hollaur

Just had, what I think, is a pretty legit idea... (Scroll to the last two sentences if you just want to read the idea)

Backstory I often wonder how many LinkedIn "thought leaders" become so popular, when just about every post is basic, offering common sense, useless pieces of super basic information.

Honestly, the only reason I followed a lot of these people is just so I can laugh at them, and save their content for later...

I have a Notion database filled with examples of terrible content (and Google search results) that I just keep adding to.

One day, I'll make it public. I plan on calling it the "Influencer Watch List" -- that's where these thought leaders start. Then once confirmed their illegitimate, they'll move onto my "Influencers' Most Wanted" List.

Anyway, I'm willing to be that most of these influencers, who share these super basic posts with useless information, grew to where they are through fake engagement pods, which gave me a really good idea yesterday.

To level the playing field, what if people, who share good content or are just over this type of content too, banded together and created our own reverse engagement pods, where we click "not interested" on bad LinkedIn posts?!

Thoughts?!

I always wonder why Forbes ranks in Google so much when it's notoriously terrible content, and then I saw a Twitter thread today, which made me think about it again.

I know Forbes has a high DA, but everyone knows most of their content is a total joke -- usually by selfish, unpaid contributors, or worse, members of the paid Forbes Council, which anyone can join. There are no journalistic standards there either even content by their "reporters" is often factually wrong or misleading, saying they spoke to sources they didn't, etc.

Google has the "helpful content standards" guidelines, which their algorithm supposedly revolves around, and I understand the ranking signals pretty well. What I don't understand is why Google keeps ranking this site in spite of them totally violating and ignoring these guidelines.

Does domain authority trump everything this much?

And lately, I've noticed Forbes (and similar sites, like CapitalOne) are starting to target keywords that are in completely different niches, and almost immediately they outrank authoritative, dedicated niche sites with good content.

Can anyone help me understand why this is happening, AND more importantly, do you think Google will ever put their foot down on Forbes in the [near] future by penalizing them or something - like how Google blacklisted JC Penney back in the day?