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| Recycling the same old thing hasn't worked out. |
Grant, in describing how Google's new algorithm diverts searches to its A.I., adds in parentheses that these answers are "often wrong," as if he is somehow capable of that determination. Grant, the guy who has driven his own website into the ground in the span of 25 years. The same guy who takes six months to make basic coding fixes to his website whenever something is on the fritz (perhaps he should defer to A.I. for his patches) is claiming that Google no longer recognizes Basenotes in searches because Basenotes is now considered too "small" to be noticed. He says that if you're a small site now, you won't show up on Google, and you might as well not exist. And he laments that at 25 years of age, Basenotes may not see 26.
There are a few issues with his assessment. First, the fact that Google no longer recognizes Basenotes in general fragrance queries is nothing new. Google has been ignoring Basenotes since 2018. I don't know if Grant is aware of this, but from 24 months before the pandemic to today, I've literally been typing "Basenotes" at the end of all fragrance searches when I want Basenotes content. Hate to break it to ya, Grant, but that ain't news, except apparently to you. The fact that you're acknowledging this problem now is characteristic of your tech savvy, as it literally takes you a light year to do anything on the internet -- anything except ban members, that is. Banning people . . . that you do without batting an eyelash. That part always happens quickly. So quickly that, well, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll get to that.
Which brings me to the second issue with his assessment: Gatekeeping. For a quarter of a century, Basenotes has been the epicenter of Gatekeeping 101. You want to see how it's done? Drop by Grant's crib and hang out for a few days. It won't take long. Stay quiet, because if you rub any one of his prissy oakmoss-worshipping "Institutions" the wrong way, it's off to the Nine Circles of Fragrantica for you. I was banned over a decade ago (I've since rejoined merely on principle) and when I made my way back in on the fourth try, I had to deal with a suspicious "moderator" asking me all kinds of questions for two days, telling me he can see my IP address, as if that would actually tell him anything, and acting like Basenotes is hallowed ground that only the chosen may tread on. This unwarranted and bizarrely aggressive inquisition took place because I argued with something said by Bigsly, the living embodiment of the dyed-in-the-wool Basenoter who has never once, despite years of open trolling, been so much as threatened by a ban.
And this has been the real problem with Basenotes -- its elitism. Yes, it's a great resource for fragheads. Yes, there's a treasure trove of DIY info and fascinating interviews and reviews to be had. Yes, it's a wonderful benefit to fragrance lovers, and to the internet, to have a site populated by intelligent connoisseurs who can actually string two sentences together and use sophisticated multisyllabic vocabularies to boot. But none of this matters if you can't keep up. Fragrantica has been dominating Basenotes since 2011, and their search engine visibility hasn’t been close since. Where the Fragrantica team has excelled in database design and content creation, Basenotes has languished in its stagnant 2000s aesthetic with periods of outages and server crashes literally taking it offline at least once a year. How many times have I clicked a Basenotes link, only to be greeted with a "503 Service Unavailable" page?
You know which website has never banned me for having an honest opinion? Fragrantica. I've written about Fragrantica here many times. I've criticized it here many times. I know that Fragrantica writers read my content, because they've said so in their articles. So they see me. They know what I think and what I do, and you know what? They let me stay. Because they know that digital elitism is so 2000s. They know that the days of bouncing the "hear-me-out" guys like Mattmeleg while giving gold stars to obvious frauds like Hednic is a recipe for disaster. I'm not saying Fragrantica has never banned anyone. I'm saying they aren't interested in banning people, and if they ban someone, it's for one reason only -- it was that person, or their money. And the money wins everytime.
Grant would ban people simply for challenging the crowd’s orthodoxy. Think oakmoss isn’t as crucial as his clique insists? Watch out -- the revolving door might just give you a swift kick. Dare to argue with those whose haughty attitudes have you looking everywhere for your religion? Whoever sends Grant a direct message first to complain wins. Rub Hednic the wrong way? That’s a quick ticket out -- Hednic, the very guy who has probably driven more newcomers away than anyone else (one glance at his so-called “buy list” and you realize the lunatics are running the asylum). You can’t tell these people they’re rigid and close-minded for only tolerating opinions on first formulas. You can’t push back against the collective belief that vintage fragrances are inherently better than modern reinterpretations. You can’t demur when told you’re just a newbie who should stay quiet and learn. And you definitely can’t ask about a popular fragrance without first spending eight hours hunting down and reading two or three archived threads on it -- or risk provoking senior members into begrudgingly providing the links. It’s far easier for them to berate anyone curious about current opinions than to simply share their own.
All of these bad vibes have driven people away from Basenotes. The community has shrunk tremendously over the years, and since Grant foolishly decided to sequester paying subscribers away from the rest of the site (where they can literally foul-mouth the civilians with impunity), the appearance of growing community cohesion has been much harder to generate. In short, Basenotes helped Grant drive itself into the ground, merely by refusing to open up and accept the masses. Derek, a.k.a. "Varanisridari," often snidely calls Fragrantica the "cafeteria" of the fragrance community, and makes it ever-so clear that he is not a member. I like Derek, and subscribe to his YouTube channel. But on this particular point, he embodies everything that's wrong with the Basenotes mentality. You can't look at the place that attracts all the people, sane and insane, smart and dumb, experienced and novice, and liken it to a teenage watering hole. This is the internet, Derek. Traffic is everything. You should know this -- you've increased your output commensurate with increased traffic to your channel.
The weirdest thing about Grant's statement on this issue is that he claims Google won't recognize a site's content if it's too "small." This is an obvious lie. My teeny-tiny little site has enjoyed a steady increase in Google-directed traffic over the years, to the point where I don't even need to keep content current to hold readers. Let's face it, I took a year off and saw a minimal decline in traffic, and that was seven years ago, when I had a smaller readership. I'm not a big site by any means, nor is my traffic anything spectacular, but it's more than enough to drive my ambition to keep writing. I don't get consistent search visibility, but it happens more than I thought it would. Now, it’s true that my site is directly affiliated with Google, since it’s hosted on the free Blogger platform. But Blogger doesn't self-feed. Your content has to drive its own traffic to render search results. It doesn't hurt to have Google tied in, but I wouldn't classify it as a built-in advantage, either.
Basenotes isn't failing because of Google, or because Fragrantica is too big and too mean, or even because the community is exclusionary. It's failing because it asked the internet to keep it small, and thus keep people away. Grant's draconian policies, the community's legless habit of pissing off newcomers, and the pay-to-play system all hurt its chances in the face of a rising Fragrantica, but the real problem with Basenotes is bad karma, and poor technical prowess on the part of its tech team. When glitches arise, you get on them like white on rice and have them sorted within hours, not weeks. And you invite, you don't ban. After almost twenty years of membership, I've never once witnessed an exchange that warranted a ban, yet I've seen countless people get disappeared for random reasons. I was banned for complaining about the site's foibles on Fragrantica, and was then told by senior members that expressing my negative opinion on another website was grounds to be expelled. Well, mission accomplished, people.
Fragrantica, so nice to call you home.