SEO Mash Review
Take 18 of the top SEO sites on the Net, mash them all together and you have SEO Mash. Own by John Chow dot Com reader, Scott, who took advantage of the 50% off ReviewMe review (which ended last night) in order to give his new site some buzz, SEO Mash is an example of a “set it and forget it” site.
SEO Mash is one page site, giving you the world of SEO at a glance. I said it’s a set it and forget site because SEO Mash runs itself. Scott has programmed SEO Mash to pull in the feeds of the 18 SEO sites that SEO Mash follows, and then SEO Mash displays the last seven posts (there is a display more link to display more stories). Hovering the mouse over a story link will give you an excerpt. If the excerpt is interesting enough, you can click on the link read the full story from the source.
SEO Mash Look And Feel
SEO Mash is pretty simple as far as mashes goes. Unlike other mashes I’ve seen, SEO Mash has no user or preference settings - everyone gets the same look and feel. There isn’t anything wrong with the look and feel mind you. Scott stuck to a very safe light blue background with blue link and red headlines - textbook SEO.
A single Google 468×6 ad at the top right hand corner monetizes SEO Mash. I was a bit surprised that Scott didn’t follow the red headline and blue text to have the ad match perfectly with the site. Most likely, he is fooling around with colors to see which gives higher click rates. I would recommend he try a 728×90 banner in that location instead of the 468. There is enough space for it since SEO Mash is designed for a 1024 resolution.
Long Term Viability
At the end of the day, I have to wonder about the long-term viability of SEO Mash (and mashes in general). The only one I know that is doing well is POP URLs, and I think that does well because of the amount of user adjustable information and additional features the site provides the visitor. SEO Mash provides no new features and zero user adjustments.
The sites SEO Mash pulls from are good sites, some I never heard of but will now be adding to my feed reader. Of course, if I add those sites to my feed reader, I wouldn’t need SEO Mash anymore. What is to prevent a reader from making their own SEO Mash with Google home page, or adding all those feeds into their feed reader? Right now, nothing. SEO Mash has no content or feature that is unique to itself. That’s the problem with set it and forget it sites - most people tend to forget it.
- Posted in Reviews, The Net
- 53 comments what's your take?
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Interesting. Seems like it’s almost there.
Reply to this commentHonestly, I find the site hard to view. Way too much going on there…
Reply to this commentSame here, the colors aren’t that good either.
Reply to this commentThere is a lot going on, but a quick mouse over allows you to identify anything worth a read, I think its useful…
Reply to this commentI would agree with this:-
“SEO Mash has no content or feature that is unique to itself. That’s the problem with set it and forget it sites - most people tend to forget it.”
Usually, it is the content that first attracts me, draws me and keeps me going back to the site. Faced with a mountain of links, I am not sure of what I am looking for either.
Although it is a good idea to place ALL the helpful links onto a page, I daresay the site layout and presentation could have been made more user-friendly for the common man.
Reply to this commentI agree…I like that all of the SEO sites are linked in one spot. I’ve been reading alot about SEO lately, so this helps.
Reply to this commentIt is nice to have a one-stop spot like you stated.
Reply to this commentIve been reading a lot too, I would have like to have go the SEO book (e-book) John plugged, but didnt really have the money to spare, bought a cheaper hard copy book that was very useful, loads of stuff on the net now anyway, some very good blogs on the subject too
Reply to this commentThere is no RSS feed associated with the site… Not good. I hope that’s coming, or I will surely never use it.
I really like news/blog aggregators. This looks a lot like http://tech.originalsignal.com/. I also use http://www.popurls.com and http://www.techmeme.com.
IMHO, with the bajillions of websites out there, sites that aggregate content around specific topics are very useful to me. Sure, I could do the work of collecting the sites to add to my reader, but I would also use a service that gives me a one stop shop on certain topics.
But that’s just me.
Laura
Reply to this commentThere’s no RSS feed for SEO Mash, because it is a series of RSS feeds itself. Essentially, you could make your own SEO Mash in your Google Personalized Homepage, for example. Make a tab called SEO, plunk in the same 18 feeds, and boom! You have basically the same thing.
Reply to this commentIn other words, this site may be something readers can do without.
Reply to this commentI must agree with that. Rss readers do the same and better.
Reply to this commentI thought mash sites died when RSS feeds became popular !
Reply to this commentI thought this was using RSS feeds, is this not the case??
Reply to this commentI forgot to read who is post was by. . .I was going to comment on what a super review this is..only later that I saw whose review this was by!…better luck next time micheal
out of curiosity..wont the my.yahoo.com page suffice? like if you are looking for feeds all in one place. . .is it not better that you set the feeds to your own page or something? just my ripples though. .
Reply to this commentI think you must not be so harsh on Michael! He did a really good job on the last review. I found it highly commendable! Please give him a break.
No hard feelings!
Reply to this commentYeah but you have to find the sites and set the feeds, I think the point of this site is that it saves you the bother
Reply to this commentthis is a copy of originalsignal.com
but i like SEO news so go figure
Reply to this commentJohn, please can we have the old John Chow back? Like pre *i’m going to make a million out of reviewme*?
Im sorry but this site is unattractive with a boring layout… and it is pointless. There are google/yahoo and a million others offering a service where you can customise your feeds and a lot more, why use this?
Only positive is the name.
Reply to this commentI’ve got to agree somewhat, this website doesn’t seem to offer much new or shocking - besides the fact it helped me to find a hand full of SEO sites I haven’t seen yet - but that’s about it. I suppose John will starting writing like he used to do though, he can’t live without dining photo’s!
Reply to this commentYea, I believe would it not be possible to hand-pick requests to write on? Although of course in reviews, you do have to write the good stuff and the bad for anything that comes along.
Reply to this commentIs it just me or does that site look very Yahooey?
Reply to this commentI guess that it is just you? Nowhere is the site close to Yahoo looks, much less make it ‘Yahooey’.
Reply to this commentYeah, I’m not feeling a lotta yahoo from this one.
Reply to this commenthow cool, this is #62 of popurls clones i’ve tracked.
Reply to this commentit’s like the “thousands” of “start pages” that flowered when the internet 2.0 thing became popular, but with less information. With a rss reader you can do what this site does, and much better.
Reply to this commentI agree, RSS readers give you all the flexibility you could ever want and more. Heck, that is why they were designed in the first place. Any site like this one will need to be very unique in order to stand out as a web 2.0. But, perhaps atleast it can generate some decent income from adsense and the like.
Reply to this commentyes, this kind of site is almost like the “scrapper” sites that the “black” seo’s use to win lots of money with adsense. RSS, and nothing more.
Reply to this commentIf you want to spend time on it, using this mash site requires zero effort
Reply to this commentThat was a pretty harsh and honest review john! Looks like SEOMash just paid for a surge in traffic to start off the month.
Reply to this commentHaha…so true.
Reply to this commentMaybe, but after reading the comments here, it doesn’t look like many people are too impressed with the site!
Reply to this commentYeah but some people, like myself will be back, I can see most people dont like it, but a few will… I think there money was well spent on this review
Reply to this commentJohn, I think you made a typo
POP URLS
Reply to this commentIt’s just a collection of RSS feeds???
What is the point? Where is the original content?
Reply to this commentThat is the point, it is your one-stop-shop for SEO news
Reply to this commentThat site doesn’t do anything for me. I subscribe to almost all of those feeds anyway. What’s funny is that those sites really don’t have that much SEO information. It’s more about publishing, advertising - internet marketing in general. I would love to find an SEO site that only talks about SEO. Seochat.com is the closest I know of.
Reply to this comment“That site doesn’t do anything for me.”
Agreed. I scanned it pretty quickly and left just as fast.
Reply to this commentsaman, this was a tipycal post to the top commentators sum
Reply to this commentWouldn’t adding the RSS feeds of these sites to Google Reader achieve the exact same result. Actually, Google reader would give you a whole heck of a lot more options to mess with.
I personally think sites like these are pointless and useless and only in the hopes of a quick and effortless money grab.
Best of luck though.
Reply to this commentSeems like a waste of time really doesn’t it?
I can achieve a more usable result by adding each of those sites to my feed reader. With no unique content the site really serves no purpose.
Reply to this commentWhat is the point of SEO apart from bringing traffic to a site to make money via Adsense pageviews? (no joke..I really want to know)
Reply to this commentBasically, that was what SEO was intended for. End objective - converting the highest valued dollars by searchers.
Reply to this commentThe site is only good for the first visit. After that, you’re done.
Reply to this commentA different “voice” you have, gdog. Why do you say that? What didn’t you like?
Reply to this commentPerhaps what he is looking for in a site is content, not just links? Besides the point, this was intended to be a ‘mashup’ anyway.
Reply to this commentNot if your interested in SEO, it provides a quick overview of latest info, as the feeds change the site will update keeping it current, i believe….
Reply to this commentGot the following Email from POPURLs:
john,
Reply to this commentjust wanted to shoot you a mail on your comment regarding popurls - in fact the site became successful not because of personalization but for being first to mind for a crucial amount of users and having an authentic and listening person behind the service.
best from austria,
thomas
SEO MASH is like a drive thru link warehouse on SEO.
You go in and out really fast.
Reply to this commentYeah its good if you want to catch a bit of quick info but not particularly ’sticky’ also with only one page theres not much scope for advertising (for the owner of the site)
Reply to this commentSeems like a digg type of site, except that it updates automatically and isn’t user submitted!!
Reply to this commentNo, digg is a community site where you vote on posts, this just pulls stuff in off feeds
Reply to this commentI quite like this mash, and as Im trying to learn a bit more about SEO will definately pass by from time to time.
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