Private Question Shutdown
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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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gamer,
the reason I mentioned an NDA was to illustrate the point that if you and I had extremely similar questions I'm sure we would both get the same answer. I NO point stated anything about staff members morality and I think you are simply trying to get attention by implying I am questioning Dr. Pete's honor I have a great deal of respect for him and everyone at SEOmoz
"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."
when you enter into agreements with consultants most of the time you sign a nondisclosure agreement does that imply that that consultant will not share useful in permission they have learned from a job with me with another person that hires them? I Would hope they do and I know they do I and not implying that they use names or do anything to compromise your business.
I know there is a thing called private messages and they do work so you can put private information in their and send it to people I've done that in the past. I Don't understand why it would not work in the future I to would love to have private messages stay on as a service I am just being realistic. I don't believe SEOmoz came up with this choice lightly. I Hope you can understand that and maybe you should start asking in your next private question or publicly what the best solution is to get the service similar to what you've been getting. I know you can hire associates.
regards,
Thomas
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That type of question is beyond the scope of private Q&A. Private Q&A is more meant for a specific question that may take 15-30 minutes to answer, rather than a general site audit. It's there to help advise you, but not to do the work itself.
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Totally agree - sometimes you want a second opinion and don't want the client to know things.... I would be interested in a private service too.... Anyone know of any or what the plan is for one
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Yea, was totally kidding Keri. I should of added a <sarcasm>tag there, my bad. Cheers!</sarcasm>
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Hi Sean,
Thanks for your feedback and suggestion. We've found that people use private Q&A for asking questions they don't want public, but also when they want to make sure they get an answer (an answer is not guaranteed in public Q&A). We actually do see identical questions in public and private Q&A from the same person, as they seek an answer from an SEOmoz associate. When SEOmoz associates have more time to devote to public Q&A, they'll be able to answer more questions, and endorse and clarify existing answers.
We are looking at adjusting which questions are indexed in public Q&A, but it would be along the lines of only questions that are marked a "good answer" by the original poster or have an answer endorsed by staff would be in the index. This would help make sure that people coming in from a search engine would see just questions that have good answers. I will pass your suggestion along to the team to see if there's a way that could be TAGFEE for us.
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Hi Geoff,
So sorry about that! We've actually had requests almost that extensive in private Q&A.Without giving specific details, we've been asked for site audits, reviews of business plans, implementing features, and developing work plans for temporary help.
I'm only on the first cup of coffee for the day, and it's already been a long day, so I totally missed the implied sarcasm.
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" think you are simply trying to get attention by implying I am questioning Dr. Pete's honor I have a great deal of respect for him and everyone at SEOmoz "
I am not trying to get attention but it's clear to me that it's you who is trying to get attention by praising and defending SEOMOZ in every single post. So if it's ok with you, I would like to ask about a service that I have purchased. If it's not ok with you, then maybe we should be given the right to talk to SEOMOZ about this in private without you interfering.
What is it that you don't get here? I paid annually for a service that promised 1 private questions a month, which means I have already paid for 12. I don't think we live in a world that service providers can change the product description without offering a compensation.
This is getting ridiculous. You're talking like I am asking them to continue offering a free service or something. Meanwhile in your long post, you have the nerve to tell the community to stop complaining? Who gives you the right to tell a customer to stop complaining? You are not INVOLVED in this. You are a 3rd party and I don't know why I should stop complaining just because you say so.
How is this any different from another service provider suddenly changing the service? Let's say SEOMOZ's web hosting provider emailed them tomorrow morning and said "Sorry we can't scale this anymore, so we won't be offering postgresql anymore". That wouldn't make SEOMOZ happy, would it? Would it be ok if that hosting provider said "Only 4% of our users are using pgsql and others don't".
Why do I have to care about what 96% is doing and not doing. I purchased a product and paid annually. Is that so abnormal that I am expecting to get what I paid for?
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Kind of sad when the Real world knocks on the door and reminds us that success can bring the odd negative along with all the positives.
On the other hand, this is also a reminder that it's time to step up my game and be ready to bump into some of my favorite people in the world more often!
WooHoo!
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Hi! I think Keri did answer that in her original post by mentioning that it's simply not scalable for us anymore
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Hi Eric,
In regards to the questions being answered in public Q&A by staff, everyone who currently answers questions in Private Q&A, will now be spending their time in public instead. We're not discontinuing Private and then removing all of the staff, but simply moving their time over to public instead.
Thanks!
Jen
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Hey David! I see you've only asked one question in pubic Q&A though... you should give it a shot! I think you'll be surprised by the responses you get here as well.
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Way to scare the hell out of Keri, Geoff.
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Gamer07, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts about this. You make a very valid point about what you purchased in advance, and the functionality that was advertised when you made that purchase.
We absolutely do not want anyone to feel that a prepaid membership has changed substantially from when it was originally purchased. For those annual PRO members who subscribed primarily for Private Q&A, it's clear that this is indeed the case.
We'd be happy to work with PRO members on a case by case basis to resolve this as best as we can, either by providing a refund or credit to your account. We don't want any member feel obligated to continue subscribing to a service that isn't providing what you originally signed up for.
If this is the case for any PRO members, please email help@seomoz.org and let them know. I've spoken to our customer help team asked them to do everything we can to resolve this.
I know this doesn't result in us keeping Private Q&A around after March, but I hope it least it will help reduce any hard feelings about this decision.
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Hi Jamie,
Thank you for putting this nicely. This is the type of attitude I have expected from SeoMoz to begin with. It's still reassuring to be reading your explanation and resolution.
As I said before I am not really looking for refunds but I was looking for this. An explanation and a compensation/refund offer on the table to anyone who would choose to cancel a subscription. Good to see someone has decided to make this right. I appreciate it.
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Glad to hear it. We thought long and hard about this decision, and I know we weren't able to think through every concern that might arise, but I can assure you we're listening and want to be responsive to anything that comes up.
As an side note, I actually used Private Q&A as a customer once or twice before joining SEOmoz in 2010-- I know first hand how valuable it can be. But since joining the team and seeing our customer base grow to where it is now, I've also seen the effort, time and attention it's taken for us to keep up with Private Q&A-- even when we've been firing on all cylinders I've felt like we've never been caught up or able to meet or exceed expectations with every answer.
I know saying "great stuff is coming" is a bit of a cop out-- but I cannot wait to release some of the new features we have in the hopper. We expect it will add significant value to PRO membership.
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This is very unfortunate, as asking private questions is often a way to ask for a quick site audit and be fairly sure your competitors won't see the strategy you are using, especially in highly competitive niches. Maybe that's naive of me to think, but asking private questions assured me of an unbiased response that was not given to promote someone else's SEO services. Time and time again I have seen grandstanding and borderline advertisements from people answering Public Q&A questions, from people who couldn't be bothered to actually look at the site in question, but instead delivered a regurgitated 'best practice' such as a 'create amazing content.' I also think the argument that <4% use the feature works against itself - if the feature isn't being used much, why not keep it? I understand economies of scale and that its easier to provide a service to 96% of the members than a higher end service to the 4%, however I think the 4% that DO ask these questions, are members that are more VESTED into the site, and are its more avid promoters. If you think about it, these are people who are committed to bettering themselves through SEO and utilize Seomoz to its fullest - why would you want to take it away. If anything, I would quietly revoke this from new membership offerings, but I would retain it for grandfathered members until the end of their billing cycle, and phase this out gradually. You have added new features so its a fair trade, however its only fair that you retain this for those of us that pay for this and who originally signed up BECAUSE of this service.
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Gamer,
I no longer wish to have you believe I'm talking to you and just you. I put your name in the title simply because you referenced me above.
You & I are a part of the community's just like everyone else here I did not tell you specifically to stop complaining nor would I simply suggested that if we thought of ways to save this or make work it would become a brainstorming session that could possibly produce an answer was my single goal. The fact that you take that as me speaking to you personally is something I did not intend and I apologize if that's the way you felt. I am not a third-party I have every right to speak on this as you do so I can give suggestions just as you can. I am not trying to turn this into anything other than an answer for what you just stated. And I'm not looking for an answer back from you this is seomoz and I do not want to make this personal nor will I please respect that and know that I respect your right to complain.
just so everyone's on the same page this is what I said that I hope no one here is taken personally.
"If I can ask Rand & the entire staff along with affiliates and partners please at least look over some of the suggestions I've made and if any of them even have a flicker of hope maybe we can work something out where that spark of ingenuity is lit and the solution is possible.
Thank you all for listening to my long request and I appreciate everyone's time. But to the community let's think of ideas guys: don't waste time complaining they're not going to reverse it over that I don't believe."
when I say the community I mean every member as a whole not an individual.
I am a Pro member as well I have the right to speak my mind politely and respectfully I hope this is the end of us communicating regarding this subject.
I apologize to anyone who has to endure reading this. I don't want more negative reactions to something I am trying to help with.
Respectfully,
Thomas Zickell
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