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Harsh Words for Would-Be SEOs

Despite the recession, I’m in a fortunate place where we still hire talented SEOs fairly regularly. No hiring freeze, no reduced demand for services, although sometimes the traffic we’re after is in decline.

And as I talk to those who would label themselves SEOs, I really have to disagree with their self-assessments. Here are a few [...]

April 23rd, 2009 | Category: tinfoil hats | Comments are closed

Google Reader & Search History

I have personal proof that your search history, when logged in to Google, is applied to other Google properties.

I’ve been using Google Reader as my RSS aggregator. The blogs I have subscribed in Reader fall into three categories: Search/Marketing, Bicycling, and maybe one or two blogs belonging to friends that are a mix of both [...]

July 14th, 2008 | Category: tinfoil hats | 2 comments

Black Hat SEO vs. Dunce Cap SEO

‘Black hat SEO’ is a label often erroneously applied to what are really ‘dunce cap’ online marketing tactics.

July 10th, 2007 | Category: SEM, SEO, black hat, content strategy, dumb techniques, dunce hat, spam, tinfoil hats, white hat | 3 comments

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 [...]

July 3rd, 2007 | Category: PPC, SEM, SEO, blogging, content strategy, dumb techniques, link building, marketing, politics, robots.txt, search results, social media, spam, tinfoil hats, user generated content, vacation, video, web 2.0, zrong | Comments are closed

Concerns with Google Earth

The 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 [...]

June 5th, 2007 | Category: data collection, google, local search, privacy, search engine features, tinfoil hats, web 2.0 | Comments are closed

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 [...]

June 4th, 2007 | Category: :), SEM, SEO, cats, conferences, databases, day job, domains, education, google, link building, link-bait, local search, marketing, robots.txt, search engine features, search results, social media, spam, tinfoil hats, vacation | Comments are closed

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 [...]

May 23rd, 2007 | Category: PPC, SEM, SEO, advertising, data collection, google, online branding, search engine features, search results, tinfoil hats | One comment

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 [...]

April 20th, 2007 | Category: advertising, analytics, data collection, databases, google, lead generation, marketing, privacy, search engine features, search results, tinfoil hats | Comments are closed

News of the Paranoid

Today’s big news:

Google revenue is up 60%. Google profit is up 69%
Google re-named Search History to Web History, and are pushing the toolbar with PR enabled to track it better.
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 [...]

April 19th, 2007 | Category: cats, data collection, databases, google, privacy, search engine features, search results, tinfoil hats | Comments are closed

New Prominence for Google Notebook?

Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but when did Google start showing ‘Note This?’ links in search results for signed-in users?

I know Notebook launched in April 2006, but I can’t recall having seen this show up like this prior to now:

Is this another collaborative filter-Web 2.0-data collection manuever? Or is it just a ‘hey, [...]

April 18th, 2007 | Category: data collection, google, search engine features, search results, social media, tinfoil hats, web 2.0 | Comments are closed
 
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