Scribbles

Been knee deep in some interesting SEO work lately and couldn’t help draw the parallel to the real world. To give some background, SEO means “Search Engine Optimization”. In short, it’s the work behind getting the right webpage to show up for the right search term. For example, to make your personal site show up on top when somebody types “hottest woman alive” into Google, you perform the SEO for it. If you’re smart and persistent enough, it’ll happen. Unless you happen to be Tricia Helfer then you don’t need to do anything.
 
The thing about SEO that I want to talk about though, is the concept of link juice. Don’t worry, this isn’t a technical discourse on Google’s secret sauce. Simply put, it’s a way to measure each website on the Internet relative to each other. The more link juice a site receives, the more important it becomes and therefore it shows up higher on the search results page. This is known as page rank. Examples of high page rank with lots of juice: the NY Times being referenced by millions of blogs and other news sites, or the popular TV host who has over a million followers on Twitter. Both the NY Times and this Twitter page have been voted by others, given props, bestowed by legions with link juice. And the more of it you have, the higher your page rank. See, just like high school.
 
So that was the receiving end. What about the giving end? Google (or Yahoo or Bing) figures that each website has a certain amount of link juice to give. (No worries though, linking out doesn’t hurt a page, after all, a page with no links at all is pretty isolated and boring.) Each outbound link from that site siphons a portion of that allotted link juice. So the more links going out, the less each is worth. In contrast, the fewer the links, the more each is worth, sorta like the difference between sleeping around and getting hitched. Oh, and the higher your page rank, the more valuable your outbound links become. After all, suppose a million people are following Jimmy Kimmel, and he points out so and so website, then that must draw more attention than the same from a blog that nobody reads. Pretty simple concept right?
 
Finally to my point. Recently I can’t stop observing the real world in these terms. Link juice exists in real life, even though it’s much harder to measure than a website. Each person only has so much attention and energy. While some have more than others, the total amount will always be finite. That’s why one must acknowledge that limit and be stingy in sharing his love and attention. Hopefully, some of that link juice comes back. Because if you’re not selective in giving it, not only do you receive very little in return (thus dropping your life rank), what’s given to the people who really matter in your life gets diluted.
 
Life shouldn’t and cannot be based on exchanges. Besides, it’s impossible to measure and therefore can never be equitable. But the quality of attention given and received still matter, all the while affected by the givers and recipients. You don’t want to waste your precious attention on low quality people and you don’t need a million spammy cousins constantly knocking on your door, giving you low quality attention you don’t need. You want to raise the value of yourself and network by keeping your energy closely guarded, to form that powerful ring of quality people.
 
So if you’re no longer getting any link juice from me, either evaluate your own life rank or consider how much juice you’ve given me lately. It’s not personal, life priorities change and geography makes the heart go yonder. You simply don’t show up on my front page anymore, and vice versa. And that’s okay.