SearchRank - Organic Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Engine Marketing Home Contact Us Sitemap
Organic Search Paid Search Social Media The Company SearchRank Blog Resources Partners Request a Quote

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

January 25, 2008

Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News - 1/21 - 1/25

A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including IncrediMail is back in Google's favor - their AdSense privileges have been restored, Pownce, a "Twitter plus" type of service, is now open to the public after six months in beta mode, a new real estate search engine called Roost launches with full MLS listings in more than a dozen cities, Google is to eliminate domain tasting for AdSense, and finally a fun post from North South Media that looks at eleven prominent individuals in the world of search and guesses what their action figures might look like.

Click to continue reading »

January 24, 2008

SEMMYs Finalists Have Been Selected - Cast Your Vote To Choose the Winners

I wrote last week about The SEMMYs, an annual awards event honoring the great content produced across the search and online marketing industry, in which a total of 9 posts from this blog or ones I had published at Search Engine Guide had been nominated in a total of 7 categories. While I felt it was quite an honor to have so many posts nominated, there was still many posts within each category until now where judges have selected the finalists. The good new is that we have had 4 posts selected in 4 separate categories. Read on to see which posts were nominated as well as which posts I am competing against.

Click to continue reading »

January 23, 2008

What You Will Find In Our SEO Toolbox

I came across a post at Search Engine Roundtable where a member at at High Rankings Forum inquired as to what the best tools are in performing SEO. Therefore I thought I'd list some of the tools we use here at SearchRank. While I firmly believe that you cannot automate the SEO process, there are some great tools available that make the job a lot easier. Read on to discover what you might find in our tool box.

Click to continue reading »

January 22, 2008

IncrediMail Provides Valuable Lesson Why Placing All Eggs in One Basket is a Bad Idea

IncrediMail has provided business owners an incredible lesson as to why you should not place all your eggs in one basket. This occurred last week when they discovered that their AdSense privileges had been banned. This resulted in their stock dropping over 45% to a new year low. While IncrediMail does claim to generate revenue by selling software products, offering subscriptions to their content database, and by selling paid advertising on their Web site and e-mail client, they did admit that search revenues powered by Google's AdSense program made a significant contribution to their results in 2006 and 2007. The lesson to be learned here by any business is to not place all of your eggs in one basket.

Click to continue reading »

January 18, 2008

Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News - 1/14 - 1/18

A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Google disables IncrediMail's AdSense account and stock drops over 45%, wireless spectrum bidders approved and auction will begin on January 24th, popular Internet marketing social news site Sphinn to add 'bury' or 'DeSphinn' function so users can vote down stories, China closes in on the United States as far as number of Internet users they have, and finally, Microsoft expands their adCenter content network to include non-Microsoft properties.

Click to continue reading »

January 16, 2008

Twitter Not Useful? Think Again!

I love Twitter. It is a continuously open tab in my Firefox browser right alongside Bloglines. Yes it can be a huge time waster and some people "abuse" it by updating about the most ridiculous things. However, I like it and find it quite useful for a number of things. Maki of DoshDosh has come out with an excellent post listing 17 ways one can use Twitter.

Click to continue reading »

January 15, 2008

Do You Report Paid Links? What Goes Around Comes Around!

Are you a search marketer that reports paid links? Patrick Altoft asked the same question in a post at Blogstorm and admitted that he had reported them in the past, but only when the site buying or selling them was a direct competitor and ranked higher than him. My first inclination is to say, "shame on you, Patrick." However, I guess it really depends on how you view paid links. There are those who view them as spam and would not hesitate for a minute to report a competitor. However, if you buy or sell paid links but also report them to Google all in the name of trying to curtail the efforts of a competitor, well then that kind of makes you a hypocrite.

Click to continue reading »

January 14, 2008

Government Steps Up Efforts To Access Any Email or Web Search Data

I came across a disturbing report from The Raw Story about National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell's plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today. The plan would give the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search.

Click to continue reading »

Nominated for The Semmys Awards

The Semmys is an awards site that was put together by my good friend, Matt McGee, in which he has nominated a number of the best posts of 2007, all arranged by category (much like the Emmys). Categories include SEO, PPC, Small Business, Google, Analytics, Online Marketing/General, Blogs and Blogging, Search Tech, Reputation Management, Link Building, Rants and Viral Marketing. A total of 9 posts from this blog as well as ones I have published elsewhere have been nominated in 7 categories.

Click to continue reading »

January 11, 2008

Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News - 1/7 - 1/11

A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Wikipedia launched Wikia Search which most reviewers found disappointing, Chris Winfield provides 10 simple steps to social media success in 2008, network Solutions provides another reason to hate them with their newly instituted practice of automatically registering domain names users search for and then hijacking the price, Ask's CEO Jim Lanzone leaves the company to join venture capital firm Redpoint Ventures, and finally, Google introduces Google Checkout Trends which provides insight into what people are buying and selling online.

Click to continue reading »

January 09, 2008

Search Engine Journal's 2007 Search Blogs Awards Winners

The results are in for Search Engine Journal's 2007 Search Blogs Awards. This is SEJ's third installment of this contest in which they nominated the best of the best in 18 separate categories. I had previously announced that we were nominated as one of the top ten SEO blogs which I think is an honor in and of itself. We didn't win the number one spot in that category which is justifiable as there were much better SEO sites we were contending with. Read on to see who won in each category.

Click to continue reading »

January 04, 2008

Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News - 12/31 - 1/4

A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Vanessa Fox reviews the 2007 war on paid links, a new service called Twitter Stats allows you to graph your Twitter usage, human powered search engine ChaCha launches mobile text search, and finally, Jennifer Laycock recommend Firefox extension that will highlight links that are nofollowed.

Click to continue reading »

January 03, 2008

Why Can't Google Be More Like Ask.com?

Anyone who is into link building knows that Google has declared a war of sorts on paid links, looking to punish both those who buy and sell them. Vanessa Fox has put together an excellent review of the "paid links war" as it unfolded in 2007. With that review, she wanted to learn how the other three major search engines felt about paid links. At the writing of her post, Yahoo and MSN failed to comment. Ask did and their response was quite refreshing.

Click to continue reading »

Traffic Power CEO Matt Marlon Accused of Foreclosure Scam

It has been some time since we have heard anything regarding Traffic Power, a Nevada based "SEO" company that was responsible for offering shady marketing practices that eventually got thousands of their customers banned from Google. Since then, they went through a few name changes, attempted to sue SEOBook's Aaron Wall and essentially faded away after that lawsuit was dismissed. That is until recently when Search Engine Watch broke the story that Traffic Power CEO, Matt Marlon, has been arrested and jailed accused of a foreclosure scam in Nevada.

Click to continue reading »