Why are there so few Best Answers?
-
Why do so many great responses in this forum never get labeled as the "Best Answer". Questioners should realize that many experts give them great advice for free and the least they can do is to show some sort of appreciation by giving a thumbs up.
-
I think that your mention of poetry actually touches on another semi-imporant point... people respond well to humor/informality. Professionalism is all well and good, but at the end of the day, someone with a simple question doesn't want to read through a paragraph and a half of SEO jargon and technical advice.
If you can state something simply, do so. And while you're at it, if you can make them smile while reading, do that too.
-
I never realized the behind the scenes efforts you guys put into this forum. Kudos! Another idea to encourage people to close out their questions and leave feedback is to remind them when they login, that they have X amount of questions that aren't closing and awaiting feedback (like eBay). An email would probably be very effective as well. I wouldn't expect a great response from the initial new answer email as our psyche thinks that someone will come along with a better answer and we wait and forget to come back. and close out the question.
-
Per Keri's response, I have been amazed for some time by the staff at SEOmoz and their desire to see all questions answered. They are amazing, provide their own qualified insights, and when necessary seek out the expertise of others.
As to Irving's why do more not respond with thumbs and best's, I would say that there have been times that I actually thought I wrote such an amazing answer the entire world would thumb it up only to have...nothing happen. But, there have been others where I was just answering the question and the next day had 4 or 5 thumbs up and a good answer. Sooo, go figure.
By the way, I did have one occurrence when I was (probably unjustly) given some quality thumbs up in an answer where I included poetry... No S%$!.
So, if all else fails and you've given your best,don't feel downtrodden and for god's sake don't rest!
Pick up that pen and write more advice, when the thumbs up finally come, its cause your smart and your nice.
Cheers.
-
Thanks for your feedback everyone!We really appreciate hearing how you use Q&A and how you'd like to see it improved.
I do go back at times and ask if people have had their question solved or if they're looking for more help. An automatic way to ask the person this after a certain number of days would be a great feature to have, I agree. Our system does notify people when they get a new answer, and suggests to them to mark an answer helpful.
Even though I don't comment on many of the questions, I do read nearly every question and answer that comes into Q&A. I flag questions that have no answers or questionable answers for another Associate to come and review, I give lots of thumbs up (and an occasional thumb down), and endorse good answers (and need to do that more).
One factor in some of this is that if a person came in on a free trial, asked a few questions and took time to implement them, by the time they figured out if their problem was solved or they needed more help their free trail has expired and they can no longer comment on Q&A questions. When I have extra time, I start looking through questions that are still marked as unanswered that are either 7 or 30 days old, and follow up to see if there is an answer to the question and the OP just didn't mark answered, ask if followup is needed, etc.
Please do continue to give your suggestions here, both for the software system and for the administration. We are looking even if we don't comment, and really do find the feedback helpful.
-
I was thinking along those lines as well. SEOmoz needs to encourage questioners to leave feedback and close out their questions by marking Good Answer. I will reach out to Rand and company.
-
Based on your response, I am thinking that SEOmoz needs to follow up with questioners after a select time period to close out their questions by marking Good Answer to any answers they feel were truly helpful.
-
Hear, hear! I have personally spent an hour on a response, solved someones problem pretty much and they did not even bother to thumb up. Sometimes SEOMoz staff are on point but really, more often than not, it's not the case.
Q&A can be fun, it's good to share, but it's nice to get a thumbs up for your effort. After all, I would rather be at home with my kids than answering a strangers question so... it really should be encouraged to say thank you, it's only polite after all.
My own theory is that often, people ask questions, and whilst you give the right answer, it is not what they want to hear so they don't thumb up, or mark as a good answer as it was not the 'right' answer.
Really, the Q&A needs more admins to reward the people who put the effort into help others.
As a suggestion, a 'you need to leave feedback' type system could help educate users on the etiquete required to drive the Q&A.
-
Questioners also probably aren't as interested in the MozPoint system as they are with just getting an answer.
Additionally, inserting yourself into conversations online can be somewhat intimidating to the uninitiated, and it's possible they choose to maintain as low a profile as possible. Thus, they don't post unless absolutely necessary, and refrain from using the "thumbs up/down" or "best answer" post modifiers.
Just my guess.
Edit: Also, if only the person asking the question can mark an answer as "good," what qualifies them to do so? They were the ones with the question to begin with, so unless they act on some advice, they can't be sure whether or not it will work. So, say they act on the advice and it does work... well, they probably aren't as concerned with coming back to SEOmoz just to give some random person +4 points.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the best semi-professional camcorder? Trying to shoot our own Whiteboard Friday!
I am trying to recreate Moz's Whiteboard Friday but their article on how to do it is from 2012 so the camera they used at the time of the article is no longer sold. Here is the link to the article I am referencing: https://moz.com/blog/tips-for-filming-whiteboard-presentations Any other tips on the best lighting equipment, microphones, etc. for shooting videos is also appreciated!
Moz Pro | | Fiyyazp0 -
Sitemap Best Practices
My question is regarding the URL structure best practices of a sitemap. My website allows search any number of ways, i.e. 1. http://www.website.com/category/subcategory/product 2. http://www.website.com/subcategory/product 3. http://www.website.com/product However, I am not sure which structure to use in the sitemap (which is being written manually). I know that for SEO purposes the 3rd option is best as the link is more relevant to that individual product, but the Moz tool states that the home page should have less than 100 links (although Google doesn't penalise for having more) and by writing my entire site in the 3rd way it would result in a lot more links adjoining to the home page. It is either the 2nd or 3rd option, I think, as the 1st category is not keyword specific (rather a generic term, i.e. novelties). Does anyone have experience with this?
Moz Pro | | moon-boots0 -
I have a new website and would like to use the keywords my competitors are using and was wondering the best way to take a look using Moz Pro?
The website is www.fapwrap.com - it's a new adult wall decals website. [editor's note: may not be safe for some workplaces] The wall decals we have are obviously a bit more niche than the bigger competitors, but I want to get into the first page to see how it helps us. I'm slowly taking over some kws like "xbox wraps" and "ps4 wraps" but those have low search volume and I feel like "wall decals" will help - though it's highly competitive. Suggestions? I just kinda want to plug in my competition and pick from their list of existing kws..... Ha.
Moz Pro | | JohnnyRoq0 -
What's the best way to eliminate "429 : Received HTTP status 429" errors?
My company website is built on WordPress. It receives very few crawl errors, but it do regularly receive a few (typically 1-2 per crawl) "429 : Received HTTP status 429" errors through Moz. Based on my research, my understand is that my server is essentially telling Moz to cool it with the requests. That means it could be doing the same for search engines' bots and even visitors, right? This creates two questions for me, which I would greatly appreciate your help with: Are "429 : Received HTTP status 429" errors harmful for my SEO? I imagine the answer is "yes" because Moz flags them as high priority issues in my crawl report. What can I do to eliminate "429 : Received HTTP status 429" errors? Any insight you can offer is greatly appreciated! Thanks,
Moz Pro | | ryanjcormier
Ryan0 -
What's the best way to keep track of keyword rankings
Here's the deal. I keep track of my keyword rankings with the help of Rank Tracker from seopowersuite.com for the most part. I ran it on a daily basis and my keyword was not in top 100 for a few months. Moz.com panel shows pretty much the same (not in top 50) for the same months. That said, if I check that keyword ranking in my Google Webmaster Tools (avg. position) it says that its position (ranking?) was on average: 49, 7, 7, 8 (for the last four months). So, I'm not sure how it's even possible? How come Rank Tracker and Moz don't see any rankings and Google gives me sorta decent avg. positions at the same time. I assume that avg. postion means that same as avg. ranking, right? I'm not sure what I'm missing here.
Moz Pro | | VinceWicks0 -
What is the best way to set up my seomoz campaign with multiple landing pages
I have 30 geo targeted landing pages under the same domain. So i want to track geo targeting keywords for each landing page. given this what is the best way to use seomoz and how do i set up and structure? example of landing page structure san francisco is - http://www.relationshipcounselingcenter.org nyc is - http://www.relationshipcounselingcenter.org/new-york-city-nyc-marriage-couples-therapy/ dc- http://www.relationshipcounselingcenter.org/washington-dc-marriage-couples-therapy/ etc Much thanks I'm a newbie to seomoz tools
Moz Pro | | sevin0 -
One Follow Link from each subdomain/domain best for SEO?
Hi there, we have a lot of customers linking to our homepage from a subdomain of our domain or from an external domain. From SEO point of view is it best that they all only have one DoFollow Link and the rest of the links are NoFollow? Or does this have no matter at all? The problem is that we have like 900.000 links but only from round about 1000 different root domains. If we put like half of the links on NoFollow our ratio of links/ different root domains gets better. Thanks for answering! Sebastian
Moz Pro | | Sebastian230 -
Is ther any wordpress pluggin to ad a foro question like this blog or like yahoo answers to my site
Is ther any wordpress pluggin to ad a foro question like this blog or like yahoo answers to my site
Moz Pro | | maestrosonrisas0