My hat is off to Quadzilla at SEOBlackHat.com for really putting it to all these ‘SEO Speakers’ that harp how great advanced ‘White Hat’ SEO techniques are:

I think this is by far my favorite part:

“But at the same time, I couldn’t help but notice that this year’s Advanced show seemed to lean a whole lot more to the grey/black hat side of things. I couldn’t help but wonder: When did advanced search engine optimization get confused with being a black hat?“

Right around the time that Google took this stance solidified it:

“Web spam is when somebody tries to cheat or take shortcuts so that their Web site shows up higher [in search results rankings] than it deserves to show up,” - Matt Cutts

If you are not trying to get your client’s websites to rank hire than they “deserve”, why should they hire you?

That really does sum it up. If you’re not going to help someone get better rankings them Google thinks they arbitrarily deserve then why should they pay you?

Maybe you can get Google to pay you a dividend for being so ‘ethical’?? Just don’t hold your breath

For those of you unfamiliar with this tool (http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php) it let you search each of Google’s data centers by IP address, letting you see how your rankings are across all the data centers. This can be very interesting to use when you’re working on an important ranking for an SEO or Reputation Management campaign.

Right now it shows that the account is suspended and we’re hoping they get their account reinstated as we really like this tool.

If anyone knows the owner of this site please have him get in touch with us, we’d be happy to host this tool for free for everyone to use. We’ve go plenty of servers so it won’t be a problem for us.

Thanks a lot to PushON for making our Friday here. We’ve decided to cancel all work today (sorry clients) and play SEO Bullshit Bingo using a quick search for “search engine optimization” on YouTube as the bingo caller.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to how most well-known companies have failed to leverage the strengths of their online properties as part of a search engine optimization or brand association strategy. Go to any big name corporate website home page and you’ll almost always see a Page Rank of 7 or 8 out of 10, which is very high. It always amazes me how many large corporations waste the strength of their websites, due to poor optimization strategies.

McDonalds

You would think a company that sells so many hamburgers would come up on the first page when you do a search for hamburgers on Google. They do rank for hamburger but the page listed links to their training center, located on their corporate website. This goes to show that they could easily implement what I’m suggesting, they just don’t know to do it.

What I really want to know is why there isn’t a page titled, “The McDonalds Hamburger, First Among Hamburgers” showing the world how great their main product is. Doing so would give them a well targeted page promoting their product that will easily rank for the plural and singular versions of the word hamburger, which according to our keyword research tool both get a lot of traffic:

Before moving to the next example I wanted to invite comments on how Wendy’s is ranking for “hamburgers” as they don’t have the word hamburger anywhere in their page source:

Major Car Manufacturers

I was recently reading a post by Bill Imada on the Big Tent Blog at AdAge.com and he pointed out an ad in China for Subaru:

Chinese Headline: “Free and unrestrained; expect to exceed expectations in the New Year!”
Advertising Agency: AdAsia Communications, New York
Creative Director: Paul Ng
Account Supervisor: Julia Kang

The idea with this ad was to associate their brand with the emotional high of rebirth/reinvention, suggesting that this renewal can occur at the beginning of the New Year, and that this feeling is also captured by purchasing a Subaru. An esoteric, abstract idea at best, that clearly required hours of creative collaboration.

You would think that if the big car companies are putting resources into such far removed ideas as an ad strategy, that they would at least be putting equivalent resources into more direct media like search, where people are actively looking for information about these products in preparation of making a buying decision.

Based on these examples I’d say either the major car manufacturers aren’t very good at keyword research or they’re not really paying attention to search at all:

hybrid vehicles ~ Doesn’t turn up any major automakers in the natural search results. There are a few in the sponsored section, (Cadillac, Toyota, Saturn, Honda). I want to know why no one has “www.carcompany.com/hybrid-vehicles” listing all their hybrid options.

alternative fuel vehicles ~ Once again no one in the natural results and only Saturn in the sponsored.

hybrid suv ~ This actually brings up a few sites in the natural results:

• www.fordvehicles.com/environmental
• www.toyota.com/highlander
• www.gmc.com/yukonhybrid/index.jsp
• www.chevrolet.com/hybrid

All the pages ranking naturally for “hybrid suv” aren’t really targeted for that keyword, they’re more of product pages for one individual hybrid vehicle, rather then their full line of hybrid offerings. This again demonstrates that they have the strength to accomplish the desired results, they’re just not doing it.

These are just two dramatic demonstrations of the truly unlimited potential for utilizing SEO as part of the arsenal in brand association campaigns. Anything from activities to ideas to self identity related searches as well as related products or slang terms can be used as the basis of an online brand association strategy, the only limit is your creativity and ingenuity.

As I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, people are Googling you, whether you like it or not! But what do you do when the results are less than ideal? One negative comment, a mean-spirited blog, or a listing on a so-called “consumer advocacy” site such as RipoffReport.com can really harm your business.

Our Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) strategy is very simple: Displace — push down — the negative listings that appear when a person or company’s name is searched with favorable ones and ones that we can control or influence. We provide SERM services to a growing number of clients and were featured on MSNBC.com in September.

We advise individuals or companies to be proactive in managing their reputation online rather than being forced into “crisis management” or “damage control”. Some things one can easily do include:
* reserve additional domains associated with their name or website (.net, .org, .biz, .info, .us, etc.) and create micro-sites with unique content on each of the URLs;
* create profiles on free sites such as LinkedIn, Squidoo, ZoomInfo, and ClaimID;
* start a blog — there are free services like blogger.com, wordpress.com and livejournal.com, for example –- which will have a strong likelihood of ranking well on a person or company name.

When people hire DONE! SEO to help with their Online Reputation Management, we apply such tactics as well as our own methodology to help give neutral or positive websites an equal chance for high positioning. We create original websites, profiles, press releases, blogs and do extensive submissions and link popularity in an effort to positively influence pages and websites that paint a person or company in a more positive light.

A study that came out this week from the Pew Internet & American Life Project entitled “Online Identity Management and Search in the Age of Transparency” points to some very interesting trends:

* 47% of Internet users have searched for information about themselves online
* 53% of adult internet users said they had looked for information connected to at least one of these groups: 1) family and friends, 2) romantic interests, and 3) business colleagues

Ultimately, people are becoming more aware of their “digital footprint”. A key take-away from the Pew report is that unlike footprints in the sand that get quickly washed or blown away, our online track often stick around for a long time! A summary of the report can be found here. Or download the full report.

Exciting stuff for the team at Better, Inc., as it points to the growing market for our SearchForMeOnline.com product and our Search Engine Reputation Management services.

I’ve seen lots of posts over the years about how political campaigns should be using SEO principles as part of their overall effort. I’ve always agreed that would be a good idea if done tastefully and ethically, but dismissed the idea as those ideals are very rare in the political circles.

Now, with the Presidential Election fast approaching we’ve decided that we will offer our services specifically to political campaigns, with the stipulation that we will not do anything unethical or otherwise ’shady’.

So what can we search engine optimization actually do for political campaigns? Quite a bit!

Our main focus in these campaigns will be working to ranks our clients for keyword associated with big issues for the 2008 election. We already know the Iraq War, and the War on Terror will be a big part of this. Another hot button issue is Universal Health Care. Working with politicians to promote certain listings relevant to these searches can be a great way to increase the level of communication between the representatives, and the represented.

I’ll be giving updates about projects related to this post as we move forward. We’ve been in talks with some campaigns, and if all goes well we’ll have some interesting stories to tell.

Yes, you read that right. According to Google’s recently updated Webmaster’s Guidelines with regards to what Google calls “link schemes.”

Examples of link schemes can include:

Links intended to manipulate PageRank

Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web

Link exchange and reciprocal links schemes (”Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)

Buying or selling links

Now last time I checked swapping links with other websites predates Google. Hell, before we had search engines the only way you could find anything online was following links between sites, and a lot of those were reciprocal links, as that was the only way for website owners to bring in visitors to their sites. I can understand that some people use links to game Google’s results, instead of helping users find good content, but they are hardly the majority, and the outright banning of sites that exchange links is very heavy handed.

IMO Google is going to far here. They present a catch 22 where they recommend:

The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page’s visitors?

It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest. In addition, submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

I don’t know about any of you, but I’ve never used DMOZ or the Yahoo Directory when looking for anything. Also, Yahoo sells links in their directory for $299 a year ($600 for adult sites). Is Google recommending I violate their guidelines in an attempt to follow their guidelines?