I am currently doing a study on the factor age plays on a blog/website. I have read different opinions, and I am looking for the most opinions that I can get. Please participate in this survey. Would you rather read about a kid who does SEO, or would you rather read about a 43 year old guy doing SEO? What about if the kid does so good seo that he is number 1 for a specific keyword even though that in his last 13 articles he hasn't talked about that specific keyword AT ALL.

Will we be writing in the future about lying about your age to do better SEO?

I don't believe you.

Age doesn't matter to me. I rarely trust or take anyone seriously if they are writing about seo. Age, gender, culture and boxers or briefs are irrelvant.

I trust maturity more.

but then again my tits point south these days...

The brain of your average visitor...

"The thing is, I wouldn't rather read about any of those. I have ONE SEO guru that i'd trust and thats it, everyone else is second best to me because I'm partial. That means i'm not going to spend my time reading SEO from anyone else unless my guy says they're better than him."

Age, color, race, favorite tv show and everything else plays no role in it, and won't ever, ya know?

Now, if you tell me a 10 year old whoops Aaron Wall's hiney in a contest... then I'm all ears. Are you that good?

Oh, dishonesty... yuck.

The older person is the one I owuld be more likely to follow. With as paranoid as our culture has become, I would rather not have ever have to answer the question, "Why are you always reading a 13 year old's web site?"

Modern culture does not allow adults to associate with children they haven't raised unless they are teachers/coaches. And even then, if they are are single males, people don't quite trust them.

I must admit, I would be turned off from reading a teenager's advice.

Ageist, perhaps.

I tend to trust well-informed younger people better, simply because they're more honest.

Adults are all sappy smiling and lying about the most PAINFULLY simple questions... ask ANYONE you know how they're feeling when they obviously are feeling dreadful. "Fine". It annoys me to NO living end.

I think one of the best things about online reading-relationships is that we don't really know what age anyone is.

I say i'm 44... but am I?

That's one reason why the age of a blogger doesn't matter - unless they shout about it who is ever going to know?

I find no real reason to lie about my age, and therefore I don't do it, but I can't help but imagine a ton of people do. I don't think the negatives or positives of this would weigh enough either way to make a big difference in readers.

Personally I don't think it's my readers business what age I am on my other SMO blog. It does seam this culture is ageist because whenever I do reveal my age I get comments about being a very stressed out person -_-

Ever since one alleged teen became popular for make money online keyword, there have been tons of so called teen bloggers crop up. I don't believe them. Any time one person is successful with a concept, all the people lacking in original thought copy the idea in the hopes of copying their success. Most SEO are scams and most teens are scams, IMHO.

Fighting with Writing, so you are saying that you wouldn't read my blog, just because of the simple fact that I am 14? Imagine the owner of Problogger never revealing his identity and then all of a sudden saying he is 14, would you trust him?

(I'm not saying it right or not to trust young bloggers, I'm only conducting a study)

I'm not interested in SEO, doesn't matter if the author is 14 or 40 or 106. On the other hand, for topics that DO interest me, I don't care how old you are.

This goes for any site I read, though: if I find out the author has been lying to me, I get annoyed. If they lied for selfish reasons, I get pissed. If they lied just because they felt like lying, I look them up on Google Earth and send in a couple of Centurions and a skin job (probably Six... she's BAD).

Lying is bad juju... don't bother.

I do not think age matters. A younger person can easily compensate his/her lack of experience by more creativity and innovation.

I'm not doing SEO either. I figure I worked hard to get to this old age, so I am going to celebrate it! Besides, if I lied, my kids would out me. As for others, I am impressed with many young people today and their creative smarts. I relate to my own generation and I admire those ahead of me who teach me to hang tough and stay young!

I usually don't even look at people's "about" pages, so age, height, hair color, weight, etc. don't play a role in whether or not I read. Only the writing style and topic.

It's not that I wouldn't read someone's blog just because of their age, I would just be more comfortable learning from someone older if I was given the choice. (Was that not the question?)

I don't read ProBlogger, I'm not a dedicated number crunching blogger who needs to be abreast of SEO issues.

I just enjoy blogging as a pleasant hobby, and am drawn to blogs by the quality of their writing, rather than the quality of their advice.

I like Ken's blog, as his stories are funny and read nicely off the page. If he suddenly announced that he was 16 instead of 44, I would still like his blog. I'm reasonably sure he's not though. A 16 year old wouldn't write like that.

I don't make an issue out of my age on my blog. I think if you're 14 and are a good blogger, it would be better to keep people guessing rather than have them think you are copying "the teen concept" that carlocab made popular. Promoting it as a "teen blog" would be a turnoff to me.

Some of the nastiest comments I get, both on my blog and StumbleUpon are from teenagers, so I don't really get a feel good feeling from teenagers online. I would write my blog and let the content be judged on it's onwn merits.

I never lie about my age. Have no reason to care that you know my true age because it's not very likely that I'll ever meet anyone on the net anyway.

Forbes makes a good point.

If having a young age were to turn people of your blog, instead of lying, just don't mention your age.

Why lie?

I'm proud of the fact I made it to 50 with 80% of my sanity still intact. Woo hoo and go me! I even survived (most of) the teen years of Offspring!

And I was WAAAAAAY too serious as a teenager.

|I'm proud of the fact I made it to 50 with 80% of my sanity still intact.|

I was born with 12% of my sanity intact and then lost 40% of it growing up.

To a certain point, age does matter.

A 14 year old, no matter how much they read other SEO websites, is going to be lacking significant insight into how people act, business sense, law, and probably will lack plain old common sense.

Once you get beyond a point, early 20s perhaps, it doesn't matter that much anymore.

@ily... I'll email you some sanity. Though I tend to think it's pretty overrated. :)

@Gary... totally agree. While my 18-year-old is fairly brilliant and could probably ace any test you give toss at her or figure out any technical problem, she's just still not terribly smart when it comes to being in the world.