#maybe its because it's the namesake of my url

[enobariasdistrict2]

Lucy Gray Baird - an innocent victim or a manipulator?

What's your first impression of Lucy Gray?

Do you think she loved Coriolanus in tbosas?

What do you think might have happened to Lucy Gray in the end?

What's your opinion about theories :

1. Greasy Sae as Lucy Gray.

2. Coin as a daughter or relative of Lucy Gray.

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

ooh random but fun, i love this. i miss inbox interactions/asks btw since i haven't been getting those lately, if anyone ever wants to start a conversation with me about anything at all especially fandom related, feel free!

calling her a manipulator seems a little bit of a victim-blaming rhetoric in my opinion. she's an oppressed individual from a poor district who is forced to perform/kill children for the elite's entertainment, who was clearly struggling long before the games (parents died in the rebellion and left her an orphan, she had to sing and possibly sell herself to feed her cousin, her boyfriend cheats on her and then his mistress sends her to a death arena out of spite, etc). she had to "manipulate" the capitol by making them attached to her because this is literally a strategy to survive. lucy gray does not cause anyone harm on purpose unless they instigate a conflict or directly threaten her life, and because snow is extremely selfish and narrow-minded he sees this as her being manipulating and conniving when all he does is contribute to the issue of her feeling threatened. when left in peace she sings and spends time with the covey, and if provoked she will defend herself, so i don't know how that could be regarded as "manipulating" behavior.

i found lucy gray to be an incredibly interesting character. its been so long since i read thosas (eighth grade, so that was around 3-4 years ago) and i don't remember my exact first impression. i appreciated her characterization/what she brought to the storyline & lore of panem/her background, but coral was probably my favorite character at the time (as we all know i'm obsessed with murderous career tributes, especially those whose names start with c. just look at my url). when i saw rachel zegler cast as lucy gray and saw her performance, i was obsessed. rachel nailed the role perfectly and is literally so talented!!! and the brown girls representing is great :)

she's my favorite character and she absolutely deserved better but like... while i appreciate that suzanne kept up with the theme/lore behind her name origin and made lucy gray disappear like her namesake, never to be found, symbolically haunting snow for the rest of his life, if we look at it from a non-figurative point of view there is absolutely no way she didn't die. lucy gray can't hunt (or maybe she could- snow was very self-absorbed so he didn't know that much about her, but i honestly can't imagine that she would have hunted) so she couldn't survive in the wild. snow left a bullet wound in her, and lucy gray doesn't have medical experience. she couldn't return to district twelve for medical attention, since snow never told her about his promotion to d2 and she would have assumed he'd be back there ready to kill her or turn her in. also a lot of scary animals live in the woods at night, and for as much as lucy gray is clearly a survivor i don't think she'd have been much of a match for that. if she made it back to the cabin, injured as she was, i doubt there was much food there or any medical supplies sufficient enough to take care of a bullet wound. if she managed to survive past all of that, no one lives up to snow's age (late 80s?) hobbling around in the woods and living off the land, especially since lucy gray was already disadvantaged by being poor and hungry her entire life, so she must have been long dead by the time the 74th games rolled around. and no one knew about d13 still existing so lucy gray certainly wasn't heading over there.

greasy sae as lucy gray does theoretically line up with ages, but like snow made trips to d12 specifically to spook katniss, so i can't imagine that sae would just have the option of going into hiding. also lucy gray had no way of returning to twelve because she probably (assuming she survived the bullet wound) believed snow would be back there, ready to hunt her down, and i think after the stricter management of d12 post sejanus's hanging, people would've noticed some random woman popping back in.

once again, lucy gray had no way of knowing that d13 existed, she wasn't going to make it all the way to an obscure, obliterated district that everyone thought was long gone severely injured, and coin is white and too young to be lucy gray. also i don't imagine some random district twelve refugee that likes bright colors and singing is going to show up to a wasteland district and become its corrupt political leader.

edit: I forgot to answer the question about the snowbaird romance. while they were extremely fast burn, dysfunctional,with so many obvious red flags, i do believe that her feelings were real, especially given how their dynamic was in the movies. she had no way of knowing that coryo's internal monologue fixated on power/status/"owning" her (at least, until it was far too late), she flirted with him a lot, he saved her life, she wrote songs about him and sang them to him... no matter how it ended i do believe that while it wasn't healthy, pure, or stable/long lasting love, she felt something along that vein for him.

[bravewielder]

I have had about enough of all this Braveheart slander.

“But Braveheart doesn’t even fit Riku’s character! It has an ugly bland design.”

Ma’am. I’m gunna have to stop you right there.

Riku has always had Braveheart shining through as early as 358/2 Days (see above ^)... since 2008 !! But we all have to remember that at that time, Riku did not think he was worthy enough to even wield a Keyblade, not even after CoM. That's why it has never properly manifested itself until KH3.

But what about Way to Dawn you ask? Well, listen. I have a theory that, much like how Sora obtained the Kingdom Key from the Light of Riku’s corrupted heart, Riku was able to obtain the Way to Dawn with the help of Sora’s Light. (I also theorize that Destiny’s Embrace was created much the same way for Kairi. But that's to be discussed for another day.) Without Sora being the catalyst, Way to Dawn would probably never be created. It was born out of Riku’s sincere desire to help Sora and his friends, as well as his desire to find his way out of Darkness. So in a way, Way to Dawn was never meant to be his main Keyblade. It was a Keyblade with a practical purpose when it was needed. (I would like to think this is also similar to obtaining Keyblade variants from the worlds you visit when learning new skills)

We also have to take into account that Way to Dawn took design liberties from Soul Eater - a sword (not a keyblade) that was designed by Maleficent, not Riku. Soul Eater, you could say, was a symbol of Riku’s Darkness, and it was from this weapon that Way to Dawn manifested into because Soul Eater was occupying the Kingdom Key’s place. As Nomura has put it: “Keyblades aren't something that you can obtain suddenly out of nowhere so in Riku's case, his Soul Eater was used as an intermediary for that Keyblade [Way to Dawn].”

If we recall back in DDD, Riku was still struggling with the residual Darkness within in him and that he was bothered by the fact that he could still summon the Soul Eater. He still hasn’t accepted himself as a proper Keyblade wielder at that point, not until they’ve finished the Mark of Mastery exams. That's why at the very start of the exams, he said wanted to be tested. He wanted to see if he really was worthy to wield one. Because we have to remember that it was such a huge blow to his ego that his original Keyblade, the Kingdom Key, did not find him worthy enough and that it still chose to go back to Sora.

It was only after the exams that he learns, not only is he still worthy of wielding a Keyblade, but he has also rightfully earned the title of Keyblade Master. At that point, Riku finally got the self-confidence and assurance he needed in order for him to finally bring out Braveheart (albeit off screen). And truly, it takes a lot of bravery to pull out this kind of Keyblade.

Braveheart fits Riku’s character perfectly because it’s modeled after Dimple Keys which are considered to be far more secure that any other kind of key. Their unique dimple patterns and robust, industrial design are more capable of protecting and securing your valuables. Which reflects Riku’s goal of protecting the things that matter. Sure, Way to Dawn was aesthetically pleasing, artful and poetic, but with Riku’s character development throughout the games, I’m pretty sure he’s way passed having that kind of VANITY.

TLDR; Braveheart is a cool Keyblade that fits Riku’s character perfectly. If you don’t like it then Riku will just have to run you over with his Honda Civic.

[mr-face-both-ways]

Stex Appreciation Month: CB!

Can’t trust anyone these days, remember I can face both ways!

Ah yes, my url’s namesake, i finally had time to finish and post something lol i’ll post the others soon

Questions answered under the cut! This is extra long because he is my Fave and im Biased 

Fave song: There’s Me hands down, the whole scene including That Was Unfair is just so good in establishing CB’s, Greaseball and Dinah’s characters so well, plus the melody is just*chef’s kiss* and the fact that its technically a villain song?? Love that, plus the parallels of him finding Dinah alone and upset and comforting and supporting her and lending her a hand up and sending her on her way after she’s cheered up, with post race 3 where he’s the reason Rusty’s alone and hurt on the floor, kicking him when he tries to get up (looking at you 1991 boot) and mocks and insults him, leaving him alone with his confidence broken as he leaves laughing. What an absolute bastard!! But when There’s Me is taken out, you don’t properly see his two sides, both the bad and good sides are important to his character! He’s a contrary dude but that’s just him! Plus the actual song has one of my fave melodies of the show, I can and do listen to the intro from the ost on repeat, plus that lil bit in the japan vid?? So cute?? And the contrasting styles to that and Wide Smile?? Amazing, love it

Fave actor: Once again my fave actor list is gonna be like 5 people lol, the great thing about C.B’s material is that his attitude and demeanour can change based on his inflection, movement etc so! Michael Staniforth is a given, his Wide Smile really demonstrates his range which imo not many others have been quite as good, plus what extremely little footage and photos there are of him he was extremely expressive and just fun to watch! I’ll also go with Peter Rees, Andrew Prosser, Hans Johansson, Oliver Rhoe Thornton (and what the heck let’s also go for early Kapa Kitchen and Daniel Ellison)

Fave ship: Ohh boy this is super self indulgent but CBGB honestly (has the fandom given it a nickname? Greaseboose?? idk) I love that in the older scripts him and GB high five (that us boot where cb does a lil jump to hit GB’s high five?? Adorable) and actually talk like friends?? Like Greaseball is a jerk to pretty much everyone and for him to be friendly with him is just sweet. Not to mention its Greaseball who tells his gang that CB’s a “mean machine”, is always calling out to CB in the races and a recent thing that clicked in my brain is that when CB says “what a race, what a team!” and GB’s like “shhh! ohhh you mean me and dinah?” like did he just think that CB was about to out that they were working together during the race to crash the other engines in front of Dinah so he shushed him, then realised he was talking about GB and Dinah?? then just the whole exchange after sabotaging Rusty?? Duet One Rock and Roll? That GB just lifts him up like its nothing then they just kinda sit on eachother?? Those two are in cahoots I tell you!! Plus to me i get the vibe that they’ve been working together for years?? I just love their dynamic haha (and CB’s the only one i think who calls him GB that’s so cute) oh and platonic CB/Dinah is top tier, I feel like Dinah’s a very emotionally honest person so CB would feel like he could actually trust her?? And thanks to the new megamix Canoose/Elektra can have one right, as a treat

Fave thing about him: His independence! All the other characters are very much driven by either winning the races or finding love (or both), and C.B. just...doesn’t care. What you “are” is a big deal in Stex, like the engines, coaches and freight all have their identities shaped by their titles, and that can influence how they feel about the above two subjects “nobody can do it like a steam train”, etc and looking at when C.B. does participate in the races him and his partner tend to take the lead so he is good at racing!! But he chooses not to in order to make his own fun (at the expense of pretty much everyone else). He also seems to have a level of self-awareness, take his verse in Freight for example, he knows that as a brakevan he has to essentially serve the freight train, perceptually at the back of the train. But instead he uses his “purpose” aka his brakes to not do what he’s been told and to disrupt the train, and gets away with it by presenting himself as the innocent helpful brakevan! He’s just doing his own thing, (poor Rusty but,,) good for him!! And of course I have to say again, his two sides, and the ambiguity of it?? Like is he good, bad?? He’s both and neither?? An absolute force of chaos, but it only really works when both sides are present. Plus he a cutie tehe

Random headcanon: I think he’s unnervingly observant, even moreso than Pearl, and has amazing peripheral vision. That and taking notice of things like vibrations on the rails he’s very good at telling whose around before they’ve fully come into vision. He’s always watching everything around him, and isn’t necessarily being creepy, he’s just trying to get as much info on the current situation as possible. I think he likes to have some control and be on top of things?? I also really like the ex-boxcar theory (I first saw this theory on the old bellesdomain forums, rip) and I think that maybe when he was converted it was very difficult for him, having to deal with people, and having the CB radio to control what he hears helps ground him and keep his thoughts less cluttered?? He might’ve also forgotten a lot of his boxcar days, so when he says “you know I’m to blame but you don’t know my name” maybe he doesn’t even remember his original name?? And never got a new one as just the Red Caboose, so he clung onto the CB radio to give himself a sense of identity when his previous identity was stripped from him?? IDK

Unpopular opinion: This wagon can hold so many spicy takes he’s not a murderer lol but at the same time i can see where people can think that considering the lyrics reference several real-life train crashes even if they don’t make sense for CB to be there which tbh I put down to Stilgoe going tehe railway incident reference! I think he’s travelled around a lot and done a lot of questionable things, and maybe he was responsible for those crashes in the stex universe?? or maybe he’s just lying?? he’s definitely responsible for some shit, but considering he crashes 5 (!!!) engines during that one race night and being publicly humiliated after race 4 he doesn’t get in trouble and besides, all those engines are back for light at the end of the tunnel, they’re fine lol. Another thing is that I haaaate how CB has like no agency anymore in the current version like everything he does is for money, he’s basically a henchman for the engines (and everyone knows what his deal is and he isn’t in train jail?? what??) and they got rid of the pre-race 4 bit “just for me, I’m in this just for me” (in that slightly twisted there’s me melody) and Electra desperately pleading “help me caboose, help me caboose” to just the generic “I’ll help you win” at the end and not really its own little bit anymore like he barely has his own motivations anymore, it actually makes me really sad :( it really just doesn’t feel like CB anymore, though his character has been really disjointed since like 2007 when they got rid of there’s me. He’s just kinda bland now, like before he instigated a lot of the conflict, now others tell him to do something and he does it. I could like him more if he had an ounce more depth, like why is he so motivated by money? Maybe go into that old vs new tech theme and bring up that now that there’s new tech that can do the job of a brakevan he’s now antiquated and has to go into crime to get by?? Idk just please give me something, I think CB’s always been a bit of a fan favourite because he had multiple layers to his personality but new boose just has a whole lotta nothing :/ 

Anyway let’s end on a positive note at least we got pride lighting and a solo in the megamix so that’s something I guess XD 

[ruanbaijie]

Hello!

I choose LXC because he is a good, kind man. He is strong, resilient, intelligent and respectful. He is everything that is right in this world, and I admire that!

I am staying safe, I hope you are too! It indeed is very hard to look for a job, but the course is giving me tips so I know I will get one eventually! Thank you for your well wishes ❤

I hope you will enjoy your break! I don't doubt it's deserved!

Personally, I loved Handsome Siblings! I watched it so I could hopefully learn some Chinese from it, and I didn't expect to become invested. I absolutely loved it and I binged the entire thing! I love the twins so much ;-; The love in the bond they share just makes me feel things hahahah

It's been an ok week so far! Fixed my sleeping pattern (that I will eventually mess up again) so I'm more productive! I hope you'll have a great week!

My question for today is: if you could recommend one show/movie in Chinese to me, which one would it be?

- Sincerely, your Classified Cultivator

hello! (≧∇≦)/ oh that’s nice! hopefully that course will have some good tips that will come in handy~ it sounds really intense tho (＠_＠;) I don’t remember going for any courses back in the day (ok this sounds ages ago but it was like... 2 years ago???) when I was still studying and/ or looking for a job... more like I was too lazy _(:3」∠)_

oh man maybe one day I would check it out! my watch queue is insanely long right now and I take really long for chinese and korean shows especially since they typically have a lot of episodes and very long episodes respectively ヘ(＿　＿ヘ) I usually finish uk/us shows and japanese anime much faster (ﾉ･o･)ﾉ since they have fewer episodes... aha

oh noooo please don’t mess up your sleeping pattern again (＞△＜Uu my brother’s is absolutely terrible (he goes to bed around 4 or 5am and only gets up at... noon??) and it seems really bad for health in general... I used to only sleep at 2am (remnants of my addiction to a mobile game sigh but that’s another story there) and get up around 9 or 10, but for the past couple of months I’ve been trying to change that and exercise more often (sometimes in the early morning if needed alksdlksdf) and my sleeping pattern feels much better now! ^^ and yes, totally understand on that more productive thing! it feels like right now I can get more things done in the morning, at least. hope it will last for you~ (b^_^)b

ahhhh only one show/ movie?!?!?! (ﾟДﾟ;) hmmmmmMMMM......

eh well one of my all time favourite cdramas is my roommate is a detective, which is kinda like sherlock holmes. it’s set in the chinese republican era , and is centred around an ex-mafia-turned-police-inspector (acted by my tumblr url namesake) and a smartass-genius-rich-boy-eking-it-out-on-his-own and the crimes they solve together in 1920s shanghai. but since that’s pretty obvious from my tumblr in general, I’m gonna recommend another movie that I don’t think a lot of people here may be aware of but is still really good!

it’s this...

red cliff! it’s actually a super long show and got split into two separate movies, released in 2008 and 2009. I was like... 12 around then??? but I remember watching both parts in the cinema and going like...... wow

it’s a historical war epic, definitely not in the xianxia or wuxia genres that a lot of popular cdramas are in right now. and this is the one I would recommend because it’s based on an actual historical battle in ancient china AND is also one of the most famous arcs in one of the four Chinese Classical Novels (capitalising these here because this is a legit term ahahaa), the romance of the three kingdoms. 

it’s somewhat like a david vs. goliath situation, and besides the super epic fight scenes, there are also a lot of clever strategies being thrown around and used, mostly by that guy from the second right up there called zhuge liang (or kong ming). 

and some videos!

trailer in chinese:

and another trailer in english (UGH at that voiceover): 

each part also has its own theme song! they’re both sung by the same singer (a lan) and they’re both equally pretty and haunting. my brother and I couldn’t get the second one in particular out of our head for a reaaaally long time because they kept repeating that melody (that appears at 1:33 in the mv) throughout part 2 lolol

theme song for part 1, called 心战 “heart war”

theme song for part 2, called 大江东去 “the mighty river* flows east”

*referring to the yangtze river, at one point of which the actual historical battle was fought 

and yes! super long reply omg (*ﾉдﾉ) I think I just convinced myself to watch the movies again... aHAHA

[shirlleycoyle]

How Link-Begging Became the Most Annoying Search Engine Tactic

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Wanna get under my skin? Ask me to add a link to an old article of mine.

Maybe it’s a point of pride, or a desire to keep my more than 500 articles on my newsletter in a relatively pristine nature, but I frequently get requests on my articles for backlinks—probably a dozen times a week, someone will reach out asking to add this link or that link to a specific article.

(This past week, someone tried adding me on LinkedIn to convince me to link to their company.)

Often, it’s dressed up like a favor, or a gift. Sometimes they’ll offer me money. But every time, without fail, I decline, as the content generally doesn’t add anything to the article and instead costs me time. It’s the digital equivalent of a salesperson coming up to your door and not taking no for an answer.

And, in many ways, it highlights the failings of search engine optimization as a concept. It can be too easily gamed—and those backlinks are a big reason why.

“Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

—A passage from Google’s quality guidelines pointing out what Google does not allow on its platform. Despite this, the link economy exists fairly unabated throughout the internet, with entire companies pushing for links on different websites with the specific goal of pushing up their search presence on Google. I know this because many of them email me.

The rise of backlink culture reflects a digital economy full of back-scratching symbiotic relationships

If you don’t work in online marketing or digital media, you may not even realize this is happening, this sharing of URL-based currency around the web, akin to the way you give data to access a service online.

The way we share data online is often symbiotic—you give up something a company wants, and in exchange, they give you access to some new filter on your phone.

In its own way, the search engine economy works kind of like this, in that the benefits of the link are often distributed as a byproduct to the main offering. A great example of this is the infographic, which was once a highly detailed craft associated with newspapers and magazines like USA Today and Time.

However, as the internet matured and social media entered the picture, the infographic became internet currency. About a decade ago, infographics became extremely popular online, and a huge reason for this was that it was something that was quickly shareable. If you land on a site like Tumblr or Pinterest, you can find literally tons of infographics floating around everywhere.

The people who make these are not doing so just for their health. Often, people are strongly encouraged to include a backlink with that graphic, which has the side effect of potentially driving traffic to your site. But the real benefit goes to the person who actually made the infographic, as they get backlinks on every site that shared the infographic. It’s a somewhat seedy approach in the wrong hands, though it’s widely considered a “white hat” search engine optimization technique.

A similar version of this approach is the Creative Commons model, which often encourages users to share a link in exchange for a free photo or piece of content. Some large companies, most notably LinkedIn, have taken advantage of this tactic to help boost their link presence. Sure, the photos are good, but the reason they exist is because of the domain authority they build.

In a way, due to the way that Google built its PageRank system more than two decades ago, it often matters more who links you than it does how many pageviews you get. So search engine marketers are motivated to get people to share their links in lots of places.

When you break it down, the internet is just a gigantic chain-link fence. The links are interconnected. Joshua Hoehne/Unsplash

Why did this kind of link-trading become a thing?

All of these tactics are older than you think, and originated out of a general desire to be at the top of the results in a given search engine.

Google may not have come online until late 1998, but there were already internet marketers that were dipping their toes into this space, some of them doing marketing work on directories like Yahoo as early as 1995. There is a site put together by the SEO industry literally called The History of SEO that highlights the evolution of the space over the years.

Bruce Clay’s website, circa 1998. Image: Internet Archive

Some caught the trend early. Bruce Clay, an early internet marketer whose namesake company is still at it today, was dishing out advice on improving web rankings at the beginning of 1996. Here’s what his site said of SEO (also known as “search engine ranking” or “search engine registration”) as of early 1998:

The objective of search engine registration is to increase visitor count by appearing very high in the results of searches using the most appropriate keywords to the content of your site. This relative ranking is often viewed as a struggle to best use a few keywords, instead of a struggle to out-do your competition. If you search on your target keywords, you will see the leading site in the rankings. All you need to do is to be better than that number one site. This page suggests ways to improve search engine results with advice, hints, tips, and clues to improve your search engine rankings relative to existing leaders. After all, that is your real objective.

Another extremely early figure in the world of search engines is someone who is still very active and public facing in that world today, a guy named Danny Sullivan. Sullivan wrote a guide titled The Webmaster’s Guide to Search Engines in 1995. (The guide is no longer online, but Sullivan has some historic materials from the era on his site.)

Search Engine Watch, as it appeared in 1998. Image: Internet Archive

Sullivan became something of the first search-engine journalist: He started Search Engine Watch in 1996, not long after Clay started his site, and quickly sold it to MecklerMedia; Sullivan later launched Search Engine Land, a similar site, before retiring in 2017. Now Sullivan works for Google as its public search liaison.

It should be noted that during this early period, the motivation to share backlinks was not quite as strong, in part because Google’s PageRank model was what made them more valuable, by varying the value of one backlink over another. Earlier search engines weren’t quite so smart. But soon, that would change.

In their internet-defining academic paper “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” Larry Page and Sergey Brin point out that their engine was partly inspired by academic literature.

“Academic citation literature has been applied to the web, largely by counting citations or backlinks to a given page. This gives some approximation of a page’s importance or quality,” Page “PageRank extends this idea by not counting links from all pages equally, and by normalizing by the number of links on a page.”

Once Google set the plot point, backlinks became hard to ignore. And marketers looking to get an edge started using a variety of tactics to gain a coveted spot on the front page that didn’t involve actually creating good content that people want to read.

Some early sites built networks of URLs that linked to one another, creating a conversation loop that Google was quick to pick up on. In response, search experts like longtime Google employee Matt Cutts, who headed the Web spam team at the company, would frequently make changes to the design of Google’s engine to help discourage certain types of links.

“The best links are not paid, or exchanged after out-of-the-blue emails–the best links are earned and given by choice,” Cutts wrote in 2005.

Despite this, such requests continue unabated, 15 years later. I know this from personal experience.

“Just so you understand the amount of work involved, I spent approximately 40 minutes searching, crafting, and sending the outreach emails. For 40 minutes of work, I received a dofollow backlink from a DA41 website. Less time and effort than crafting and pitching a guest post.”

— Mike Wood, an online marketer, writing on the SEMrush Blog about the tactics he uses to get sites to link his own using email outreach techniques. (A “dofollow” backlink means that the link is specifically set to encourage search engines to pick it up, by the way.) Wood notes that he sends these messages with the goal of sounding “sincere.” “One thing to keep in mind is that it also tells the truth so you are not trying to scam a website out of a backlink,” he writes. (Sincerity is a relative term, as I would consider “sincere” not just reaching out because you want something, but I digress.) The problem with schemes like this, from the perspective of a site owner, is that the links are never relevant, because the research is frequently surface-level, emailing based on a keyword that surfaces in a search, never actually understanding why said keyword or link was used. (This is especially problematic as the tactics are often automated.) As a result, if I got a “sincere” message like this, I would turn it down.

When it comes down to it, search engine marketing is cheap compared to the alternatives. Image: Photo Mix/Pixabay

Why it feels like this tactic is increasing in prominence

As I pointed out above, search engine marketing is not a new tactic—it’s in fact a very old one, one that dates to the earliest days of the web. Mentions of the term “search engine optimization,” the common term for describing manipulating the results of Google and similar search engines for business reasons, have appeared in newspaper classified ads as early as 1999.

(Side note: A great way to track the rise of a trend involving technology is not to look for newspaper articles that mention the term, but classifieds. They work as leading indicators as companies often hire for those skills before they become the subject of articles.)

And email outreach, the technique I frequently see, has been around since the beginning.

But in recent weeks, people I know online have anecdotally been seeing backlink requests more than usual.

And I think the reason we have been comes down to the fact that, when broken down, search engine marketing is cheap—especially compared to options like banner ads, affiliate marketing, and video ads.

You don’t need a giant production team to build out an SEO campaign, though if you have one, you can clearly do much more with it. And, the fact is, cheap is a good thing during a pandemic.

“As the shift from offline to online accelerates during these times companies are being asked to do more with less,” noted Jim Yu, the CEO of the search engine marketing firm BrightEdge, in an article for Search Engine Watch. “As consumers seek information about how businesses are handling COVID-19 restrictions, evaluate their options for buying essential needs, adapt to remote work and education, and try their very best to stay informed and entertained, search is now more important than ever.”

Combine this with the increasing sophistication of customer relationship management (CRM) tools, which allow organizations to send campaigns repeatedly and at scale, and you have a recipe for lots and lots of backlink requests.

But there are ways to build authority on a search engine without actively annoying every independent publisher in the land. They often require thoughtful in-depth strategy approaches.

Jimmy Daly, a former coworker of mine who spent years with the boutique content firm Animalz, notes a number of technical solutions for boosting search presence, but when it comes down to it, good content written for the right audience and distributed thoughtfully wins the day.

It sure beats a sketchy approach to distributing backlinks.

If you’ve read my Twitter account anytime in the past five years, you’ll know that I’ve never been a fan of outreach-driven search engine marketing, which often relies on aggressive emailing.

I get a lot of these messages, and I’ve complained about them before. They’re annoying and they take away from my time, and I’m sure that of many others.

Part of the reason they frustrate me is it feels like they’re taking a shortcut to building authority, rather than offering something valuable. They’re trying to game their place onto a page where every link was actually carefully considered. It feels like they’re piggybacking on my in-depth research, attempting to invade it with their unrelated information, and not thinking of the fact that dozens of people send these messages to me each week.

(A more recent tactic that is worth calling out: When a link breaks in an old article, some will email recommending a new link to use. In those cases, I grab the Internet Archive version of that old link, replace it and—and this is the important part—I tell them what I did. Because I want to discourage future emails from them.)

There are obviously tactics that work. I personally am a fan of what The Conversation does. They allow anyone with a site to share their content with a Creative Commons license, so as to encourage a broader distribution of ideas, giving genuine value to both the authors, who are academics generally, and to the publishers, who gain access to a piece of content that builds upon the work they’re already doing. (I’ve shared their articles myself in this way.) It helps everyone and doesn’t feel like cheating to get there.

But so many people just spray and pray like the guy I quoted above, in hopes of getting someone to add their link so they can improve their position. In many ways, search engine experts are taking advantage of weaknesses in Google and other engines to make themselves stand out.

My personal feeling is that these asks are generally self-serving. Sending links to people to put in five-year-old posts is an immense disrespect of people’s time, but when people send out these emails, they don’t care about any of that.

We live in a world where, if given the right tool, someone will bend the rules to manipulate it. Perhaps I’m idealistic, but I’d rather people actually gain popularity because they earned it—not because they gamed their way to the top.

How Link-Begging Became the Most Annoying Search Engine Tactic syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[claremal-one]

“Why I have this URL,” a story in one-act and several run-on sentences

Let's blame it on me being my mother’s daughter and also on having a talent for following up on random details. [translation: I'm slightly OCD and extremely ADHD]

I tried to visit this URL earlier this year, expecting to find a backlog of @ClareMalone’s work, but instead I found that the URL had been sucked up into the vortex of DropCatch - a company that preys on expired domains. Ugh. But today, when I logged into my registrar to renew one of my expiring domains (because fuck you, DropCatch!), I had the sudden urge to follow up and search for claremalone.com ...

And it was available for $8.88! Bargain!

And because @ClareMalone isn’t crazy enough to leave her DMs open (I tried & failed to casually slide in to those DMs to sound the alert about the URL being available again) ...

AND because I was worried that if I mentioned it publicly in a tweet that some twerp on Twitter (either the virtue-signaling type or the asshat type) would scoop it up and do something morally dubious with it?

Well, I indulged my lack of impulse control and ... I bought it. Of course, my attempt to do something helpful in the moment could certainly be seen as fucking nefarious in the rear view mirror, but I figured I can’t be the only person manually typing in this URL from time to time when I’m looking for something good to read. The idea was to at least be able to point folks at ClareThings™ in the short-term and publicly offer the URL back to the subject in question - should she want it. The Internet Wayback Machine confirms my memory that there used to be a functional site at this address - maybe it was annoying to maintain, maybe the account didn’t get renewed in time, maybe there wasn’t much return on the investment. Maybe, like a garden gnome stolen out of a suburban front yard and taken on a trip around the world as a joke, maybe this URL has had quite the journey in the last couple years and is just trying to get home.

So if you’re Clare and you want this URL back, I’m happy to transfer it over ASAP.

Because holy smokes - election year traffic! You can drop an ask through this page to make contact and we’ll get the ball rolling.

And if this domain is completely unwanted by its namesake, that’s fine, too -  anyone who shows up here will be looking for ClareThings™ so I’ll make sure  to link up some feeds so that you, dear reader, don’t leave empty handed.