31–40 of 124 posts
It would make sense to get rid of some writers and get some video folks quick. With their 40 employees, 4 being let go seems hardly a news-worthy event. It seems even more of a stretch positioning this as google algorithm driven.
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Out of curiosity, can you name some of the legitimate businesses that were affected? I thought the algo only targeted content farms and sites that regurgitated other peoples content.
Mine is one. Google traffic is down 30%, and that significantly affects my revenue. http://www.onedayonejob.com/
Divide that by category types and link from the sidebar - this will pass linkjuice more efficiently and improve your traffic.
Could someone tell me more about this Jason Calacanis fellow. He seems to be a very polarizing figure on this site. Really all I know is that he seemed to have a falling out with Michael Arrington and alot of articles seem to mention him in a slightly negative light. Is there some reason for this, and no I'm not trying to troll.
1. Mahalo is blowing in the wind. I have no idea what Mahalo is or what Calacanis wants it to be. SEOing the hell out of near-worthless content is not a long-term strategy. If you want to win - solve a problem!
2. Jason Calacanis is an excellent executive. This Google algo change took place on Fri/Sat. By Tuesday this guy made the huge, painful, most difficult call in the world and laid off 10% of his company. If you have ever had to lay people off - you know what I mean. It is hard, it is painful, it is life changing. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I understand that the employee takes the blunt of the blow - but believe me, being on the other side of the table is not a desirable place to be.
I know this is not a popular stance on HN, but I have a lot of respect for Calacanis. The guy has done so much for the start up community. TWiST is some of the most valuable content I have found on the web and The Launch Conference - if it hasn't already - will change the startup conference scene forever. Not to mention his home brewed angel network that tilts the table in favor of entrepreneurs.
Calacanis is a hell of a self-promoter - but even if he rubs you the wrong way - you should respect what he has been able to do. If you have been (or were) on 60 minutes talking about internet startups...in your 20's...feel free to rip him apart. If not, show a little respect for what he has done and little empathy for what the guy just had to do.
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I agree. He just seems brutally honest, and that gets him in trouble. But hate him or love him, the guy does a great job with TWIST. I do not use Mahalo, so I cannot speak for it.
Same here. I don't even remember ending up on a Mahalo search results page, come to think of it.
The problems people have with Mahalo and their ilk are unimportant to 90% of the people on the Internet. Many are perfectly comfortable typing "how to cross street?" into google or their isp homepage and clicking the top link. Boom: business model.
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Mine is one. Google traffic is down 30%, and that significantly affects my revenue. http://www.onedayonejob.com/
You need to increase the # of links you have from the homepage - I would suggest getting to the 100 internal link point by finding more ways to tag your jobs you have under "See All 1206 Entry Level Employers", which I imagine is driving most of your search traffic. Divide that by category types and link from the sidebar - this will pass linkjuice more efficiently and improve your traffic.
The really interesting thing is that http://www.onedayoneinternship.com/ has seen no change in traffic. Its architecture is nearly identical, and much of the content is shared across both sites (because I built the sites for humans, not search engines). There's a decent chance that this is causing the problem, but I can't understand why ODOJ would get hit instead of ODOI. Even content that isn't partially duplicated on ODOI is getting hit, so it's either a domain level filter/penalty based on duplicate content, or it's not the issue.
Right now I'm thinking a lot about how to fix whatever Google doesn't like, but it's really hard when you can't be sure. I can't really afford to do significant testing (and you can't actually run a good experiment with a real site). For now I'm going to keep investigating, and work on building links. That's always a good time investment.
Could someone tell me more about this Jason Calacanis fellow. He seems to be a very polarizing figure on this site. Really all I know is that he seemed to have a falling out with Michael Arrington and alot of articles seem to mention him in a slightly negative light. Is there some reason for this, and no I'm not trying to troll.
I don't know Jason Calacanis, but I get a couple of things out of this. (and yea, I know my two main points are contradictive) 1. Mahalo is blowing in the wind. I have no idea what Mahalo is or what Calacanis wants it to be. SEOing the hell out of near-worthless content is not a long-term strategy. If you want to win - solve a problem! 2. Jason Calacanis is an excellent executive. This Google algo change took place o…
1) Jason and Mahalo are over. Their new strategy is very expensive and a multi-year road before it's a real business. It's a total rewrite, not a pivot by any means, if they do it well. No way Calacanis lasts a few more years at Mahalo (even if the board doesn't push him out).
2) Calacanis isn't really in charge at Mahalo AFAIK. The employees all report to Jason Rapp. Rapp and the board probably made the decision to layoff, though Calacanis was probably involved. He's being allowed to save face and ego. His role is more of a spokesperson than a CEO.
I think Calacanis simply can't force himself to do what it takes to make Mahalo successful because he's already rich. He's referred to Mahalo as "freeroll" meaning that even if it fails he's still rich. That kind of attitude is fine for getting things you love done, but it doesn't work when you're trying to do something you're not innately passionate about. He doesn't have the hunger (nor would almost anyone) to make Mahalo the kind of success it needs to be to justify its investment.
Paul Graham has said many times that he wouldn't start another startup because it's just too painful and he knows he couldn't stomach it now that he doesn't have the incentive he did before (to get rich).
I don't think there's anything wrong with this. It's natural human behavior to respond to incentives. I think when Calacanis finally realizes (or admits) this he'll be a much happier (if ego-bruised) guy.
POSITIVE:
Calacanis is unbelievably awesome when he's doing things he's passion about. TWiST and LAUNCH are flawless. He's the target demographic for the content himself and it shows.
He should turn LAUNCH newsletter into a head-to-head blog competitor to TechCrunch. Combined with TWiST and LAUNCH conference it really could become as influential and big as TC is.
He's got a ton of talent and energy, but I think Mahalo really drags him down. If he removed that burden he'd be able to do something truly amazing and big.
tl;dr: If you're already rich don't try to do things that you aren't genuinely passionate about, your subconscious will prevent you from doing what it takes to succeed that way. Stick to things you don't have to force yourself to do and are naturally good at.
Maybe this was the excuse for Mahalo to fire the 10% of its workers that were the least productive. The bottom 10% may have even been hurting the company.
Didn't they recently pivot and switch over from a lot of written articles to videos? It would make sense to get rid of some writers and get some video folks quick. With their 40 employees, 4 being let go seems hardly a news-worthy event. It seems even more of a stretch positioning this as google algorithm driven.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need to increase the # of links you have from the homepage - I would suggest getting to the 100 internal link point by finding more ways to tag your jobs you have under "See All 1206 Entry Level Employers", which I imagine is driving most of your search traffic. Divide that by category types and link from the sidebar - this will pass linkjuice more efficiently and improve your traffic.
That's a really good suggestion. I mostly use the tag pages to flow linkjuice throughout the site, and it seems to work pretty well. I'll think more about how I can improve my site architecture. But I was doing pretty well until Thursday. The really interesting thing is that http://www.onedayoneinternship.com/ has seen no change in traffic. Its architecture is nearly identical, and much of the content is shared acros…
Wild guess: "job" is a highly competitive keyword subject to lots of scammy black hats ("work from home for $$$!!!"), while "internship" is much more clear of the scum?