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Categories

Reality Check

Let’s stop pretending otherwise: MSN Search sucks.

Submissions: Snake Oil

People persist in believing submissions are necessary for the top 4 search engines.

Minneapolis Locals: SEO Event 7/11

MIMA’s hosting a search event in Minneapolis. Let’s all go.

Political Search

Rolling 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

I 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 [...]

Reliability of Online Reviews

This 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 [...]

Out at SMX

I’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

In 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 [...]

SEO 12 Step Program: Rank-Checkers Anonymous

1. 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 [...]

Ceding Control & Its Hazards

I think Aaron Wall of SEOBook wrote a great post this week about Google and the ‘death’ of affiliate marketing. He really focuses on AdSense publishing, but I believe it goes further than that.

He doesn’t mention Google Analytics, but I think GA also factors into Google’s reach for control. There’s some extent to which I [...]