned to pick things up from the senior warriors here.

I've come to rest with the fact that nine out of ten topics here are utterly useless repetitions of archaic strategies.

Not to point fingers, but I can't help but notice a correlation between poor English language skills and fervent discussion of outdated strategies.

All that being said, there's still quite a bit of good material on here. It's a highly active forum with a ton of information flowing through it at all times, which makes it a great place to ask questions.

[sporkmarketing]

Originally Posted by fprint

My problem is that a lot of people come to these forums to learn something and sometimes its hard to tell what is good information and what is bad.

I can definitely see that. I suppose if people only visited this site and started reading the wrong advice, it wouldn't be long before they got some bad notions committed to memory. Good point.

However, this makes me wonder why someone at Warrior Forum doesn't put a stop to this type of nonsense as soon as it's posted. Who's in charge of quality here?

[sporkmarketing]

Originally Posted by orvn

I've come to rest with the fact that nine out of ten topics here are utterly useless repetitions of archaic strategies...that being said, there's still quite a bit of good material on here. It's a highly active forum with a ton of information flowing through it at all times, which makes it a great place to ask questions.

OK fair enough. I was drawn here because I saw a couple of things that interested me.

Do you think the senior warriors then have a responsibility to stop these useless threads then? It seems like this resource would be 9 times better if the junk was deleted as soon as it was posted...

Not asking you to do this, mind you, just wondering where the warrior admins/managers/senior members are on this. This place could be so much better.

[orvn]

Originally Posted by sporkmarketing

OK fair enough. I was drawn here because I saw a couple of things that interested me.

Do you think the senior warriors then have a responsibility to stop these useless threads then? It seems like this resource would be 9 times better if the junk was deleted as soon as it was posted...

Not asking you to do this, mind you, just wondering where the warrior admins/managers/senior members are on this. This place could be so much better.

I understand your concern, but this is not a policed forum. There are no moderators and users aren't banned frequently as far as I know.

Warriorforum is the 211th most popular site on the web globally, according to Alexa. This means a few things:
Spam is to be expected.
Useless posts are to be expected.

I don't mind weeding out the more interesting discussions here, but you're right, sometimes it gets downright frustrating.

The sheer stupidity of the below thread has me baffled, for instance, lol:
http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...web-2-0-a.html

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by orvn

I've come to rest with the fact that nine out of ten topics here are utterly useless repetitions of archaic strategies.

Yeah. It makes posting quite a challenge sometimes. 50 threads on the same
myth.

I've gotten to the point where I almost ignore them all because the threads
just morph into cargo-idiocy, with repliers just saying the same stupid thing
over and over.

You wrong about mods. They are here and work overtime. Many threads,
posts, members get deleted on an ongoing basis.

I'm not sure why you think there are no moderators. They do the best job
they can, let the buyer beware.

Paul

[guitarjosh]

Originally Posted by sporkmarketing

OK fair enough. I was drawn here because I saw a couple of things that interested me.

Do you think the senior warriors then have a responsibility to stop these useless threads then? It seems like this resource would be 9 times better if the junk was deleted as soon as it was posted...

Not asking you to do this, mind you, just wondering where the warrior admins/managers/senior members are on this. This place could be so much better.

Many of the senior warriors are as guilty as anyone as doing things such as using spinners and bots (as you alluded to in your original post). Probably 90% of WSO offers are rehashed junk that the senior warriors release after a lot of experiencing in repackaging and sales.

If you truly want to learn, you need to at least be aware of all the possible tools and what they do. But.. saying the tools have been debunked years ago is a completely false statement and to me... that's a perfect example of how much you have to learn and why such threads can provide value, even if you don't utilize the methods. Do you really believe there aren't a ton of people on this forum that don't use spinners and make a lot of cash from it? I for one am a big autoblogger and I make a very sweet paycheck from it. I showed my younger brother my system exactly 7 months ago. He didn't even know how to create a website before that. He just raked in over $3000 in AdSense this last month from 33 blogs (which was more than me and I have almost 3x as many blogs). That's a "bot" doing all the work. No backlinks. No spinners. Just set and forget and it works.

And then there's the ongoing argument of what is quality? Autoblogs, membership sites that slowly leak content and many methods can provide value to a lot of visitors even though many others see sites such as these as spam. Just because it's not the way you like to do it doesn't mean it's not a viable and working method.. or a site that doesn't bring value to someone else. And what of the guy that throws up a 10 page blog about his heart's desire? His blog is his true passion, has been his whole life and he wants to have an authority site on it? Any chance he'll hit the front page of Google without learning a few gray hat methods of throwing backlinks everywhere? Not likely (though possible). But backlinks are a very spammy tactic that thousands of warriors here employ every day.

As Orvn pointed out, it's far better not to censor and for you to learn and discern and leave the responsibility of picking out the golden nuggets to each person. Overall, each person will learn a lot more in this way. And honestly, this site isn't blackhat at all. Stop by some of those sites and it's a completely different feel and sounds like a bunch of teens doing whatever they can to steal money from anyone.

Bottom line.. anywhere there's a lot of people gathered and willing to spend money, there will be others trying to profit from that.

[XIIIzen]

It is definitely true that it's hard to divide the real deal from the useless junk here. But it is in fact a good forum after all.

We learn a lot of things by reading and most of all judging for ourselves. Anyone just taking the advice without giving it a little thought is just wasting their time and losing their money.

So don't think this place as a bad one, or lacking quality. It just has a lot of members and everyone has an opinion, you just need to take the ones you consider worthy and of course help us with your own opinion, always using reason and good clear facts.

Just as your portfolio on the other thread, those are facts, and they help a lot of new users to get some perspective on the techniques that are good and effective.

[Kael41]

Most of you guys (and gal) are spot on. Our seo world is one of test, test and test again. You truly won't understand the benefit of some of these tools unless you do actual scientific (or even gut intuition) testing. Ie-

1) If I use this program, will x,y,z happen for my site?
2) Will the usage of this program result in more traffic, increase of sales, or a combination of both?
3) Is there a ROI over a period of time versus outsourcing?

The usage of these tools isn't the problem, it's the understanding that goes behind deciding whether a tool is worth it in the grand scheme of what you are trying to accomplish for your seo efforts

[XIIIzen]

Originally Posted by Kael41

Most of you guys (and gal) are spot on. Our seo world is one of test, test and test again. You truly won't understand the benefit of some of these tools unless you do actual scientific (or even gut intuition) testing. Ie-

1) If I use this program, will x,y,z happen for my site?
2) Will the usage of this program result in more traffic, increase of sales, or a combination of both?
3) Is there a ROI over a period of time versus outsourcing?

The usage of these tools isn't the problem, it's the understanding that goes behind deciding whether a tool is worth it in the grand scheme of what you are trying to accomplish for your seo efforts

True.

The real point of the forum IMO is to get you thinking, to look at what others do and learn from both success and mistakes. Just as Kael41 says, it takes a lot of time to understand, and sometimes just a small leap of faith indeed.

In fact information is never a bad thing, it is us who turn it into crap or gold. With our own judgement and experience.

[orvn]

Originally Posted by paulgl

You wrong about mods. They are here and work overtime. Many threads,
posts, members get deleted on an ongoing basis.

I'm not sure why you think there are no moderators. They do the best job
they can, let the buyer beware.

Paul

I could have sworn I had seen a notification or two about how WF is "self-moderated". And there's one moderator listed for this subforum, didn't realize that there was a lot of this stuff actively ongoing.

[Kay King]

On your blog you can present only the information you know is accurate and that works.

On a public forum you will see things "discussed" and "advised" that you know are wrong - and you have the opportunity to reply and give your opinion. It's the nature of a forum.

As for moderators - there is a whole pack of excellent mods here and there is member moderation as well. Read all the stickies at the top of this section and you'll see how it goes.

Instead of only looking at threads on your choice topic - look at the forum as a whole in the beginning and you'll see where the value is.

kay

[bitriot]

The thing about learning stuff is that you do not get it... until you get it. A year ago I did not know what was what - this year I do. And can actually contribute here. But compared to guys like Darklock and Yukon and many others, I am of course still novice :]

[sporkmarketing]

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

Many of the senior warriors are as guilty as anyone as doing things such as using spinners and bots (as you alluded to in your original post). Probably 90% of WSO offers are rehashed junk that the senior warriors release after a lot of experiencing in repackaging and sales.

Well that explains a lot.

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

If you truly want to learn, you need to at least be aware of all the possible tools and what they do. But.. saying the tools have been debunked years ago is a completely false statement and to me... that's a perfect example of how much you have to learn and why such threads can provide value, even if you don't utilize the methods.

One of the things I love about being an SEO consultant is the fact that I have a lot to learn everyday. However, in my experience, these tools have little or no value. For the time and money it takes to set up some spinner, you could just as easily acquire a quality link or create some great content that will do more for you in the long run. I don't see the point.

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

Do you really believe there aren't a ton of people on this forum that don't use spinners and make a lot of cash from it? I for one am a big autoblogger and I make a very sweet paycheck from it. I showed my younger brother my system exactly 7 months ago. He didn't even know how to create a website before that. He just raked in over $3000 in AdSense this last month from 33 blogs (which was more than me and I have almost 3x as many blogs). That's a "bot" doing all the work. No backlinks. No spinners. Just set and forget and it works.

Well I'm not going to debate with you what your brother did or didn't do, but I will say two things:

1. Most of the time, these stories are fabrications.
2. These tools only work until Google/Bing adjusts the algo, then they don't work anymore.

They're never as good as the people selling them claim, and they never work well long term.

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

And then there's the ongoing argument of what is quality? Autoblogs, membership sites that slowly leak content and many methods can provide value to a lot of visitors even though many others see sites such as these as spam. Just because it's not the way you like to do it doesn't mean it's not a viable and working method.. or a site that doesn't bring value to someone else. And what of the guy that throws up a 10 page blog about his heart's desire? His blog is his true passion, has been his whole life and he wants to have an authority site on it? Any chance he'll hit the front page of Google without learning a few gray hat methods of throwing backlinks everywhere? Not likely (though possible). But backlinks are a very spammy tactic that thousands of warriors here employ every day.

Well first I would say that autoblogs that scrape content from legit sites, spin it, and republish it are immoral. I pay a lot of money and take a lot of time to generate original content, and then idiots steal it, spin it, republish it, and make money. There's a special place in hell for that behavior.

Secondly, it's absolutely possible for someone who is passionate about a topic to build a basic website and rank. I see it everyday, and the reason they're successful is that they don't care about backlinks or bots or spinners - they care about being as useful as possible. They build something wonderful and they're rewarded with loyal visitors, links, and eventually traffic and rankings.

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

As Orvn pointed out, it's far better not to censor and for you to learn and discern and leave the responsibility of picking out the golden nuggets to each person. Overall, each person will learn a lot more in this way. And honestly, this site isn't BlueFart at all. Stop by some of those sites and it's a completely different feel and sounds like a bunch of teens doing whatever they can to steal money from anyone.

Bottom line.. anywhere there's a lot of people gathered and willing to spend money, there will be others trying to profit from that.

Well I must admit that censorship is bad, but I feel that this is still too far in the wrong direction. I doubt I'll spend much time here beyond this thread.

[ElectronPlumber]

Originally Posted by sporkmarketing

Not hard. Took maybe two minutes.

But seriously, do you disagree with what I've said? Are you one of these people pushing SEO software that doesn't work, or are you oblivious to the fact that this is going on?

If I was a passionate member of the site like you are, I wouldn't stand for people using this site to sell junk. It's really bad.

Aren't blanket assumptions great? They're so easy to throw out there and just cover everybody!

For example, here are some assumptions I can make about you:
I can look at your site and quickly analyze just how good you are at SEO with a few quick tools. For example:
sporkmarketing.com - Google organic keywords report for this domain reports that you rank #3 for your best keyword, being beaten out by two other companies. That's obviously the term you are shooting the most, I can see it in your backlink profile. However, when I search on Facebook for that same keyword, you don't show up at all. You also don't appear to use Adwords for any keywords either.

What does that tell me about you? You are a 3rd rate local SEO with a mediocre social media strategy who I should be skeptical about running my Adwords campaigns.

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm NOT trying to rag on you, simply pointing out that first impressions aren't always correct. Just because some people on here are snake oil salesmen doesn't mean they all are.

Would you care to pick out some particularly egregiously bad SEO tools that caught your eye and any backup that they don't work or are scams for us to comment on?

NOTE: I neither sell an SEO tool or any SEO or info products here at WF or anywhere else. But I do test them and provide actual evidence that they are working or not. Check out http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...nt-2011-a.html

[guitarjosh]

Originally Posted by sporkmarketing

Well that explains a lot.



One of the things I love about being an SEO consultant is the fact that I have a lot to learn everyday. However, in my experience, these tools have little or no value. For the time and money it takes to set up some spinner, you could just as easily acquire a quality link or create some great content that will do more for you in the long run. I don't see the point.



Well I'm not going to debate with you what your brother did or didn't do, but I will say two things:

1. Most of the time, these stories are fabrications.
2. These tools only work until Google/Bing adjusts the algo, then they don't work anymore.

They're never as good as the people selling them claim, and they never work well long term.



Well first I would say that autoblogs that scrape content from legit sites, spin it, and republish it are immoral. I pay a lot of money and take a lot of time to generate original content, and then idiots steal it, spin it, republish it, and make money. There's a special place in hell for that behavior.

Secondly, it's absolutely possible for someone who is passionate about a topic to build a basic website and rank. I see it everyday, and the reason they're successful is that they don't care about backlinks or bots or spinners - they care about being as useful as possible. They build something wonderful and they're rewarded with loyal visitors, links, and eventually traffic and rankings.



Well I must admit that censorship is bad, but I feel that this is still too far in the wrong direction. I doubt I'll spend much time here beyond this thread.

I invite ya' to stick around. You'll like it and I personally like it when someone jumps in before feeling the water. Nothing wrong with a little moxie.

I understand your autoblog feelings. It's been debated here a few thousand times. As I've told others, I only scrape syndicated rss feeds (big commercial sites) and always link back to the site I scrape. I never scrape personal blogs. Though lots of people spin, I don't ... ever. I've never seen the need. Easy on condemning me to hell. There's likely a special place for those who hold high judgment of others.. and I doubt it's anywhere near the throne of God. As far as tools working until Google changes their algo, that's a lot of what this site is about.. changing with the algo.. always moving forward. As a developer, it's quite easy for me to always spot any changes. I have a lot of data to analyze.

I will agree about the fabrication of stories. Most people will throw any ol' lie out there to prove a point but I have no agenda. I developed my entire script and I am making almost as much as my bro... though I've been using it for almost a full year and have quite a few more sites. Just kind of a funny story how he's jumped in as a complete newb and was able to be even more successful by grabbing the better niches. In any case, I don't have any signature links and I don't disclose any sites. Point being.. I'm not trying to snowball anyone to sell somebody something.

But here is a perfect example. You obviously didn't think this was possible .. and it is. It gives you.. and maybe others... a bit of pause. Some will use it and some could care less and will try their own thing. Some will simply judge it before ever considering it. It's not a right or wrong issue though.. as your initial post suggests.

I think it's great that you're wholly committed to something you believe in. I might ask you to consider though that your way is not the only way and be a little less judgmental in your approach to others.