dumb techniques
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Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007Rolling into the three-decade long primary race, we have studies evaluating the search effectiveness of various US presidential candidates already.
One limiter of the study is that it seems to focus purely on PPC spend. I find some of what various candidates are doing from an organic perspective to be far more interesting. They’re all on [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Oh, Spam, How I Love Thee
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007Attached to an image touting the standard array of designer pharmeceuticals, I give you today’s assortment of weird text snippets, suitable for reading at a poetry slam or even your next SEO pitch:
I think highly focused ads are the answer.
The benefits of local search are clear: it allows you to find customers in your area [...]
Why Must We Live in Vermin Dreams?
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007Vermin
Originally uploaded by Days Between Stations
This photo is actually graffiti on Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht, but it applies so equally well to SEO I had to post it here as well.
Chasing algorithms is a vermin dream. Over and over, we all say that SEO is more than [...]
Certification is Tiring
Thursday, May 17th, 2007I give you David Temple, lord of the SEO/SEM Certification Blog, studying hard for his Google AdWords exam:
SEOing is hard. Good thing he’s a professional.
SEO 12 Step Program: Rank-Checkers Anonymous
Wednesday, May 2nd, 20071. We admitted we were powerless over search engine rankings–that our obsession with Googling ourselves had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to high rankings.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines as we understood Them.
4. Made a searching and [...]
Paid Link Crackdown
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007It’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 [...]
