There has been a lot of talk about the new Sphinn.com network. After looking around and researching its platform, you will discover that there are top SEO professionals and SEO newcomer’s alike sharing ideas and debates over important matters involving everything from search engine optimization, to website usability.
Many will argue that Sphinn is just another popularity contest since it’s platform is much like digg. I was taken aback by reading so many complaints regarding this “popularity contest.” Isn’t SEO in itself a popularity contest?
A Sphinn user, Ciaran, argues that Sphinn is a popularity contest because Rand Fishkin (the head honcho on the site) gets more sphinn’s (votes) due to the sole reason he is already well known. “Not simply because people recognize Rand’s name, but because his position as chief blogger on SEOmoz puts everything that he writes in front of a much larger audience than anything I or other lesser known bloggers would get on our own sites…”
Well I partially agree with Ciaran’s statement, but isn’t that the way it goes with any networking site? Look at Tom on Myspace. Obviously he has gained trust through his audience simply by being known as the owner; the head honcho. Rand Fishkin is the mac daddy of the Sphinn, as obu is the dilly of Arizona SEO.
Rand answers back saying “I disagree that Sphinn is a popularity contest - it’s a “value” contest. People appear to be voting on what they find “valuable” from sites both big and small. I was actually impressed that there were several blogs and sites on here I’d never seen or heard of before.”
Right on the money Rand. But doesn’t popularity equal value? Rand also states “I disagree that a popularity contest is necessarily a bad thing - so long as it coincides with value.” Doesn’t being branded have more trust value than the generic guy? Regardless of how you want to define popularity, Sphinn allows those with value to become more popular. There’s nothing unusual about that.
Think back to high school and what made the popular kids popular. They were the ones that looked the best, presented themselves the best, provided the most entertainment, and were in the in crowd. Rand won that hand’s down through hard work and dedication; being in the game longer than the others. You can’t knock greatness for being great. You must earn it.
We are all trying to achieve this same goal online: To be the most popular (aka valuable) in our niche. Every link we get is a step towards winning that popularity contest. Every successful article written and “dugg” brings us 1 step closer to being successful in this online marketing game.
Everyone wants to hang out with the cool kids, but secretly wants to know what the outsiders are pondering in the corner. Sphinn gives us the best of both worlds.
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