Jon Garfunkel:Sure, but how much do "ordinary folks" know about SEO to affect the Google rankings? I took as the assumption for my investigation, not much. It takes a number of clicks off the Google search results page to directly learn what you could do to affect the rankings.
But how much do ordinary folks know about any other form of impression management?
The internet is nothing more than another communication forum which, unlike many other media, you actually have the ability to impact rather directly. While it might take a little investigative work to determine how to do this, if someone is sophisticated enough to google their name, they're sophisticated enough to google something as brainless as "manipulating page ranking in google" [which I just did, and certainly provides ample fodder to go off and do a little learning and tinkering].
In college, I was routinely searching the cd-rom based databases. They're static. At least Google is amenable to direct influence. In fact, I'd argue it's a lot more amenable to influence than, say, the opinions of one's professional colleagues, at least in temporal terms.
Frankly, there are about 10 bajillion bloggers out there who are figuring this all out for themselves (and are often enough writing about it). If they can do it, about anyone can do it.
Of course, we don't all have a Jack Shafer giving us a huge boost, but it's always been nice to have high profile, influential friends - especially when they've got a megaphone like Jack's.
What else is new?
