Jonathan Schull, founder and CTO of Softlock, has an excellent response to Joe Gregario‘s “cogent and pithy” blog entry on Google and Heisenberg. Joe argues:

The web needs to change to accomodate Google. Link, link to, be authoratitive on a subject, keep current and offer information others want and need and you’ll succeed in Google’s eyes. Let page-rank stand as the carrot and the stick of good web behaviour.

Jon, correctly guessing that I’ll be drawn to his coinage “linktoitiveness” the way an Atlantic City mayor is drawn to a hotel room with a suitcase of money on the bed and a two-way mirror on the wall, suggests that being linked-to is not the only mark of page quality. We know empirically that it’s a damn successful heuristic, but we also know that the system can be gamed and that the most popular kids aren’t the only ones you ever want to eat lunch with.

On the other hand, we could also say that Google isn’t trying to find the most worthy pages for us, just the ones we’re most likely looking for. The search for worthiness is best accomplished through other means, i.e., give up.

Anyway, it’s a really tasty can o’ worms that Joe and Jon have opened up.

Categories: Uncategorized dw