Archive for June, 2007
« Previous EntriesOn Cats & Search Marketers
Saturday, June 30th, 2007A study has found that cats sort of domesticated themselves because human granaries became a source of food, followed by the humans themselves encouraging the cats to stick around (because the cats ate the rats in the granaries).
The same is true of in-house SEOs, in my opinion. The magic of a lot of in-house positions, [...]
Missed Opportunities in Real Estate Development
Thursday, June 28th, 2007How many ‘Maple Streets’ does any one county, state or country need? I saw no fewer than two in a 28-mile bicycle ride last night.
What makes a real estate developer say, “Let’s name all these streets for trees?”
And why do they always choose the same trees? Why not a round of ‘Black Locust Lane’ or [...]
Directories & The Sniff Test
Friday, June 22nd, 2007I think any reasonably competent SEO has the good sense on how to tell if a directory is ‘good’ or ‘eh.’
Unfortunately, many of our clients, let alone non-clients who think they can’t afford SEO advice, don’t have the well-honed sense of smell. Nor should they be expected to — one of the advantages for a [...]
Google to Build Data Center in Council Bluffs
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007Google is building a data center in Council Bluffs.
My mind boggles, given that I went to U of Iowa and had many friends at Iowa State as well. This puts some knowledge-based jobs in Iowa, but leaves them with several issues:
Everyone wants out of Iowa when they’re done being educated.
Council Bluffs is really really a [...]
Self-Consciousness & SEO
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007…or, “Just use the internet to do illegal downloads and porn like the rest of us,” says my pal Jawa.
Being an SEO means being self-conscious about your own actions and the actions of others on the Internet. At least it does for me, possibly because it’s semi-universal, or possibly because I am a freak with [...]
Go, Peeps, Go!
Monday, June 18th, 2007A few shout-outs:
1. To Sarah Bernier, aka Sarita, for her debut at Search Engine Strategies Latino Edition. Her session was blogged over at Search Engine Roundtable.
2. To the legend known as David Temple, who has accepted a position as Region Head of Search, Asia Pacific Region, at Neo@Ogilvy. It seems like only yesterday when [...]
On Self-Defeating Business Models
Monday, June 18th, 2007One of the interesting things to watch over the coming year will be what happens to a fairly common SEO business model, that of the ‘guaranteed top rankings!!!!’
With Google’s move to Universal Search and personalization, and the various manuevers of Yahoo, it’s hard to say where the people who promise rankings will land. It’s certain [...]
Dealing with Penalties
Friday, June 15th, 2007Rand over at SEOMoz did a great job of putting together a flow-chart of dealing with Google penalties the other day.
He was more polite about one topic than I often want to be relative to a site owner claiming penalty: He refers to the alternative as losing rank to competitors. In many cases, the unvarnished [...]
Reliability of Online Reviews
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007This one’s for the Funk King of Minneapolis, Paul Jahn.
There’s a Salon blog post today on the reliability of online reviews. Here’s a choice bit:
Online ratings are beset by one main flaw, something pollsters call “response bias.” Because people are more likely to rate products that have moved them in some way — either positively [...]
Choosing a Keyword Research Tool
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007Like it or not, search engine optimization still starts at the page level. Without belittling the importance of quality site architecture and design, the first thing most people will think of when you say ‘SEO’ will be keyword research and content optimization.
I think keyword research is important. A lot of it is verifying the obvious, [...]
