Private Question Shutdown
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That's a real shame, but it makes sense.
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Hi Marcus,
you are right when it comes down to it if you have a real project that you have to get done there's no substitute for hiring a individual, firm or combination I have had great luck with companies like distilled, Portant, evolving SEO and skyrocketseo. For a real project one question will help but it will not answer everything that needs to be answered or assist you with a lot of the work.
I can understand if you're under a lot of pressure and that private question has to be right and you need it yesterday why that would out a lot of stress. I do agree questions get answered much quicker and public then private however I do think it's like the lottery with public and you're right sometimes you get it right off the bat sometimes you have to wait with that as well. I don't understand how we will have more people in public when 4% of us were using a private but I could be very wrong because I'm assuming the private questions were much more complex and time-consuming.
All the best,
Tom
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The Private Q&A has probably been the most valuable aspect of SEOmoz PRO for me. I've asked 8 questions in 17 months but each question has contained details that can't be divulged publicly, and that would have been really difficult (impossible in some cases) to phrase or receive answers to in a public forum, without giving sensitive information away. It is a huge disappointment for me and the company I work for - I would say it might be a deal breaker in our case
- but I understand why you've done it - it makes sense from your point-of-view, and the public forum does seem neglected at times in terms of endorsing answers.If 4% of your paying subscribers have used Private Q&A, how many use the Q&A in general?
Does anyone know of any alternatives, for someone who doesn't want a full on consulting contract, but would have occasional important questions?
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What is the Timeframe?
You'll still be able to ask private questions through March 15th, meaning all PRO members will have at least two more chances (February and March) to ask a private question. You'll also be able to see all of your old questions in your account through at least the end of March. We encourage you to save a copy of these questions for your future reference. -
Public Q&A is indexed by the search engines.
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Thanks Alex,
Your question from earlier is interesting regarding a similar service for private Q&A. A pay per question service would be welcomed as drilling down on clients issues privately is very important. I'd happily pay more or pay per question on certain issues.
Cheers
B
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But that doesn't say what happens after March. Do we assume they are deleted?
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Public is still public.
That's exactly the point.
@SEOmoz - at least be honest about it and say what we all know. The time/value does not match for your side of the qa.
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We would never, ever make the questions public. We will keep the private questions available to you as long as we can, but at some point they will be removed from our system.
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We are recent members. In 4 months used only once and would like to continue using. I believe that the main difference from private to public QA is the comfort in moving some data.
We hope that decision came to the best of all members, having most intense discussion and the same quality of the private QA.
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I wish you would reconsider the decision or at least adjust as I suggest below.
Having private Q&A is much different in my mind than public Q&A.
The logic/argument that making it all public helps everyone misses the point of private Q&A entirely. Those that choose to use private Q&A do so precisely because they do not want their questions public. Why is that? For me, there is almost always specific mention of URLs in my questions. Not only do we not want to raise red flags and reveal issues for potential COMPETITORS to find, we often do not want CLIENTS to be aware of the conversation as we work to resolve issues or make changes to improve performance.
The other reason I like the Private Q&A is that the quality of private answers is simply higher and more reliable in our experience. Having a fallback resource has been a great comfort when we step out of our areas of expertise. Losing that is a negative, no doubt.
ONE WAY TO LESSEN THE EXPOSURE OF A QUESTION THAT NOW MUST BE PUBLIC (but that we do not wish to be public) would be to add in an optional check box that disallows indexation by the search engines. That way, it at least makes it harder for those outside seomoz.org to discover the conversation.
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" what you just said is true if you did bring up a competitor's name"
Yes, exactly The big value in private is being able to ask questions with detailed competitive information. For example, asking a question about why our competitor ranks for a specific term, but we don't, even though we think we should.
i understand the scalability challenge with this (I have a payroll to make myself...), I'm just surprised that this wasn't anticipated as a potential issue when first offered. It wouldn't have been hard to calculate the cost/time of providing this service long term.
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I agree with what was stated above. I'm also saddened by this loss as I think it was one of the things that set SEOMoz apart; however, I also think that the public Q&A forum is very valuable and also makes SEOMoz a tremendous value.
My concerns are two-fold. One concern, which was stated earlier, is that sometimes you need to ask questions about clients with information that can't be shared publicly. The public Q&A won't help these types of questions.
My second concern is that I've asked a number of questions on the public Q&A and very rarely have had SEOmoz staff answer them. I'm wondering what SEOmoz's goal ratio for participating in the public Q&A will be? Will SEOMoz staff have a goal for participating X% of the questions?
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Ah I think I only asked maybe 3-4 questions since I first joined in Sep 2008... but I've often found answers via private channels far more detailed and faster and it's often from other SEOs who are also PRO members which shows the importance of networking and knowledge sharing...
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Well, it's certainly been an emotive subject for many!
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Seriously? Are you saying that unless you sign an NDA with every individual, you should be ready for surprises? All the people who answered my private questions seems to be very friendly people who wouldn't go around talking about my questions or sensitive information. You can'be comparing the little risk involved in what you are suggesting to making a post 100% public.
_ "public or private question meaning if the person answering your question thinks their answer is relevant to somebody else's problem they will most likely give them the answer that worked rather be private or public they want to do the right thing."_
Most likely? I doubt it. I haven't seen any staff sharing someone else's private stuff with me and I don't think that they do that at all. I am sure people like Dr. Pete and others who help with private questions are better than that.
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It's a decision that makes sense even if it looks like there are a few people that are not very happy with it.
THe Q and A community - the open one - not the pro Q and A - is very nice and open. A lot of good people around here with professional background that are getting involved in Q and A.
Hope the decision will be taked lightly and understood also by those who used to use it
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I've been a member for a year now and I have never used a private question. I much prefer the public questions since I can get a wide variety of ideas from others.
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Just throwing this out there, there is a new service that just launched here in LA that lets you pay to ask questions. It was free up until Jan. 31'st, not sure what the deal is now, but it's worth keeping an eye on if what they offer might work for some people. I'm not affiliated with them in any way.
Also, would a SWOT analysis for each page on my site, along with keyword and competitor research be counted as a 2-part question?
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Hi Keri,
One thing I do want to point out is SEOmoz has done a fantastic job of adding great new features. FollowerWonk It is something I use daily. And is extremely helpful and GetListed is something I just signed up with and has potential to be extremely helpful as well to many smaller businesses or any business really.
I believe people are having a tough time understanding that this is a business if it's not scalable then it will not work thus the answers will get worse and the product of private messages will suffer.
SEOmoz knows their own business much better than we do. I believe it is a very unfortunate to lose this great tool however to say that that is the one part or a deal breaker I agree with what Rand had said if nothing else is of value obviously you might be better off making a deal with a private consultant.
One thing that might help is if SEOmoz did a poll of current Associates and asking them what they would charge to answer questions in a similar manner? after that every individual could make a choice as to whether or not they wish to pay the third-party or maybe have it work through the system. Just an idea.
SEOmoz is a software as a service company and from a business perspective I definitely understand why they're doing this. If it's not scalable it's smart that they don't do it right now.
Respectfully and thank you to everyone at SEOmoz staff and members alike
Thomas Zickell
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