If all your title tags and meta-descriptions include how you’re ‘SEO friendly!’ and all that fluff, and your main means of promotion seems to be spammy footer tags in WordPress themes released under Creative Commons (meaning that someone’s not supposed to remove them), you probably pass about as much link value as [...]]]> Another comment on ‘directories:’

If all your title tags and meta-descriptions include how you’re ‘SEO friendly!’ and all that fluff, and your main means of promotion seems to be spammy footer tags in WordPress themes released under Creative Commons (meaning that someone’s not supposed to remove them), you probably pass about as much link value as my cat does (The PageRank over Fluff Protocol is not yet implemented).

But then, I am a known crankypants.

The same is true of in-house SEOs, in my opinion. The magic of a lot of in-house positions, [...]]]> A 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, or ‘near’ in-house positions, is that it guarantees the search marketer a number of advantages: the paycheck always clears, the medical benefits resemble something at least ok, and it can be more stable than even a position at a large agency. While a large agency generally has the paycheck and the benefits, they also have a long tradition of dumping a lot of creative staff on the streets during lean periods or large account turnovers. Corporations are a little less prone to that, even if the marketing budget seems to be among the first against the wall when a revolution comes.

Beyond that, many SEOs just aren’t suited for freelance work. This is as true in search marketing as in other disciplines with freelance potential, like copywriting. Managing one’s own business development, client relations, and billing can be a drag, and sometimes just not in someone’s skill set. Sure, much of that can be developed, but not everyone wants to go to the bother.

Still, learn from the domestication of the cat: Your SEO team in-house is only so domesticated as you keep them fed and give them a warm place to nap.

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 [...]]]> …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 a degree in literature and in navel-gazing fiction writing.

A friend posts to their personal blog about the ‘worst online shopping experience ever’ and links the offending retailer? I comment and explain how to no-follow — because even if you go for negative anchor text, there’s still some link equity to it for the site targeted.

I like a book, or a restaurant, or buy a shiny new bike part? Well, I can post about it and no-follow, or post about it and not link it because I like it, but not in THAT way, kind of like being in junior high and liking my square dance partner but not like boyfriend-like, just in that ok-as-a-square-dance-partner and this-phys-ed-unit-is-stupid way.

My mom reads an online review? I do a text analysis to determine if it’s real or totally bogus, written by the owner, and then I tell her about inherent bias in user-supplied reviews.

A friend posts a picture of their cat? I suggest taking it to a LOLCat generator, or using the video feature on their camera phone to help further pollute the electrons of the universe with more grainy video/image of pets.

My bike club has web site hosting problems? I look at the domain headers and sigh a lot.

Life would sure be simpler if I did something sane for a living, like garbage collection.

Now, to be fair, there are ways to disable flowing [...]]]> Today’s big news:

1. Google revenue is up 60%. Google profit is up 69%
2. Google re-named Search History to Web History, and are pushing the toolbar with PR enabled to track it better.
3. Tinfoil futures are UP as I manufacture hats for myself, all my loved ones, and my cats.

Now, to be fair, there are ways to disable flowing your surf history into Google Web History. Danny Sullivan does a nice job of explaining how to ‘pause’ the feature.

I remain she who bites the hand what feeds her, and this data collection makes me queasy. I may start lining my tinfoil hat with asbestos.

Update: Look at all the privacy complaints rolling in. Kick ass.

I hate hidden links, simply because playing games with CSS to hide links from users is a clear sign of some form of dumbassery occurring.

But paid links are a really messy area. There’s a billion comments in [...]]]> It’s all over the place: Google is looking at ways to get bitchy about paid links and hidden links.

I hate hidden links, simply because playing games with CSS to hide links from users is a clear sign of some form of dumbassery occurring.

But paid links are a really messy area. There’s a billion comments in a billion forums right now pro-killing paid links, con killing paid links, etc. An argument is being made that when you buy directory links, such as Yahoo! Directory, you’re not paying for the link, but for having the link reviewed.

That strikes me as complete poo. You mean to tell me that it really costs Yahoo! $299 to ‘review’ my submission? Man, their reviewers must be pulling amazing hourly rate. I want to be a reviewer. I could sit at home with the cats and wear sweatpants all the time. I could bike all day and review all night while drinking beer and watching the Fox Reality Channel on cable.

The only way the $299 makes sense is if Yahoo! is in fact charging on the basis of the value of the link. Which, as we’re all aware, is the truth of the matter, or else none of us would ever pay the going rate.

Other types of paid links are similarly sticky. Text link brokerage is sort of sleazy — it’s rare that I see an example where brokered text links don’t look spammy on a site. But what of a paid review? Sure, most reviewers won’t give quality reviews just for the freebie or the cash, but everyone lies if they claim the gift or the $$ doesn’t make an impact. It’s a truism of public relations that schmoozing works.

I just feel like, of all the dodgy techniques to go after, paid links are both hard to justify the various nuances, and likely difficult to build into an algorithm. How about devaluing Squidoo and MySpace linking? That would be super-easy, and probably have more immediate merit.

Edit: One of the my favorite summaries to date: The Real Reason Google Doesn’t Like Paid Links. It suits my sense of tinfoil-hattery.

Google has added a line to Webmaster Guidelines to ask that Webmasters use a robots.txt file to disallow the indexation of search results pages:

Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.

I really hope they programmatically find a [...]]]> Oh, at last:

Google has added a line to Webmaster Guidelines to ask that Webmasters use a robots.txt file to disallow the indexation of search results pages:

Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.

I really hope they programmatically find a way to beat these down.

Doing a search where the top results include anything from about.com is like getting up in the morning to discover that one of my cats horked in the laundry.

Then I consider several things: