It’s similar here. They want you to list them in the top 10, but they don’t want to be part of an experiment. They feel used, especially when people make comments about rats in mazes. The rat comment is not going to help.

You’d be surprised how many ‘normal’ people are into SEO. I work with people in varied businesses and a lot of can read web stats and understand basic SEO principles.

Great blog though. I’ll stop by again.

If my post was fake and I didn’t really give a rip it would be different, but I truly admire all of the work from all of the photographers mentioned here.

As of this comment, the page is coming up on page one for terms like:

10 greatest photographers
grazier photography
greates photographers
infinet blogs
infinet design
infinet design blogs
infinet design photography
jesh de rox
joel wiebner
list of the greatest photographers
some of the greatest photographers
wiebner photography

So, especially to Brock and Dave, who I think are frustrated by the experiment as well… you’re welcome for placing your work on the post.

I just think you are completely underestimating how many difficult situations we are put in as high visibility profssional photographers, particularly when it comes to internet ethics. Between finding our images on other photographers’ sites, finding our names in other website’s metatags without authorization, getting anonymous comments we have to moderate from envious competitors, and then being part of an SEO experiment … the amount of time I spend on unethical internet situations is discouraging to me.

I’m not going to visit this site again, or give this any more attention. But I would suggest that you read a book before doing anything like this again – it’s called the Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval. The reason why I have gotten to where I am in my career is because… yes, I know how to work a camera and yes, I understand marketing. But it’s mostly because of the way I treat people with respect no matter who they are, even if I am not sure how they could ever help me in the future. That core value seems to come back to me time and time again in the form of future business and relationship marketing.

Something to consider.

Laura

As a side note, I received a not-so-friendly email from Becker also stating that he was going to link to the post until he found out that I was “blowing smoke” up his a**. The sad thing is that there’s no smoke… I created a legitimate post that I was sincere about.

I guess the “offense” comes because they didn’t feel it was legit???

As an FYI… there were some posts made to some forums (I had nothing to do with two of them) that referred to my post and I received about 450 click-throughs for it and added to my subscriber base.

I will update the site tomorrow with details of the Becker email and more.

No, but to Laura and Joel:

1st – SORRY. I’m not sure any of us considered how you all might feel about this. Shame on us! But hey, now we know, if you’re wanting links, accidentally insulting the people you want them from PROBABLY isn’t the best way to go about it…

2nd – I can’t speak for Dave (I’m sure he’ll address this himself) but it definitely wasn’t our intention to offend! I know that he sincerely does love your blogs, simply because he talks about them all the frickin’ time!

3rd – Um, don’t want want to sound like an ass, but I gotta know from a scientific standpoint – how DID you wind up finding this blog post? Did it turn up in your site analytics somehow?

careful with these things, you tend to get back what you put out into the world. and karma is a real b***h.

Laura Novak
One of the ten ‘top wedding photography blogs’

I don’t think the rats are supposed to know they are in a maze.

*diabolical laugh*
*sigh*

You may be correct in assuming that “non-tech” people don’t even know who is linking to their sites.