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Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

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Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#21

Post by epoxy »

mvandemar wrote: post #11
bobbyi wrote: post #8

I don't understand how the author can say that there aren't coupons on those coupon pages. Apparently since the coupons are from an affiliate program with Savings.com they don't count. When I go to the "1800Pools Coupons" page that he linked, the main content box has an offer for "$25 off Orders Over $500" . When I click on this, it tells me that the coupon code is "AFF25" and can be added during checkout on the 1800…

Savings.com != Mahalo.com. There is no reason to rank Mahalo... if that is the site being looked for then rank Savings.com instead. It is what is known as a "thin affiliate" site, and it adds a layer of navigation to the user and middleman payouts to the advertiser, lowering user experience and driving up advertiser costs.

FYI: Calacanis sits on the board of Savings.com.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/05/savingscom-makes-coupons-mo...

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#22

Post by nailer »

axod wrote: post #17
jeremymcanally wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great if Google would forget them. Occasionally I'll search for something and see a Mahalo page that seems to have at least a pointer to what I need, when in reality I'm just inundated with AdSense and the content that seemed to be there either isn't anymore or never was (i.e., it was a crappily autogenerated page that has an intro paragraph seemingly from someone's blog or something with no link or oth…

Doesn't Google have a feature: [x] Never show me any more results from foo.com I hate that site. Remember my preference. If not, it should do.

Alas people who visit Mahalo for no other reason than Jason's linkfarm directed their search their may not hate the site, although the person running the site with real content does.

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#23

Post by covercash »

covercash wrote: post #18
jcalacanis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you.... and I agree. We are 100% SEO compliment to best practices and we delete/deindex/build out any community pages that are short every month. Google Knol, Wikipedia, About.com, eHow and Associated Content don't do this! We are uber agressive about removing short pages, and investing thousands of dollars in top pages. like these two: http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-strawberry-shortcake http://www.mahalo.co…

Is this a fake account? I thought this was Jason's HN account: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jasonmcalacanis

Looks like it is Jason... verified via Twitter: https://twitter.com/jason/status/16702228671

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#24

Post by jcalacanis »

nailer wrote: post #22
axod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Google have a feature: [x] Never show me any more results from foo.com I hate that site. Remember my preference. If not, it should do.

Alas people who visit Mahalo for no other reason than Jason's linkfarm directed their search their may not hate the site, although the person running the site with real content does.

Take a look at the how to play guitar chords page... it's everything you would want if you did that search.

people stay on that page for 20-60 minutes!!! and there are 50 people on that page all the time learning to play guitar chords. sorry it's not how to set up a cassandra cluster, but it is of value to people learning to do something basic.

best jcal

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#25

Post by jcalacanis »

axod wrote: post #20
jcalacanis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you.... and I agree. We are 100% SEO compliment to best practices and we delete/deindex/build out any community pages that are short every month. Google Knol, Wikipedia, About.com, eHow and Associated Content don't do this! We are uber agressive about removing short pages, and investing thousands of dollars in top pages. like these two: http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-strawberry-shortcake http://www.mahalo.co…

I see http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-strawberry-shortcake has 4 adsense units on it. Adsense says you're allowed a maximum of 3. Something I'm missing? Or is there some special Google deal by which you can add more than 3 and get away with it? In terms of user experience, I think the ratio of content to adverts on that page (Which you seem to cite as a good page) is way out. Tons of adverts / cross promotion etc,…

Google gives permission to some sites to do more. we are one of those sites.

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#26

Post by l0stman »

jeremymcanally wrote: post #10
rit wrote: post #6

This obsession with Calacanis/Mahalo is becoming a Hacker News tic along the lines of the reddit obsession with Bacon/Narwhals/Keanu Reeves. Most of the content is regurgitated as well. If you have such an issue with Mahalo and/or Mr. Calacanis: STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THEM. Nothing dooms a site to the shadows of history like being completely and utterly forgotten.

That would be great if Google would forget them. Occasionally I'll search for something and see a Mahalo page that seems to have at least a pointer to what I need, when in reality I'm just inundated with AdSense and the content that seemed to be there either isn't anymore or never was (i.e., it was a crappily autogenerated page that has an intro paragraph seemingly from someone's blog or something with no link or oth…

Since this issue has been raised many times on HN, could you show the kind of queries that point back to Mahalo in the results. I use Google daily but it never happened to me.

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#27

Post by benologist »

josefresco wrote: post #2

Why this crusade against Mahalo/Calacanis? Why isn't this sort of critique aimed at Google, who is after all indexing and profiting off of sites like (and much worse than) Mahalo. I find all these posts interesting, but it seems Jason is being portrayed as the most at fault. Isn't he just playing the Google 'game' better than most? When I see SPAM in Google's index that is ranking high I don't get mad at the spammers…

I've never understood this either. Google pretty much funds all the spam, if they had and enforced stronger policies on AdSense it would cripple spammers and made-for-ads crap.

You can report bad sites and people abusing AdSense but nothing ever happens. I wonder if anyone actually gets the reports at all - I reported a site I came across several weeks ago for perfectly aligning every block of ads with sets of images to disguise them as content, obviously nobody from Google's even clicked the link because they're still doing it and it's an immediately obvious violation.

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#28

Post by daeken »

l0stman wrote: post #26
jeremymcanally wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great if Google would forget them. Occasionally I'll search for something and see a Mahalo page that seems to have at least a pointer to what I need, when in reality I'm just inundated with AdSense and the content that seemed to be there either isn't anymore or never was (i.e., it was a crappily autogenerated page that has an intro paragraph seemingly from someone's blog or something with no link or oth…

Since this issue has been raised many times on HN, could you show the kind of queries that point back to Mahalo in the results. I use Google daily but it never happened to me.

Seconding this. After years of heavy googling, I just came upon my first Mahalo page a few days ago. It was in probably the 6th or 7th position on the first page, and gave me the answer I needed.

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#29

Post by axod »

jcalacanis wrote: post #25
axod wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-strawberry-shortcake has 4 adsense units on it. Adsense says you're allowed a maximum of 3. Something I'm missing? Or is there some special Google deal by which you can add more than 3 and get away with it? In terms of user experience, I think the ratio of content to adverts on that page (Which you seem to cite as a good page) is way out. Tons of adverts / cross promotion etc,…

Google gives permission to some sites to do more. we are one of those sites.

Do you think those types of pages are providing real value to users? Come on... get real.

There's obviously a reverse incentive at play here which stinks (IMHO). If you make the page useful to users, they wouldn't click on any of the ads. So it's in your best interest to create bare minimum pages, or pages that give the users a token amount of value - the bare minimum.

I'm surprised at Google for allowing this sort of thing and specifically allowing you to put even more ads up than is usually allowed.

Re: Maybe Jason Calacanis isn't being totally honest about Mahalo?

#30

Post by shareme »

jcalacanis wrote: post #13
rit wrote: post #6

This obsession with Calacanis/Mahalo is becoming a Hacker News tic along the lines of the reddit obsession with Bacon/Narwhals/Keanu Reeves. Most of the content is regurgitated as well. If you have such an issue with Mahalo and/or Mr. Calacanis: STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THEM. Nothing dooms a site to the shadows of history like being completely and utterly forgotten.

Thank you.... and I agree. We are 100% SEO compliment to best practices and we delete/deindex/build out any community pages that are short every month. Google Knol, Wikipedia, About.com, eHow and Associated Content don't do this! We are uber agressive about removing short pages, and investing thousands of dollars in top pages. like these two: http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-strawberry-shortcake http://www.mahalo.co…

so than they are being worked on and not crawled by Google?
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