[...] McIntosh has been blogging about recent reports on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - and there’s an article by Shane [...]

FUNNY STUFF, I LOVE IT.

A source with an unlikely name, The Motley Fool [http://www.fool.com] has brought to the discussion a new angle on all of this.

Have the mainstream FINANCIAL media set into motion a cycle of financial mediocrity through its pursuit of search engine love?

I refer to an article by Tim Hanson, dated July 3, 2008, entitled, “What the Financial Media Don’t Want You to Know.”

I’ll give you a link see whether this blog format blows it to pieces:

http://www.fool.com/investing/.....-know.aspx

Anyway, if the link disintegrates, just run a Google search on “What the Financial Media Don’t Want You to Know.”
You’ll find it.

Here’s an extract:

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“The two words you’ll never forget

“Although the Internet has the capacity to cover every single publicly traded stock, only a handful get consistent media coverage. The stocks that earn this special status do so for a very clear reason: There are enough people out there who want to read about them.

“In industry-speak, these are ‘hot tickers.’

“Hot what?

“They’re the only stocks out that can generate enough page views to support an ad-based financial media model. And they tend to be large, technology-focused companies. That’s why you’ll regularly find stories — often unrelated — about certain companies from multiple sources, including MarketWatch, paidcontent.org, the Associated Press, Reuters, TheStreet.com, BusinessWeek, TechTicker, Fortune, Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, and even The Motley Fool. We’re talking about big names such as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), and they pop up even on slow news days. This phenomenon also explains why stocks with cult followings, such as Sirius Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR), are among the most widely reported-on stocks on the market, despite their relative small size and downright paltry recent performance.

“It’s a vicious cycle. You want to read about these stocks, so we write about them, and because we write about them, more and more people want to read about them. Yet although big tech companies can be fun to follow, they are not likely to earn you outsized returns.”

[end of extract from Fool.com]

********

Of course what is REALLY FUNNY about this is What The Motley Foot Doesn’t Want You To Know.

The point of the article is to sell you a micro-cap research service that they are selling.

Nevertheless, the points made prior to the sales pitch are worth a few moments’ thought

REG CROWDER
[Freelance Financial and Investment Writer]
[http://www.journalistdirectory.com/journalist/TgTQ/REG-CROWDER]
[http://www.utalkmarketing.com/Blogs/UserBlogs.aspx?UserID=6304]

I’ve blogged about the memories this brought back for me about a company trying to boost women’s car insurance over at http://www.craig-mcgill.com but I wonder if we could now see people challenging each other to get as many valid risque terms in as possible in a style similar to the England football team a few years ago kept trying to get obscure words and songs titles into media interviews.