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And The Best Search Blogger of 2006 Goes To...
2007-01-05 03:43:05
Matt Cutts edged out Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land for the award. Congratulations Matt!
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SEO, is it Really Rocket Science?
2007-01-04 15:43:06
Last week, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land posted about defending the need for SEO. So it begs the question: "is SEO really that difficult?"I would recommend that you read Danny's recent post and his previous post on the topic.Can you do SEO yourself, YES! If you couldn't, I wouldn't write for everyone. But, if you are relying on the traffic or revenue that is produced from your website, I would recommend that you consult with a professional, hire a professional, or bring SEO in-house. I manage in-house SEO for a single firm.At work today, Network Engineer Bob, Website Developer Joe and I had a discussion about our strengths and what each of our departments bring to the marketing and development of our sites.Network Engineer Bob leads our network engineering department - he can build it and it will function efficiently - the website will not look appealing - there would be no consideration for rankings in organic searchWebsite Developer Joe leads our web design and developm...
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Wikiasari Community Search
2007-01-03 15:42:07
"Search is part of the fundamental infrastructure of the Internet. And, it is currently broken. Why is it broken? It is broken for the same reason that proprietary software is always broken: lack of freedom, lack of community, lack of accountability, lack of transparency. Here, we will change all that. There have been some amazing projects in recent years which have matured now to the point that a new alternative is possible. Wiki a is funding and supporting the development of something radically new. Nutch and Lucene and some other projects now provide the background infrastructure that we need to generate a new kind of search engine, which relies on human intelligence to do what algorithms cannot. Just as Wikipedia revolutionized how we think about knowledge and the encyclopedia, we have a chance now to revolutionize how we think about search. Help me out, spread the word. I am looking for people to continue the development of a wiki-inspired search engine. Specifically community m...
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Happy New Year 2007
2007-01-03 15:42:07
I have decided to resolve something this year on Build a Better Website, build a better blog for my readers and visitors and clean out my posts that are not related to SEO.I have cleaned out the old irrelevant posts and will work on not posting non-relevant posts (aside from this one). I am currently working on my template for my new domain: SEOPittfall.com. I do not have an idea when this project will be completed, but until then...Happy New Year !
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New for 2007
2006-12-31 03:40:01
Well, I would like to share that Build a Better Website will move in 2007.Blogger has been a great thing for me. If any of you have a passion that you enjoy talking about and your spouse doesn't understand or like to hear about, you know what I am talking about.The-Blog-Life started as a test. When the news broke back in October 2004 that Google would be acquiring Blogger, I had to act. I opened an account to find out what all the buzz was about. I posted a couple of times about stuff that had nothing to do with SEO. Sports, politics, surfing and other things that really didn't matter too much.I really didn't see what blogging would come to be.Skip to August 2006, when I went to SES San Jose and my eyes were opened. Being an in house SEO, I wanted to reinforce some concepts that we (my design team) were using in developing a new platform for our websites. Being in a difficult vertical, travel, we were embarking on our greatest endeavor yet. We wanted to be sure that we were not m...

Sitelinks Revisited
2006-12-29 09:38:01
Recently, SEO by the Sea posted about Google's Site links:"...we likely have Google looking carefully at what happens when people are provided additional links into a site itself, based upon what people have done previously when they?ve gone into that site. Will they use these additional links, or do they insist on going to the main results page?" Sitelinks has been a topic that I have been interested in since early September, when Vanessa Fox over at Webmaster Central let the cat out of the bag.Search Engine Land posted about additional information regarding Sitelinks today:"The first was how much Google relied upon log file analysis and measuring user behavior (including toolbar use, according to the patent application), to decide whether or not to show these sitelinks, and which links to show.Also interesting was that one of the pages that Google may try to include in these sitelinks is one where people can make purchases, filling a need for searchers involved in a transactional ...
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Pay Per Post Acquires Performancing
2006-12-29 09:38:01
TechCrunch reports that PayPerPost will acquire Perform ancing tomorrow to acquire new customers:"The main purpose of the acquisition appears to be for PayPerPost to get access to the 28,000 Performancing users, most of whom are bloggers and potential customers of PayPerPost. The popular Performancing Firefox blog editing plugin is not being acquired, and will be spun off into a new brand."SERoundtable also commented today about Paid Blog Reviews:"That is a tough one... Let's look back... E-mail is a great thing, but spammers got to it and make it tough to use sometimes. The Web is a great thing, but spammers got to it (spyware, adware) and make it tough to use sometimes. Search engines are a great thing, but spammers got to it... Blogs are a great thing, but comment spammers got to it, making it tough... Paid blogger reviews are a great thing, but they can and will be used by people with bad intentions. As a blogger, I believe you can judge for yourself if a review is for a link or...
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Pay Per Post Acquired by Performancing
2006-12-28 21:37:01
TechCrunch reports that Perform ancing will acquire PayPerPost tomorrow to acquire new customers:"The main purpose of the acquisition appears to be for PayPerPost to get access to the 28,000 Performancing users, most of whom are bloggers and potential customers of PayPerPost. The popular Performancing Firefox blog editing plugin is not being acquired, and will be spun off into a new brand."SERoundtable also commented today about Paid Blog Reviews:"That is a tough one... Let's look back... E-mail is a great thing, but spammers got to it and make it tough to use sometimes. The Web is a great thing, but spammers got to it (spyware, adware) and make it tough to use sometimes. Search engines are a great thing, but spammers got to it... Blogs are a great thing, but comment spammers got to it, making it tough... Paid blogger reviews are a great thing, but they can and will be used by people with bad intentions. As a blogger, I believe you can judge for yourself if a review is for a link or...
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MyBlogLog Building
2006-12-27 21:36:02
MyBlog Log was acquired in November by Yahoo!Take a look at the Alexa data since the acquisition:Quite interesting.What is MyBlogLog:"MyBlogLog enables you to take advantage of your existing presence on the Web and ties it into communities of like-minded readers and authors to add context to the conversations in which you take part." MyBlogLog.comFeel free to visit Build a Better Website on the "MySpace" blog networking.
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What About Pay for Post and SEO
2006-12-27 21:36:02
Pay for Post may be a new idea in the blogosphere but essentially they are paid for links, which is an old SEO technique where a website pays another to put a text link to their site for two purposes:1. Visitors will click to the (advertiser's) website2. Search engine spiders will follow the link and pass value for the link text and the linkIn the golden age of SEO, this would be a great think to get if you wanted quick organic listings in Google. Because of the underlying value, website owners would request more and more money for links from higher value (pagerank) sites.Was this a good practice?Hindsight 20/20, no. However, it did not get you banned from the search engine index, so, most thought "no harm, no foul." Since then, Yahoo and MSN stopped using the Google index for search, MSN stopped using the Yahoo index for search, Ask.com retired Jeeves and became a player in the search engine market and every single engine (these four) have their own pay per click advertising platf...
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The Top 13 Posts for 2006 from Build a Better Website
2006-12-27 21:36:02
As the year is quickly coming to a close, I have been looking back at the posts that I really enjoyed writing and sharing. I really wanted a top 10 list, but I ended up with 13 posts. So, I give you:The Top 13 Post s for 2006 from Build a Better Webs ite 13. Resources of SEO12. Link Laundering - The New (Black Hat) Link Behavior11. Wall Street Journal - Blogs are Insignificant10. What About Pay for Post and SEO 9. Are Links Dead - insight from Hilltop 8. Link Building Myths 7. Golden Rules of Linking 6. Why do you Blog? 5. "Every Page is a Landing Page" and Other Concepts of SEO 4. Browsing Alternatives - or - How Do Your Users See You? 3. Happy World Usability Day! 2. An Interview with CometQueryand my favorite post from 2006: 1. Search Engine Optimization - a dialogThanks for a great year, and if you Build a Better Website you will suceed!
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Where's Santa?
2006-12-24 09:34:01
Google Earth is tracking Sant a 's path this year for all of the boys and girls.Merry Christmas!
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Still No Beta or The New Version of Blogger
2006-12-24 09:34:01
Blogger Buzz proclaimed on Tuesday:"The new version of Blogger in beta is dead!Long live the new version of Blogger!"Back in October, I like many of my blogger counterparts had to deal with blogger being down in dramatic fashion. Which the engineers responded:"I, like many of you, will look upon this past week with irritation, disappointment, and maybe even a bit of anger.""...perhaps your own experiences to know that Blogger had a significant number of unplanned outages this last week.""In the long term, we're developing a new version of Blogger with some great new features that is built on technology and hardware that has proven, Google-quality reliability. The current Blogger infrastructure is "albeit in a very Lincoln's axe way" the same that Google acquired four years ago. Sure, we've built on it and expanded it significantly since then, but the truth is we've more than out-grown it. The new version is ground-up more scalable and less error-prone."Later, in November:"Today ...
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More Information About Sitelinks
2006-12-24 03:33:04
Back in September, I noticed a frequent occurrence when submitting queries to Google. After some research and input from friends, I found that they were being referred to as sitelinks.Well, more information has become available via SEObytheSea. "A method includes generating search results in response to a user query, where at least one of the search results includes a group of links. The group of links may represent links to web pages within a same web site and may be identified based on at least one factor associated with the links. The method may also include providing the search results to the user."My analysis of the process and the need come down to:1. This could be a response to gather data about what the users intent is when providing a specific query based upon users activity.2. This could be a way to more effectively use the real estate on the results page because subsequent pages, even though indented, take more space than do the new sitelinks.Response to the first questio...
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Wall Street Journal - Blogs are Insignificant
2006-12-24 03:33:04
Joseph Rago, an assistant editorial features editor at the Wall Street Journal , recently wrote:"The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps." from The Blog Mob "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles." Unlike Time Magazine, who recently praised the efforts of everyone participating in the interent's social scene, awarding these efforts with the 2006 Time Person of the Year.Blogs , MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and others have dramatically affected the media market. Could this lashing be a result of the frustrations that an accomplished writer, even an editor of a world renowned newspaper, has difficulties finding readers and people with no formal education in the field have more people that want to ...

Digg Gets Dugg
2006-12-23 09:32:03
Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog wrote today about yet an apparent means of frustration for marketers and SEOs: being banned from Digg .Digg has become a socialization success story rather quickly with added traffic and use, along with a positive buzz in the blogosphere, however, because of their rather minimal and unorganized policies, their product has been exploited."There are a lot of good things in digg and it would be a shame to see it peter out because of DMOZ style power trips (as Jill says) and ?baby out with the bathwater? style editorial policies."The SEO community has been speaking out about this, as many of the most vocal banned parties come from this segment. This is probably a very understandable, as it is SEOs that see the potential value of high visibility on the popular portal.Is banning the answer? I don't think so. My suggestion would be to strengthen the policies in place or create new policies to handle this abuse. Stopping the user experience is not the way....
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Blogger and Del.icio.us Improve
2006-12-22 15:30:08
Blogger and Del.icio.us announced today new improvements for users.Blogger announced some new features, now out of beta:You can add stuff to your blog with limited or no knowledge of HTMLCreate new templates without knowing CSSPrivacyLabel Posts New Templates Integration with Google accountsDel.icio.us has a few up their sleeves too:del.icio.us has just released a new badge called the "Tagometer". The tagometer is like the save to del.icio.us widget, but with more stuff:The Tagometer opens things up from there - using a JSON data feed from del.icio.us, the Tagometer includes an up-to-date count of others who've already bookmarked the page, as well as a fresh list of the top tags applied.Great news for bloggers and social life's alike.I will apologize for the lackluster posting as of late. I am sure you can understand. Not that this is not an important aspect of my life, however, SEO is my job (just not here) and my family is extremely important to me, as I hope yours is too, but s...
More About: Blogger , Blog , Improve , Logger , Blogg

2006 Search Blogs Awards - Let the Voting Begin
2006-12-22 03:30:04
SearchEngineJournal has opened the polls for the 2006 Search Blog Awards after some problems with the nomination process (can you say Florida in a previous Presidential Race?).Unfortunately I was not nominated this year (not a surprise to me) but I will be voting. I guess I can start working on the 2007 campaign, any slogan ideas?
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Google is not the Antichrist, or Is It? A Top 10 List
2006-12-20 09:27:04
In the SEO community, typically there are two types of people, those who love Google and those who hate Google. It is kind of like the Yankees (Cubs fan here), Microsoft and AOL, you either love 'em or hate 'em.So that leads to the two great questions:1. Why do you hate Google so much?and 2. Why do you love Google so much?Let's address each of them.Why is Google so great? (let's do a top ten)10. Google provides more information to users and professionals.9. Google provides a lot of great tools (GMail, Reader, Search)8. Google is cool7. Google doesn't charge users6. Google provides what people are looking for (marketers and searchers)5. Google is for everyone, not just techies4. Everyone talks about Google3. Google makes it easy for everyone2. Google likes feedbackand the number one reason that people love Google (especially website owners):1. Google drives more traffic than any other search engineWhy is Google so bad?10. Google is too simple9. Google is not a portal (yet)8. Goo...
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Time Magazine's Person of the Year 2006
2006-12-19 15:26:04
That's right, I am Time Magazin e 's Person of the Year for 2006!Along with everyone else, that is!Why is this worthy of posting about? Because it means that the Time is right for everyone to be apart of the internet. (Did you like the pun?)"But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990...
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Google Speaks - Three Things SEOs Should Listen To
2006-12-19 15:26:04
Believe it or not, everything that Google speaks about is related to SEO, but here are three posts from Webmaster Central that are very relevant to what SEOs should be looking at:1. Target visitors or search engines? - Make good use of page titlesThis is true of the main heading on the page itself, but is also true of the title that appears in the browser's title bar.Whenever possible, ensure each page has a unique title that describes the page well. - Write with wordsImages, flash, and other multimedia make for pretty web pages, but make sure your core messages are in text or use ALT text to provide textual descriptions of your multimedia. - Make sure the text you're talking about is in your contentVisitors may not read your web site linearly like they would a newspaper article or book. Visitors may follow links from elsewhere on the web to any of your pages. - Make sure your pages are accessibleI know -- this post was supposed to be about writing content, not technical details. ...
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Christmas Wishes - "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out Kid"
2006-12-19 03:25:04
Recently, PSKoch posted on Pandia about his wish list for the holidays from Google. Matt Cutts, I guess a resident elf or possibly the big man himself, responded to a wish for more frequent PageRank updates:"...on #7, we slowed down external PageRank updates because if you do them more often than every 3-4 months, SEOs pay too much attention to the PageRank bar, and not enough to the over 100 other factors that go into our scoring."Well, I have been saying it for a while now: PageRank Doesn't Matter! Thank you, Mr. Cutts for saying it from Google.
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Google Searches Patents
2006-12-18 03:24:12
If you are looking to patent something or see what patents have been filed for an idea that you have, then you will want to know what, if any, patents have already been filed.Google has announced a new search for patents:"Today, we're excited to be releasing the beta version of Google Patent Search , which makes it easy to search the full text of the U.S. patent corpus and find patents that interest you. Start your exploration at www.google.com/patents or visit the Advanced Patent Search page to search by criteria, including patent number, inventor, and filing date. You can view images of original patents online."If you want to know what the engines (like Google) are filing, why it is important, and what it means to the search community, then find out from SEObytheSea.
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Finding Information
2006-12-18 03:24:12
After a very quick and profitable two days in Las Vegas on business, I have finally recovered (I think) from the red-eye that ended when I got home this morning around 9 AM.Trying to catch-up on all of the changes and happenings from across the net, I noticed that Google is trying to promote one of the new features in Google Reader. Now you can sort your feeds from oldest to newest to do more research on newly added feeds to your reader.I am still waiting for a feature that I would consider paramount to Google, search. I scan so many different feeds and have organized them in different folders, but I think that they should be able to allow you to search your feeds for the information you are looking for.
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'Tis the Season for Creative Marketing
2006-12-14 09:22:10
On the eve of my first trip to Las Vegas (unfortunately for non-SEO business), I haven't really been listening to what the net is saying.So, after quickly packing a light bag for the excursion, I opened my reader and look what I found. Google marketing Google Earth to season junkies looking for something new:"This year, good old St. Nick has learned a new trick: he has dispatched a few of his most experienced elves to squirrel away some toys in the farthest corners of Google Earth. Every day from now until Christmas Eve, a clue will appear outside Santa's workshop leading to another toy -- and every day, the location of the previous day's toy will be revealed."So the scavenger hunt begins.I do not know how much time I will have in "Sin City," but I will be bringing my laptop and have been guaranteed of a high speed connection. But, you never know, we shall see. I will be taking the red-eye on Saturday, so I will be sure to post on Sunday.One other change to the blog, I have decid...
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Copied by Google or Optimized for Google
2006-12-13 15:20:10
It's not that much of a secret that Googl e likes Firefox. Whether you presume that it is because Google is for anything that is not Microsoft or that it is a better product. I don't care to debate this, but it is apparent that Google, like Yahoo!, is now pushing IE7. Of course, with the Google Toolbar in tow.According to Jeremy Zawodny, Google's first attempt at this announcement was remarkably similar to Yahoo!'s page."Seriously, click those images and look at the full-sized versions. They're remarkably similar. And I've checked with our PR group to make sure that this wasn't just a template that Microsoft gave to all partners. It's not."Or was it a joke?Apparently, it ruffled some feathers. Jeremy offers some screenshots of both pages for you review. Interestingly, they are both from Firefox.
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Search Engine Land is Open for Business
2006-12-13 03:20:11
Step right up!What is Search Engine Land, you ask? - "Search Engine Land as a place in general, where you can keep up with what's happening in the search space. - Search Engine Land as a community, where people can meet, talk, discuss and network. - Search Engine Land as an entire new world revolving around the important tools of search engines, a world that continues to grow and be shaped, with such a huge impact on society and our daily lives." Congratulations to Danny and his new staff of professionals. I look forward to great things!
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2006 - The Year in Review
2006-12-11 15:18:09
After Search Engine Journal announced their annual Search Blog Awards, I took a look back at the year and thought about all of the changes (good and bad) and the new things that have happened this year.I had the pleasure to meet some of the people that I have looked up to and listened to for years. Here's the list of people that I was fortunate to meet this year:Bill Slawski - SEO by the Sea - SES San JoseMatt Cutts - Google Engineer - SES San JoseEric Ward - Link Guru - SES San JoseMike Grehan - Link Master - SES San JoseDebra Mastaler - Link Marketing - SES San JoseDaniel Jenkins - CometQuery - not in personPeople that I listen to (no particular order and include the people listed above):Andy BealDanny SullivanSearch Engine RoundtableSearch Engine LandSearch Engine WatchJohn BattellePandiaSearch Engine JournalAaron WallRand FishkinJeremy SchoemakerThese are a Few of My Favorite Things from 2006Atlas Travel Search - a challenge and a joy, but by far the most fruitful project since...
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AskCity - New Local Search
2006-12-10 03:16:11
Ask.com released a new local search this week, AskCity . It provides four areas to search (left of page): 1. Businesses - Search by: - Name or Category - Loca tion2. Events - Search by: - Artist, Venue or Event - Location - Date3. Movies - Search by: - Movie, Genre or Actor - Location - Date4. Maps and DirectionsWhen you search, you are given results with (center page):Name - Website LinkRatingAddress - DistanceFunctions (like pin on map, email, get directions)There is a map that will number the results (right of page).It gives you a few more functions on the map (other than move and pan in or out), like save a snapshot of the map you are on.This is a wonderful new product from the developers from Ask.com, the other engine. Ask is definitely carving out a niche and with shake-ups at Yahoo!, this may be a product that they can gain some market share. Good luck guys! More information about AskCity:AskCity Lights Up!AskCity Gives You the BusinessAsk City Launches Amid High ExpectationsAs...
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2006 Search Blogs Awards
2006-12-10 03:16:11
Search Engine Journal has opened up the nomination period until Tuesday, December 12, 2006.The categories include:* Best SEO Blog * Best SEM Blog* Best Search Agency Resource Blog* Best Link Building Blog* Best Social Media Blog* Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (owned by the search engines)* Best Contextual Advertising Blog* Best Affiliate Marketing Blog* Best Search Engine Community/Forum Blog* Best Web 2.0 Blog* Best Search Linkbait of 2006Not in the mood for the politics of the competition, check out last years winners:2005 Search Blogs Award WinnersI know that Build a Better Website will most likely not even be nominated (and no, I will not nominate myself!). I'm working for the 2007 campaign (you'll get your "promotional" gifts around this time next year!) But, it will be interesting to see what the SEO community thinks.Voting starts Thursday, December 14, 2006.
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