Please help

post the info on the forum …..

Nope.

Depending on the site, and the reasons it has dropped may deliver a ****fest for all, so I would rather take a look in private, discuss it with the owner of the site (Who may or may not be the posters to this thread) then discuss it in the open if owners and I agree.

Jason
Uh I was asking the OP to post the site info, not you.

I thought the OP posted here so that people might offer advice in the forum, rather than for you to hijack any potential discussion by telling OP to pm you the info. ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

Nice choice of words there – hijack –

I’ve been asked to be a moderator here and part of moderating is to ensure that discussions are managed in a manner so that members and CAP itself are safe from legal issues.

By checking that the OP is the owner of the site and explaining the risks of placing his URL in an open forum we minimize those risks.

I believe you have the chance to edit your post, you may want to use that opportunity.

@JasonD 204423 wrote:

Nice choice of words there – hijack –

You liked that huh?

@JasonD 204423 wrote:

part of moderating is to ensure that discussions are managed in a manner so that members and CAP itself are safe from legal issues.

Lol. ridiculous statement in this context imo, unless I’m missing something.
Some guy asks for theories as to why his site is dropping in the SERPS. We can speculate if we can check it out. There is no legal issue with speculation or giving advice. that’s what this forum has traditionally been for.

@JasonD 204423 wrote:

By checking that the OP is the owner of the site and explaining the risks of placing his URL in an open forum we minimize those risks.

Right, so you are going to personally vet the fact that the OP owns the domain in Question? I severely doubt this, and it’s unnecessary IMO.

@JasonD 204423 wrote:

I believe you have the chance to edit your post, you may want to use that opportunity.

I can’t and wouldn’t.
i don’t think hijacking was mis-used as you could have asked the OP to post his url for all to see.. yet you seemed to take it upon yourself to nominate yourself as the resident expert and take the conversation underground.

If you think there is some kind of problem with posting URLS here and asking what is going on in the serps in relation to a URL, perhaps you should make a post about it to enlighten us.?:hattip:

Your choice whether you do or not, but it does make me think that you should add it to “how to win friends and influence people 101”!

There are legal risks, I’ll cover this in a moment.

Ermmm, I am the resident expert – Even as recently as last week I was Independently verified and confirmed as the person who delivered greatest market share to a business in this most competitive of all industries.

Temporarily to ensure ownership and risk management to all concerned

I might well do that ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

@JasonD 204425 wrote:

Your choice whether you do or not, but it does make me think that you should add it to “how to win friends and influence people 101”!

uh I’m not here to make friends and influence people.. I’m a cap member and also a SEO expert who could contribute to the thread should the OP post the info, but whatever. I do honestly appreciate that you are here and willing to give people your valuable advice, but if you are going to “hijack” a thread or indeed convince posters not to post essential info to answer their queries without any explanation, then this Forum is doomed.

@JasonD 204425 wrote:

There are legal risks, I’ll cover this in a moment.

Excellent.

@JasonD 204425 wrote:

week I was Independently verified and confirmed as the person who delivered greatest market share to a business in this most competitive of all industries.

Lol, whatever. We can all brag, however some of us are more modest than others

@JasonD 204425 wrote:

Temporarily to ensure ownership and risk management to all concerned

Sigh, ownership doesn’t matter – the guy’s query was so damn generic, we have seen hundreds of similar threads on CAP. Risk management? Risk to whom? What risk?

Maybe we should just close this SEO forum and have people email you their SEO queries? maybe you should consider putting a sticky up in this forum warning people against posting their URLS and Queries.. I would really love to see your logic… Why have a public SEO forum if one can’t / shouldn’t post their urls / queries safely.

I’ve never been accused of humility ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

All the other points we’ll cover in time

Alex and I have had a great chat on the phone and I think it is fair to say we now share the same viewpoint. That being that open and honest discussion is essential but balanced against risks that are real.

By asking for the OP to PM me his URL we can help manage those risks.

I’ll let Alex comment independently but I will say thanks for your time on the phone mate and apologies for me having to shoot off to the newsagents. It aint every day the Guardian newspaper interviews you for a story! ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

I just had a good long chat with JasonD on the phone, and he convinced me that verifying someone’s ownership of a site is actually a good idea in the SEO forums for a number of reasons, and is quite definitely in CAP’s interests to avoid legal Actions due to abuse of the forum for “competitor cut-throating”.

e.g. I post my blackhatting / trademark abusing competitor’s URL for “SEO advice”, – people point out the BH’ing or perhaps alleged Trademark abuse, and the **** hits the fan, with CAP (as the “data carrier”) or posters being held accountable for comments which may or may not be true. Litigation central if lawyers get involved, and if the domain in question gets slapped with some SERP penalties due to the offending thread, it could get EXPENSIVE.

Anyway I agree with mr D that it would be useful for people [and cap] to avoid these pitfalls, and to confirm their ownership when they post their queries as well as a link to unique page on their site which verifies that they do indeed own a site, and to avoid confusion in future similar threads (I think this was the first time I saw such a thing mentioned on the forums – and I kneejerked into WTF mode!)

Perhaps in time, and after some discussion, CAP will add a sticky to the SEO forum to help insulate CAP and members from any potential problems, with some kind of forum charter or at least a READ BEFORE POSTING sticky, which one has to agree to, before they post in the forum (otherwise their post may, quite reasonably get deleted/hidden until they amend it)

This charter might include some type of recommended easy verification (e.g adding a page on http://yoursite.com/mycapverificationfile.txt)) and putting it in the relevant thread so that people can be assured they are talking to the site owner.

In any case, glad I had the chat with Jason – and I must add that I am sure that Jason wasn’t hijacking the thread for any type of personal gain (my cynical head did wonder if this was another SEO’er “working” the forums, for business ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />) – It’s good to have a SEO Mod with a good holistic view of the SEO and business stirring up some interesting points of view and debate on the [quiet] forums.