#im not interested in arguing about this but in the small likelihood that this is a good faith ask by someone who does not understand WHY
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scrumpster · 8 months ago
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"Pr0shippers this one ain't for you. You're not "cringe" you're just writing pedo and incest porn, which makes you not "cringe" but a "terrible person". Hope that helps"
Sorry blud, but adding that to your cringe culture is dead post isn't gonna destroy cringe culture. It's just gonna cause more hatred against proshippers.
Take a look at this kitty.
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I would like people who draw porn of children to be hated and bullied off the internet. or eaten alive. either is fine. do you know what the paradox of tolerance is? cool, anyways I think theres a pretty clear line between "perpetuating cringe culture" and "criticizing people for writing rape porn" and im disturbed at how many people are conflating these sentiments.
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anxious-allie-ren · 3 years ago
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Miscalculation
Hey cuties! So, I have started writing fanfiction! I have been posting on both AO3 and Wattpad. Both links are in my linktree in my bio! But, I’d like to share my first one-shot here. Let me know what you all think!
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Let's be honest, The Finalizer is boring.
Not a, "Oh, it's a calm day with nothing to do, kind of boring." But more like, "I'm trapped on a steel death ship in the vacuum less mass of space" kind of boring.
Okay maybe that's because you are trapped. You have been trapped for what feels like months. In reality, it's been a few weeks and you're really close to going insane.
It was a small error that landed you here. A tiny miscalculation that landed you on the path of Snoke's little apprentice. Should you have double checked to make sure you had enough fuel to get back to D'Qar? Yes. Did you? No. Instead you waste your credits on some shitty fried food at the docking station on Coruscant and take off. This leaves you stranded on Jakku. Luck was clearly on your side that day because this was the exact day Snoke's dog sent his bitches out on a mission. There you are, in your X-Wing with what seems like the biggest bullseye on you.
It doesn't take them long to sniff you out. You're ripped out of the cockpit by a knight in an all black mask with long shields placed on either side. The knight drops you to the ground and you can immediately see you're outnumbered. Six large armored men have circled you. Okay, so the blaster you're pointing at the one who man-handled you probably wasn't going to do shit. But that doesn't stop you from holding your ground.
"I am not afraid to shoot. I will blast you all right now."
This earns a chuckle from the group. That first knight speaks up.
"You're stranded on this sand pile with no fuel. I doubt you have enough plasma to shoot half of us."
You huff at his comment but stand your ground, keeping the blaster pointed at him.
"Trudgen, just grab her and let's get back to the mission. Master can decide what to do with her."
You take note of that fucker's name as two of the other knights haul you up by your arms roughly. You're dragged to the ugliest ship you've ever seen in your life and thrown in a dingy compartment.
"We'll be back rebel scum. Don't try anything." Trudgen said as he placed your blaster on his belt. Not like he has enough weapons strapped to his body or anything. You roll your eyes and try to sit in a spot that isn't covered in dust.
"No promises."
And that's how you ended up on the Finalizer. You made the journey here hell for the knights. You did eventually learn the rest of their names after eavesdropping on their conversations. When you arrived Vicrul and Ap'lek placed your hands in binders and led you to an interrogation room. After you were strapped into the interrogation chair the knights made their way to leave.
"Uh, excuse me? Where the fuck are you guys going? You can't just strapped me in to this stupid chair, way too tightly might I add, and then leave without saying anything!"
Vicrul and Ap'lek share a look and then turn towards you.
"We aren't the ones interrogating you, scum. Master is interested in you." Vicrul says, shrugging his shoulders.
"I have no idea why. Not much to be interested in." Ap'lek mutters as he turns to leave again.
You rolled your eyes as both knights leave the room. So you would be getting the honor of meeting Snoke's apprentice. Wonderful. From what you learned being in the Resistance, Kylo Ren was an overgrown toddler with a laser sword. So the likelihood of you coming out of this interrogation alive was small.
You probably sit strapped to that stupid chair for hours before Commander Ren decides to stroll on in. He comes through the door swiftly, feet pounding on the ground loudly. He stops in front of you and gives you a quick once-over. The mask finally meets your eyes.
"Are we just going to stare at each other? Or are we going to get this over with?"
Kylo ball his hands into fists and begins to circle the interrogation chair.
"I don't think you are in any position to ask questions right now. What were you doing on Jakku?"
"Your little boy band didn't fill you in already? I got stranded on that shitty planet. Didn't exactly go there by choice."
He stops in front of you again.
"And why did you get stranded?"
You immediately think back to your little error. You feel even more stupid looking back on it. Admitting to it is not something you were looking to do right now. What the fuck was the point of this? Was he really just going to ask you trivial questions? You figured Snoke would have taught him better than this if he's really so powerful.
Kylo leans down quickly, grabbing the sides of the chair by your head. The sudden movement makes you jump, wrists smacking against the restraints.
"I can hear all of your thoughts. It would be wise to watch what you think. Now answer the question."
Of course he can hear your thoughts. He's a fucking force user. Rookie mistake on your part really. But the idea of him actually hearing every thought you think does unnerve you.
"I ran out of fuel. Had to make an emergency landing, okay? Is that answer good enough for you?"
Kylo finally leans back up. He stares down at you and even though he's wearing that stupid fucking mask you can just tell he's got a judgemental look on his face.
"What kind of pilot runs out of fuel?"
You begin to argue back but he stops you.
"Not a very good one. A good pilot would have checked that they had enough fuel to get to their next destination. A good pilot wouldn't have spent all of their credits."
"Listen you fu-"
"A good pilot would have landed near a fueling station, not in the middle of nowhere. But I guess that's my point. You aren't a good pilot. Another useless member of the Resistance. So breaking you down is going to be easier than I thought."
All you could do was stare at him. He read your thoughts. He already knew everything. He wanted to embarrass you, make you feel small. It worked for a second. But if you were going to die today, you weren't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing your embarrassment.
You square your jaw and look right into the eyes of his mask.
"That's where you're wrong, buddy."
Kylo leans down so his mouthpiece is by your ear and whispers, "We'll see about that, little one."
He stands back up and stomps out of the room quickly. Leaving you feeling shocked, angry, and oddly aroused.
____________________________
So to everyone's surprise you did not die that day. Instead Kylo had you placed in a cell and that's where you've been for weeks. Stormtroopers come and feed you or take you to a refresher to bathe. Commander Ren has stopped by a few times since your original meeting. Nothing much has come of those ones either. Mostly him staring at you and asking trivial questions. Which just agitates you.
You can't seem to figure him out. He hasn't asked anything regarding the Resistance. What is the point of keeping you prisoner if he isn't going to get any useful information from you? It doesn't sit well with you.
When he doesn't visit you're left alone. Staring at the same four walls does get boring eventually. You've taken to sitting near the door and trying to listen to the stormtroopers conversations. Sometimes bucket heads spill some interesting tea. You learned last week that General Hux once got a boner after getting choked by the Commander.
That's what you're doing currently. Listening to the chatter when you suddenly hear the distinct pounding of boots. The last you knew, the Commander was away on a mission with the knights. As the footsteps draw closer you move quickly to your feet and back away from the door. Kylo strides through the door, chest heaving and fists clenched. You can feel the anger rolling off of him. So you're guessing his little adventure didn't go so well.
His hand flies up quickly, using the force to choke you.
"How many times do I have to tell you to watch your thoughts?"
Okay, so he heard you. You really gotta work on monitoring that. Wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a toddler tantrum.
Just as the thought crosses your mind you're dragged across the floor towards Kylo. Your toes just barely touching the ground as you move. His hand wraps around your throat and he leans his masked face down into your own.
"I've given you far too many warnings. Now you're going to be punished."
Your eyes go wide as you look up into the soulless mask. This is it. This is where you die. You're going to die at the hands of this fucker and even worse, you're turned on.
Kylo spins you around and pins you to the wall. He kicks your feet apart using his boot, shoving his knee between your legs. You feel his thigh rub against your core. It takes all your self control to stop yourself from grinding down on it. He can feel the arousal pouring from your body.
He pulls his hand from your neck and leans back.
"I'm afraid you're enjoying this too much, little one."
You take a deep breath to steady yourself, to no prevail of course. You can feel your heart hammering in your chest. But the anger from this whole situation has begun to build. You're sick and tired of being in this cell. You're enraged by his trivial fucking questioning. And now, he's teasing you. You've had enough of it. You are not going to be his toy.
"I'm not enjoying anything. Im stuck in this stupid cell guarded by bucket heads. You've done nothing but ask me useless fucking questions. What is the point of this? Why keep me around if I have no use?"
You watch as he reaches up quickly and yanks the mask off. You weren't sure what you were expecting. But it wasn't that. When you imagined the Commander of the First Order, you pictured some burnt deformed old man. Not a hot ass guy with perfect fucking hair.
He throws the mask off to the side and glares down at you.
"You've certainly got a use and now you're going to fulfill it."
Suddenly, you feel the most glorious swirling against your clit. You gasp and try to squirm away from him. He pins you harder against the wall and begins kissing up your neck. You begin to feel the pressure building just as he starts to remove your shirt.
"Fuck, I don't know what you're doing. But don't stop." You pant out.
Just as the words leave your mouth the swirling stops.
"What the actual fuck?"
"You didn't think I'd just let you cum, did you? This is a punishment."
That is the final straw. You were so close to ecstasy. So close to release. You have had enough of this little twat. You collect yourself and use all the strength you can to push him away from you.
"Enough fucking games. I'm not some toy to be played with. Either show me the reason I'm still here or kill me already!"
Commander Ren is quick. If you weren't aware of his position, you'd think he was a bounty hunter with how fast he can move. So fast in fact, that he has you pinned face down on your shitty cot before you can think. You're bent over with your hands held in his fist behind you. You try to squirm but only end up grinding your ass back into him. Either that's his lightsaber or he's really excited to see you.
"Who is the general of the Resistance?"
The question catches you off guard. Why the fuck is he asking you his trivial questions now? Of all fucking times. He certainly knows the answer to this one, so what's the point of this?
You must have been stuck in your thoughts for too long, because a strong slap comes across your left ass cheek. The sound echoes throughout the tiny cell and you're certain the stormtroopers outside heard it.
"Answer the question."
"Uh, General Organa. She's your mom, right?"
Stupid response. He grabs a fist full of your hair and yanks your head back. He growls in your ear, "I would advise you shut the fuck up. Stop being a little brat and cooperate or this will only get worse."
Kylo releases your hair and holds you down with the force. He yanks down your pants, revealing your slick soaked panties to the room. Kylo looks down and smirks.
"You're drenched. Bent over and pussy wet for the enemy. What kind of pilot would do that?"
He lands another hard slap to your right cheek this time. Giving it a small kneed afterwards.
"Oh that's right. Not a very good one."
You try to move against the force hold but it's no use. He's got the upper hand here. But you're not going to let him degrade you like that.
"That's rich coming from Snoke's little bitch."
His fist is back in your hair and his other grabs your hip, pulling you back against him. He grinds himself into you and groans out, "You're going to regret that, little one."
Kylo pulls himself away enough to pull down your panties. You feel his gloved finger glide through your slick down to your bundle of nerves. You gasp and wiggle your hips back towards him trying to gain more friction.
"What is your squadron?"
Not this bullshit again. He's playing with your pussy and asking you these dumbass questions? He pulls his hand away and lands a slap to your pussy, causing your legs to shake.
"I hate repeating myself, so answer the fucking question."
Your head is spinning and your pussy is clenching around nothing. You have no clue what the point of these questions are but you'll do anything to get him to touch you again.
"Blue Squadron! Fuck."
Kylo's hand comes back to you, this time bare. He begins rubbing slow circles around your nub, applying the perfect amount of pressure.
"Now that's a good girl. Keep answering your Commander and you'll get rewarded."
"You're not my fucking commander." You gasp as he inserts two thick fingers into your needy hole. "My commander is Poe Dameron."
You realize what you've said after it's too late. It's not exactly classified information. But it's certainly not something you should be sharing with the enemy. You've got to get it together if you're going to make it through this little visit.
"Dameron, hm? Interesting."
You hear the sound of his belt buckle and zipper coming undone. He releases his long, girthy cock from the confines of his pants. It lands on your ass as Kylo grabs hold of both your hips.
"Are you ready for your punishment? I'm going to destroy this little cunt."
You arch your back, pushing your ass up. "I really doubt that. But you can try."
With our warning, Kylo buries his whole length in your wet heat. You gasp as he knocks the air out of your lungs, taking you by surprise. He begins thrusting into you at a slow pace, taking his time. You can feel every glorious inch of him, from tip to hilt.
You moan out and wiggle your hips, trying to get him to speed up. "If you're going to punish me, you'll have to try harder than this."
He snarls at your comment, squeezing your hips and picking up the pace. The little cell is filled with the sounds of your breathy moans, his grunts, and skin slapping. You get so lost in the pleasure you nearly miss him speaking to you.
"Where is the Resistance base?"
You almost answer. You almost let that information slide, forgetting where you are and whose cock is buried inside you. But then it all clicks. He's trying to distract you for information. Nice fucking try Commander Cunt.
"Fuck off."
Kylo grunts and releases one of your hips to instead grab a fistful of your hand. He yanks your head back and forces your back to arch further, making his cock reach deeper inside your pussy. Kylo begins pounding into you, each thrust hitting your sweet spot.
"Where the fuck is the Resistance base?"
Your moans are loud at this point. You couldn't care less about the stormtroopers outside hearing you. This all feels too good. But you aren't going to give in to him this easy. The resistance is counting on you. You are not some weak pilot that gives in to this moody bitch.
"Fuck. Off." You moan out in response.
Kylo's other hand leaves your hip and snakes down your front. He begins rubbing fast circles against your clit. You scream as you feel the pressure beginning to build again.
"Tell me where the fucking base is, pet."
You scream out in pleasure and frustration. You're so close. Just teetering on the edge. You so badly want to let go. So you crack.
"Fuck! Fine! D'Qar! The resistance base is on D'Qar! Please just let me come! Please!"
Kylo smirks, knowing he's won. He picks up the pace on your clit and groans out, "That's right, now be a good girl and cum all over my cock."
That was all you needed. You screamed in ecstasy, "Yes, fuck Kylo!"
Your pussy clenched around him as you came, your juices covering him. Kylo grunted, fucking you through your orgasm.
Soon after you came down from your high, you felt his cock twitch inside you. Kylo quickly pulled out of you and yanked you up by your hair.
"On your knees and mouth open, rebel bitch."
You quickly dropped to your knees and did just as he said, closing your eyes. Kylo pumped his cock over your face, using your slick and cum as lube. He threw his head back and let out a feral groan. Strings of his milky seed covering your face.
Once he was finished, you swallow what had gotten in your mouth and began wiping the rest off your face, licking it from your fingers. Fuck he tastes delicious. When you could finally open your eyes, he was already by the door. He had tucked himself away and put his glove back on. Kylo grabbed his helmet and looked back at you.
"Just as I thought. You're a useless Resistance member. So easy to destroy."
You sit there stunned by his words, letting everything that had just happened sink in.
"It has been fun breaking you, little one."
With one last look, Kylo places his helmet back on his head and walks out of the cell.
You stare at the door and replay his words. Maybe you were a shitty Resistance member. Others probably wouldn't have broken that easily, or at all. But with some of his cum drying on your face and a satisfied feeling, you can't find it in you to care.
You're secretly hoping Commander Ren needs more information. You might come to enjoy his little visits.
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I hope everyone enjoyed! If you all are interested, I can post on here more. Let me know! 
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onlinemarketingcourses · 6 years ago
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PIN’s: The Future of Private Link Building
1,116 Comments 20 minutes
What I’m going to reveal in this blog post is a strategy that will likely weed out a certain section of the ViperChill audience. In other words, I’m fully aware that this blog post will make a particular type of person unsubscribe from ViperChill and likely never return. It’s certainly not going to end up on the homepage of Inbound.org.
If you are loyal to Google guidelines, the teachings of blogs like Moz and love playing by the book, then you’ll probably realise with this article that we possess a very different perspective. When I first started my internet journey – where I spent day and night trying to make a living online – I tried and tested more website ideas and angles than you would believe.
Today, I’m still pushing the boundaries to see what works. These boundaries most often pertain to SEO, since it’s what I’ve enjoyed the most over the last 11 years.
I’m in the fortunate position that my business it not tied to some employer who dictates how I have to do things when it comes to promoting web properties. As such, I’m always willing to ignore everything I previously thought about marketing and to be open to new ideas and opportunities.
This blog post details one such opportunity, but I realise it will not be for everyone. Not everyone is the position to implement it for their online business, and even if you are, you may question the ethics of what is coming up.
With that disclaimer out of the way, today I’m going to introduce you to the world of PIN’s. Just before I do that, I want to talk about why I think they’re necessary.
I Predict We’ve Got Four to Five Years Left to ‘Do SEO’ As We Know It
This isn’t some “SEO is Dead” article you see go viral in the SEO blogosphere every six months, but a genuine prediction based on how Google search results have evolved over the last few years.
Google make all of their money via ads so quite simply want more people to click on them (and more often). The less success people have with SEO, the more likely they are to move to Google’s advertising platform.
Long gone are the days when we’re presented with just 10 blue links on a page.
The White Space Between Search Results Has Increased
It’s known that the higher up the page a search result, the more clicks it will receive. Therefore, when organic search results are pushed further down the page they’re going to be receiving fewer and fewer clicks. Not only are they lower down now in mobile results due to spacing, but the change is being tested across desktop results as well.
The search result on the left includes the new extra spacing with the ads taking up far more vertical space than the search result on the right (graphic via SEMPost).
There Are More ‘Featured Snippets’ Than Ever Before
There isn’t much to say on this one besides feature snippets are to be found for millions of search queries in every industry imaginable. What, when, how and why questions are often answered with a featured snippet box.
This not only pushes ‘organic’ search results further down in search results, it also attempts to give you the answer right from the results page. We can argue whether or not it’s useful for searchers, but for SEO’s, it gives new meaning to having the top result in Google.
‘Map Packs’ Completely Changed Local Search Results
Some call them ‘map packs’, some ‘the local pack’ and some even call them the ‘snack pack’. Whatever your term of choice, after being introduced a few years ago SEO’s have been trying to figure out how to get themselves and their clients into the pack to compensate for a lack of expected search results.
After all, these local listings take up a large portion of screen real estate.
I’m not complaining about this change; I’m simply pointing it out. There’s no doubt it makes search results more useful and that is Google’s aim (usually) after all. While Google did reduce the listings from seven to three back in August of 2015, the redesign of the listings with adding spacing means not much changed in terms of organic results being seen.
Those Map Packs Now Contain Ads, Too
We’re not going back to Google updates of a few years ago to make a point about Google evolving. Just last month Google announced that the map / local / snack pack would now include ads, as shown below.
This image is a mockup by Barry Schwartz, though the real thing looks very similar
It’s interesting to follow both PPC and SEO guys on Twitter and see the difference in reaction. PPC guys are over the moon since it gives them more traffic opportunities for their clients and SEO guy’s, well…I’m sure you can guess the reaction.
Based on how Google’s past, it’s not one of surprise.
They Have All The Answers
The knowledge graph was released in May of 2012 and it’s almost disappointing when you don’t see it for queries when looking for quick answers. For example, when I want to see how my football team, Newcastle, have fared against Liverpool, I literally don’t have to click anywhere.
Whether you want to learn about how old someone is, what 12 x 56 is or who discovered Radium, Google has the results right there for you. As a searcher, I love these quick answers, but as an SEO, it’s just one more thing which has lessened the likelihood of people clicking on my website if it doesn’t appear in this box.
They Continue to Make People Scared of Link Building
Google are great at making people fearful of performing any type of SEO. After all, this was the company that introduced the rel=”nofollow” attribute so we could link out to websites without giving them “link juice”.
That isn’t the real headline for the article – I’ve got to have some fun in these serious posts – but Google have publicly cracked down on pretty much everything when it comes to link building. The list includes, but is not limited to:
Guest posting for links
Using directories for links
Utilising private blog networks
Adding links to website themes
Adding do-followed links to widgets
They literally created a ‘no-follow’ tag
That’s not all; they openly share how much human intervention is involved in finding people abusing the guidelines, rather than algorithmic. This tweet speaks volumes.
Anglo Rank was a small network being promoted on the Black Hat World forums.
Just think about this for a second. One of Google’s first employees (and former Head of Web Spam), worth millions of dollars, dedicated his time to actively targeting a tiny little network on some private forum just to scare other people away from doing the same.
The simple fact is that Google can’t figure out with absolutely certainty which links are earned, or bought, or manipulative, very effectively.
Now I’m not taking anything away from Google here. Their company is worth hundreds of billions and mine, well…isn’t. They have undoubtedly created the world’s most sophisticated search engine.
But as I said earlier, it’s far easier for them to get us to police ourselves than it is for them to police us.
Big Brands Dominate the Long Tail
As SEO becomes increasingly difficult and searches are more and more dominated by big brands, the long tail will be the final frontier of search traffic opportunities.
When I said we only have a few years left to do SEO as we know it, the long tail will be where the majority of SEO’s focus their time through on-site SEO changes and content marketing.
While we’ll still have opportunities for SEO to ‘work’, long tail search results just don’t seem to be as diverse as they were in the past. It makes sense to me that Google have some kind of ‘filter’ whereby if they’re not sure what to list for a search result, they simply show more results from an authoritative site to be on the safe side.
Logically, this makes sense, but as an SEO, it could be a worrying sign of things to come. You can see this lack of diversification above in my screenshot of the map packs as well, with Yelp dominating the first three organic search results.
The Lack of Diversity in Search Results Will Only Get Worse
If you’ve only found ViperChill recently then it was likely because of my recent article, How 16 Companies Are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results. It has been shared thousands of times on social media and been read over 40,000 times, making it one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written here.
In the article I highlighted how Hearst Media were using their brands like Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Day to point footer links to a new website of theirs, BestProducts.com.
That strategy, which would get the rest of us penalised, continues to work incredibly well.
“Just follow the Google guidelines.” Why?
Since that post, I was also contacted by a few people associated with the brands I had featured. One of those people I talked with was Tre who works in the growth department of About.com. I had already mentioned in the article how About planned to spin off into many more verticals over the coming months, which he confirmed.
I admit I’m being a little pedantic with my highlighting, but when you’re Director of Growth for About.com you’re going to share which terms are driving traffic to one site with the team that is in charge of another.
I appreciate Tre’s replies and I’m sure there’s only so much he can say, but About.com’s real goal with their spin-off’s is to no doubt own ten search results, instead of one.
PIN’s: My Version of Fighting Back While I Still Can
When I talked about why I started using private link networks and then continued to use them after Google’s “crackdown”, my primary reason was very simple: Writing quality content and getting ‘whitehat’ links wasn’t working for me. I was being outranked by people with crappy link networks who could build their own ‘relevant’ links on a whim and I decided to fight back.
You could view PIN’s in a similar light. I am utilising them because we’re not competing on a fair playing field, and what is supposed to work is very rarely what ranks, at least in the industries that I operate in.
While I don’t wish to reveal those exact industries, let me give you an example closer to home, with ViperChill.
I will say in advance that this is a search term I really don’t care about ranking for. I have no idea how many times it’s searched for each month and honestly, I doubt it gets many searches at all.
Here are the search results for the query, ‘Future of blogging’.
My site is usually either in 10th or 11th for that term, yet by every SEO standard metric I should be number one.
I have more links to the page ranking than anyone else
I have more ‘domain authority’ than most other pages
My title tag seems more relevant than half of them
Yet in order to get more traffic for this search term, which I think I ‘deserve’ from a 10,000 word article which took me weeks to put together, all I have to do is one thing.
It’s not getting more links. It’s not improving my on-site SEO. It’s not building better connections with influencers.
All I need to do to get my traffic back is to add a sentence to the start of the article which says ‘Last updated: July 25th 2016‘.
This is a search result where how recent an article was posted is more important than whether it’s actually a good page to rank.
I don’t actually have to update the article; I literally just need to make it appear to Google – thanks to that one sentence – that my article was updated recently. This one sentence, this ‘trick’, would bring me back the ranking I feel I deserve. (Though, again, I doubt this even gets searched for. It’s just an example).
This is not theory. If you look at the first sentence of my WordPress SEO guide that’s exactly what I’ve done before, with great results.
This little change is not too dissimilar to what I need to rank in other industries. I don’t need better on-site SEO. I don’t need to build natural links from relevant sites through content marketing. I simply need to add more domains to my private link network and write more guest blog posts.
Yes, these are both tactics that are looked down upon by Google, but they still work incredibly well. In 2014 when I covered Google’s crackdown on private blog networks I did mention that they would now be less likely to care about private link networks.
In my exact words:
What I expect to happen is that Google will ease off looking into private networks. The damage is mostly done.
Why? Because they’ve already made people scared to build them. The best way to deal with people trying to game the system is essentially making us as a community police ourselves so we don’t try to game the system in the first place.
The continued use of private link networks and guest posting for SEO is part of the reason why I will get a lot of criticism from this post. How to implement these tactics more effectively, which I’ll talk about later, will be the larger reason for criticism.
The Approach to Take
One of the first ideas I had when I started out online was to assemble a team of people who could work together to build a huge website. At the time I was following the growth of TechCrunch and Mashable and saw how quickly they were able to grow thanks to having a team of writers.
My idea was to essentially connect a team of people who all worked on one website and in return everyone had a percentage ownership. The logic being that working as a team would result in the site growing faster and even if revenue or a sale price was split, we would have more success than working on our own.
It’s a similar idea a number of ViperChill readers had after reading my last article on the small number of brands dominating Google search results.
While it’s a nice idea, in theory it doesn’t work so well.
Some will want to dictate the direction of a site that others don’t agree with and more importantly, some people will put in far more work than others. If you’re writing more content than others and your articles are getting better traction, you’re going to want to increase your ownership compared to someone barely putting in any effort.
There is another option you can utilise if you wish to team up with others though, and that’s a PIN.
It comes with all of the benefits of creating your own team, without the downsides of worrying about who is contributing what work.
What the Hell is a PIN?
A PIN is a play on the acronym PBN, which is commonly referred to as a private blog or link network.
I’ve received my fair share of critics over the years for talking about PBN’s and their success – and continuing to build them – but there’s a reason I do: They work.
I simply don’t believe that playing by Google’s rules is always going to get me the results I want. In some industries I wouldn’t make the money I do without them. I don’t use them for clients, but do for my own websites.
Going forward, I think PIN’s are going to be crucial to my success in certain industries, and I think they are going to be crucial to a number of people reading this as well.
PIN, stands for Private Influencer Network.
Before you think that just means making some “friends” online and building up your connections, allow me to continue.
I define a Private Influencer Network as a group of people looking to rank their websites in Google in similar industries (but not the same) who work together to help each other reach their objectives.
Essentially, they use any opportunities they have to build links (such as private blog networks, guest blogging, interviews, blogger round-ups) to send backlinks to other people in their network. In return, other people do the same for them.
The end result is that for the work you would do to build ten backlinks, you can get twenty to forty (of the same quality) in return.
A $100,000/m PIN Operating Right Under Your Nose
I first came across a Private Influencer Network a little over a year ago. A few ‘influencers’ in a particular field were using their private blog networks to – quite simply – link to each other.
I didn’t think much of the tactic at the time, until I found another example of this happening just a few months later.
Then three months after that, I found my third example. This time it really got my attention.
A group of just five people (from what I could tell) were ranking in one of the most profitable industries online and undoubtedly making over $100,000 per month in the process. I operate in the niche, which is how I found their collaboration, and know the numbers very well.
This is when I started working on building my own, PIN.
Finally, the idea to write this blog post came to me when I found yet another PIN. One of the members of this network is one of the most well-known SEO’s on the planet and is reading this article. He already “knows I know.”
If you follow the SEO blogosphere, you’ll undoubtedly know who he is.
One of the sites they are promoting also very likely also makes more than $100,000 per month. I’m not involved in the niche, but I know others who are and with the rankings they have, those numbers wouldn’t surprise me.
I reached out to the owner of the ‘money site’ they had all teamed up to promote. I keep a private database of paid link opportunities and one of them costs more than $10,000 per year. I found their website there, so sent the main owner an email.
One months revenue spent on link building is a small price to pay when you’re doing huge numbers thanks to gaming Google.
While some would view four to five guys linking to each other to make more than $100,000/m from a one-year-old website as shady and unethical, I’m personally impressed at how well they are crushing a very competitive niche so quickly.
While there is a chance that a PIN could be “outed”, the last two examples I found were so well put together that I’m almost certain I was the only person who connected the dots.
If you’re not trying to rank in an obvious industry that’s constantly monitored by SEO’s – like blogging and internet marketing – the chances of your PIN becoming uncovered are relatively low. Much lower than having your private blog network discovered.
As you’ve probably already figured out more succinctly than I am at getting to the point, members of a PIN use any opportunity they have to ‘link out’ to take care of their whole team.
While I’ve been fairly slow on the uptake to building my own PIN, I have been slowly building them in a few industries over the last few months and I’m excited to see what the future holds.
I didn’t want to write this blog post until I had a better understanding of how to build and manage them, because managing them is actually the most time-consuming part.
You have to make sure everyone in the network is pulling their weight and giving (and getting) equal opportunities. Opportunities, of course, is code for links.
A Real-World Example of How a PIN Works
One of the websites I find myself checking for ideas and inspiration is Entrepreneur.com.
I recently found an article on the website, published by a contributor and not a staff member, which could serve as a great example for how PIN’s work.
Let me say it in bold (for those just skimming) that the example below is totally legitimate.
I’m highlighting it because it’s natural, but could have been used in a non-natural way.
While the screenshot below might be the longest ever embedded by me into a blog post, there is something much more important that I have to say about it.
There is no specific reason I have singled out this article. It was simply the first article on Entrepreneur.com when I was looking to give an example for this post. Proof of that is the date. This article is going live on July 25th whereas this article I’m featuring below is from July 22nd.
It just happened to be a great example to see a PIN (or what could be a PIN), in action.
I made the article a little shorter than the original (the screenshot was long enough, I know) but you can see the majority of it here. The first thing you’ll notice is four mentions of Weekdone. Unsurprisingly, these are all links to the company that the author works for.
A good guest article, utilised for a PIN, will link to other recommended resources that are connections of the author. The links should be relevant, but also to other people in your network so that you are ‘owed’ a link back.
Now on the surface (without my large logos stuck over the text) this looks like a totally normal article (albeit with a little overuse of linking back to the authors employer). If you do a little more research, you’ll learn that the other two highlighted companies, Zlien and Mavrck, are actually clients of Weekdone.
In other words, Weekdone likely earn some bonus points from their clients for mentioning them in an article on Entrepreneur.com. I see nothing wrong with this and it’s a one-off occurrence so it’s not done for SEO manipulation; I’m just trying to show how a PIN link looks without actually revealing one.
Essentially everything looks natural until you look under the hood. It’s normal for a client to talk about a company they use, as shown below where the relationship continues.
Once again, I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong here. It was one of the top articles on Entreprenuer.com as I was finishing up this article (the post is only three days old) and happened to make a good example.
The truth is that Entrepreneur.com, along with Forbes and the business sections of the Huffington Post, are great resources to see mini PIN’s in action. The people who write content for these sites generally try to get as much out of writing for them as possible.
They link to their friends, and their friends link to them.
A PIN in Action
I wanted to create a graphic for this section but your understanding of the concept is far more important than your ability to decipher my poor Photoshop skills. Before it gets a little bit crazy, I have assumed that there are just two ‘influencers’ in your private network.
The yellow box is your money website (the website you wish to rank in Google).
The brown boxes are private blog sites you own (optional).
The grey boxes are link opportunities you’ve created through guest posting or similar.
While the graphic is admittedly not the prettiest (I did warn you), the concept is very simple.
Some of your private network domains will point links to the other influencer in your network, as will some of your guest posts on other websites.
In return, the other influencer will do the same for you.
Once you start adding more people to your network, things get a little bit more messy, but the principle remains the same.
When I try to visualise this with four influencers as part of your PIN it gets a little ugly, but here goes.
The golden rule you need to remember is this: If you receive a link from someone from a specific source, you need to replicate the link in kind.
So if you receive a link in a guest post from someone in the network, you need to give them a link from a guest post you write. Essentially meaning that the work you do for 10 links for yourself gets you 30-40 links in return. This number varies because sometimes it’s a bit risky (such as using blog networks) to link out to the same sites which are linking to you but you still receive more links than you would have without your network, for essentially the same work.
The Types of Links Which Are Shared
I originally tried to write these guidelines as if there were four people in a PIN but it became a little bit too complicated to read (and write). Instead, I’ll assume there are only two people in your PIN and show you what types of links you could generate or other ways to help each other.
If there are more people in your PIN, which I highly recommend, then understand that Influencer #1 will sometimes link to #2, while #4 sometimes links to number #3 and so on. It’s basically just varying the following link opportunities to keep things fair for everyone.
The types of reciprocation that can take place.
You can tweet or Facebook share an article from another influencer
You can retweet or publicly thank another influencer for mentioning you
You can utilise a guest post opportunity to link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer
If you use build private blog networks, you can use some to link to other influencers
If you find articles where comments drive traffic to your site, you can inform other influencers
When being interviewed you can link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer
Sharing link opportunities you find on your site they can utilise for theirs
Offering website design advice
Utilising Web 2.0 properties to give links and get the same in return
If performed properly, there is no reason to hide that you have a connection with other influencers in your niche. The only thing you would have to care about is that the obvious mission for having these connections is to help each other’s search engine rankings.
If you are outside of the internet marketing world you don’t really have to worry about other people finding your private link networks, but always keep a few rules in mind to avoid footprints.
Ready to Build Your Own PIN? Here’s My Advice
If you see the benefits of utilising a PIN for your own search engine rankings, and actually getting more than rankings in return, then here’s my advice for setting one up.
A PIN Must Have a Leader
As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t want to write about this topic until I had attempted to do it myself.
My short but relevant experience tells me that there has to be one person (or two at most) who is in control of the group you gather together to make sure that everyone in the team is pulling their weight.
In other words, you need to make sure that the people who are receiving links are doing their part in giving them as well.
The leader must also make sure that members of the team are active. It’s no use everyone playing along for the first few weeks while the idea is hot and then dropping off the map.
Bringing Together Your Team
While some of you may be excited about getting started on this – and some horrified that I’m even talking about it – there’s one important caveat to keep in mind.
Do not bring anyone into your team who has never shown any self-drive in terms of search engine optimisation.
If someone:
Doesn’t already have a website they wish to rank
Doesn’t regularly produce content for their own sites or others
Doesn’t have at least a basic knowledge of SEO fundamentals
Don’t invite them to be part of your network.
I assumed this would be the case from the start of building my own, but I’m even more sure of it after trying to get other people excited about the idea who weren’t actually willing to contribute to the rest of the teams’ success as a whole.
A simple test to see if someone would be right to join your network is to send a candidate over to this article and have them read about this concept for themselves.
If they don’t immediately “get” the idea and they don’t reply with something like “I can see this working well” then it’s not someone you want on your team.
You shouldn’t have to convince anyone to work with you. They should see it for themselves. If they’re against it because of ethical reasons, then that’s totally fine (and understandable) but again, it’s a sure sign that they’re not someone you want in your team.
As far as communication goes, there are a few platforms out there that would be useful.
You could create a Skype group where people get together. I certainly recommend that everyone get on a call together at least some point to make sure you all understand each other’s roles.
Slack is another good option, as you can keep up to date via their mobile app and have a history of previous agreements.
A private Facebook group is another good option.
Both Slack and Facebook allow there to be a leader who can add or remove members to the network.
The platform is really up to you. My only recommendation is not to lay out all your plans in Google Docs ;).
Take One Step Back from Your Current Niche
It should be obvious but I’ll state it anyway: You don’t want to work with people who are targeting the same keywords as you.
However, you still want to connect with people who are in a relevant niche (I’ll give you the chance to connect with ViperChill readers at the bottom of this post). For instance, if you’re promoting your real estate website then it makes sense to team up with other realtors, just not for the same region.
If you’re in the weight loss niche then it makes sense to collaborate and grow your audience with other people in that niche, but target different keywords and / or promote different types of products and services.
Whatever niche you’re in, imagine you’re shopping for that specific industry on Amazon but go back one category to find people to work with. Again, I’ll give you the opportunity to find PIN partners at the end of this article.
Footprints are Hard to Find, But Still Be Careful
From the PIN’s I’ve discovered and the ones I’m working on myself, I’ve found you really don’t have to be too careful when it comes to leaving some kind of footprint. After all, it doesn’t ring any alarm bells when Copyblogger keeps mentioning Problogger or Mashable keep linking to TechCrunch. It’s “natural” and something you can expect from the owners of websites who have developed friendships with each other.
Where you have to be careful is primarily with private blog networks and not creating footprints of clearly linking back and forth to each other from the same sites at all times. Of course, you don’t have to use private networks, but remember for each link you give out, you can get three to four back, so it can dramatically speed up the process of ranking your site.
You Need to Know How the Microphone Works
And how to sing.
One of my favourite authors, Daniel Priestley, said the following in his book The Key Person of Influence;
You don’t need to know how the microphone works, you need to know how to sing.
He was referring to the technology behind the microphone and how, when it was first invented, your time would have been better spent learning how to sing than how a microphone worked, if you wanted to reach a lot of people.
When it comes to ranking in Google, I don’t think that’s the case. You need to know how the microphone works and how to sing.
There are going to be people who worry I’m encouraging armies of people to come together to take over the Google search results.
The truth is that I don’t believe people who can’t sing – in this case, can’t produce great results for search engine users – will have much long-term success.
There’s no point putting all of the work into your PIN if the end result is going to be a crappy website.
The third example of a PIN that I mentioned earlier now easily does in excess of over $100,000 per month. What I didn’t yet tell you is that they built a fantastic resource for their industry. The site doesn’t have many pages (less than 50), but each one genuinely solves a question that a particular searcher is looking for an answer to.
I don’t view utilising a PIN as a way to “sneak” up the Google results and send thousands of visitors to an ad-riddled website.
Instead, I see it as a way to help you start getting great content noticed that could attract natural links once it is.
I mentioned at the start of this article that I would likely weed out some of the audience of ViperChill. I want to make it clear though that I’m not trying to help people with shitty websites rise to the top of Google.
While I believe there is a great opportunity here, it isn’t easy. Turning the concept into reality sounds much easier on paper (or in a blog post).
The truth is that when it comes to making money online, most people are, quite simply…lazy.
They may be excited about this idea for a few weeks but if you’re going to use this to rank in an industry worth ranking for, you should be aiming for keywords that take a few months to get any serious traction for.
Links Aside, The Connections You Build Can Be Invaluable
I’ve already briefly talked about the other benefits this kind of network can have, besides link building.
You can connect with people who have a genuine passion for your industry who in turn spur you on to put more work into your site and help you improve your online ventures. Whether that’s giving advice on your design, your writing, your strategy or anything else.
Working online can seem lonely at times, especially if your offline friends don’t have an inkling to do anything online. When you’re aiming to make money from your web projects it’s nice to find other people on the same journey.
In my future of blogging post a few years ago, one of the most popular on the site, I mentioned how some bloggers had worked together to help grow their respective audiences in the same industry.
TechCrunch and Mashable grew incredibly quickly at the same time while investors were putting more and more of their money into web-based projects. They mentioned each other thousands of times.
Smaller operations – though still huge – like Copyblogger and Problogger would guest post on each others’ sites, promote each other’s products, send traffic to each other via their email lists and essentially enhanced both of their own images through their connection.
I took the time to actually figure out how many times some sites mentioned each other, which you can see in the graphic below.
While links were a key factor in all of these partnerships, I wouldn’t essentially class them as private link building. Most of the links didn’t include any specific anchor text and they weren’t to random affiliate sites or anything like that. All of them were trying to build authoritative online businesses and found someone with a similar passion on the same journey.
While TechCrunch and Mashable were almost in direct competition with each other, they still highlighted the stories that the other site got to first. Michael Arrington later sold TechCrunch to AOL for $25m. Pete Cashmore is still the CEO of Mashable though according to Politico.com, is trying to sell the site for around $300-$350m.
That’s a partnership that certainly paid off for both of them. Pete holding out six years on his sale seems to have been a smarter choice, however.
A Facebook Group to Find PIN Partners
For what is probably a very limited time only, I’m giving access to a private Facebook group where people can assemble together to potentially build their own Private Influencer Network.
I don’t want the comments here to be full of pitching opportunities, so let’s take this elsewhere to see what industries you’re working with. To be approved for the group you must leave a comment here with your Facebook name or put your Facebook initials at the end of a comment. Facebook will likely recommend the group to people who have no idea what PIN’s are and I don’t want to do a lot of moderating.
Don’t reveal your exact niche when you start a discussion, just simply zoom out of your niche and reveal a higher category that you would like to work in. You can find the group here (remember to comment to be approved).
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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isaacscrawford · 6 years ago
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Statistical Certainty: Less is More
By ANISH KOKA MD 
The day after NBC releases a story on a ‘ground-breaking’ observational study demonstrating caramel macchiatas reduce the risk of death, everyone expects physicians to be experts on the subject. The truth is that most of us hope John Mandrola has written a smart blog on the topic so we know intelligent things to tell patients and family members.
A minority of physicians actually read the original study, and of those who read the study, even fewer have any real idea of the statistical ingredients used to make the study. Imagine not knowing whether the sausage you just ate contained rat droppings. At least there is some hope the tongue may provide some objective measure of the horror within.
Data that emerges from statistical black boxes typically have no neutral arbiter of truth. The process is designed to reveal from complex data sets, that which cannot be readily seen. The crisis created is self-evident: With no objective way of recognizing reality, it is entirely possible and inevitable for illusions to proliferate.
This tension has always defined scientific progress over the centuries as new theories overturned old ones. The difference more recently is that modern scientific methodology believes it possible to trade in theories for certainty. The path to certainty was paved by the simple p value. No matter the question asked, how complex the data set was, observational or randomized, p values < .05 mean truth.
But even a poor student of epistemology recognizes that all may not be well in Denmark with regards to the pursuit of truth in this manner. Is a p value of .06 really something utterly different from a p value of .05?  Are researchers bending to the pressures of academic advancement or financial inducements to consciously or unconsciously design trials that give us p values <.05?
The slow realization the system may not be working comes from efforts to replicate studies. Methodologist guru Brian Nosek convinced 270 of his psychology colleagues in 2015 to attempt to replicate 100 prior published trials.  Only 36% of the studies gave the same result as the original.  Imagine the consternation if an apple detaching from a tree only fell to the ground 36% of the time.
Why this is happening is a fascinating question that forms the subject of Nosek’s most recent published paper that focuses on the statistical black box data is fed into.
29 statistical teams aggregated via Twitter were given one complex dataset and tasked with finding out if football player skin tone had anything to do with referees awarding red cards. The goal was to put the statistical methods to the test. If you give the same question and data to 29 different teams, does the analysis result in the same answer?
In the forest plot summarizing the findings, the results of the 29 teams do not, at first glance, appear to be remarkably different.  The majority of teams get the same qualitative answer by being on the ‘right’ side of the magical p of 0.05 threshold, though I imagine the vast number of consumers of medical evidence would be surprised to find that depending on the statistical model employed, the likelihood of the sky being blue is ~70%.  More discriminating readers will ignore the artificial cliff dividing blue from not blue to point out the wide overlap in confidence intervals that suggest the same basic answer was arrived at with minimal beating around the bush.
But a review of the meticulous steps taken by the project managers of the study demonstrate the convergence of the results is somewhat of an engineered phenomenon.  After collection of the data set and dissemination of the data to the statistical teams, the initial approaches the teams took were shared among the group.  Each team then received feedback on their statistical approach and had the opportunity to adjust their analytic strategy. Feedback incorporated, the teams ran the data through their selected strategies, and the results produced were again shared among all the teams.
The idea of the various steps taken, of course, was not to purposefully fashion similar outputs for the trial, but to simulate a statistically rigorous peer review that I’m told is rare for most journals. Despite all the feedback, collaboration and discussion, 29 teams ended up using 21 unique combinations of co-variates.  Apparently statisticians choosing analytic methods are more Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, less HAL. Sometimes the black pants go with that sequin top, other nights only the feather boa completes the outfit.
The findings were boring to most statisticians, but titillating to most clinicians. The statistical criticism is a little unfair. It is certainly true that the problem of analysis-contingent results isn’t completely novel. Simonsohn et. al. use the phrase p-hacking to describe unethical researchers throwing line after line into a dataset to find statistically significant associations.
Gelman and Lokens argue this is a simplistic frame that describes the minority of researchers. What they believe to be far more common and concerning are researchers embarking on projects with strong pre-existing biases consciously or unconsciously choosing analytic paths that end up confirming their biases. This problem has been attractively described as the garden of forking paths.
The current project fits into neither one of these buckets. The researchers had no incentive to get a statistically significant result because publishing wasn’t dependent on getting a p < .05. And this particular data set had a limited number of forking paths to traverse because the question asked of the data set was specific – red cards and skin tone. The teams couldn’t choose to look at the interaction of yellow cards and GDP of player home countries, for instance. And perhaps most importantly, the teams were not particularly motivated to arrive at an answer as confirmed by a survey completed at the start of the trial.
Implications of this study loom especially large for healthcare, where policy making has so far been the provenance of enlightened academics who believe a centrally managed well-functioning technocracy is the best way to manage the health needs of the nation.
The only problem is that the technocrats have so far excelled mostly at failing spectacularly. Public reporting of cardiovascular outcomes was supposed to penalize poor performers, and reward those that excelled. Instead, it resulted in risk aversion by physicians which meant fewer chances for the sickest patients who most needed help. The Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP)  was supposed to focus the health system on preventable readmissions. The health system responded by decreasing readmissions at the expense of higher mortality.
One of the problems with most health policy research – highlighted in a recent NEJM perspective – is that it largely rests on analyses of observational data sets of questionable quality.  What isn’t mentioned is that the conclusions made about policy can depend on who you ask.
This won’t surprise Andrew Gelman or Brian Nosek, but the health policy researchers responsible for devising the HRRP program publishes repeatedly in support of their stance that reduced admissions as a consequence of the program is not correlated with higher heart failure mortality, while cardiologists who take care of heart failure patients produce data that traces heart failure mortality to initiation of the HRRP program. Who to believe?
In their NEJM perspective, Bhatt, and Wadhera don’t mention this divide, but do call for better research that will migrate the health care landscape from “idea based policy” to “evidence based policy”. The solutions lie in natural randomized trials, and where the data sets won’t comply, use the $1 billion/year budget of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovations (CMMI) to run mandatory policy RCTs in small groups before broad rollout of policy to the public. This perspective is as admirable as it is short sighted and devoid of context.
Randomized control trials are difficult to do in this space. But even if RCTs could be done, would it end debate? RCTs may account for covariates but, as discussed, this is just one source of variation when analyzing data. Last I checked, cardiologists with the benefit of thousands of patients worth of RCTs continue to argue about statins, fish oil, and coronary stents, and these areas are completely devoid of political considerations.
The Oregon experiment, one of the largest, most rigorous RCTs of Medicaid expansion, hasn’t ended debate between conservatives and liberals on whether the nation should expand health coverage in this fashion. And nor should it. Both sides may want to stop pretending that the evidence will tell us anything definitively.  Science can tell us the earth isn’t flat, it won’t tell us if we should expand Medicaid.
Evidence has its limits. Health care policy research for now remains the playground of motivated researchers who consciously, or unconsciously produce research confirming their biases. Indeed, the mistake that has powered a thousand ProPublica articles on conflict of interest isn’t that financial conflicts aren’t important, it’s that concentrating on only one bias is really dumb.
And Nosek’s team clearly demonstrates that even devoid of bias, a buffet of results are bound to be produced with something palatable for every ideology. The path forward suggested by some in the methodologist community involves crowd-sourcing all analysis where possible. While palate pleasing, this seems an inefficient, resource heavy enterprise that still leaves one with an uncertain answer.
I’d settle for less hubris on the part of researchers who would seem to think an answer lives in every data set. Of the 2,053 total players in Nosek’s football study, photographs were only available for 1500 players. No information was available on referee skin tone – a seemingly relevant piece of data when trying to assess racial bias.
Perhaps the best approach to certain research questions is to not try to answer them. There is no way to parse mortality in US hospitals on the basis of physician gender, but someone will surely try and, remarkably, feel confident enough to attach a number to the thousands of lived saved if there were no male physicians.
If the point of applying empiricism to the social sciences was to defeat ideology with a statistically powered truth machine, empiricism has fallen well short. Paradoxically, salvation of the research enterprise may lie in doing less research and in imbuing much of what’s published with the uncertainty it well deserves.
Anish Koka is a cardiologist in private practice in Philadelphia.  He can be followed on Twitter @anish_koka. This post originally appeared here on The Accad & Koka Report. 
Article source:The Health Care Blog
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