After seeing a blog post syndicated on the Domaining.com feed appear in today’s Newsletter that Francois Carrillo emails to subscribers, I just had to ask Francois: how do headlines get rated?
My question makes sense: to appear in a sponsored headline in the Domaining.com newsletter, one has to fork out $100 or $150, depending on the discount Francois is offering.
For a headline to be a “Top headline” one would expect that it would be based on the number of clicks. At some point, Francois changed the algorithm to only count clicks from registered users that are logged in.
So far, so good.
Today’s #1 post was made by Owen Frager, at around 11:15pm last night, which gave it approximately 45 minutes of “lifetime” during the past day. And yet, that post became the #1 “Top headline” in the Domaining.com newsletter sent out this morning.
To be perfectly clear: this argument has nothing to do with Owen’s post; it’s just that his post was selected by Francois’s algorithm, which is clearly flawed.
So back to the question about how headlines are selected for the newsletter; here’s what Francois had to say:
“I made an empiric formula, more the click is near the end of the day and more is high the parameter that multiplicate the click value. Because I noticed how people use to post soon to get more chances to get included. I think the formula allows to remove the posting time factor. Now I take the final decision most of the time.”
Now, Francois speaks pretty good English – better than my French – and to me his answer is clear: A formula gives more importance to posts made near the end of the day and negates the advantage that some bloggers seek by posting early in the morning.
Furthermore, Francois makes a decision whether to include or not posts that actually are chosen by this mysterious formula.
In other words, this is not the “Top headlines” as the newsletter states, but rather, the personal choice of 4 headlines made by Francois and his secret formula.
But something else became clear from this late exchange I had via email: Francois does not allow headlines of the popular blog, DomainGang, to be included in the newsletter, even if they are actually top in clicks for the day!
Francois expects me to include a warning in every DomainGang headline, about whether the post is a parody post or “100%” news; something that I will never do: the faithful 1,500+ unique visitors that the 3-year-old TRAFFIC nominee for blog of the year receives daily, decide for themselves; after they read a DomainGang post. Not to mention, that every article that is not parody contains that “100%” image at the very end.
In a nutshell: Domaining.com discriminates against DomainGang.com and Francois selects the “Top headlines” of the day in a manner that does not reflect the true number of clicks of every headline.
This method and formula is unfair to many other blogs, particularly those that make the core of their posts early during the day, instead of in the late afternoon hours.
I can’t tell Francois how to run his business, but I can definitely tell him what type of practice is deceptive and what constitutes blatant censorship.
@Acro – I think you can say that Domaining maybe unfair in how it decide which posts made Top Headlines for its Newsletter.
But I disagree with your assertion that it is deceptive and blatant censorship. I know you didn’t say he did that…but you definitely did reference it.
Only 4 headlines appears in the daily newsletter, so it’s not censorship, it’s competition!
As I told you I sincerely try to do my best to pick the most interesting articles for domainers. Click popularity just help me find which ones should be good candidates.
And when I don’t find enough of interest (it’s the case some day) then I try to give some exposure to bloggers that rarely make the newsletter.
And yes I am reluctant to pick DomainGang headlines mainly because I don’t want misslead readers. When it’s false you do not do any warning you do it when it’s true. People tend and it is normal to think what is written by bloggers is true and not the inverse! Without say the lack of information obligate me to read the post to check his out when I do not need with others.
I know you are working hard each day, inventing stories, creating graphics to decorate the posts. You are certainly in the top 5 that dedicate most time to run their blog and with big chance advertising don’t pay for all this time.
So what I propose is open a “Humor” section in the newsletter which will contain the funniest post of the day (any post can have the spot). This way readers will know it’s an invented story or a true story related in a humoristic way.
I am comfortable with that because readers will not be misleaded.
Let me know if my newsletter improvement sounds good?
Poor Uncle – Are you a pro blogger? Do you make money by writing content? Are you driven by fair motives of competition, versus a race that has different rules for you than others?
When the “top headlines” are calculated in a manner that is not the same for you as for the others, then this is deception. When your headlines – although they receive enough clicks to be in the top headlines – are not published, then this is censorship. No if’s and but’s.
Francois – As I said in my closing statement, I am not going to tell you how to run your business.
If you want to run a script that gives more weight to clicks made on headlines posted in the last 2 hours of the day, then be my guest. But you can’t call those headlines the “Top headlines” of the day, because they are not. And I am not the only one who wondered, I’m simply the only one who figured out what is going on.
DomainGang is unique and established. It didn’t just appear yesterday, it’s going to be 3 years old next month. Those that read it, enjoy it. The traffic numbers speak for themselves: 1,500 daily uniques at least. Ever wondered where they are coming from, if I “misslead readers“?
Maybe you don’t understand what I do: I provide entertainment, something that no stuffy copy/paste “bloggers” do for the domain industry. I provide a service, and those that receive it, appreciate it.
Every article contains the “100%” image when it’s true in its entirety, every single time. Only an imbecile would not understand whether a story is parody or not, once they reached the end of it. Only a careless, one-time visitor would not care to read the disclaimer, the footer, or the About Us page.
Only an asshole, would complain. And this post attracted a couple of asshole comments, which I will not publish.
I appreciate that you acknowledge what I do. It’s only a small part of what I do, and I have chosen to do it in a manner that entertains and stimulates the minds of those poor, bored creatures called “domainers“.
Anyone not willing to read further, should at least read the Testimonials. Yes, they are real – and yes, they are only part of the stack that I have received over the course of 3 years.
I did not ask for DomainGang to be nominated as TRAFFIC blog of the year, I will not seek votes even. But I will fight for the right of DomainGang to be treated equally, especially when the metrics show that it’s in the top domain blogs in terms of readership.
An example of how the “Top headlines” are simply selections of 4 headlines:
Today’s newsletter contains these four:
1. 350 Visitors to US are 350 Lost Customers to Somebody Else. (326 clicks)
2. WSJ: Banks Looking To New gTLD’s To Stop Phishing (108 clicks)
3. Spam, lies and videotape: Part 1 (238 clicks)
4. The New Rules of Picking Domains for Startups (267 clicks)
These are the clicks for each headline assuming that they haven’t gotten any newsletter traffic yet, as it’s still early in the am in the US. The clicks are therefore headline clicks in the Domaining.com timeline of yesterday.
According to the number of clicks (108 at the time of this comment), #2 should not even be there. And #4 seems to have more clicks than #3, but it was the first post of the day, so your formula sent it lower.
But of course not everyone can see the number of clicks next to each blog, right Francois? Only those of us that paid for a Premium Membership on Domaining.com
See below – both Shane’s post and Morgan Linton’s received more clicks than the #2 headline. Owen Frager’s as well. So why did you send that post by Mike Berkens to spot #2 instead?
Let me repeat why: because these are not the top headlines. They are 4 headlines of your choice and have nothing to do with clicks and popularity. So amend your newsletter accordingly.
It’s his newsletter and his Top Headlines. What is the problem here. He can put anything he wants as his top posts. Top does not to be quantity. They can mean quality as well and that’s subjective. You are making yourself look silly tonight
Shane – Maybe you also like to eat soylent green and call it avocado. It’s still soylent green.
@Acro – I am not a pro blogger.
I can tell you that I am a professional in other fields. Being a professional, I may complain about my business partner(s) privately. But once I make it public and use terms like deceitive and censorship, I can’t imagine continue doing business with said partner.
Poor Uncle – And that’s exactly why it’s all out in public, my dear friend. Professionalism doesn’t mean you bend over and take it up the ass, but maybe you opt to go down that route. It’s your choice. I stand behind what I write 100%.