Gates Foundation suing Saama Technologies on claims of fraud and more - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2017/gates-foundation-sues-software-developer-claiming-billed-2-8m-built-nothing-value-return/ <comment><USER2> Interesting, i never heard it was possible. Nearly every project built by a large organisation by contract for someone else which i was ever a part of, failed, and the stuff described here sounds very familiar. Sometimes it was even more than $2.8M, while more commonly, $500K-$1M. I haven't even heard of someone being sued for that.

<comment><USER3> I used to work for a company that built systems like this for other organizations on contract. I'd consider every project I worked on there a success. We always "under promised and over delivered". I think the key, as the contractor, is to get a good set of devs, to keep them happy, and to have a great project manager.

When these types of projects fail, it's usually because management is having problems juggling resources, and under-bid on the project. Or they're selling junior devs as senior devs.

<comment><USER4> There is a set of 'contract project ethics' out there, waiting to be codified. Sounds like this firm violated all of them. It reminds me of how the Affordable Care Act web interfaces were rolled out with overruns and delays. Both sides can cause issues, whether it's cycling entire teams through, or, repeatedly changing requirements, there are particular challenges in this type of business.

From my view:

\- Be expert in the domain of the code you're delivering. Both project leadership and at least a portion of the devs. In one project I observed, the contractor was a professor, took a large contract, and hired 6 grad students to fulfill it. None of them had professional experience, let alone domain experience. Disaster ensued.

\- Don't let commercial concerns get in the way of project success. If you've underbid and the company can survive the loss, take it on the chin and learn from the mistake. If you can't survive the loss, sit down with the customer and say, "We underbid and we can't survive the loss." Show them where you are and give them a chance to increase the budget. If they don't, fall back on your contract terms and terminate the project. You have contract terms that allow you to terminate without cause, right? Choosing to reduce the team, bring in lower cost devs, or deliver unfinished or untested code simply makes a bad situation worse. Don't do it.

<comment><USER2> Thing is, most of the time there is simply no chance for win-win here. If someone can manage developers himself - why hiring a company - just go and hire developers directly. If someone can't, he will be scammed by a company no matter what, because that's what these companies exist for, they can't make money otherwise (as developers can work directly and if they were any good, they would do so).

This is also why it is so insanely hard to find contract for a company: clients are not fools. Not most of them, at least.

Caveat: companies also know that and learned very well to pretend to be individual developers since recently.

In essence, my experience leads me to conclusion that custom software development is evil and should not exist. There is no space for it to be win- win.

<comment><USER3> I'm super confused about what the point you're trying to convey here is... but I'll try to comment from what I can understand of it.

When you say "There is no good reason to hire a contractor", I'd disagree. There are a few excellent business reasons to do so. The first is you simply don't have that expertise in-house. The second is you have the expertise, but your resources are on other priorities.

Hiring an outside firm can be a quick way to gain an asset with the custom features not available on the market with off the shelf software. Many companies do this custom contracting, and they do it successfully. My own experience is with a company that has done it successfully. Your own experience would appear to be with a firm that has been unsuccessful. There are so many factors that go into the success of a project, and your firm may not be organized in a way to allow you to be successful. There's nothing inherent to contracting itself that leads to failure.

<comment><USER2> No, hiring a contractor is OK. When you know who you hire, that this is a real person, and he does not outsource to Indians, and he's not a hidden company.

Firm that has been unsuccessful - problem is, most of these firms were and are quite successful. Their clients aren't.

PS: maybe i am just too burnt out and trying to prove myself that leaving custom development is a good idea.

<comment><USER3> I 100% recommend leaving. It does not sound like you're in a healthy company. I'm not sure how senior you are, but obtaining some experience with a good quality company that knows how to build a successful project will be a huge benefit to you in terms of career, and just general cynicism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting that the Gates Foundation have a former Saama employee co- operating with them:

> For example, according to CW1, a Big Data/Analytics Lead, a certain segment > of the Saama's sales force involved in setting up the scope and pricing of > projects routinely fails to involve the company's delivery teams to > determine whether what had been represented to customers can actually be > delivered. CW1 describes these individuals as high-level employees who are > "running the show." 26.

> CW1 further explained that these sales employees commit Saama to projects > without knowing whether they are feasible and that, as a result, "a lot of > bizarre situations" emerge, including "bad deliverables."

</comment><comment><USER6> > Gates Foundation sues Saama, billed $2.8M and built 'nothing of value in > return'

Please insert "which" in the title after the comma; otherwise it makes little sense.

</comment><comment><USER7> Doing some quick Google-fu, they seem to have removed any mention of working with the Gates foundation from their website - [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Asaama.com+%22gates%...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Asaama.com+%22gates%22&oq=site%3Asaama.com+%22gates%22&gs_l=psy- ab.3...12569.17733.0.178220.127.116.11.0.0.0.136.1415.12j4.16.0....0...1.1.64.psy- ab..2.6.594...0j46j0i67k1j0i10i67k1j0i131k1j0i46k1.0.MQQGLSNtyp0)

There are still results on Google, but they either 404 or just have the _Gates Foundation_ part removed!

</comment><comment><USER8> It sounds like a bad situation, but at the same time if someone stopped your progress it would be easy to make a claim like 90% of the code "doesn't work". I'd find it much more compelling if they said "after paying the first installment, they only delivered 10% of the scope a year late"

<comment><USER9> "The Gates Foundation terminated the contract in February 2017, after more than 18 months, with Saama close to a year behind schedule."

they were almost a year behind a schedule. that is not the case of "stopped your progress", they had no progress to be stopped

<comment><USER8> Why did they keep paying?</comment></comment></comment>


IPad stylus -- Kickstarter project - <AUTHOR>

While it won't make the iPad (phone, tablets) notably more useful for taking handwritten notes (which strikes me as more of a software than hardware issue), I backed this new pen-cap stylus -- it's a clever design and does have a smaller tip than any other I've encountered (only 9 days left to back the project):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/donlehman/more-real-stylus-cap
---
Damion Hankejh | ingk.com <comment><USER2> At some point, device makers are going to realize a stylus is quite useful. Unfortunately, I think Apple wants to go out of its way to prove that you don't need one, it may take a few years to see them as an option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed -- Jobs believes we all want to write with our fingers or type on sheets of glass with no haptic feedback.

R u b b i s h.

If that were true, handwriting apps would not be as wildly successful as they have been in the app store -- and accompanied with reviews slamming the missing stylus. If iPad had Newton's last iteration of handwriting recognition (or [gasp] some improvement thereupon from the past ~10 years), it would become a notably more alluring productivity tool and less of an overpriced eReader/game toy.

<comment><USER3> In the early '90s when I was a usability specialist at Microsoft I did a laborious usability study (hired several temps to enter text using various methods for hours per day, over multiple days) comparing pen input vs. OSKs and got some counter-intuitive results. Essentially OSKs are much faster than handwriting even under optimal conditions. If it takes 10 seconds to enter a string with an OSK, it'll take ~15 seconds to write it using block letters. That's not counting any time needed to correct errors, which will tend to make the writing input even worse. When I asked participants after the study which method they thought was quicker, most assumed the pen-based writing was. Keep in mind that they spent 1/3 or more of their time correcting errors, so the writing may have taken twice as long as the OSK, yet they didn't perceive as such. Of course their statements could have been a demand effect, but it generally corroborates my main point.

I've read a pile of published usability reports on other text entry methods, such as chording keyboards, and they all show essentially the same thing. Letting fingers extend to hit a fixed close target is hard to beat, and the optimal amount of pressure needed is very small (though perhaps not zero).

My theory is that it takes less mental effort to write than to use an OSK, so the OSK is perceived as being slower. With the OSK the level of mental effort is mostly high (mostly visual search), with periodic dips (hit the key). With pen-based writing it's the opposite -- mostly automated / low-cognitive-effort behavior with periodic thinking about what to do next.

I read a quote from Jobs somewhere recently where he said something like, "the problem with handwriting is that it's just so darned slow" so that makes me think that Apple may have done a similar usability study.

I don't think OSKs are ideal. I'm continually impressed by the steady flow of innovations in text-input methods. But pens have their own usability baggage even outside the limitations of handwriting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yikes! I can foresee potential pitfalls when one loses track of the cap and the Sharpie!</comment>


New lifeline for Bletchley Park  - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7710966.stm

<comment><USER2> Glad to see they're finally getting some support. Bletchley Park is a great place to visit - the Colossus reconstruction is a treat to see in operation - but they give the impression that they're only just hanging on by their fingernails. With so many poorly-maintained buildings, the upkeep must be horrific. I think Bletchley Park might be better off if they sold some of the peripheral land and invested the proceeds in maintaining the core buildings.

</comment><comment><USER3> I seem to recall The Register trying to help out w/ special t-shirts awhile back. Who doesn't want an enigma machine on their t-shirt?

<http://www.cashandcarrion.co.uk/hot_off_the_press.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> I hope they're able to raise the additional money. For a complex of buildings that old and in that condition, they'll need it.</comment>


NY AG fines Flatiron School coding bootcamp for using fake employment statistics - <AUTHOR> http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/flatiron-coding-school-pay-375g-making-false-claims-article-1.3561462 <comment><USER2> I've never been a fan of bootcamps because it seems like a lot of them refuse to follow the law with respect to licensing, and because I think they tend to make outlandish claims. These companies can afford the licensing costs, and I think the state has a valid interest in regulating any company that calls itself a school.

The lack of concern about licensing, along with the way these companies play fast loose with their employment statistics makes the whole industry seem very fly-by-night. It's really too bad because I really like the idea of a company that trains people who are interested in programming just enough to get their foot in the door somewhere.

American companies should do more to train American workers, and I feel like a $15k fee all but ensures that the student has some skin in the game. Might this make them viable candidates for apprenticeships at American tech companies?

I realize that on the job training is portable, but there has to be a way to work that out. Not only that, but that on the job training is as portable for programmers who come in with a CS degree as it is for programmers who come in from a bootcamp.

Many companies have a college credit benefit that has to be paid back if the employee leaves the company within a certain time. Wouldn't it be okay to have something like an apprentice position, where the salary was lower for 3 years, say half the usual as an incentive for the company, but the apprentice programmer would get real world experience, plus something good on their resume?

After three years, the programmer could stay or leave, but both parties would have most of their their benefit at that point. If the programmer stayed, they would start at the bottom of the pay scale. The company could fire at any time, but it wouldn't be in their interests to do so unless there were serious problems.

It's not perfect, but it could be a huge boon to tech companies and apprentices alike. Yes, some people would shake out, but that happens whether someone has a CS degree or not.

Anyone care to throw some darts at these ideas?

</comment><comment><USER3> So took any type of employment for counting an alumni as employed, but then only counted full time employees for average pay. Which broke the law since that's not proper reporting, along with licensing laws.</comment>


Ownership of IP for Rejected Ideas? - <AUTHOR> My company has been in brainstorming mode and I've proposed a few great ideas which have been rejected. What's my play if I wish to exit company and pursue an idea that I proposed that they've clearly rejected? No development work was ever started, only a business proposal deck.<p>Someone will surely warn me "They rejected it for a reason, why would you still pursue it?" but the context is that they are very risk averse and I might be able to find other investors/partners who have a different risk appetite. <comment><USER2> Many times employees from one company can pursue a new idea and form a new spin-off company. With that said this would mean the parent company would probably have some shares in the spin-off.

You can also ask for their "blessing" but at the end it may all go to the contract you've signed

</comment><comment><USER3> If you mentioned it in writing (emails, presentation) they can always can come back and claim ownership in case this idea will succeed elsewhere.</comment>


How the Pandemic Defeated America - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/ <comment><USER2> The pandemic, by itself, did not do this country in.

Rather, it was betrayed from within.

For decades, the conservative establishment in this country (or rather: the right-wing ideologues that have hijacked the the term "conservativism" so successfully that it has come to mean essentially the opposite of what the word lexically signifies) have been working proudly and tirelessly toward a single goal -- as expressed in the words of one of its most eloquent spokesmen: "To reduce government to the size where I can take it into a bathtub and drown it."

It would seem they've now finally gotten their most cherished wish.

See also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism)

</comment><comment><USER3> An utterly depressing and profoundly written essay. Ed Yong deserves a prize.

> The pandemic has been both tragedy and teacher. Its very etymology offers a > clue about what is at stake in the greatest challenges of the future, and > what is needed to address them. Pandemic. Pan and demos. All people</comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep track/save your learnings?(so that you can revisit them) - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> \- Vim Voom: `:Voom rest` , ':Voom markdown`

\- Jupyter notebooks

\- Sphinx docs: [https://wrdrd.com/docs/consulting/research#research- tools](https://wrdrd.com/docs/consulting/research#research-tools) src: [https://github.com/wrdrd/docs/blob/master/docs/consulting/re...](https://github.com/wrdrd/docs/blob/master/docs/consulting/research.rst)

\- Sphinx wiki (./Makefile):

\-- Src: [https://github.com/westurner/wiki](https://github.com/westurner/wiki)

\-- Src: [https://github.com/westurner/wiki/wiki](https://github.com/westurner/wiki/wiki)

\-- Web: [https://westurner.org/wiki/workflow](https://westurner.org/wiki/workflow)

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting stuff, thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Use a spaced repetition flashcard program like Anki or Mnemosyne or one of the others ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flashcard_software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flashcard_software)) and use it on a regular basis, preferably every day.

<comment><USER2> +1 for spaced repetition.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> neurocroc is organising all his/her knowledge in a mind-map:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=neurocroc](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=neurocroc)

You can also look at all the things people have written here about Mind Maps:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=mind%20map&sort=byDate&prefix&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=mind%20map&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER5> These are usually web links for me, so I drop them in Chrome bookmark folders. The nice thing about Chrome bookmark folders is that they give you both hierarchal navigation (for directed browsing), and search - just type keywords/thoughts into the omnibar that you want to recall and your bookmarks are prioritized in that list.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah but then you have to skim through the whole bookmark again to find what you need right?

<comment><USER5> Yup. I find that the hardest part is finding the link, not finding the content in the link though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> i dont, thats what google is for IMO

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not talking about specific technical stuff, more like stuff that's worth having in mind and that we may forget, i.e relevant quotes, methodologies, ways of approaching problems, etc</comment></comment>


XBox Live – Worst Software Ever? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.herlein.com/2012/09/xbox-live-worst-software-ever/

<comment><USER2> No, the honor would go to Games for Windows.

<comment><USER3> Close, but I'd rather have Games for Windows than Origin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Haha, try PSN.</comment>


This pro-Internet wiretapping billboard is absolutely Orwellian - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/EVDpV.jpg

<comment><USER2> It's a fake. [http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of- photography/blo...](http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of- photography/blog-post/1651363/new-metropolitan-police-campaign-ridiculed)

<comment><USER3> $DEITY thanks...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What, Communism isn't bad enough anymore? <http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0004/propaganda/mp3.cfm>

I really hate this concept of _everything I don't like is terrorism_ that has been popping up in the last ten years. That certainly isn't helping to protect anyone.</comment>


Ask HN: Overcoming engineer/developer bias against SEO - <AUTHOR> I was out to lunch today with a fellow startup CEO who commented that our company (SEOmoz) was likely having a much harder time finding remarkable engineers to hire due to the negative perceptions about SEO as an industry and business practice. In his experience, even very smart, talented people from this background tended to have closed minds on this topic.
Since we specifically discussed the Hacker News community, I thought it valuable and worthwhile to post here and see if the community had opinions on the topic and, perhaps, could share ways in which we could help overcome it.
My sense is that HN is generally filled with smart, open-minded people who love applying science and technology to marketing (or any other problem), yet SEO (and web marketing as a whole) seems to attract derision, often without context.
Love to hear your thoughts.
---
RE our specific situation: We're hiring primarily for folks to work on our web crawl, processing & machine learning platforms (as well as some front-end applications that plug into these systems). A good comparison would be Google's/Yahoo!'s/MS's teams in the early days working on 50 billion+ page indices, metric construction, crawling, serving, etc. We've heard that these are typically interesting, sexy problems, but that the "SEO" industry bias is working against us. <comment><USER2> Here is why I would never personally work for an SEO company: (Obviously just my opinion, with all the bias that carries)

Search engines are very interesting, technologically. Optimizing a search engine would be extremely interesting. Optimizing websites to keep up with the changes of somebody else's business (the search engine) is not interesting.

You're playing catch-up. You essentially attempting to reverse engineer interesting problems, and applying methods to take advantage of the internals of those algorithms for your customers.

In 1999 you would have been wildly successful telling people they could put a ton of keywords on their website, using the same font color as their site background color to boost ranking without affecting user-visible content. That worked, for a while. Then it didn't. The technology to "optimize" content for search engines have changed, but the concepts are still the same. You're trying to game the system, and I personally don't find that interesting nor rewarding.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair points.

We're working to figure out what works and provide software to message that and help businesses optimize. It's not just for search engines (we try to help with, for example, how/why people retweet, link, share content, "like" on FB, etc), but the point is a reasonable one; optimizing against existing systems vs. creating something new may be part of the issue.

Thanks for sharing, Brian.

<comment><USER3> > It's not just for search engines (we try to help with, for example, how/why > people retweet, link, share content, "like" on FB,

... and how to get a popular item on news.yc :) I guess it just goes to prove your point that you can can promote your brand without being spamy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The biggest issue is the difference between:

SEO=link farming, spamming blogs, generated blogs/sites, etc...

SEO=building accessible standards compliant markup, making it easy for people to find content they were actually looking for, etc...

My gut reaction to hearing "SEO Company" makes me think of #1, even though I know "good" SEO is really just good page development, good content, good use of keywords, etc... As an engineer I'd prefer to hear about standards compliant markup, accessible (508/WAI), canonical URLs, clear DOM structure, and developing content to better serve users: which is really what it's all about.

<comment><USER5> You're exactly right about the difference, and I'd add that bias against SEO is dangerous in the second case because the good kind of SEO is absolutely critical to the success of most sites.

Catering to the user and offering content / services that people want should be the #1 priority, but if Google doesn't index your site properly then the people who want it will never see it.

<comment><USER6> Except, just as with SPAM, clever SEO strategy can be far more than just best practices. The right ad-buys and keywords at the right time in certain businesses can generate _extremely_ attractive CPA numbers compared to other methods of marketing.

Yes, it's a bit of evil mixed in with good - what marketing isn't, but but it can be extremely effective, especially if your business depends heavily on search engine ranking.

Convince the client you can bring them converted, spending customers at a CPA they'll like, without tarnishing their overall reputation, and you've got a winner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think HN is gradually, gradually warming to SEO. I remember way back when I was lurking here someone had a comment along the lines of they would be a hired assassin prior to doing SEO consulting. These days folks discuss SEO strategy here with some regularity, and it generally doesn't cause vitriolic reactions when it is perceived as non-manipulative.

I think it is a matter of continuing to demonstrate very basic things such as "SEO works", "SEO will make your business money", and "SEO is not black magic voodoo practiced by a bunch of ebook selling charlatans who will teaching you to Make Money Online".

If I were trying to get a bunch of savvy startups on board with SEO, I'd be banging the drum on how SEO is an absurdly effective force multiplier for startups, small businesses, and other resource-constrained entities who have agility, deep technical knowledge, personality, a story to tell, and all the other unfair advantages that warm me to my blackened SEO heart. If you're doing business on the Internet, you're almost certainly critically dependent on SEO these days. (Some businesses more critically than others: I could imagine B2B with horrifically long sales cycles that get very little accomplished online not worrying about SEO too much, and Facebook/iPhone apps get a pass in today's market. But for selling B2C or B2SmallBusiness web applications? Crikey, SEO is about as important as issues get.)

Oh, and educating people about what SEOs actually do for a living helps. (I mentioned at the time, too, but I really liked the presentation to YC about it.) Except, don't mention the roasted baby parties. I don't think they're ready for roasted baby. We'll start with kitty milkshakes and work our way up gradually.

<comment><USER8> "they would be a hired assassin prior to doing SEO consulting. "

Fwiw I would _still_ choose to be a hired assassin vs being an SEO consultant. ;-)

I would rather starve than work for companies like SEOMoz. If I am a typical good engineer (and I think I am a good engineer , not a great one - yet ;-)), then I guess that confirms the poster's anecdote of good engineers not choosing to work for SEO firms. Really why should they?

My focus is Machine Learning so if I wanted to work for someone else on interesting problems in ML, I'd work for NASA/Google/NSA whoever - NSA being as "slimy" as I'd like to get. I wouldn't choose to work for SEO companies/Spam Companies/Porn companies /criminal enterprises etc if they had problems ten times as interesting/sexy (and I am sure at least some of them do).

Why _should_ a good engineer choose to work for a company in a shady industry, given she has any choice in the matter?

If you _are_ running your own web app startup, knowing when and how (much) SEO works (and when and how it doesn't work) on the other hand, could be very useful (as patio11 correctly points out), depending on whether you think it is the best way to spend your time.

If I were running a startup (I am not, presently) and if Search Engine based marketing were an important part of my marketing strategy, sure I'd spend some time on it (again patio11 has written some incredible posts on how to do this, thanks much!). But I'd still see it as a necessary evil rather than something intrinsically good, and I'd never work on this stuff for other people.

Getting muddy on the way to some place important is one thing, making a career of jumping into slime pits for random strangers every day is another.

<comment><USER9> This is the first time in a long time I wish I could downvote multiple times. SEO is not intrinsically good or bad-- it's a tool (and a powerful one). Like sales. Like TV advertisement. Like PPC marketing. Like display ads. Like PR professionals.

Sure, asshats can use tools for evil. People get killed by kitchen knives all the time-- but that doesn't make the tool intrinsically evil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Let me explain why I have learned to hate SEO over the years.

I'm writing this from a throwaway HN account. I work for a 4-year old company, where I was one of the first 3 employees. We have a very popular website that gets over 400 million page views per month. We get lots of traffic from Google. When I started, our priority was making a great, simple user interface. But we were also very aware of SEO, and paid much attention to self-links we put on the site, anchor text, URL parameters, all the usual smart SEO stuff. So far so good -- we did this opportunistically, and never at the expense of the user experience.

As we grew, we hired a person dedicated to SEO (a non-programmer). Then we hired another. These SEO people started having us add links and pages in strange places that made no sense to actual users. And adding links that sometimes made sense to users, but were unnecessary, and cluttered the user interface. The page footer grew and grew, eventually spanning 3 lines. We added funny redirect schemes that made the site slower for users. We were afraid of our links to other sites because we might leak valuable "Google juice". We added redundant tooltips that were useless to users. Many of these tactics were crap our SEO people read on some webmaster SEO forum, with no scientific basis. Sometimes our SEO people even had the gall to say "I have an idea I think will be better for the user experience", and go on to propose something that only benefited SEO, and made the user experience worse! In other words, they would focus on GETTING the user (via Google), but forgot about KEEPING the user (through good user experience). Thankfully, we never did the black-hat methods like cloaking, but some things very close were proposed and met with loud opposition from our developers.

For a long time I would fight against these changes, because they made the UI worse. I lost most of these battles because it was hard to convince the managers that it was hurting the site (but it never seemed to be necessary for the SEO people to prove it was actually helping SEO). I was eventually spending so much energy fighting these SEO proposals that I just gave up. User interface designers and developers spend a lot of effort to make a web site look good and run fast. Then the SEO people go and fuck it up. It's very frustrating for developers. I know SEO is important. All I'm saying is that SEO should never be at the expense of the user experience. I hate what it has done to our web site, and I know it's happened to other websites as well.

<comment><USER11> Did you try A-B testing to verify that the SEO tweaks actually did produce improvements? Seems to me that the absence of testing makes it difficult to verify the improvements that any specific SEO attempt might make. Unfortunately, there are too many SEO 'hand-wavers' trying to cash in on the widespread ignorance. From what I've seen genuine SEO results are a lot harder work than the SEO-oil salesmen would admit.

<comment><USER12> I'm kinda curious how A/B testing for SEO works. You can't show one version of your site to half of Google and another to...er, the other half of Google? I suppose you could measure your search referers one month, make the change, and then measure it the next month, but your data will be very noisy. You're likely to get more searchers coming later simply because of additional word- of-mouth, traction within the marketplace, maturing of the industry, etc.

<comment><USER13> Google Website Optimizer: A free website testing and optimization tool, which can be used to find out what site content and designs which best resonates with the visitors, by letting Website Optimizer to show different versions of website to visitors while tracking the performance of each version.

<comment><USER12> Right, that's describing ordinary A/B testing on visitors, where you show half of your users one version and half a different version and then measure their behavior. That's pretty well understood.

What I don't understand is how you would apply A/B testing to _SEO_. There's only one Google; you can't show half of Google one version and half another Google. How do you get data on which version is better _for search engines_ without being able to compare them while holding other factors constant?

<comment><USER14> There is no real A/B testing for SEO, sorry. As you say, there is only one Google.

You can try to simulate a 'test' with two equal throwaway sites, but this will never give you the same insight as using it on a big site with real content and real visitors. But it can help you find problems in linking structures, tweak the (really small) benefits of using one or another html tag.

The success of SEO can't be isolated. But, increased crawling of the page and disproportionate visitor growth from Google are good signs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a software engineer, and I've been browsing seattle.craigslist.org recently looking for something new. Your ads hit enough of my keywords to pop up in my search, but I move right past as soon as I see the letters "SEO". Maybe your company actually is awesome and totally working for the betterment of the world, but you've chosen a label for yourselves that was invented to describe the bad guys.

Your ad could hold my attention longer by dropping the term "SEO", but I'd still decide you were probably just a bunch of spammers as soon as I saw the words "improve their rankings in search engines". I don't want sites to come up in search engines because someone paid a lot of money to put them there; I want sites to come up in search engines because they are a good match for what I'm trying to find. If you're gaming Google, you're making the Internet less useful, and there's no way I could work for you in good conscience.

Now, maybe what you're actually doing isn't so much gaming Google as it is teaching your customers how to build good web sites. Maybe you're teaching them to write good headlines, use quality hyperlinks, add a lot of useful, interesting content, get content out from behind paywalls and flash blobs, and so on; or maybe you've come up with some fascinating statistical analysis that lets people know how searchable their content is. If so, that's great: but why drag yourselves down with the poisoned label "SEO"? It's like calling yourselves "SpamWorks", or "BotNetMasters", or advertising your skills at obfuscating Cialis ads.

Web marketing attracts derision because web marketers make the Internet suck. Maybe you're a step above the spammers of the world, but you're not helping your case by marketing yourselves under their label.

<comment><USER14> Okay, here we found an interesting bit:

> [...] but you've chosen a label for yourselves that was invented to describe > the bad guys.

For me, probably randfish and lots of other people, some of them working in this industry, the word SEO just doesn't mean this.

<comment><USER15> I have no doubt that you're right, but this isn't about what you think or what randfish thinks: it's about what the people he's trying to recruit think. Speaking as a member of his potential recruitment pool, there's nothing in the job ad that distinguishes SEOmoz from any other company talking about "SEO" or "improv[ing] their rankings in search engines", and as a result I get the impression that SEOmoz is just another bunch of sleazeballs making money by ruining the Internet for everyone else.

If that is true, then great: they're marketing themselves effectively. If it's not true, they might not want to use terminology so directly associated with the asshole spammers of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> SEO makes it harder for people to find useful information on the web instead of what someone spent time and money to "optimize" for Google. Developers know this, and so generally dislike SEO.

<comment><USER9> Really? So, say tomorrow you build a better Wikipedia. How long before you're on page 1 of ANYTHING? If you're 1000% better than Wikipedia, maybe it's only 12 months. But if you're only 15% better than Wikipedia... It could be years or never.

SEO allows small/smart companies to compete against established behemoths in search engine results.

Your statement is true of ALL marketing and ALL sales. The truth is that marketing and sales efforts are a success multiplier to the quality of your product. Yes, that means that good companies can get beaten by crappy companies who out-execute them in the arena of sales and marketing.

You can ignore sales and marketing in the hopes that your product is SO much better than the competition that it will win anyway... But that's almost never the case (note the $ that Apple spends on marketing, bizdev, and branding).

<comment><USER12> I think people are reacting to the game theoretical aspects of this. Sure, _if one firm_ uses SEO, it gives them a chance to get a leg up on the competition and put their product out in front of people. But _if everybody_ uses SEO, nobody else is better off than they were before, and yet a huge amount of time has been wasted on SEO. And unfortunately everyone will be using SEO, because they'll get left behind if they don't.

Many developers are developers precisely because they didn't want to get into these zero-sum games. Think of the other professions where smart, logical, creative people can end up. Finance, law, and advertising. Most of these pay better than software engineering does. If we wanted to go into them, we would've. But it's precisely the constructive, innovative part of software development that appeals to us.

The question was "Why do _developers_ not want to go into SEO?", not "Why do salespeople and marketers not want to get into SEO?" It's because the question is already self-selecting for the people that don't want to do that. If we liked gaming the system for personal gain, we'd work for Goldman Sachs.

<comment><USER9> I think you're absolutely right. I'd say that's the difference between a developer and a hacker-founder. Look at the YC App-- YC optimizes for people who game systems because BUSINESS rewards people who game systems.

If you leave low-hanging opportunity on the table because your software business won't lower itself to things like sales, marketing, SEO, PR, etc-- you're doing a disservice to your investors and your co-founders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I deal with this a lot. I think there are 3 problems:

a) the underlying need for SEO is equivalent to the underlying need for taxes. Or apartment brokers. Or other hated but essential intermediaries. SEO is a necessary lubricant, but in a perfect world, it doesn't exist.

b) the context SEO operates in is derivative, not fundamental. SEO may need to deal with 50b+ indexes, but the context is _not_ google. The context is parasitic.

c) the business model and ROI calculations of many SEO companies are self- serving, magical, non-scientific, and non-provable. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with SEO people where I suggest doing an experiment, and all I hear are crickets and fear.

</comment><comment><USER18> At our last weekly meeting, we were discussing implementing SEO. My gut reaction was to question the decision to work with snake oil salesmen. Luckily, I thought before I spoke.

I think SEO needs a new acronym to differentiate between spammy abuse SEO and site structure/good practices. Maybe Search Engine Readability? Search Engine Compatibility?

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's why I loathe SEO (the term and the industry):

It shouldn't exist. There's "good" and "bad" SEO. "Bad" SEO is snake oil, it's cheating, it's gaming the system for commercial purposes. It's a race to the bottom to see who can screw up their UX and the Internet in general the most to get the most clicks from Google. It's evil.

"Good" SEO, though, is nothing but common sense. Search engines emphasise good structure, semantics, accessibility and practises, and this is what "good" SEO takes advantage of. But good developers know if you're doing your job in the first place, there's no need for "good" SEO. That's why we don't like SEO; it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. If you can somehow stealthily introduce good practises in the guise of SEO, then I guess that's good, but we cringe at the thought of having to label it like that to get acceptance.

</comment><comment><USER20> Perhaps your first problem is that there isn't even a "Careers" or "Jobs" link on your homepage, and Googling "seomoz jobs" and "seomoz careers" leads to a job board and not your company's hiring page?

Seriously, I am interested in hearing about your machine learning openings, and I can't even find the job description anywhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow... Great point. We used to have a callout in our top menu nav, but it's pointedly missing. I'll definitely get on that with the team.

In regards to openings: <http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/sof/1757631095.html> is what's currently up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've worked in SEO for 6 years (I'm an SEO copywriter), and I know there's good and bad in the industry, as in any industry. In SEO, I think the biggest problem is a lack of respect for the audience. That's why you get sites with poor usability, as described by throwaway123 below. But it's not always the SEOs who are responsible for that. Remember, they're being paid by someone. Yes, there are times when the SEO's client DOESN'T understand the impact of the SEO they're commissioning. But there are also times when they do. It's easy to blame the practitioners here, and often that blame is justified. But we only have to look around us to remember that business -- big or small -- is generally far more interested in short term gain than long term customer satisfaction. So it should come as no surprise that many businesses are prepared to turn a blind eye to practices that hinder usability and visitor value.

The other common problem in SEO is ineptitude. Many people call themselves SEOs when really they're just opportunistic freelancers and entrepreneurs. Their SEO knowledge is poor and their business management skills lacking. This ultimately impacts EVERYONE connected with the job, even those only remotely connected (like the good SEOs out there).

</comment><comment><USER22> Sadly, SEO is a loaded and abused term. A lot of SEO is helpful, making your site friendlier to search engine tools. But the term also tends to include less above-board efforts, such as search engine exploitation, gaming the system, all the way to web spam, link farms, content scraping, etc. At this point it's probably better to just come up with a different term than attempt to reclaim SEO from the exploiters.

</comment><comment><USER23> I see hackernews SEO articles quite frequently, i even submitted one that did quite well: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1270748> so i think you're on the right track by asking here. That being the case, why don't you just edit your post and include a "we're hiring" link! Aside from that diving into the technical details "sexy problems" first in any type of job listing may prove helpful since it sounds more like they'll be very technically involved.

If the SEO moniker is really really hurting your prospects, consider creating a shell company such as Initech (generic and tech related) when posting and wait till they're warmed up to the technology before you tell them it will be for SEO. In all honesty though i think you would be better off finding someone not only excited about the sexy problems, but someone who is interested in SEO...maybe harder and longer but would pay off in the long run...if you figure out a good answer to your own problem, then let us know!

</comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps blogging about the exciting (and non-sleazy) tech would help?

</comment><comment><USER25> Hi Rand,

At Pear Analytics, we haven't experienced that at all. In fact, most developers will tell you that they no nothing about SEO anyway, so I'm not sure where the bias would come from. Engineers are attracted to solving problems they've never solved before. We've had plenty of issues dealing with external API's, Google's ridiculousness, queuing systems, data storage and more - yet they continue to find ways to get around these issues.

You guys seem to be located where there is a wealth of talent, and with your success - I am surprised finding the engineers you need is difficult.

I would say keep the focus less on the SEO, and more on the solution/problem you are trying to solve, and making it sexy to the end user. Maybe that will get some attention.

Ryan Kelly

</comment><comment><USER26> Rand - It sure seems like you're recruiting sophisticated application engineers, you're not recruiting SEO engineers. That is, this is a recruiting problem (yours) not a perception problem (theirs).

Focus your headline on the sexy work you're recruiting the engineers for, not the market your customers are in. Why mention SEO at all in your recruiting?

Oo turn it on it's head and address the fear in your recruiting efforts. Like, "how can a gig as awesome as this possibly be found in the slimy, shady underworld of search engine optimization? mwahaha."

Maybe I'm biased because I'm an SEOmoz client, but I'd imagine that once they get past the initial hurdle that your firm doesn't fit a preconception about SEO anyway. So get em over that initial bump.

</comment><comment><USER27> Rand I believe you should consider your company a "Search, and Analytics" company more so than an SEO company due to the context/bias that SEO has. The scope of work that SEOmoz does is quite a bit beyond traditional SEO work etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah - certainly. And I think our branding around software for SEOs speaks to that, but the branding of "SEO" in general is something we think about a lot, too. We're not just trying to improve our image or brand, we want to make the brand of "SEO" something people like/enjoy/respect/appreciate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sometimes a term becomes so strongly associated with unethical behavior that it can't be used in a more positive context. I think this is true for "SEO". In theory there should be no cognitive bias against the idea of optimizing a site design to make it easily searchable; but historically this term is associated with shady practices.

One of your comments states that you want to make "SEO" a brand people respect. I don't think this is going to happen in the short term, when the experienced engineers you want to hire remember cursing the unethical behavior of other SEO practitioners.

</comment><comment><USER29> Very interesting question. We founded Plug in SEO a year ago and at the time came up against lots of anti-SEO prejudice. The scene has definately changed, at least here in the UK. The prejudge has been replaced with robust questions about its benefit.

As for recruitment, if your SEO solution is genuinely an arms race of outmanouvering search engines, as an engineer myself I'd have passed over the opportunity. Personally I relish solving problems but not reinventing the wheel or gaming search engines.

</comment><comment><USER30> As a coder, I would enjoy those problems. Maybe its a framing issue-if you frame the jobs as you did here, rather than "work for an SEO company", maybe that would help?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we've generally tried to position ourselves in this fashion, but with SEO in our name (SEOmoz) and with core values of transparency and authenticity, we'd prefer not to try to hide who we are or what we do. We believe whole-heartedly in our mission: To simplify the promotion of ideas on the web. SEO is the first part of that puzzle.

Also - if you're interested and are in Seattle (or could be talked into moving here) please drop me a line - email@example.com

<comment><USER31> Your transparency has probably generated more good will than you know. My wife and I are planning on relocating some time in the next year, probably to the Seattle area. As part of this I've already started to take a look at what jobs are available and just yesterday I came across your craigslist postings. While having spent the last three years working for a marketing company and dealing with some sleazy SEO people I would have normally just bypassed any ad with SEO anywhere in it, but seeing that it was seomoz I actually took the time to read it.

You are probably fighting an uphill battle. Last year I had to do a technical integration with another company and it turned out they were actively paying something like $30k per month to an SEO company to keep them in the top five results on the big three search engines. All of that money was going to black hat methods such as link farms, paid links, cloaking etc. These tactics were all working and for a very long time their sites were the number one and two links for dozens of relevant terms with the big search engines. As those tactics worked, my employer very much wanted us to start employing them, ignoring the objections of the design and engineering team. About six months later we were heavily involved in a project for another company that was supposedly run by an SEO expert. His expertise turned out to be having read a three year old E-book on the topic. While I've provided two anecdotal examples, from everyone I've talked to these types of examples seem to be the most prevalent. Or maybe people only talk about their negative SEO experiences. It's not even cut and dry for those companies that appear to be doing things right. Look at some of the backlash on reddit when people figured out that oatmeal used to work at seomoz.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> SEOMoz is a reputable company and love going there for all types of SEO information. The community is large and growing larger. Most people are searching for SEO related solutions for Wordpress blogs and I think the best solution so far is.. <http://www.seodestination.com/wp-seo/> any other tips?

</comment><comment><USER33> As a programmer at a fairly high traffic site, SEO is a way of life for us and we always think of SEO implications. The more difficult problem we have lately is the SEO vs user experience trade off. We dislike whenever SEO is chosen over the user experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree Trey - I'd say that over the last 5 years, I've almost never (maybe once) seen a case where SEO had to interfere with or detract from good user experience. The engines have actually done a great job making this an extreme edge case.

<comment><USER4> I've seen several instances where in order to make really nice JS/AJAX UI interactions and flows also SEO friendly we had to do a lot of extra work. However that work also makes us accessible, so it's not the end of the world....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think that most people here prefer "any other problem" to marketing.

<comment><USER35> As an engineer for a decade and a half (turned tech manager, now), I used to have that same feeling. I believe that's because until you work with a competent marketing group, there's an awful lot of "Dilbert marketing department" evident. And truly competent marketing groups are only slightly more plentiful than unicorns, IME.

Work alongside a good marketing team however, and it's night and day. I think that they have in many cases more interesting problems, especially in the context of growing a startup.

How can you tell a good marketing department? They're smart, able and willing to do math, are willing to be data and metrics driven and can't comprehend it could work any other way. If someone says to you "math has no place in marketing", you don't want to work with that marketing department.

<comment><USER34> Indeed, the usual marketing often combines the worst aspect of sleazy sales guys and irrational artsy types. Never mind that marketing departments have a high female percentage, and girls are scary.

Scientifically-minded marketing seems pretty rare. Or to put it another way: Quite often there are some scientifically-minded marketeers in the team, but no one tends to listen to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If SEOmoz wasn't good enough for the oatmeal then it's not good enough for me.</comment>


Ask HN: How can software engineers help nonprofits fighting for equal justice? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Cash. Simple, effective and fast and you can help many more than with any time/tech contribution.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have to think there must be tons of nonprofits that can't afford to keep technical people on retainer for things like their website, internal IT, etc, and so just outsource to crappy firms when they need something (like a new website). I've thought about trying to reach out and find some, but never taken the steps.

</comment><comment><USER4> Volunteer - non-profits mostly are not getting their usual donations during the pandemic, and are trying to keep their doors open just like for-profit businesses. If you can do anything for them, without expecting compensation, you help them stay alive.

<comment><USER5> Are there any resources on how to find non-profits that are looking for tech help?

<comment><USER4> I'm not aware of any aggregated list, no. But call the organizations that you believe in, and ask. I'd guess the majority of them would love some help, especially smaller ones who likely don't have the resources to hire their own tech staff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think there have been several similar posts in the past week.

</comment><comment><USER7> You can march with them</comment>


Racket v6.1.1 released: fixes for Yosemite/32-bit Windows and lib improvements - <AUTHOR> http://blog.racket-lang.org/2014/11/racket-v611.html

<comment><USER2> Awesome. Updated as soon as I heard. Like the speed improvement in DrRacket boot-times, I still find I do most of my Racketeering there.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you please give me some feedback on my new startup? - <AUTHOR>

A couple of days ago, I submitted my startup for review http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1855901 but haven't got as much feedback as I expected, I've made some additional improvements and I'm officially launching the product now, it's mobile site creation tool for dynamic sites (mostly for blogs), we help peoples create and monetize mobile versions of their websites in less than 2 minutes.At this point, we don't support static/flash sites but have it on the roadmap.Please take a look and feel free to share your feedback and suggestions here. Thanks<p>The site url is: http://www.gmbhnews.net and the mobile sites are hosted at http://www.gmbhnews.com <comment><USER2> Quick thoughts:

\- I don't like the color. Red feels like you're screaming at me.

\- Something about the form on the left side feels goofy. Have you considered switching the form on the left and the image on the right?

\- What's up with your headline? The "W" and "2" are larger than the rest of the letters.

\- Logo?

\- GMBHnews does not even begin to hint at what your site does, unless I'm missing something. It actually makes me think your site does something completely different (news content provider?) than it actually does.

\- Buttons/links in footer are all kinds of messed up.

\- The overall design is actually significantly better than many I've come across recently, but could still use some major work.

Hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey loren and thanks for your great feedback, the "W" issue is fixed now, I've indeed tried to switch both image and form, it looks even goofier, considering that peoples tend to read from the left side to the right (at least most, exceptions: arabic and some others....), I finally decided to stick on it at as it is. Hmm, it's true the logo looks quite conservative, but since the domain issue keeps showing up, I'll change it and the logo as well (when everyone point to the same issue, there must be something wrong with it), I guess it's time for brainstorming. My footer is mostly designed for SEO to point to articles, means for me the lest peoples click on them, the fastest they may convert, I have to agree it's not the best looking but, if it looks realy ordered, it'll be huge, I will try to tweak it somehow.

Thanks for the compliment on the design, I'm not really a designer, so I guess my bog reading's paying out now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The design could use some love, I am no designer but I have a few critiques. -You need some semblance of a grid, right now nothing lines up with anything else.

-You could use some sort of color scheme adjustment, less in your face reds, I feel like if I sign my site up I join "the party"

-The pictures of the phone/ipad etc on the right should have their bottom edge matched up with the bottom of the red bar, not 40px above it.

-The inputs on the left should not have the click here links, what is the purpose of those?

-The quotes would be better off as 1 per row instead of 2, with a few less.

-You don't need all the white space in between the quotes and the copy on the left

-but the copy could use some more whitespace and line spacing.

-The site should have a favicon,

-and perhaps a better title, "mobile tools to mobilz..." doesnt make the most sense.

-The links in the footer are arranged haphazardly, and thats distracting.

-The copyright text needs some bottom padding, so its nor right up on the bottom of the page.

-I'm not sure how or what this does to my site, and that makes me nervous, what do I get when I hit mobilize?

-The logo should be bigger, and the "we help you create mobile" etc text should be smaller

I am trying out the product right now, so I cannot critique that yet, but I am interested in it, so I will. Hopefully you can get something useful out of the above list, because like say I am not a expert in UX.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your great feedback, well the color scheme is the best I could find, and from the firsts test I've done, many peoples could find where to click, so I had to add this "click here" , a bit ugly but very usable, I could try it with html5, too bad not all browsers support it, so I'll have to wait. The quotes are also fine (very long story here, but those are the best quotes we could have from our beta testers), the favicon is a good idea, will try something. I already had a smaller text there, and peoples keep asking me what the site does, so I came up with this and nobody ever ask again, I think it's not a good idea to have a bigger logo, it'll just distract from the real goal, user or try the service. I'll use some of the great suggestions on your feedback to improve the product, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I will since you said please.

I don't want to give up an email route to my inbox just to see what you can do with my site.

I would, however if I were actively shopping for such a thing.

If for some reason I think I should be browsing the .com version with Firefox, ie from a Google search, it lets me stay stuck there- it tells me the browser's wrong, but there's no way out. If I didn't know any better I'd think you're design was crap & move on.

I was surprised at the entry requiring my participation in policing the site, as the last entry in the TOS states. Are you going to boot me for not clicking the 'flag spam' button? Maybe that's standard & I've just scanned over it until now, but today it seems silly.

I don't know about your market, so site UX is about the best I can do for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> \- I agree with others in saying the red is harsh. Only the gradient though. The top part and buttom is good.

\- I understand what you are doing...I think. You are trying to optimize my website for mobile. Okay...but how? I don't see a demo (at least easily accessible one). And if I want to find how I have to give up a litany of things: my site name, my url, my RSS feed (I don't even have one), my adsense mobile code, and my e-mail. That's a lot.

\- I am not quite sure what GMBH stands for.

Sorry if any of this sounds harsh (not meant to be).

-Jeff

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello Jeff, here's your rss url: <http://returnbooleantrue.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default> , glad I could help you discover it.

You don't Have to do anything, you have the choice.

Please make a disclosure that you are not a webdesigner/UI, when you critisize the work of a professional webdesigner and I'm fine with the red.

Sorry if any of this sounds harsh (not meant to be)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Blocked in China. FYI.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol, thanks for letting me know, I guess I should take this as a compliment, when looking at all the services blocked in china. I have to take a closer look at this.</comment></comment>