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A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

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Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#61

Post by po »

patio11 wrote: post #16
acangiano wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. SEO really is a zero-sum game.

That isn't true. For any particular search, yes, if one site goes down another site will necessarily go up. However, in aggregate, SEO creates value . Think of StackOverflow, for example: the primary mechanism for success isn't taking traffic from ExpertsExchange -- that is just a much-remarked side effect. The primary mechanism for success is successfully incentivizing the creation and distribution of answers for a…

…except for the boats it sinks. Namely, the long tail that they cleaned up. I'm not sure I understand when you say "SEO creates value" if you mean the so-called good/relevant SEO or the low quality/sketchy SEO. I assume you mean the former.

SEO can mean "help make my site easy for google to honestly evaluate and judge the quality of my content" or it can mean "game google into thinking my content is what people want to see even though they probably don't".

I can see how having a better index creates value but I'm not sure how SEO contributes to a better index. It seems like google changed the rules, some companies are doing worse, some are better (zero sum) but hopefully the index is better and people can find what they want (unlocking value). Is that what you're getting at?

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#62

Post by gsmaverick »

mrtron wrote: post #31

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.

They have 95 remaining employees, please read the article.

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#63

Post by marcamillion »

forensic wrote: post #46
marcamillion wrote: post #3

The messed up thing about this is, that 10% of the staff have 'slaved' for however long they have been there. All for naught. Maybe they can still get a referral from Jason, but given that I don't think that pays the bills...hopefully it can help them land on their feet.

"slaved".. were they not compensated?

Perhaps, but as far as I understand it...they are compensated at a pittance with the hope that after 3 - 5 years they can leave with a nice payout and move on to 'bigger' and better.

I guess my point is, this is why you should be careful who you commit to slave for (e.g. a boss that expressly says that they expect you to work like a slave) because at the end of the day - if the business ever turns down you are just a number.

It's unfair to ask salaried employees to give the same as the founder, because the founders won't be first in line to be cut when revenues turn down.

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#64

Post by xsmasher »

bad_user wrote: post #59
run4yourlives wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the source, this is actually very good advice.

I guess I'm a flake - hey, what can I say; I get bored easily and feel the need to switch projects often, especially when the project enters maintenance mode. I also have a free advice to entrepreneurs - since I'm working remotely as I don't live in the US, I have to be much better / work much harder than US developers, just so I can take home barely the minimum U.S. salary in this industry. I also don't get any equi…

>I get bored easily and feel the need to switch projects often, especially when the project enters maintenance mode.

Points for honesty, but I'm wary of any dev who says that. How do you know what maintainable code is if you never stick around for the maintenance?

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#65

Post by aaronwall »

sofakeekafos wrote: post #53
jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #41

1. We're working with the folks impacted to place them at whatever company they would like to join. I'm personally reaching out to folks who might want these fine people. They will all wind up on their feet and be great additions to the vibrant startup scene in Los Angeles. 2. Mahalo is doing amazing videos with experts, but our (text) articles were created by passionate writers who are not necessarily experts. Googl…

>more committed than ever to the mission. Oh my God, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. What mission would that be? Spamming the web with contrived content related to high-value keywords, for the money?

Hehehe ... with a close second perhaps being "using deceptive public relations non-sense to get ink any way possible"

Good things happen to good people.

The opposite is also true.

Congrats Jason! :D

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#66

Post by endtime »

ihodes wrote: post #19
S_A_P wrote: post #13

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.

Mahalo is equated with spam in the eyes of many HNers (including me), and JC is seen as the promoter of said spam. EDIT: Why the hell is this getting so many upvotes? Because it's easier to read? Upvote, instead, some of the comments with actual fucking content. EDIT2: Also, while I think (much of) Mahalo is spam, I respect Jason and his business, and wish him the best of luck.

>Why the hell is this getting so many upvotes?

Concision is valuable.

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#67

Post by ComputerGuru »

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #60
staunch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You like brutal honesty and you put yourself out there, so I think it's fair to ask you. Why don't you leave your role at Mahalo and do what you're the absolute best at? (TWiST, LAUNCH Conf, TC competitor)? Plenty of people can do a video eHow, but almost no one else could rival TC. It seems like a pride/ego/money thing from the outside. Is it something else?

Well, I really believe in the mission to build a site that helps people learn anything... and I believed in human-powered search before that (and still do to be honest). I've got the education bug, and I want to take the promise we all see in things like Lynda.com and Kahn Academy and scale it into a brand as big as Google or Wikipedia. LAUNCH, Angel investing and This Week in Startups are all fun, but they are not a…

For someone so obsessed with education sites......

s/Kahn/Khan from both your posts.

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#68

Post by egor83 »

js4all wrote: post #56

After weeks of criticism on Google's results being spam'ed, it was clear that Google would react on this. The algorithm change was foreseeable. On the other side this shows the monopolistic power of Google and how they can hurt individual companies like they want. For us as search engine users, it is time to support other search engines, for instance DuckDuckGo.

this shows the monopolistic power of Google and how they can hurt individual companies

Changes like this hurt most if you depend on spam-like SEO.

For example, Stack Overflow hasn't lost anything from this recent algorithm change - they actually gained from it.

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#69

Post by moultano »

aaronwall wrote: post #65
sofakeekafos wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>more committed than ever to the mission. Oh my God, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. What mission would that be? Spamming the web with contrived content related to high-value keywords, for the money?

Hehehe ... with a close second perhaps being "using deceptive public relations non-sense to get ink any way possible" Good things happen to good people. The opposite is also true. Congrats Jason! :D

Jesus guys, take it elsewhere.

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#70

Post by bad_user »

xsmasher wrote: post #64
bad_user wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm a flake - hey, what can I say; I get bored easily and feel the need to switch projects often, especially when the project enters maintenance mode. I also have a free advice to entrepreneurs - since I'm working remotely as I don't live in the US, I have to be much better / work much harder than US developers, just so I can take home barely the minimum U.S. salary in this industry. I also don't get any equi…

>I get bored easily and feel the need to switch projects often, especially when the project enters maintenance mode. Points for honesty, but I'm wary of any dev who says that. How do you know what maintainable code is if you never stick around for the maintenance?

True; but you can recognize maintainable code when working in a larger team and ownership of modules changes a lot, which it should for any healthy project.

There are several universal things you can do to ensure maintainability, which are a no-brainer, but don't happen because of various compromises that have to do with time and money - like code-reviews, having no module with a single owner, automatic tests, up to date documents / stories, etc...

If you don't do any of that, it's a no-brainer again that the project will not be maintainable; but it can still be beaten into shape later if the original devs weren't totally insane :)

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