InfinityX0

The sad part is he is making an effort here to rank for "Make Money Online", so he can again make money online. Not sure how confident he is in actually doing that, but seems like a somewhat recursive cycle..

I don't buy the "don't have all your eggs in one basket" mantra here. I get that idea if you rely on SEO and you have risky tactics, but in RetailMeNot's case, they have the best user experience and also, up to date coupons and for that reason are the best result most of the time in the vertical.

If this was a publicly traded company that bought links and had a site with a shoddy user experience, I'd get the argument that there's significant risk.

In the history of Google there are very few, if any case studies of sites that A) did the right thing B) were the best result that ended up losing significant traffic. Most of it is "yeah, we were doing this wrong, but it's still not fair..". In Rap Genius' case, they clearly did something wrong.

The only exception to this rule is if Google moves in on the vertical and steals traffic, which is possible with coupons - but there's a significant difference between completely destroying a vertical and impeding on it somewhat. Google has moved in on the airline tickets vertical but the businesses there are still doing just fine (Expedia, Priceline), as shown by their considerable growth in the last year+. It seems likely that if Google moved in on this vertical, it would be a similar impact.

In this article, there's little to describe what RetailMeNot does wrong. Yes, they are somewhat of a parasite, but in many ways they do these businesses a service by lowering purchase friction by creating an elegant experience for users. If their UX was substandard, it's possible customers would get lost and never complete their purchase - this happens time and time again, which is why CRO professionals can get hundreds of thousands of dollars to optimize a conversion funnel. In many ways, RetailMeNot is a piece of that elegant conversion funnel, so they are rewarded as an extremely profitable affiliate for that reason.

Disclaimer: I haven't taken the time to evaluate their link profile so there's a possibility that they are doing something risky there, but from an on-page perspective, they are the best result.

Facebook, like Google, has the goal of getting users to use their service more - as they are an advertising platform. Google Glass means people will search more - when they're away from the computer. Google investing in better internet means people will have quicker connections, which means they'll again means they'll be searching more.

Here, by increasing the likelihood people are engaged/interested in Facebook status events, Facebook will drive users back to their core platform, whether it's their core app or the desktop version - where they will, indeed, get more impressions for their advertisers. I doubt they are dumb enough, though, to actually do this through the home screen of our phones.

SEOmoz's Fresh Web Explorer is a great substitute for Google Alerts, and it was launched partially for this reason. It's not instantaneous, but it allows you many of the same functions as Alerts, with a much bigger spread.

Tool: http://freshwebexplorer.seomoz.org Post with More Depth On Usage: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/announcing-fresh-web-explorer

This. This method is super proven to help consumer happiness.

The only thing I find disheartening here is his discussion of how he lost funding because he told his friend they were struggling and had no idea what they were doing. This implies to me that they were not being transparent with the investor, and in essence were on the verge of "stealing" the investor's money because of it, because his aim was essentially to sell the investor on a thriving business that was in fact not there.

An investor should get a real and full analysis of the business, with accurate numbers, so it should not have come as a surprise or a fallout if someone said they "were struggling", because simply, their numbers and growth should have shown otherwise if they were actually worthy of investment, and no conversation should have been able to sway that.

You should never fear a transparent conversation with others getting back to important parties as long as you really have nothing to hide.