Memes

Tea has given me the honor of selecting this as one of the blogs that make her think. I am feeling so good that Tea holds this blog in such high esteem. Thank you so much, Tea. I can’t tell you how meaningful it is to me to know that you find some pleasure in visiting my little plot in cyberspace!

That said, I hope no one takes offense with I am going to say next.

I do not participate in most memes. Why? Because I have a suspicious nature.

When I see something in the rules that request a link back, I am immediately suspicious of the post's intent. Why can’t we just say, “Mary started this meme”. No, that won’t do. They want to make sure they get a link.

Have you ever wondered why? Well, I certainly have.

In my ever-so-humble opinion, this smacks of a blogger on a social climb to the top of the almighty google rankings. These memes reproduce more rapidly than rats in the sewer lines. Imagine how many links will come from thousands of unsuspecting bloggers, who think this is just a bit of fun. Little do they know they are rungs on the ladder of the blogger's hungry climb to the top. (you don't have to imagine. I looked it up. This blogger had 40,200 links at 6:15 p.m. today. Just to give you a comparison, I have 147 and most of those are my own links to other pages in my site.)

Now I could be completely wrong about all of this. Maybe the majority of those who start such memes have no idea that the thousands of links they get will shoot them way up in the rankings.

Yeah, and I’m a middle-aged Playboy model making 6 million a year.

Tea, please don’t feel that I am saying anything negative about you! I am totally flattered that you chose me. I have been thinking about a post of this nature for the past few weeks and your nomination just gave me the platform.

I am only ranting about the people who start these things with the goal of increased rankings. I think a blog’s ranking should be based fairly on its content. I understand that links are about the only way a search engine can evaluate them. I just feel that links should come from people who actually read the blog!

Ok. I am off my meme-with-a-rule-to-link rant.

Upate: Good morning, everyone.

I can see by the comments that people are taking this the wrong way.
I need to clear up one thing.
It's not people like us who participate in the memes that I am ranting about. We all do it just because it's often entertaining and it gives us something different to post about. Lots of times it's fun to read the answers to find out more about our blogger friends.

It's the originator of those memes that require a link back. That little badge that you put on your blog goes right back to the person who started it. He/she is the one getting the thousands of links.
If all they really cared about were the friendly, getting-to-know-you answers to the questions, there would be no need to stick the badge (the link they made for your convenience) on your blog.