Mahalo – spam has had a facelift courtesy of Jason Calacanis
Posted by: Marketing Guy Date posted: June 1st, 2007 Published in: Spam
So I guess I don’t need to point out the background on Jason Calacanis’s latest project, Mahalo (no link – I don’t link to spam). Most SEOs out there know the amusing battle he’s been having with the SEO industry.
He’s one of these guys that most SEOs meet from time to time (usually online) that regardless of any logical arguement you can put forward for SEO, they just continue to argue. I had a similar “debate” with some guy who run a small affiliate programme (he was provided with an out of the box affiliate site embedded in frames…) – logic doesn’t apply to these people, at least not in the same way as it applies to most folks out there.
So a while back Jason Calacanis hinted at this new project and yesterday it was unveiled in alpha phase – a human edited search engine called Mahalo. Ground breaking, I know.
What’s ammusing is that after all Jason’s anti SEO drivel, he’s setup Mahalo to basically manipulate SERPs on a huge scale…
Check out the “paris hotels” page – all links to “reputable” (I use the term lightly – after all, the editorial quality of this certain individual is pretty questionable) hotel sites….all using “paris hotels” as the links to deep content.
The result? Jason’s shot at trying to “make SEOs irrelevant“. Basically, he’s taking the top 10,000 search phrases (in his estimation) and chucked a load of money (and taken some VC cash) to generate a site that will manipulate the search engine rankings for sites of his choice…
Someone want to explain to me how that is any different from what SEOs do? At least consultancy side SEOs do it for legitimate clients (and fair play to the other side of the game that does it for their own network of sites as well). IMO, just because JC isn’t directly profiting from the manipulations, doesn’t make his intentions honorable. I’ll take a competitive marketplace over one man’s arrogant view of how things should be anyday.
The site is clearly designed for SEO – search engine friendly URLs, very focused keyword targeting, all content will be indexable, etc. – hypocrisy on the part of Mr C.
Scoreboard Media have a great post on the subject – Mahalo:Â That’s Hawaiian for 8 visitors a month, where they highlight the many, many, many failings of the project. 
I agree totally that it won’t scale – I posted my thoughts on SEW yesterday – I think it’s a sad attempt by a guy with a grudge to try and send a big “fuck you” out to an entire industry.
In reality though, one of two things will happen. It will see limited success or none at all. If the former happens, then I suspect those nice folks at Google will have to consider if it is worth allowing Mahalo to manipulate their SERPs - sure it might drown out a little affiliate spam noise, but do you really think the SEO industry is just going to pack up their bags and say, “oh well, we had a good run”?
Nah. What will happen is that the competition in these SERPs (and as a result, every other SERP) will simply become more fierce which will be much worse for every legitimate business out there trying to make a living.Â
Congratulations Jason – your battle for the SEO beast will probably consume you in the process (no one will care), but you could very leave a load of legitimate businesses failing in your wake.
But probably not. As many others have pointed out, your business model is seriously flawed – I think perhaps your business acumen was squashed by your inflated ego wanting a war with SEOs. Regardless, Mahalo ain’t gonna work – it’ll never be anything more than a pretty looking link farm and personally I hope Google do the right thing and bitch slap you from day 1.Â
Good luck Jonah!
MG
Comments
Mahalo for visiting Mahalo!
Regarding the Paris Hotels serp I’m not sure I can agree with you. Compare the Paris Hotels results we have with Google’s and tell me what you think we are missing, list ALL the spam they have, and you’ll find that we are much better for users.
What links did we miss on the Paris Hotels serp do you think? I think that’s a really solid page for someone looking for hotels in paris–perhaps the best *single* page to start on. (of course the destinations we are pointing you to are better for a deeper dive–i love tripadvisor and nytimes most myself).
Also, the fact is with our SERP anyone can suggest a link, report a problem witha link, and discuss the results with the Guide on the message board. Compare that with all the other search engines where you are told “talk to the algorithm.
I’ve been hard on SEOs, sure. Maybe too hard. However, my point was DON’T optimize your site for a search engine–optimize for people. You agree with that right?
Who would you rather work with in getting exposure for your clients, Mahalo where we will talk to you or Google.Yahoo/Ask where they tell you to talk to the algo?
consider this an olive branch to all SEOs. we will take your call and help you get your clients listed. all we ask is they make kick-ass sites that help people!!!
mahalo for the feedback.. keep it coming!
jason
Hi Jason, thanks for dropping by.
>> Compare the Paris Hotels results we have with Google’s and tell me what you think we are missing
Non biased results? Fair enough Google isn’t perfect and certainly people will game SERPs but I’ll take free competition over 1 person’s biased opinion any day.
Mahalo suggest a link vs Google? In Google everyone gets a shot and sites don’t get black balled because someone thinks “they are ugly”.
While I totally agree that people (and SEOs in particular) should be helping clients make kick ass sites, I still can’t help feeling that you have a very narrow view of what most SEOs do for a living.
Your site is clearly designed to game search engines on a large scale – a mass of keyword links to sites you choose isn’t simply an editorial preference – it’s designed for SEO – it’s designed to manipulate SERPs – it’s designed as a big “fuck you” to SEOs.
Your “results” pages have no value for users – a list of links using the same keyword text? Even back in the day, SEOs weren’t that blatant with their intentions!
If you want some feedback – drop the keyword links (use the site brand name, use a more accurate description of the page you link to) and nofollow them (all of them). Personally that’s what it would take for me to think of Mahalo as anything more than a link farm.
MG
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