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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Website Magazine Gets it Wrong
Thursday, June 7th, 2007While traveling to Sea-Tac Airport today with the wonderful Ms. Christy Arneson-Jones, I started reading my free copy of Website Magazine. In their feature, “Five Steps to Outsourcing Search Marketing,” they recommend educating oneself. They included a handy quick quiz to determine what one might know right now.
Question #2 prompted a snort of derision from [...]
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 [...]
Concerns with Google Earth
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007The latest round of privacy (and other) concerns of various types are now hitting Google Earth:
Salon discusses how the alleged plot against JFK airport was being plotted with the images on Google Earth.
CNN discusses the ick factor of finding nosepickers in action on Google Earth imagery.
The first isn’t truly a privacy concern, but it crosses [...]
Out at SMX
Monday, June 4th, 2007I’m at SMX in Seattle this week, experiencing the magic of the Seattle weather and the oddities of my laptop’s battery. A few things I will expound on during my free time later:
why this conference’s food is currently winning the ‘conference prize’ for the recent past, excepting that of the MIMA Summit
Supplemental index
Duplicate content
Kneeling down [...]
Google & PPC
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007In all the hub-bub about Google Universal Search, and the impact of Web History/Personalization/iGoogle on results, there’s something I don’t know that I’ve seen, but seems like an inevitable next step:
Impact of Universal and History on the display of PPC.
One of the places where AdWords pales in comparison to the MSN AdCenter is in its [...]
