Archive for December, 2006
Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 12/18 – 12/22
A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including PayPerPost changes their disclosure policy, Yahoo! will support a tag that excludes their own directory results from appearing in the SERPs, Google reminds us that using images next to AdSense is a no-no, Google discontinues supports for its search API, Del.icio.us releases a new badge called the Tagometer, Lee Odden’s blog gets banned from Digg for no good reason and finally Blogger is updated with new features.
WebGuerrilla Exposes the Half Truths of Frogs
Greg Boser (aka WebGuerrilla) doesn’t post often on his blog but when he does, boy does he have something to say. This latest post which refutes the half truths being spread first by Did-it.com’s president, David Pasternack and followed by executive chairman, Kevin Lee, is no exception. Both David and Kevin’s articles attempt to paint a picture that SEO is a dying art while the future is all PPC. Greg exposes their hypocrisy in a most excellent post. I’ll provide a few excerpts below but definitely take some time to read it in its entirety.
All I Want For Christmas Is… – A Search Marketer’s Wish List
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” – uh oh you caught me singing Christmas melodies. It is that time of the year again – faith for some, the gathering of family as well and of course, gift giving. And with gift giving, there is gift getting (receiving). Have you made your wish list yet? I have, at least from a search marketing perspective. Allow me to share what I would like for Christmas this year.
2006 Search Blog Awards by Search Engine Journal
Time to vote for your favorite blogs and bloggers related to search and Internet marketing. Loren baker has assembled the voting after compiling favorites from comments on an earlier post. The SearchRank Blog was nominated under the SEO Blog of the year category. Wow – what an honor! Thanks to those who nominated us. Voting is open now and runs thru December 24th after which it will be closed. Good luck to all who were nominated. There is certainly no lack of quality content being produced on a variety of blogs in our industry.
CSS, Ajax, Web2.0 and Their Impact on Search Visibility
During the recent Search Engine Strategies conference held in Chicago, I had the privilege of attending a session entitled “CSS, Ajax, Web2.0 and Search Engines.” On hand was Shari Thurow of Grantastic Designs, Jim McFadyen of Critical Mass, Scott Orth of Selytics, and from the search engines themselves, Amit Kumar from Yahoo and Dan Crow from Google. Shari, Jim and Scott each took turns discussing these three buzz words of 2006 while the search engine reps were able to offer some additional thoughts.
The Unsure Future of DMOZ (Open Directory Project)
It has been widely speculated as of late that the future of DMOZ, also known as The Open Directory or ODP for short, is unsure. Not only has it become increasingly impossible to get a web site listed in DMOZ, the submission form has been broken since October. The reason behind this is that the machine holding DMOZ in AOL ops crashed and they have yet to fix it. Rich Skrenta, DMOZ-founder, gives us some insight into what is going on.
Blogger Tag Game, Tag You’re It! – 5 Unknown Facts About Me
I got tagged so I guess I’m it. I’m referring to a blog tagging game originally started by Jeff Pulver, and archived for the SEO/SEM world at The Blog Tag Tree. The game requires that bloggers share five things about themselves that relatively few people know. Li Evans tagged me so I guess I’ll play. Here are five things that you may or may not know about me.
Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 12/11 – 12/15
A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Matt Cutts debunking common rumors, AOL is found to have the safest search results, Yahoo’s new search platform is rolled out, new social search engine, Decipho launches, Google releases updated tool bar for Firefox, Yahoo! Publisher network ads Ad Blocking feature and finally Rebecca Kelly from SEOmoz puts together a funny cartoon trip report from SES Chicago.
New Social Networking Site – TickMe
David Naylor (aka DaveN) and his team of programmer have release a new social networking site called TickMe. He describes it as “a bit like Myspace/Faceparty but with more privacy and a dating slant.” How is TickMe different from other social networking sites? David describes it as, “the answer to your greatest social problem – finding out if someone likes you without risk of rejection. Tick someone you know or a random hottie and no-one finds out unless they Tick you back!”
Personalize Your Link Request Spam Already!
I get request for links from link builders all the time, what I refer to as “link request spam.” The content of the email is typically the same because they are using some kind of form letter. Simply fill in the blanks to somewhat personalize it even though most often the sites requesting links have absolutely nothing to do with my site (except that they are both on the Internet). It is a lazy way to build link popularity as opposed to building quality content that will attract links naturally or actually taking the effort to seek out quality links whether they are requested, purchased or both.
How Interactive Agencies Can Add $1 Million To Revenues in 2007
Andy Beal has just published an article entitled “Five Secret Strategies to Add $1 Million in Revenue to your Interactive Marketing Agency in 2007″ in which he provides some proven strategies that any marketing firm can implement. The five secret strategies Andy lists are tried and trusted as he has used them to help grow one firm to $25+ million in annual revenues and another to an annual run rate of $2+ million in its first year. I will provide a bullet list with some excerpts but definitely check out original article as it is a worthy read.
Brand Advocates Closely Tied To Growth in Social Media
What is a “brand advocate” anyway? ClickZ defines them as “consumers who spread opinions via word of mouth, as well as over social networks, instant messaging, chat, photo sites and blogging.” According to a new research report released today by Yahoo! and comScore Networks, not only is social networking’s influence on marketing growing, but particularly vocal individuals are having more of an effect than ever.
