Gather Articles - SEO - Did you know about the negative impact of posting to groups?

Thanks for the info.

Hi Rose.  I guess I'll have to go through my groups again.   I didn't see that comment about posting to too many groups.   Thanks!

I love your photo, and thanks for the info.

Thanks for the information, Roswitha.

Wow, Rose! First, I hope you keep me as a friend. Second, THANK YOU for posting this. I had no idea. I always thought that the groups thing was cumbersome, but now I see that it can be downright harmful. And it takes so long to click on all those groups, too, when you are writing an article. This will save some time. Now what to do about my own book reviewing group? Do I just get rid of it, ignore it?

Unlike most people, I mainly used my group to see what my friends were reading, instead of being subscribed to them and receiving all those emails. I guess I might rethink that. New plan: subscribe to my close friends, eliminate groups, and just surf around for the rest of my reading on Gather. What do you think?

I recommend not deleting your groups , it makes you more valuable to the community to belong to lots of groups!!!!  The key though is to only publish to specific groups related to that particular topic. For instance I love the food /recipe groups but may only publish once or twice a yeaar to them but I am always interested in viewing the content within that groupp. And that groups content will be lost to your feeds when you are click on either

• by friends
• by groups
• by interests

I have always know that to have your articles be of more value you must only publish to a se;ect group My personal recommendation is 3 -5 groups

Christine - heck no, I'm hanging on to you my friend!:)

Truly, I don't know what the answer is about subsribing to your friends. I personally find that getting an e-mail notification when a friend posts is my favorite way to keep up.

For some reason my feeds seem to get stuck every so often or doesn't even show my friends - on the other hand a couple of times I did not receive e-mail notifications either. Besides it's cumbersome to navigate - just like the groups - a real nightmare if you ask me.

I did not delete your group and I think you should hang on to it. From what Tom said in the same thread - gather is thinking about some sort of incentive/reward for successful group owners.

So it's not that groups have no value - I love several of the groups I belong to, I think it all depends on how you gather.

I think they should reward those group owners who give other members a good experience - I'm sure it is a lot of work.

First, I love the photo-the colors are beautiful. We were planning our next trip down today (well, picking dates is about all the planning we do these days) and your picture makes me wish it were sooner.

As for the other, I'm torn. I've actually tried to keep my stuff "in house" on Gather. I don't want to be found by the outside world, just by those that are also here. I do however, enjoy the points and perks from them. I'm still thinking about this one.

Sue - You raise a valid point. I thought about that too, but in reality I've always enjoyed decent views and with the new point system it is actually a nice bonus. That's why I'm keen on improving whatever I can - more views for me - means more views for gather - and if gather is doing well ....:)

Finally, I get rewarded for all that time and effort. So I don't want something truly stupid like not knowing that posting to too many groups will ruin my chances of my article being picked up keep me from cashing in on my points.

Don't get me wrong I enjoy the groups I belong to - love my photo groups - those that I'm active in - that's why I belong in the first place. To me five pages is plenty and I even added two groups as I was purging, because I found them to be a good fit for my photography interests.

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I've been culling my groups for the last few months, along with my connections.   Nice information to have Rose.  Thank you.

Kat - I didn't realize just how many groups I was in. I thought I was being very selective:) You might want to stick your head back in to see what Kevin has to add - he said he'd be back later tonight.

Thanks Rose, People probably were not aware of this, but I did not delete any of my groups as they are very important to me and I use them not onoy to post my content to but if I am looking for something particular I just pull up my group feed and click on the specific group; but I have always know that you SHOULD NEVER EVER publish you content to more then 10 groups optimum is 3- 5  for optimal viewing.

Three to five for optimal viewing? That's what Tom seemed to say.

I found many groups were neither moderated any longer nor served any real purpose. If there is no feature, I don't even recognize the name of the group owner and when I check the owners profile they have not posted anything new since Sep 2008 for instance - then why wouldn't I delete that group?

Posting the same post to 3-5 groups (at the same time) can still result in your content being dropped from a search engine result though...  So, are you suggesting that we post to a minimal amount of groups, but only one group per article?  Your post comment is a little confusing...

I post to a ton of groups and my views are just fine.  I call shenanigans on the 3-5 rule.

If people like what you post or like you and just view your stuff. . . you don't need this SEO crap :0) Just my opinion. Carry on.  I'm comment stalking Heidi heh

Heather --- I decided to comment stalk you, and ended up comment stalking myself... now that was weird!  LOL

Lune - my point exactly. I enjoy groups which are moderated, well maintained and have something to offer and yes, they are not easy to find.

I'll be interested what Kevin has to add to the mix though - he said he'd be back later.

On the connections - ditto.

yep I need to sort through groups  myself, i hadn't considered the "Duplicate" angle.

I bet I have hurt my points several times.

Rodney - well, live and learn. I wish I had known all along, I thought it was a good idea to post to all my groups as much as possible.

I never felt I posted to a ton of groups in the first place, but I guess I'll post to less now.

I've been deleting connections here and there, and I still have 480. Most of those are not active, but I am cutting it back to only the people who really support me back.

I'm down to 348 now (and a lot of these are not regularly active). There are about 20 I may get rid of if things continue the way they are. This is probably as low as my list will go. I've been here almost 3 years and while probably 200 of my current connections are no longer regulars, they do pop in here and there. I like to see them when they do :-)

Marianne, I don't think I've ever seen you post to tons of groups, but apparently less is better.

 I haven't even started on my connections yet, I know the key there is sorting and no if it's someone I'd like to see back whenever they drop in, there's no reason to delete that connection 

Personally I will NEVER EVER Delete my friends ( Unless they leave gather) nor my groups.  Gather also considers your activity across the community when awarding points .  Before drastically deleting your groups weigh this with the fact that your enrollment in groups  plays into the value you give to the community.

SO I will maintain my 122 pages of groups that interest me; But I have never nor will I ever publish to more then 10 grroups  but optimally to reach a broader audience always stay between 3 & 5 groups and make them very specific to the content of your content.

Opps forgot to say I have about 2,000 friend connections, and no I do not read all of them all of the time I have them in about 25 friend sets so that when I am in the mood to view something about a particular topic I open that friend set, or I open my group feed or my interest feed and if you delete your groups you become less valuable to the community as a whole!!!!

Holy crap that is A LOT of groups --- 122 PAGES of groups?

I will add that I doubt Gather rewards or considers group participation or removal in their points awarding, but that's just my personal opinion.  There are too many point whoring groups that Gather probably would like to see go away for them to reward group membership in points.  Anyway... I think I have about 15 groups that I am a member of...

I have 16 pages.  It's time for a clean up.   My method of Gathering works perfectly for me.  I was a "cash option" member from my second month of being on site and I made over a thousand dollars on here last year (no joke. . never again either will I cash out that much the taxes are stupid on online income).

Carefully carefully heavily weigh what you delete as it TRULY does count towards points and how valueable you are to gatehr if you participate broadly across the community. ( ANd that does not mean going to such and such a group daily but belonging to that group and posting to it when it is relavant to your content or when you wish to view specifics about specific topics offered in that group.

Even though we are not getting points for viewing others work participating across the community makes you add value to gather which will result in more points. I can not emphasize enough  that you only do not publish to a group if it does not fit nor to more then 3-5 groups at a time!

Taken directly from hoe the new points are rewarded.

"The more quality content you share and the more interaction you have with others, the more points you'll earn."  The interaction to lots & lots of groups adds value to the community!!!!!

I think what Rose and many others are saying though, is that the "post all" "points points points" type of groups don't really ADD much beneficial to the community as far as Gather, Inc. is concerned.  I wouldn't delete my groups that were actual interests, but most of the post anything type of groups don't have many people that actually GO to the group page or DO anything as a group, etc...  The emphasis, I think, should be places on producing quality content and submitting it to the ONE group appropriate for that content and then just participating in the community.  I guess I don't understand your emphasis on remaining in all the groups... many many many of the Gather groups are basically from back in the "comment me, comment you" days when commenting and viewing were worth more Gather points.

IT also says

"The more quality content you share and the more interaction you have with others, the more points you'll earn."

See we are rewarded for our interactions and connecting to them as friends and having them in your friend set is interaction! Even though tonight you might only want to view your friend set of muswicians to listen to there fresh videos, and you might not want to do that every month.  To me it is very very important to keep my friends & groups, but you do need to set up friend sets, Hopefully there will be tools soon to do the same with our groups.

So I will NEVER DELETE my 2,000 friends connections, because as long as I am connected to them they will view over time because my content is in there feeds!!!! for example say JAne Doe only comes to gather every 3 months because ofher job, when she gets her she wants to relax publish something and view her feeds If I disconnect from her, she may not find my content. So no I will not be disconnecting.

Rose,

There are many variables to consider when publishing to groups. I would recommend that you do NOT drop out of any groups until you have an opportunity to assess your content, the groups you belong to, and your ultimate goals. Dropping out of groups can lower your visibility/community exposure in some cases, and reduce your views and points. A LOT of content on Gather has accrued thousands of page views and also is published to a LOT of groups.

I'll have to return later tonight to expand upon the above, if you're interested.

I just dropped out of the group Hiking Trails. I recentely joined Desert Darlene's new group called Trails and wanted to see what the other hiking groupl was doing (IE was it a post all?) The answer was no it was not a post all - it was a post only the owner's content. What a waste!

I know that I am interested, Kevin.

Digital Diva,

You might think of it as a time waster but if the person is of value to you then you give them value just by joining  there group; after all the new experience is to add value to the community and we start with our connections.  After all our connections gain value the more people belong to there groups even if it is a group only for the owners content.

And these type of groups are actually encouraged by gather staff and if your own content is in several groups that only you own then you can specifically direct others to your specific content .  For example I have several groups that only I can publish too but some of those groups have lots of members as they like to follow my content. Remeber it is experience for others that gets the points now.  And if a group is  full of content that is only one persons it might as mine are ; the group feeds are connected to other web site s, and potentially all members ofthat group can gain potential viewers just by looking at peoples profiles that are membvers and if they like what they see they might visit you giving you more views.

Kevin - yes - please do come back and explain in more detail when you get a chance.

Rose — I wasn't able to return here last night, but I'll post some additional information for you today. Thanks!

Thanks Digital Diva for joining my group.  Yeah, when I joined the Hiking Trails group, I was hoping for a variety of content and found that it was not happening there.  Anyway, that's way off topic.  I will post my response to the post currently being discussed below.

Rose,

My schedule has not been kind to me the past few days, and as I mentioned yesterday my response will be quite lengthy. Hence, I'm sorry that I haven't been able to return as of yet. I'll try to do so as soon as I can today though. Thanks!

Please take what Kevin says to heart,  I am positive that dropping out of groups will reduce your visibilty as Kevin so eloquently

The new points also says

"Create great experiences for others to increase what you earn."  And joining the groups that you are asked to join does indeed do exactly this.  Even if your friennd Jane Doe has a group that you have no interest in your are supporting her experienc and validating her experience.  And if you drop out of groups you are actually creating NEGATIVE experience for your friends and there value will go down.  PLEASE PLEASE consider this before jumping to deletion of anything !!!!!!!!!

Well, in some cases, you SHOULD limit the number of groups you publish to. However, this doesn't mean that you have to drop out of your groups, just don't select as many when you publish.

I'll expound upon this as soon as I can return.

Kevin - yes, please do.

I used to get notices from many groups about a post from one member.  That person would post to a huge list of groups!  Kinda like begging, in my opinion.

Thanks Rose. I enjoy your things.

Janet - likewise.

You beat me to the punch, Rose!  I had been planning to write an article about the reply Tom gave to my comment on how to earn more points!!  I was shocked to hear that posting the same content to alot of groups was a negative effect for us getting viewed outside Gather.  So, like you, two days ago I deleted alot of my groups, too (down to 5 pages like you, also) and deleted people that are inactive, etc.

But according to Tom, we should only post to one group, maybe two.  How do we do that when a photo or post is relavant to several "good" groups and you don't want people to be upset if we don't post to their group???

Sue - April is talking about three to five groups and I tend to think from Tom's, Kevin's and Connie's reply that this should work fine.

I don't think any group owner would be upset if you don't post to them each time. I post enough photos for instance, that I can easily rotate among my groups and still post plenty to each. If I post a lot then I post three in the morning and three in the evening. On rare occasion two more. I can easily split that - the photo group owners often have a limit of say five to ten pictures a day and they are all pretty specific on what they will accept.

For my writing - the travel - Florida - nature parks - etc.  photo essays that I write there aren't enough "good" groups so that will not be a problem. For now I'm not hunting down any new groups.

By the time I actually looked at every garden - flower etc. group I belonged to, I realized that will not be a problem either - I think there are three to five actually being monitored with features and such - so no problem there either.

It was extremely time consuming and I still left up about ten groups I probably should have given the ax:)  

Even the writing groups I belong to are so specific that one or two is really all I would post to.

I am interested in what Kevin has to add and I'm trying to understand what April is getting at.

I use the group concept as a way to connect.  When I post, I post to only one group per item instead of duplicating.  I generally find things to read by going to writers I already know; looking up subjects in which I'm interested; and just through discovering nice people like you and wanting to read more!  Your Florida sunset picture is soooooooooooo beautiful, btw!!!

Ainsley - thank you, I'm so glad that sunset picture turned out well. It was gorgeous to see in person. Especially since we could watch it from a deck with a cool drink in hand:)

The group concept as a way to connect works beautifully when it is a well run and monitored group, with good content and new people to discover. I really enjoy the photogroups - beautiful shots and talented photographers and artists.

Guess I'll have to start deleting my group list as well.  Oh well, all good things must come to an end. 

I've managed to cut down my 15 page group list to 13 pages, but as they are generally unique items I won't crosspost between them.  In fact I may be posting to NO GROUPS more often than not.  If that is what Tom wants, that is what Tom Gets.

Christopher - I belong to several groups who are very genre specific so in reality it will not be a problem to post only to say one or three groups at a time.

I also like posting photos to the photo challenges and competitions and just plain flower or animal photo groups - so I don't see those overlapping anyway.

It's mostly the post anything and abandoned or non-moderated groups who got the ax from me.

That was the case for me; all the for the points, or post anything got the axe.  I also took the time to axe the old dead groups, post all photos 2008 had two reasons to get the axe; election 2008 wasn't a general purpose group but that got the axe as well.

Thanks again for starting this discussion. I will be curious to see what else Kevin has to say. I guess the reason to keep groups is to see the feed on your home page in case anything interesting turns up, but I definitely will not be posting articles to multiple groups (as in the past).

It would be interesting if Tom Gerace came by and read this discussion and see what his take is on all this specifically. I hope a lot more people will put in their collective two cents on this topic. I'll be checking back in.

Very interesting.  I think maybe we should all check the groups we are posting to. 

Lee - thanks for stopping by and commenting:)

Ethan - you have a point and I'm thinking that is part of the reason for the change and view point incentive. The one topic I write about with universal appeal is travel florida and nature parks - botanical garden kind of thing - so I am definitely interested in optimizing my views.

I'm glad Tom is taking the time to write the series, it's useful information if you would like to earn more points. Good for us and good for gather:)

Please please everyone relax and think long and hard before deleting any groups

 This is the brand new posting by gather on how to earn points

"

Create great experiences for others to increase what you earn. The more quality content you share and the more interaction you have with others, the more points you'll earn. Maximize your earnings by creating consistent, popular experiences and conversations for the rest of the community and by promoting them to people who share your interests outside of Gather

Notice the first sentenvce says create great experience for others to increase what you earn!!!! If you delete groups then you are effectively decreasing the value and the experience of the person who created that group in the first place plus you are decreasing your own value to gather!!!!!

And your groups have created value to you across the community and deleting groups will decrease your value and your points overtime!!!!! As Kevin so nicely pointed out

:Dropping out of groups can lower your visibility/community exposure in some cases, and reduce your views and points.

'For many, many variables  it is as Kevin said above you will not be at the top of Gather's visibility, and doing so will most likely lower your points.  OF this I am certain!

I'm going to get rid of a bunch of my groups...........I am now spending much less time on here these days, anyhow, so figured I may as well dump some of the groups I've been in.  I have too many other obligations these days.

I'm going to concentrate on posting to groups that are well moderated (no off topic content), as I still don't think the "post all" groups add anything to the community.  No one really visits them, except possibly the group owner.  As I went thru my groups, I couldn't believe how many groups are run by owners that haven't even signed on in months or even years!

Groups with abandoned articles would be about the only ones that I would delte but it is always possible if you feel it is a relavant group you can contact gather staff and adopt the abandoned group I have done this with two of my groups.  I also have never posted to those " post all groups" EVER but I would be decreasing the owners value to gather if I were to delte them from my groups.  IF a gather member  took the time to create a group then it is great experience for that member and any deletion  of that group from my list would devalue that members experience and goes against the very first sentence on the way points are currently given away!

I'm trying to understand your perspective, April, but I have a real hard time imagining the bajillion post anything groups that hardly anyone looks at (perhaps the owner, if even then) contribute anything positive to anyone.  Yes, I say that, and I have one. Gather seems all about creating an experience and focusing our Gathering.  Even the text of theirs you keep quoting always qualifies what they say with the word quality.  The dilution of belonging to the multitude of post anythings don't seem to fit that at all.  The topic groups that don't stay on topic seem likewise irrelevant.

I see our belonging to those groups reflecting on us, but not in the good way you do.  Squidoo recently wiped out a bunch of unfocused, irrelevant, badly moderated groups, the thought being that having such groups hurt the overall standings of the site.

I'd love to see Gather staff weigh in on this.

Now, quality groups that have a specific purpose are different.  I follow plenty of groups I have little interest in posting to.  The ones we join for the company, of course.  These are groups that contribute to our and others' gather experience and we wouldn't want to leave them anyway.

In any case, I'm not wading through a morass to post.  I can think of many, many other things with guaranteed benefit to spend my time on.

Lune - Exactly - I participate in several photo groups and you get to know the other participants and end up adding them as friends, because you have similar interests - it makes for an enjoyable experience. - The same with writing, gardening and recipe groups.

I don't wish to belong to groups which I don't post to at least on occasion. For instance - the Christmas Cookie group is a once a year thing, but as long as that group owner is around and my friend, I will not delete it - to me it's a relevant group.

Like you, I have always hated wading through a morass to post - nice choice of words here:)

My post was not on the validity of groups anyway - but I concur with you:) - it was on the fact that we are hurting our views if we do post to too many groups at once.

To me Tom's answer is quite clear - post your article to a couple of groups and leave it at that! I was just surprised to see that it might actually hurt my article.

Couldn't agree with you more, Lune and Rose!  I think the whole idea of "groups" was for people to connect with similiar interests, which would be a "quality" experience.

Great enlightening post Rose!

Esther - thanks, but I have a feeling you already knew all this good stuff:)

Rose, I have always posted to lots of groups, I figure why join them if you are not going to use them.  If they are specific, of course I post to that one first, I do post to a lot of thing just for points, it says, I have my own group and have about eighty members.  Those I am sure I am going to read and comment on.  I would love to cut down on all that clicking on groups, so might just try that, I remember the first time I wrote a Cinquain, I posted only to that group and was amazed at how many comments I got from that piece and my good friens found it too.  Thanks for this interesting article.

Elsie - your good friends found it, because they probably follow your wonderful writing anyway - but it certainly proves the point - if - the views were better on that Cinquain.

My article is about the impact of views from the outside - for points - we now want to be sure that we do not post to more than one to three groups.

I still love seeing my friend's comments regardless - like I said, I don't enjoy writing in a vacuum.

I have started going through my groups a long time ago.  Like Elsie I don't get why join if you can't post to them or don't. 

Renee - I've actually never deleted a group until now - so it was overdue as there were a lot of abandoned groups with owners who had left gather over a year ago.

Very true way to many

thanks for the insight rose.  lots to think about!!  :)

Michelle - gather is always changing and as a member of the site, I like to understand where it is heading and if possible how to profit and still have my fun and hang out with my friends.

I want my cake and eat it to:)

i hear ya. 

cake?  did you mention cake?

happy gathering.  :)

Thanks for this... I'm going now to clean up my groups, leaving only a few big ones.

I've never belonged to many "post it all" groups anyway, just Arizona John's. I know that he will return comments.

I do the same with my other groups. If the owner doesn't participate much, I remove that group.

Shan - that makes perfect sense to me. I know groups take a lot of work so I hope Tom goes froward with the talked about plans of rewarding group owners with successful groups.

Very interesting article and ensuing conversation.  Thank you, Rose!   I would love to know more about how all this works -- even though I am not on Gather to earn the points.  It's interesting to see which articles get a lot of play outside Gather and which ones don't.  I have one article about the Journals at Big Sur Inn that has nearly 3,000 views.  Makes me wonder ... how did that particle one get so much play?

Thanks for taking the time to share your knowlege!

Linda - yes, I would like to know too. I wonder if there is a way to track and find out how the article ended up with that many views. I have no clue, but I'd like to find more information on this topic.

I am really glad Tom is taking the time to give us some pointers on how to optimize our earnings on gather. In the long run what is good for gather is good for us.

This is a great post Rose. I have been thinking about weeding out most of the unmoderated groups for a while, and I think your post has promted me to do some weeding. (BTW my lettuce is finally growing now....three months or so after being put in the ground:)).

I am a bit sad that it all has to be focused on SEO keywords, but as always I'm sure we will change with Gather. I remember seing that you should not post to anymore than 5 groups at a time.

Thanks for sharing this Rose.

Very informative..I missed that post somehow..I've been clearing out groups due to loss of interest. I suppose I'll go right on clearing now.

Great post, Rose, and I enjoyed reading thru the comments.

BTW somehow you weren't in my friend feed the last few days so I missed this when you published it, that means I missed some photos, too, I am sure, I will have to go see as soon as I get back on here--off for today.

C.L - Thanks - I was pleased to see a lively exchange on this topic. I do think the gather gremlins were at work - my feeds were not working properly either. I'm always glad to see you come by my photos:) and I'll be by to catch up in case I missed anything too.

You've given me a lot to think about.  However, I do agree with some of the points about not dropping groups because it will decrease your visibility in the community.  A lot of my posts are picked up by SEO no matter what I do.  However, I do tend to like groups that are themed and that have active administration, not necessarily moderation.  I like groups where the group owner puts some kind of limits such as removing posts with a certain number of page views so that other content can be viewed.

I am not a member of a whole lot of groups compared to some people and I actually visit a lot of them individually.  I am planning on going through and making sure some of my groups are ones that I actually want to belong to.

 Oh, wow! some people don't read articles all the way thru before they start acting! I hear death  calling for most groups right here, which is a shame. Now, "most" of the groups will have the large figures forconnections, but they will also be the ones Owned by gather it's self... Who wins that way?

Penni - No way, groups are and will remain very much part of why I'm here on gather.

 Possibly true for you, Rose, and for me...but again, I say that many do not read all the way thru before acting. Count how many folk on This thread said they are going to delete groups. Nothing wrong with weeding, such as the abandoned ones, the ones you don't post to on a regular basis.... I had seen one of my two groups go from 112 down to 89 after Tom's post, so I e-mailed to connections and asked them to take selves off so I can kill the group yet retain the name, for future use... Then I noticed today, that other group which had 215 is down a few folk... sigh...

Thanks for the info Rose. I kept thinking I wasn't posting to enough groups, so maybe now I'll be on the right track.

OOh, that image is so beautiful and peaceful!

Also, thanks for this info. I'm still catching up from my small Gather 'hiatus', and this sort of thing is good to know! Luckily, I vastly trimmed down my groups recently. I think I still might pare them down a bit more to be on the safe side, though!

And I'll have to check out Tom's articles at some point.