To eCommerce Optimization Readers:

You’ll have to bare with me a little bit on this post. It is not meant to teach you anything about eCommerce and you will not likely find any of the information in this article useful for running an eCommerce site, unless of course you regularly read Search Engine Land’s daily search link roundup called SearchCap. I am basically just ranting and hopefully the editors at Search Engine Land listen (that’s you Danny).

Brief Background & Article Motivation:

First, I would just like to say that I am a huge fan of SEL and the daily SearchCap column. I read it nearly everyday and love that I can usually find all the big news surrounding search on that one page. I like the layout and I love the page usability (list format), however there is just one thing bugging me.

Recently, SEL launched a social media section to their site called Sphinn. It’s basically a place for search marketers and other users to post, vote and comment on each others articles and news from around the industry. Sphinn is a great site that has gained a lot of popularity despite being so new. I use it, and recommend that others within the search marketing community also consider joining and contributing.

Soon after Sphinn launched, readers of the daily SearchCap may have noticed a little section near the bottom of each one called “Hot Items From Sphinn.” That section is designed to display the “Hot Topics” that have been voted popular on Sphinn each day (which it does a great job of).

My Issue With SearchCap:

All that is fine, I am glad Danny is promoting hot Sphinn topics from SearchCap’s. Besides the benefits related to site architecture and search engine discover-ability, it helps drive more traffic to Sphinn and allows the articles on Sphinn to get recognized more regularly by other SEL readers.

The fact that it is there is not what bugs me.

[begin rant]

What bugs me is that many of the “Hot” topics from Sphinn that show up on SearchCap are actually duplicates of the same stories from other SearchCap sections. For instance, you may find an article from Danny or Rand under “SEM Industry” or “Searching” and then see the same article (linked from Sphinn page) under “Hot Items From Sphinn” (See screenshots below for more examples). It’s not very good use of space, in my opinion, and gets kind of annoying if you are tuning in via a feed reader. Some of the titles are a little different and I don’t notice it as much on every SearchCap, but it should definitely be addressed.

Danny, please consider a few minor changes to your daily SearchCap section specifically related to the “Hot Items From Sphinn” area near the bottom of each SearchCap post.

I don’t care how you do it. I would probably leave out the Sphinn items that are regurgitating what has already made the upper sections on each SearchCap list, but you could also consider adding new links to the other lists that do not match anything currently on Sphinn. I know it would be easy to do, and it would leave more room for unique stories to get listed. Sure, some days the lists may look a little “lacking,” but at least we would get a good mixture of content and we wouldn’t have to worry about reading the same articles twice. There is even a way to strip duplicates with a php script, I am sure (look for exact title matches, close word matches, source matches, etc).

[/end rant]

eCopt Out …