Disclaimer: This post has absolutely nothing to do with SEO or even online marketing. You've been warned. Please keep reading to see the awesomeness that is your new profile. *happy dance* :)
Before I jump into the new profiles and what's so great about them. Let's take a look back, a look at the profiles of yesteryear. Back in the day when the profile functionality was created, Twitter didn't even exist yet (I know... WHAT?! There was a life before Twitter?). The profiles were quite simple really, you could only post one link and design wise there was a ton of whitespace.
Old Profile Layout
It is definitely time for an upgrade! So, let's take a look at some of the changes to the profiles.
Lookin' Good
With this redesign you have the ability to show us a lot more information about yourself! You have all the same functionaity you had before, but with a ton of additions. For example, you no longer have to add your Twitter name to the "additional contact info" section, there's actually a place to add you Twitter name! So let's take a look at a few screenshots with some of the changes.
New Profile Layout
More Links + Social Profiles
Not only do we show your community stats but you can see here we have direct links to your social profiles and the ability to add more links! (although only one will have the nofollow removed after 200 points).
Community Stats + Social & Other Links
More Profile Information
Now you get more bang for your buck and can display more information about yourself. Remember that you can earn up to 20 MozPoints for having a fully complete profile.
Profile Information
Comments and Blog Posts
Yea! This is information you had before, but now it's in a much cleaner, prettier format. Plus you get more options to see the post someone commented on and who wrote it. This will make it much easier to navigate around. Below is a screenshot of Casey Henry's latest comments.
Comments & Blog Posts 
Earn MozPoints
Yes, that's right. You can earn MozPoints just for filling out your profile. As you update your profile you'll notice that you points just for filling in simple things like your name, title and bio. Take a look at the screenshot below to see how MozPoints will be added.
MozPoint Changes
Along with the changes to the profile and the upcoming changes to PRO Q&A it made sense to take a look at how MozPoints are calculated, why users would want to gain more and the ways to do that. Take a look at the new MozPoints page for all the details.
Ways to gain points
- YOUmoz - You'll now get 20 points when you get a YOUmoz post published (it used to be 10). Plus if the post makes it to the main blog, you'll get an ADDITIONAL 30 points. Which would give you a total of 50 points just for the post, plus still continue to earn points for every thumbs up and comment received on the post.
- Filling out your profile - More on that above. :)
- Comments - You continue to earn 1 MozPoint for each comment you write and 1 Mozpoint for every thumb up on your comment.
- New PRO Q&A - Right now this is in beta and only 100 users have access, but in the coming months all PRO members will be able to use this forum to ask and answer SEO questions. Free members, you can gain access by reaching over 500 MozPoints. Participating in PRO Q&A is a great way to gain points.
Benefits of having MozPoints
Other than just looking cool, and being at the top of the list, there really are benefits to earning MozPoints. A few of the highlights:
- Earn 200+ MozPoints in one month and you'll be considered for one free month of PRO.
- After 200 Mozpoints your first custom URL in your profile becomes followed. Currently you only need 100 points to get this nofollow, which means there are some members who used to have a followed link and no longer do. I'd encourge you to check out the ways to earn MozPoints above.
- Earn 1,000-1,999 points and you get an SEOmoz T-shirt
- Earn 2,000-4,999 points and you get a MozBot Guru Trophy (more info on this soon)
- Over 5,000 points?? Well we'll find something super-duper awesome for you!
Go Update Your Profiles
Now, stop reading this, and go update your profiles! I want to see new smiling faces and filled out profiles by the end of the day. Go on now, I don't want to have to tell you twice. ;) (Sorry, the mom in me kicks in every now and then). Oh! There is one cookie issue happening when you go to your new profile for the first time. You may get logged out without knowing. So if you try to update your profile and get an error. Try refreshing, logging back in and trying again. You should only have to do this on the first around.
Happy profile updating!
I just updated my profile as well. Now if only I can convince 960 people to click the thumbs up on this comment - free t-shirt!
There's one from me Geordie
Well l don't see a t-shirt in my future, but at least I get a hug from Roger. That's something I guess.
and one from me!
Me too!
I understand the logic but can't do a morning happy dance I'm afraid. Loosing a followed link because the Mozpoints rule has changed does suck a bit to be honest.
Never mind. It'll be back with time.
Yeah...so fun to walk into work in the morning and see that suddenly one of my links is gone. Without any warning (that I am aware of).
I mean, it's one thing to say that in a month or so it'll be harder to get a followed link from your profile, and to encourage people to comment or contribute more.
Is SEOMoz's DA going up? Is that link going to become twice as valuable?
I like SEOMoz, but come on. This is really annoying.
I hear you - it's tough because we recognize that mozpoints are now getting easier to earn (more people voting and thumbing, more areas to contribute, more points for profiles, for YOUmoz posts, etc.) and we're trying to make sure we don't get spammers or folks who are simply here to earn their link but not contribute authentically.
I mentioned years ago, but haven't brought it up in a while - one of the major engines approached me at a conference a few years back and asked for anonymity but said that our rankings/authority would be suffering if we didn't add nofollows to profile pages. We compromised soon after and used the mozpoints system to make it a higher hurdle to clear and prevent spam, but we've still found cases of abuse and some followed links that we probably wish weren't.
I'll see what we can do about keeping it grandfathered in (might not be possible due to how its coded, but if its not a ton of work, we'll see)
Thank you for your comment Rand. To get a response to my concern is mollifying. But...
I understand that you need some kind of quality standard to award a followed link. I'm upset because I respected that standard and didn't try to BS my way to 100 points with "oh great post!" twice a day. I'm not saying I'm a guru whose comments are going to blow people's minds but I tried to put thought into almost every comment I posted. You guys auto-approve comments so sort of off-hand comments do get through.
The other issue I have is that if this is truly a community it would've been nice to see our input solicited a little more strongly. I read this in the post a little ways back about the changes coming:
"Most of the changes you're going to see outlined below actually have one major theme in common, MORE MOZPOINTS!! [Ok I got that out of my system. Whew.] As you'll read below, the new profiles, Q & A and YOUmoz changes are all bringing you more ways to earn mozPoints. At the same time, since we're giving you more ways to earn, we're also making a bit harder and giving you some sweet rewards."
Ok, sounds good. But I didn't read in that "we're doubling the points you need for a followed link and taking away your followed link if you've earned one."
We all know links (esp. quality links) are worth time and money. The "price" of that link just went up without much warning. Is the loss going to destroy my link profile? Of course not. Do I think that link was earned? Absolutely. Grandfathering would be appreciated (I mean that truly, it would be really impressive customer service and I like the suggestion) and IMO makes sense here. I'm in a position where I feel like I have to fight to get something back. That's a different position from someone new going "oh 200 MozPoints, I guess I'll roll up my sleeves and get to work."
I can see your point, but I'd also say that from an SEOmoz perspective and the perspective of a search engine, the greater barrier to entry means a higher quality link (and that's good for anyone who does earn it). We'll take the feedback to heart, though, and think carefully about future changes to existing mechanics on the site. Thanks for the considerate and thoughtful input.
Hi Rand,
Thanks for your comment. I am calm now. :) The responses of yourself and other SEOMoz staffers have gone a long way in addressing my concerns. I agree with your premise that the harder the link is to gain the more valuable it is.
Just don't redesign the site to look like Gawker, and I promise I won't flip my lid again! :P
I can get links cheaper than $79 /month. I hardly think that is why we are here.
MozPoints aren't an exclusively PRO issue.
p.s. Gave you a thumb up to help out :-)
Thank you Rand for the feedback, I've been with SEOmoz for a few years now and often recommend it to others so I'm not going anywhere! I was just a little surprised, I look after smaller more niche sites and in my case one link can and does make a difference. I appreciate that if the system is designed to avoid abuse and gain the respect of search engines (I'm guessing one starting with G in particular from your comments) then it is better for everyone!
@dmccarthy
@gbh
@Rodney
@Riley
@trafx2
@turnon
C'mon gang! The initial purpose of the mozpoints was to put a carrot out there to encourage participation. It's become really easy to gain points these days so they needed to raise the bar a little in an attempt to keep non participators(those whose sole purpose was to get a followed link rather than try to enter into comment conversation in a meaningful way. If having that followed link was that important to you, then just apply yourself to commenting for a few weeks and it'll be back before you can say Jack Sprat ( I learned that old guy saying from Casey Hen. You'll have to ask him what it means.)
To give you an example, just tonight I'll bet I'm up a half dozen points by just jumping into the conversations above. And I didn't do it for the followed link. I don't even have a link in my profile. I don't even have a profile :)
I did it because this place has become my virtual water cooler and since I work solo it's one of the only places I have to hang out with other like minded people.
PS - I'm now going back up the line to give y'all a thumbs up so you can be on your way to 200 faster.
Did the number of points just get raised to 200 for the followed link? I always thought it was 100
You're right Carlos. It was 100 points but has been recently changed to 200. But at the same time, it's become really easy to achieve those extra 100 points. A completed profilegarners points. A YOUmoz post gets you twice as many points nowadays, and if you're really desperate you can always resort to begging like Geordie did here As of this moment he's up 12 points!
A bit unfair raising the bar for 100 to 200 points for nofollow to be removed
I understand that what seems like the point system is being changed arbitrarily, which causes frustration. I promise that this wasn't a light decision--it was meant to reward frequent contributors. We found that there were more ways for people to contribute and it was really easy to get the nofollow links. We want to make sure that those who are engaged are getting great rewards from their participation.
We want the rewards to be attainable; if the point levels were raised too high, we would risk losing engagement... and we certainly don't want that. It's our hope that 200 points is still within reach for everyone!
I for one am VERY disappointed seomoz raised the bar from 100 to 200 points for nofollow to be removed. For writers who are full time SEO it may be fine. But for a non writer like myself doing SEO for my own business it killed my incentive to try to make the break. For example, I was working on an article based on a recent experience I had with SEO that I had hoped to post on youmoz – I still look forward to sharing it, but I will now post it somewhere where I will get link value. Somehow I feel more like an outsider watching an exclusive clique.
I regularly send friends and associates to seomoz because of the high quality free information and free tools. These are people who like myself are doing SEO for their own business/organization. Many of us would love to buy into more of what seomoz offers. However, we cannot afford the full PRO membership (or the 200 point threshold). I believe there is an important market segment seomoz is missing (mid-level SEO practitioners who do not have the time and money for full PRO level participation).
Just FYI - the 200 mozpoints only applies to profile links, not to YOUmoz (so you'd still find just as much value branding-wise, link-wise, authority-wise, etc. from posting there). I think one of our goals here is to remove the concept that folks are here participating merely to earn 100 mozpoints and a followed link. That won't build a great community, nor will it attract great, holistic, web marketers. There's lots and lots of places to spend a little time and get a followed link - but SEOmoz shouldn't be one of them, in my opinion.
I understand the frustration - but I also don't think any of us want a community based on link-gaming or profile links.
I am sorry I was not clear in my post. I don't want seomoz to be "a community based on link-gaming or profile links." Far from it.
I was hoping to make the point that I believe there is a segment of the community seomoz is missing. We do SEO part-time for our own small business/organization. We are serious about quality white hat SEO (we are in it to build our business/organization for the long haul). We really appreciate the quality of the free advice and free tools (and we tell our friends about seomoz). We do not spam your blog with "great post" comments to build up mozpoints. We would like to buy some of the PRO tools some of the time but cannot afford $99/mth. ($1,188/yr). We would like to earn the first mozpoint reward level for participation in your community but we do not have the time to earn 200 points (a great nofollow link is a nice reward because good links are very tough for little guys to get). For me 100 points was "maybe" - 200 points is "don't bother."
I was trying to help you see what I see as an opportunity for seomoz! If I wanted to turn seomoz into "a community based on link-gaming or profile links" I would just send "great post" comments (4 comments x 50 weeks = 200 points in less than a year).
Already doing... as I discovered the change just before you posted this ;)
Good... sometimes (as I was going to do), I link to my SEOmoz profile as a reference when someone ask about me, and this new profile is very much better to show to others too :)
Ah! I really like I can go backward in checking my own comments (I think you all know why... so don't laugh at me ;) )
P.S.: what the hell is the MozBot Guru Trophy? Are you going to send me Roger at home :)))
As normal, you were the first to notice this. ;) Although... the profiles had been live for about 3 hours before anyone noticed (or anyone tweeted about it I should say). :)
And regarding the MozBot Trophy... you just wait and see. :D
I agree with gfiorelli1 - these profiles make for much better reference material. Thanks for making us look good!
Gianluca, you can atually be considered as an unofficial mascot of SEOmoz which lives in comments thread :)
So don't be suprized if they'll send you a Trohpy of yourself. LOL
Unofficial Shmunofficial. I nominate Gianluca as the official El Presidente of the SEOmoz community. Anybody else second that nomination?
...and Jen will be sort of First Lady? :)
Now THIS I can stand behind. Gianluca, el presidente!
Well... we already have an SEOmoz mascot. I think Roger MozBot might be upset if we took that away from him. :P
And Roger is surely more "attractive" the me... please, just imagine me dressed up like a zombie as he was on Halloween... nope.
SEOmoz rocks!
Been a member for some quite time and just reached the 100 mozpoint mark. Oh well, i'm guessing my profile never even got spidered since the no follow was removed. In time i'll reach the 200 mark but i'm not too worried about it. If one SEOmoz link is going to make or break my rankings then I have some bigger concerns. ;)
Love it! I just updated my profile to 100% completeness.
Very cool indeed, and you just can't stop until the thing is completed.
Great job!
Thank you, You have just reminded me that I have not updated my profile...
Warm regards
Magento Templates
Really liking the new profiles, much more clearer and for me, it seemed easier to update information in one go.
Also, a good way to earn 20 Moz Points when you fill your profile out fully ;-)
Well, the new profile does look better.
Love the new profiles -- especially glad that you finally added a place for Twitter, had been using the AIM area for my handle!
Ha you and me both :) I was also happy to see it got it's own little home.
Nice! Looks great - I just filled out my profile.
5,000 points = Dinner with Jen? :)
I dunno Richard. I think Rudy might be less than thrilled at having his wife out at dinner with George Clooney
What, Clooney is here? Wow!
Ok, how about lunch at the Mozcamp?
Haha Richard I should probably tell you though, but let's keep this a secret... I am not the "real" JLo. I know.. *sad face*! ;)
You are the JLo of search :)
"Jenny from the C-Block" if you will ;)
LOL Yes, much more appropriate : )
OK, so I'm fully updated - never really saw the point in the past but do like the new layout, and it's even prompted me to make my first comment - definately a big improvement, well done!
Might even prompt me to put my hand in my pocket and get a paid membership....
Let's not get too carried away ;-)
Steve, I shall take you on as a personal challenge, and continue to bombard you with the cool things we are pushing out until one day... just one day... you grab that wallet ;) ha
Did you end up signing up for a free trial? I love feedback in general, but I'd love to hear especially from our community members that are still hesitating on our software :) hit me up if you have time! [email protected].
I didn't even know I had a public profile! Let alone mozpoints and the chance to get a followed link!
Christmas has truly come early!!! :)
Oh and I think the mozpoints system is a great way to incentivize involvement in the community - I'm already learning much more purely through knowing that I'm rewarded for my involvement.
its finally here after months of waiting ;)
a few funny things though - I remember Rand bemoaning the fact a few years back in a talk that he could never get his linkedin profile to 100%, but I managed to get my seomoz profile that high in 3 minutes.
you guys should totally make 100% not possible!!
Also - what are your user ranking levels based on mozpoints, you should publish that to give your users something to aspire to ;)
Same thing! 100% in 3 minutes! Hooray!
So I went to change my "nickname" but then I realized that was my user name and so it'd be tough to change that. Then I figured, sure, displaying my full name is ok and then I thought...
SEOMOZ is going to be the top result for my (uncommon) name!
Edit: Also, during the profile update it looks like Dr. Pete changed genders and names? Amazing!
Hah! Well I wanted to use different people's profiles so it wasn't all just one. I didn't realize it was going to look like I changed Dr. Pete's gender on him. oops! Now he's really going to think I hate him. haha
I can't believe I have to have a twitter account to get 100%. I know all the real SEOs have one but its too mainstream for me.
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to leave 5 more comments to make up the difference.
Level mozPoints BenefitsAspirant 0-49 A smileContributor 50-199 A hug from RogerJourneyman 200-999 "Nofollow" is removed from the first custom URL on profileAuthority 1,000 - 1,999 SEOmoz TShirtGuru 2,000 - 4,999 mozBot Guru TrophyOracle +5,000 Something really special!
This was from the mozpoints page
5000 points? Danny Dover didn't even have that many points after working at SEOmoz for over 3 years. In fact, 4 out of the top 10 SEOmoz members listed are ex-employees, and only 2 have 5000+ points. That doesn't make me want to participate; that just makes me want to not even try. P.S. Why did you guys get rid of the draggable comment box? I relied on that heavily, back when I was actively commenting on SEOmoz. P.P.S. My profile layout is broken in FF.
Wow no SEOmofo? So the 5,000 limit doesn't have a gift next to it because it's obviously super difficult to achieve. It's not as if we don't give ANYTHING away until 5,000 points or something. Come on.
Regarding the comment box, it was changed when we redesigned the pages and yes we get lots of complaints and yes it's in the queue to be fixed. :) As for your profile, it looks like you've pushed the limits. I already submitted a ticket to fix handling of the forms when the limits are pushed more than the layout should handle. Thanks for doing that, and I used your profile as the guinea pig. :)
I'm all for whatever it takes to get you actively commenting again Darren. Being the Duke of Snark your lack of comments have been sorely missed.
Darren...I am with GoodNewsCowboy on this. More snark FTW! Hmmm maybe we should look into giving out awards for "snarkiest member" or actually maybe we should go old school and give out a bunch of random superlatives. I'd like to be nominated for Shortest at the MozPlex, but I don't think I'm actually the shortest. Okay I am rambling now...
Either way I'm all for more comments from you Darren, they make my day :)
Awww...what a nice thing to say. You're officially my favorite Mozzer! No...seriously...check my profile. ;)
Darren please read our Blog Etiquette & Disclaimer:
Misrepresentation
You shall not misrepresent yourself or take on the identity of someone else while using this service. If you feel that someone has misrepresented your identity on the site, please email us ([email protected]) and we'll look into it straightaway!
It is not ok to use that photo, please remove it immediately.
Call me a stick-in-the-mud, but I'm not a huge fan of snarkiness. I usually find it's just being clever and mean (which, I suppose, is better than being dumb and mean, but still). TAGFEE and snark don't get along well together in my view, and there's so many other places on the web and in the search marketing community where snarkiness is more accepted and valued. I'd like to think of SEOmoz as a refuge of professionalism, fun and empathy.
You're right Rand. snarkiness is a very fine line with mean spiritedness on one side and humour on the other. The kind of snarkiness I enjoy reading is along the lines of Lisa Barone. But I'm a total believer in the TAGFEE precepts these days and and when I comment I really try hard to balance humour with pathos. Sometime I'll erase a paragraph that took awhile to write 'cuz it doesn't "feel" right.
Oops, it looks like there are quite a few s at the end of your bio. If you delete those you should be good to go! We'll add some way to ignore them in a future release. Thanks for the feedback!
So let me get this straight... You're trying to tell me my profile layout is broken...due to my excessive use of non-breaking spaces? Outrageous!
Miranda I'm pretty sure Darren put those there on purpose. Thanks for helping us test Darren. :P
It's way cool what t'all are doing to increase the sense of community Jen. It bodes well for all of us members. The moz is my most favorite place online to hang out at daily (or close to daily). It's my virtual watercoooler and I really enjoy being a part of the community.
I have one item on my wish list: it's to be able to get access to my profile in a single click from the right sidebar the way we used to be able to a few iterations ago. (Not complaining just wishing :)
I'd like to sign you up as a beta tester to test everything before it goes live so we can just fix it before it goes out. :)
I'd happily be a beta guineau pig. I'm sure dev would hate it as I only use Opera to browse :)
This is brilliant.
I love that you've actually taken the time to look into this for us mozzers. As someone who spends at least 10 hours a week on this website it's great to be part of the celebration of progress(i.e reaching 10k) and it's due to things like this that you're all growing so fast.
Great job! I just can't stop thinking about all the new links SEOmoz is getting from this!
Wait... are we ALL girls on our new profiles?!
What do you mean
I mean Dr. Pete looks good on his new profile.
Your what itches?
Yeah, Benjamin. You're new name is Annie. I hope you like it!!
Tomorrow,
tomorrow.
The hormone treatments are really working!
The new profile is great, but I can't help but feel like there's a message here - Dr. Pete = Old and Gross. Thanks, Jen ;)
I'm well confused.
Only you Benjamin. Only you :)
Love everything about the new profile, your incentive system works incredibly well. Well done!
Oh god... just saw that in the old profile they used Dr Pete and in new one Miranda.
Well done on subliminal work :)
Now that I think about it, I haven't seen Dr. Pete since Miranda joined the copmpany... Wow! Dr. Pete is looking good these days!
"What happened, Lois? Superman? Just now?! Wow, why do I always miss him?"
Love the new profiles. I totally agree with comments I read about posting a page that would us know the level cutoffs. One suggestion I think would be pretty cool would be to some how grab our websites favicons (or be able to upload them). Obviously not a huge thing but I think it would be cool. But overall great job, can't wait to see what the rest of the year has in store. Also I guess I'll to start commenting more, maybe even write a YOumoz post. I was half way to that followed link and the bar suddenly got raised.
We've got just the thing: https://www.seomoz.org/dp/mozpoints (it's linked to from where it says "mozpoints" on everyone's profile)
Hi! Thanks for the feedback. We are actually planning on pulling in favicons for the custom URLs in the next round of updates. Glad to see there is interest in that!
How about adding "My Profile" somewhere next to "My Account" or "My PRO Dashboard" in the top right corner on the page? Maybe for the next couple of days?
Hi Sebes, great idea!! We're actually launching a Nav refresh near the end of the month. Easier access to your profile will definately be a part of that. : )
I was wondering how to change my profile picture the other day and couldn't find. This time I did with the new version!
Also, the "Favorite Topic" is a realy good idea to ask your crowd what they are interested in.
By the way, did you mean : "After 200 Mozpoints your first custom URL in your profile becomes *followed*."?
Also, wouldn't it be fair to allow company urls for linkedin?
Ooh yes! I did mean followed. :) I updated the post, thanks for the catch!
Thanks for the feedback about company URLs for LinkedIn. That's something we'll definately put on the list of feature updates!
Gaming mechanics? Now they've discovered my secret weakness, Ill be trapped here forever!
Ah, just tried. Says my name is already taken when I try save my changes and refuses to save. hmmm
Hm, are you having issues with the nickname field or the full name field?
Thank you remider, I have updated my profile, I would like to mention one thing, during profile update.. I have been kicked out several times and I had to relogin again and again.. I tried with chrome and firefox browser.. both browsers having same issue,. so is it just me or any other fellow member noticed this?
regards
CNM Online
Hi! This is a known issue (mentioned in the post), check out the comments above for a fix.
Thank you, just worried is it me or everybody, Thanks for your prompt reply
regards
CNM Online
I think it's only affecting a few folks. Most have been able to update without issue (hopefully that will be "everyone" soon)
I love this new profile.
Have a few sugegstions for you though:
Facebook URLs, Skype, some other standard IM could be added to the contact info as dedicated boxes rather than 1 box for all of them.
ANd hope you can get some manpower into moderation queues for youmoz. You definitely need it.
Thanks for the feedback! We actually decided not to add all of those because we didn't want to weigh down the profiles with too much information. We picked the top two people put in their old bios and allow for more links to be added. So if you wanted to add those profiles you could. :)
Regarding YOUmoz, you're right. Right now it's just me, and I work hard to get one post up each day. I'd love to get two up and starting in a couple weeks I'll have someone helping me. I know it can be a long process, but once a post is approved and published, hopefully it's been worth it!
Jennita,
Appreciate your reply. I think that youmoz is a community which has the ability to take SEOMOZ to the next level considering that you have a decent member count. I am sure atleast 10% of that contributes to youmoz.
I have sent you a PM (personal message) since I didnt want to write that in the comments section. I am sure that facebook URL is equally popular among peers these days.
Hey Saibose,
Just wanted to say we appreciate your feedback on this. Jen has been working so hard to keep on top of the many contributions, and she has done an absolutely AMAZING job at publishing as many YOUmoz posts as she can get up. You guys just write so much great content -- and you are totally write this is a part of our community we are both thankful for and aware of it benefits for all parties involved!I know Jen is working on ways to bring on more help in YOUmoz, and she is absolutely on top of it. We here at the MozPlex really appreciate your patience as we continue to streamline the process. In the meantime I will keep feeding Jen coffee, but honestly not sure she can work longer hours... the lady has already pitched a tent under her desk... which is next to my desk...so that is awkward ;)
Thanks again for the feedback we are on it!
Hi Joanna,
Thanks for the reply. I am sure that Jen is a very very busy lady. I have been a community manager myself and I know how many long hours the lady must be putting in.
I think you must ask Jen about what I PMed her. You will realise that there is no sarcasm or negative feedback involved there.
I just hope Jen gets a big vacation sometimes (Rand Gillian and the higher management at mozplex, are you listening?). That lady needs it.
oh boy, oh boy... gotta write some cool posts to boost my MozPoints and get that T-shirt :)
Nice! We will put one aside in your size ;) White or blue? :)
Can I have Rand sign it up for me ? :)
Well, finally the new profile arrived:D I like what you did. It's good that you offer now more information for each user (if he completes the profile). It helps the other users to see what others are interested in and it helps in increasing the community and better comunicate one with each other
Last week you gave away 1 month free sunscription for new members and i think it is a great way to attract new customers. But why do the "old" customers not get a present , for example a link with nofollow.
It feels like iwhen cancel a newspaper subscription and after this you get a call , ooooh please keep a member i can do you this offer (most of the time much lower then regular subscription)
Why do they do this in advance ?
About the new Seomoz points it feels the same , new menbers get a lot for nothing and old customers must really work hard for getting a nofollow
Please think about it and for the readers please vote thumb up !
Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of the new changes. But this just reminds me of having to deal with the cable company. You're a customer for two years, your bill comes, and it's $90 a month, but a new customer can get internet, DVR, cable, for $40 a month. Then in the future, free members will be able to gain access to the PRO forums without paying? The forums are one of the primary reasons we have a paid membership. I can't help but admit, I'm frustrated. And I see I got my first thumb down ever above for expressing that. Great.
That's good feedback and I can definitely empathize. I've observed a lot of the same thing at other web communities I'm part of - attracting new contributors often gets prioritized. What I would say, though, is that these features are not just bait to get new people here - they're meant to reward long time contributors (in addition to the already-nice rewards of posting an entry on YOUmoz and earning the attention/links/awareness or becoming known in the community through comment contributions on the blog).
This is also meant to help everyone here to better "show off" who they are, what they do, their social profiles, etc. For longtime members, the point rewards are more easily within reach, and the presence you've got from contributing comments/posts/etc. flows link juice back to your profile, making it more valuable/visible in the engines' eyes.
I'd also just say that attracting new folks here makes the community more valuable for everyone and gives extra benefits to those who've been here a long time (as you gain that natural perception of authority that comes with age). I know, for example, when I joined many SEO forums in 2002-2004, I looked up heavily to the long-time members.
I'll also look into getting something special for folks who've been longtime contributors here (perhaps some type of visual notation on your badge/profile). I'm emailing the team and will get back to you.
I am really pleased that you decided to remove the followed link I had earned and now want to make me do more stuff to get it back. I am even happier you took away my high ranking profile page and replaced it with this. Yeah great move.
Sorry to be late to the party, but I don't get to read the blog as often as I like, so I have to go back each time and figure out what I missed!
I think the much more professional appearance of the public profile will encourage me to point more people to it (realizing that was the point, of course) but will also make it more pleasant to stalk Mozzers I admire. ;)
As for the whole "no-follow" debacle, I don't post enough to weigh in. But I will say I learn as much from my peers, reading the comments, as I do from the main article, many times. So whatever your motivation, please keep posting!
I have filled out my profile completely now thanks to this post.
Looks quite nice and fresh, made me update my profile info just now :-) Too bad you have to have a LinkedIn account for the complete points...
Totally awesome, Jen! Do like... LOADS.
So much, my English has gone all naff.
By the way... For some WEIRD reason, my profile picture reverted back to my old one (before I went all black & white)... Any idea why that happened? I've updated it again now to a more recent one, but that's still fairly odd.
Great changes, they looks easier to read and even beauty to see :)
Love the new profiles great work yall!
The new profiles rock. Great work and certainly very incentivizing to become more active within the community :)
This is so so Mozerrific!
Just wondering if this is a custom built reward system or did you implement an established third party product? I'm on the look out for a good community reward or badge system to implement into some future sites so would love it if you shared any details.
Big improvement! Great job!
My need for "100% Complete" on online profiles... difficult to resist...
Addictive, right? It's kind of like the need to get your inbox down to zero! At least, it is for me...
I must admit I never bothered to add anything to my old profile...
Updated this one to 100% in just a few minutes. Looks impressive (I mean the new view, not the picture of me! :))
I love the new profiles, they look great! Much easier to keep organised and definitely in line with the new presentation and usefulness that SEOmoz is focused on (the new Q&A is fantastic as well).
This is probably more of a 'special request' than anything, but is there any chance of having the option of displaying a company LinkedIn page instead of an individual's? I realise you want to keep things personal, but our account is used by multiple people. - Jenni
We're doing some work on handling multiple accounts that access the same PRO data. We hope to have something rolled out in the next 4-6 months, at which point, you can all use individual accounts.
We'll also think about company LinkedIn profile - realizing now that the current format doesn't allow for that.
Yep, there are a couple of requests for the group LinkedIn profile page. It's definately going on the list of profile feature updates. Thanks for the feedback!
Hmmm. No other complaints reported yet, so may just be me... but every time I try to update my profile, I'm booted out and asked to log back in. Just an FYI.
Hi! Actually yes that is a known issue (mentioned at the end of the post). There is an issue with the cookie so the best thing to do is to open your profile in one tab, then open another tab and log in there. Once you're logged in there you should be able to update your profile. After you've done that once, hopefully it won't happen again.
We're working to fix the problem so you guys don't have the issue the first time you go to edit your profile, but there probably won't be a fix until tomorrow. Sorry about that!
Clearly didn't read closely enough. Opening up in the two tabs worked a treat!
***
Edit: actually, take that back. It worked, but then next time I tried to update it kicked me out again. Just adding this for others who may update their profile in a few goes, better to get it in in one, rather than having to log in with the second tab continually :)
Snazzy!! There's goes my productivity for the next hour....
Not to spark a paid link discussion, but if you were to remove the nofollow for pro members, would that be a paid link?
Yeah - we'd thought about it, but given how closely search engine folks read this site, it probably pays to be as uber-white-hat as possible with everything we do around linking in or out.
Hi Jen,
The new profile looks really great. Is dinner with you at 5,000 points the confirmed prize? :)
Excited to update my profile. Thanks.
haha Believe me the big prize will be a lot better dinner with me!
It will be dinner with Jen... in space!!!
I'm getting an error.
When I try to edit my profile and save it, I get an alert telling me that "something went wrong" and it redirects me to the login page?
Any ideas guys?
Hey Paul! Sorry about that, it's a known issue actually (mentioned in the blog post) check out this comment above for a fix. Thanks!
Ah yes, probably should read the post properly rather than skim read it, huh!
Thanks!
No worries! :D Several people missed it. I now know how well ya'll read my posts. ;)
sweet! (+1 point)
For those ones complaining because now are needed 200 mozPoints instead of 100 to have the link followed, I think it is logical if we think to the followed link prize as a first thank you for being active and useful to the community with comments, Q&A (as beta tester I can say that the new Q&A version apart from very useful for knowledge is also a mozPoint turbo booster), youMozzing, etc. etc.
Personally I think it is good, in order to provoke a bigger interaction and dialogue and discussion in mozLand.
Honestly, with the 100 mozPoint limit it was quite easy to "gain" the followed link from SEOmoz (I mean, SEOmoz: DA=86) just with comments like "Wow, I really like your post"...
it's not exactly a stretch to get to 200 either. Just means you have to keep "wow this is the best thing ever, its like a double rainbow" on your clip board that bit longer to paste into comments.
The change would seem to encourage more spamming of that nature. I know I tried hard to avoid comments like that. So I didn't make as many comments as I could have. Now I'm basically starting over.
I don't know if it really promotes spamming much more than the previous bar set at 100. If your only goal is to achieve 200 thumbs up to get a followed link you probably need to review your link building strategy! ;)
However, I do agree with you about having resisted from posting 'simple compliments' on this blog in order to avoid thumb padding, even though it is nice to sometimes just say: "nice post, thx for the info"
No, it's not my entire strategy. But it's not good customer service to take something away (at least without an explanation). This isn't just me being a crank. See: the theory of loss aversion.
It just seems a little inconsistent. Was 100 now 200, what next 500? Is there a rule being applied or is 200 fixed?
200 is fixed. As I noted above, the big reasons are around the easier ability to get mozPoints (you can grab 20 right now just by updating your profile) and the larger community (meaning more voters and votes, but also more potential spam and manipulative activity/profile links). I recognize there's some frustration on this, and we know it's not ideal for everyone, but it's also not a much higher bar, particularly considering the new opportunities to earn points and the need to keep the bar high enough to make it valuable (if we had lots of spam links in profiles, Google/Bing certainly wouldn't treat those votes as very valuable and everyone would lose out).
Makes total sense. Of course everyone wants the link to remain valuable. I just a) didn't know we were at a point of major dilution and b) would've appreciated an explanation beforehand that this was happening, and why.
"you are a really valuable customer and we are rewarding you as such, but because other potential customers might devalue your value we going to devalue you for your own good."
Then pros should have a different bar? I just reached 100 and was happy to have my followed link. Then out of the blue, sorry, we just yanked that from you! AND changed the URL to the profile so previous inbound links are broke (unless the old was 301ed).
The point I have is the taking away, not making it harder for new members. What's next, my pro membership moves to $99 instead of $79?
I think that you will have your link being a followed one again soon, as you partecipate the right way and gain points because of your valid partecipation.
About the 79 $ moving up... no, I don't think it is going to come a change like that. I know that there are some histoical moz members that are still paying 29$ (or so).
I was just venting a bit, sorry :(
If you're paying $79, you're paying $79 - it's not going up Richard! Sorry to hear about your link, but you'll get it back soon! You definitely contribute enough to not have to worry about that.
How did I miss this post... Anyways, I hope we see some new changes in mozpoint system, the system is getting older, and so I am getting bored of it... though am climbing the ladder of mozpoints gradually...
What type of suggestions do you have for the MozPoint system?
It just seemed like an odd request, since no one else has ever had an issue with it. Cool. Cool. Not cool.
The guidelines have changed and we take them seriously. I'm not kidding, change the photo or you're going to get banned.
Done.
Not cool. Expect an email.
Thanks for making it snazzy.
Jen, I gave this post a thumbs down--not because it's a bad post, but because I was wondering why the SEOmoz home page doesn't show thumbs down. ;)
The homepage is cached, so thumbs will update only every few hours there (much more directly on the URLs themselves). This helps make the page load faster, rather than needing to directly query the thumbs DB on every request.
Yeah, I figured it was a caching issue. I tried thumbs up and thumbs down--neither affected the home page count. I suppose I should leave it toggled up then.
Thanks for letting me know! I've thumbed you down for ignoring my request to change your photo. ;)