Update! For those that recall the original purpose of this post, I have a prize update. I didnt win a Macbook Air… but I did win a Samsung 50″ 1080p HD Television and a Westinghouse Digital Picture Frame!

I didnt promote the membership, and I didnt win either of those prizes as a result of selling StomperNet memberships. In fact, I didnt even sell one. That was simply from those of you that took the time to check out the tool – period.

Thank you Not just for the prizes, which are super cool, but for all of the supportive emails and comments, and for going out of your way to participate in the contest on my behalf. You rock!

Yeah, sure!

But this has all given me an idea for a REAL tool that DOES do what this siteseer was supposed to do in the first place. I’ve started a contractor on it today! It will be free but I won’t mention any URLs here … all good SEOs will discover it in due course during their travels online.

Lynn wasn’t my original target and I should have stuck with addressing the deception and crooked marketing from Stompernet. So, Lynn, my apologies and an email is on the way.

I said “I dont use SEO tools to speak of”, not that I have *never* used any other SEO tools *before*.

I also didnt recommend Stompernet membership to ‘everyone else’. I stated I was less interested in anyone joining – and why it may not be for everyone. I made that comment again in a reply above.

For the record, I am not a paying member. I have friends that are, I know much of the faculty personally, and I attended their last live event. But I am not their target market, and I am busy doing the things that they are teaching.

I also never did an outright promotion for the membership, nor did I try to compel or encourage anyone to join.

I thought the report was pretty cool. I passed it along. There was full disclosure on the affiliate link. End of story.

I hope that clears up any confusion or questions – not just yours oddsod, but anyone else reading along as well.

Let’s move on.

Based on my trust in you, I followed your link and tried Siteseer. It wasn’t because I was bored, it wasn’t because I loved Stompernet. It was because I respect you and trusted your opinion and when you say you know your SEO and the tool still opened your eyes… I kinda, you know, believed that A) You know your SEO and B) The tool opened your eyes. In reality, it’s provides no more insight than what any third-rate SEO will show you is available from free tools. Worse, it provides wrong information!

I also accept that you may not have set out to deceive your readers. If you’re guilty of anything it’s using that same “cult” language that Stompernet uses. OMG, drop everything, I’ve got the most amazing tool to share with you. Ever!!

OK, it didn’t take hours of my time. But, did I feel deceived? Sure I did.

You and I first spoke years ago, and we’ve exchanged a couple of emails today. If you really are inside SMARTS/Stompernet drop me an email with your user name – you’ve got my email address – and you’ll get a useful PM . If you’re not inside, may I ask why? It would seem strange if you recommended it to everyone else but didn’t join yourself.

>>one of the most powerful automated SEO evaluation tools ever
Seriously, I’m disappointed in you. How can it be “one of the most powerful” if you have never used any other SEO tools before?! Or are you just repeating the cult claims?

I should say too, that I dont use any SEO tools to speak of. Outside of keyword research, and I just use the basics there. So I’m not in a good position to make a fair comparison between the SEO Site Seer and any other evaluation tool on the market.

So that said, I did pick up a few interesting points from the report about my blog – and made some changes based on those results. So was it worth the 5 minutes to review the report? For me, yes.

>>I’m not an expert SEO.
If I may quote your email: “I consider myself to be pretty decent at SEO… I do know what I am doing”
The more proficient you claim to be as SEO the more likely people are to believe your claim that this “SEO tool” is a God’s gift to webmasters. I think God just crapped on us and he’s having one hell of a laugh.

>>I’m curious if you have reviewed Stompernet from the inside
Lynn, on the inside it’s worse. They encourage you to boast about every small achievement, they then bundle those threads into huge promotional videos. It’s more a cult than a university (They’ve got “Faculty”?!). But they do have good customer service, they do give refunds.

Don’t get me wrong. If you’ve got all the time in the world then go over and spend the rest of your life listening to Andy Jenkins go on and on and on in his videos.

They’ve got some great guys on the staff. Knowledgable and really nice chaps, but the program is more hot air than new info. I decided not to attend their live event.

They’re so hot at SEO that they don’t rank #1 in Google for stompernet siteseer at present. Gee, how did you do THAT, guys? No, no, don’t tell us… do a two hour video! And demonstrate that it’s something you really intended all along.

>>I’ll agree that the report wasnt complete, or even entirely accurate.
You’re too kind. It’s a pile of horse shit.

I’m certainly not an expert SEO, nor do I play one online *grin*. In fact, I have always called the Title element a “title tag” too…

I’ll agree that the report wasnt complete, or even entirely accurate. I saw some of the same questionable results that you guys reported. But I also picked up some interesting facts as well – and am digging into those a bit further.

All that aside, I’m curious if you have reviewed Stompernet from the inside (in the last year)? Or are your comments about ‘rubbish’ and ‘lack of meat’ based on their promotional material alone?

I ask because I was impressed with them when I attended their last live event. They have an incredible line-up for faculty members, and there is tons of content and ongoing personal help on the inside.

Lynn, you’ve disappointed me. As an “expert SEO” you should have realised that a lot of the Stompernet stuff was rubbish (just like their program – a lot of gristle and very little meat)

It found a sitemap for my site that I don’t have.

It provides no more information that the info provided by a lot of free tools (try http://www.seomoz.org/tools/page-strength.php , http://www.experienced-people.co.uk/1058-due-diligence/tools.htm etc), and it provides a lot of incorrect information.

It regurgitates a lot of old tripe about SEO that we’ve heard a million times before but doesn’t actually provide much by the way of real analysis of the domain provided.

Sandy Naidu, if you watched that one hour video telling you how three specific Stompernet members made huge profits/improvements…. have another look at it. It promises to tell you HOW they made those profits. It ends up being just one huge ad for Stompernet with parrot-like repetitions of how they owe all their success to Stompernet.

Newbies would be rightly impressed … as Stompernet has a formidable PR machinery and can sell turds. But, what’s YOUR excuse, Lynn?

And, Stompernet fools, it’s not the title TAG. The title is an ELEMENT: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/TITLE.html

If they can’t get even that right….!

That is exactly the reason that I didnt do a direct promotion of the actual membership. I know my readers pretty well, and didnt feel like it was a good match (in general).

That said, Stompernet is planning to offer some products outside of their membership, and I’ll be keeping my eye on those for possible review.

I certainly dont discourage anyone from checking it out – its a powerful program. But as I said in a comment above and even in the original post, its not for everyone.

When you phrase it in the way you did, you make us feel happy to be able to help. I don’t know why it is, but there’s a subconcious resentment to clicking an affiliate link. Why? I have no idea, because it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to me if I click an affiliate link or a normal one, but somehow there’s a resistance.

When you’re as open and honest as you were, it makes us (me at least) feel happy to go through your affiliate link.

As for your role as a community leader, I would say you do pretty well actually. I think the subject matter was against you here. Sure, StomperNet is probably amazing for the right people, but for the most of us, it’s far too high a cost to be able to justify, and the amount of work you’d need to put in to benefit would be more than many of us can spare.

Maybe you should reserve judgement on your abilities to convert until you try it on something a little more within the reach and interest of us ordinary folk!

Apologies to anyone who considers themselves not in the normal folk, I obviously wasn’t referring to you!

Ta ra
Alan

Thank you for your participation!

For me, this was less about the Macbook Air – or any prize – and more about the value of community. A test, if you will, to see if I could reach out to ~20,000 people and see if at least 2-3% would respond to such a personal message.

It was a stretch, considering that I didnt put several mailings into it and also considering the reach of this particular campaign. There are other factors involved too that I have noted.

All said and done, I’m still overwhelmed with the positive response. In addition to the supportive comments here, I received a number of emails from SSWT members & readers that were more than happy to ‘pay it forward’.

I have some work to do as a community leader, no doubt. But I’m very pleased at the type of people that SSWT has attracted over the years. A very cool group – and some of the most genuine, and most dedicated self-starters on the ‘net…