search engine domination

[Halfdeck]

I think Halfdeck summed this entire thread up with his 1st 12 words.

I can take a hint

Killing them - maybe, maybe not. Hurting them bad, contributing to their deaths, yes, I'm saying that.

Google isn't attacking porn. Google isn't attacking commerical sites, though sometimes I see Google pushing commercial sites off organic results and into PPC, depending on the search term (e.g. "who is Paris hilton" is probably biased against commercial sites (top results: wikipedia, imdb, askmen), while "cheapest paris hilton dvd" probably favors commercial sites (top results: hotfrog.com/products/, amazon.com, cduniverse/productinfo). In the former, a surfer is looking for information; in the latter, a surfer is looking to buy).

Google is attacking spammy tactics that promote useless products or thousands of similar pages promoting the same product. In the Webmaster Guidelines, Google makes it clear it doesn't like affiliate marketing sites (pages with ref codes) that don't provide a unique, compelling surfing experience.

If smaller LLs are dying, they're dying because they're affiliate marketing sites trying to be the 200th ebay or 200th youtube. When I think of Link Lists, I think of LOR, penisbot, tommy's bookmark, and a handful of other quality sites that have a strong brand. Do surfers really need hundreds of other LLs that offer less content based on a copycat business model?

If you want search traffic, it's time to think out of the box; the LL "seat" is already taken.