Who Am I on the Internet?

Today I want to talk about a subject that I already raised on this blog and that led into Google penalizing some sites - Squidoo perhaps? - I mean "expertise".

I already posted in this blog that I don't believe in the word "expert" or "expertise" when it comes to the Internet. Not that I don't think that there are true experts on here - and I surely spoke to some of them in forums or Facebook or whatever other means of communication.

So it seems that Google's putting the highlight on experts - how do they decide who's an expert or not?  That is beyond my understanding since they never met those experts in person.

Therefore they certainly wrote some algorithms that would lead into their robots to differentiate "actual" experts from "false" or "so-called" experts. What's their algorithm? How do they differentiate the fake from the real?



For example, the medical field. How do they differentiate an actual doctor from a false one? 

Apart from comparing the worldwide Medical College lists with signatures/authors on the Web, I don't see how Google can differentiate a real doctor from a fake one, an active doctor from a banned one. Apart from that means of comparison, and I'm not sure Google works that way ; what does ensure me they're actual doctors ? Their signature ? What about fasle signature, false identities ? 

Moreover, I don't see how I myself, as an average Internet user, can differentiate those people. I'll never see them, never meet them personally, will never see their license/degree/diploma or whatever the name this document is called all over the world. What does ensure me they're actual doctors? 

Therefore what does allow a robot to make this decision?

Another thought is, from what I could read in forums, it could be the amount of related content that's hosted on a site (not any kind of junk, of course, but articles well written with accurate terms, etc.)

OK. So because someone wrote 100 articles related to antique car insurance, used accurate wording, examples, etc. they're considered as expert. Very well.

But... what if this webmaster isn't a car insurance expert, what if this webmaster is just a smart marketer who knows how to make money out of a topic he has no knowledge about?

Let's take the example of someone that's clever at making money but has no actual knowledge about anything. This person is outsourcing their articles and hired a writer from somewhere in the world. Ordered 100 articles related to "antique car insurance". 

The writer searches for accurate information about the topic, writes 100 articles including accurate terms, correct examples, dates, models, brands, quotes, etc. It is a hard work, it may take weeks to be released. But the ghost writer knows his job and does it pretty well.

Then the marketer hires a web designer and orders a superb "antique car insurance" website that is going to host their 100 articles. The site looks highly professional. The owner puts the finishing touches by adding an "about us" - or a biography - where they claim being a professional antique car insurance expert and write a few lines about their job and their degree of expertise.

The site becomes quite popular, people are attracted by the high degree of professionalism displayed on the site. They even vote it up for Google to notice it. Therefore, the site is well ranked and the owner earns a nice income from its initial investment. Rinse, repeat with another topic under another name.

Does that mean that this person, this Internet marketer is an actual antique car insurance expert? In Google robot's eyes, probably yes. But we're online and anyone can claim being anything, who's going to officially check it? Which takes the value of the word "expert" off of it's actual meaning.

You may argue that there are countries with laws and Internet regulation policies. Yes there are. Still there's always someone that's not going to play by the rules and in the Internet marketing field, conscience, fair play, and truth aren't always compatible with the job.

But there's more. There are countries where such laws and policies don't apply. And we can do anything against such behaviors. 

Also this marketer's site may outrank an actual antique car expert's personal blog, keeping them off getting deserved traffic and, if per chance they monetized their site - which is not always the case - from deserved earnings. An actual expert in antique car insurance having this as an actual job might not be a search engine expert... this leaves room for a marketer to profit from the higher rank in search results since their pages will be optimized on purpose.

The other question raised is the degree of truth online.

According to Google Authorship rules - the Google Authorship provides you with some degree of expertise and/or recognition online, you are supposed to add an actual picture of you. Your author name is also supposed to match the one of your Google account. What if your Google account name isn't your real name? What if the photo you uploaded isn't yours? After all, we're in a virtual world...

Although I live in one of those countries where Internet laws apply, what do you really know about me? You know me by my Squidoo username. Some may know me a little more than that since we used to chat live on Fresh Wonders or communicated by emails. 

All in all, I said where I was born and raised, where I live, the job I do to make ends meet, etc. Are you sure I told you the truth? I might very well be born in another country, live in another one, not being a stay at home mother at all - after all how do you actually know that I am a mother? I could even be a man. How do you know that I told you the truth?

Naturally there are niches in which everybody knows everybody because they're small circles. But the Internet is wide, and most niches aren't that small. And most of us know nobody else when it comes to market products or services.

I clearly say that I'm not an expert in anything. I don't wanna be seen as an expert either. However, I could be well an actual expert but not wanting to be recognized by my pairs. Yes, there are people online that don't want their name to be publicly displayed. For whatever reason.

So, what am I? I'm a web writer - not a good one, I admit - and I'm an Internet marketer because I make money out of the pages I write through affiliate links and advertising ads.

Now I don't say that I trust nobody online. Surely I will more likely trust my bank, even if I visit their online website. Still there are some sites on wich I'll be looking for information. But mostly if I look for espresso machines, I won't be buying that one because YOU built a site about espresso machines and that you made a great review about it. I won't be thinking "oh fantastic, here's an espresso machine expert, let's buy my new machine from this site". No. I'll be buying for one of these reasons:

• I compared with other review sites
• I read customer reviews in addition to yours
• I know the brand very well and was looking for the different models, then one of those I saw on your site attracted me
• I'm a visual shopper and wanted a selection of the best espresso machines available on the market this year
• I wanted to get a list of the different models' features, etc.

Now chances are that if I look for kitchen towels, I won't need any review, or long text; all I will need is a wide range of different kitchen towels, whether themed or monochrome or suitable for glasses, etc. (yes there are towels that aren't suitable to clean glasses).

There's no need to be an expert to write about some topics. As long as you have a passion for something and want to share it with others, I consider you're worth to be read or at least deserve the right to write online and be noticed by Google and other major search engines.

On another hand, if you're a marketer and provide me with what I'm looking for, I don't see any reason for not buying from your page either.

Even if I'm not an expert about antique cars, why wouldn't I be allowed to write an article about an antique car I found once in a farm. A car that dated back from the early 1900s and was sold by the farmer for pennies to a friend of mine. He restored the car, and joined an antique car club since then. Why wouldn't I be allowed to share that story online and, per chance, make a few sales through monetization. However, not being an expert will result in the fact that I won't take the niche over and won't be writing more than one or two articles about it. Still they might be helpful for some people looking for tips on how to get antique cars for pennies.

Although I'm expert at cooking failure, most of the time my meals end up slightly (or more) burned, why wouldn't I be allowed to write recipes online? Not succeeding preparing them doesn't prevent me from knowing how to make those foods. However, in my case I'd rather write about how to succeed in burning anything you cook.

My main niches relate to holidays such as Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc. I write a lot about these topics. I just enjoy them. I like planning parties and hosting them. I don't do that in a professional way. I'm just an amateur. I monetize my niche sites and they earn me an income. That doesn't make me an expert in these fields. But my readers do buy from my pages.

All in all, I'm mainly an Internet marketer.

And this leads me into considering Squidoo's new policies. By removing most of our links from our lenses, we share information first and if, by the way we make a sale, it's fine.

Do they want to get rid of those "cold" marketers who used to build lenses for the sake of money only? Well from what we can see, the answer is yes.

But then why did so many "content" lenses end up locked as well? I wonder the degree of affiliate links included in these pages: both images AND text links... I myself built some lenses this way: adding a bunch of in-text affiliate links. And during my angeling duties, saw thousands of such pages on Squidoo. 

Still this doesn't explain those locks for suspicious backlinks, especially since we aren't always responsible for the backlinks OTHERS build for our pages.

Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66