Firefox Keywords – Another Reason SEO matters

Type a keyword into the url bar of Firefox and watch as it magically takes you to a web page about that word. Where does it find this page? The first listing in Google. SEO matters. No tags for this post.

Google: A Spammer’s Best Friend

I rarely discuss email spam on this blog. It is off-topic and already too often confused with search engine spam. Nevertheless, as an avid Google user (they pay my bills, I pay theirs), I believe that their search technologies wrongfully empower email spammers in ways that are easily circumvented. I have listed below how Google is a spammer’s best friend. (1) Masking Spammer’s URLs Google’s URL redirection method allows for spammers to easily mask their urls to appear as if they are from Google. For example, the url below appears to be hosted on Google, although it redirects back to TheGoogleCache http://www.google.com/%75%72%6C?q=%68%74%74%70://%74%68%65%67%6F%6F%67%6C%65%63%61%63%68%65.%63%6F%6D Spammers are already using this to mask...

Google Responsible for Own Server Clog

As has been the case for over a year now, Google has a severe issue with duplicate caching. Google has yet to fully understand that www.domainname.com is identical to domainname.com and will readily index both. Google will also index a /index.html and a / version of the same page. And, if the web.domainname.com subdomain is available, it will cache it as well. I personally have cleaned up sites with 3-6x caches of each page in google, resulting in 100,000+ duplicates being cached. If Google would fix this one problem, it would clear up a huge amount of space. No tags for this post.

A Modest Proposal

After reading about Google’s “full servers” I believe a truce is in order between blackhat search engine optimizers and Google. The grounds of the truce are fairly simple. I and other complying search engine optimizers will remove 1 page of content for 10 cents. The system would be fairly simple and entire transactions could be completed through Google Adsense. A publisher id in the meta description plus a noindex, nocache, nofollow tag would result in a removal. I believe the members of Syndk8 alone could free up 1 of Google’s massive servers. No tags for this post.

Digg Marketing Competition

Well, I guess it already pissed off the folks at Digg.com, since the digg-a-minute story got buried in under 10 minutes. Nevertheless, the competition must go on. Web marketing 2.0 is the name of the game. Create legitimate, well-crafted stories, get them to the front page of digg without violating the Terms of Service, and you win. Its that simple. The challenge runs through the entire month of June. No tags for this post.

Black Hat Strategies for White Hat Companies

The response to the word “blackhat” is never the same. Some people seem maniacally interested. Others, terrified. Some think it’s a scam, a surefire plan for a Google ban. Others call it their bread and butter. Perhaps the only thing we agree on is they just don’t mix well. What is the point of spending time and energy building quality sites and risking them with blackhat seo? And, if you are willing to use blackhat tactics, why not churn and burn? It is true that Greyhat just isn’t a plausible solution for most companies. But, it doesn’t mean stripes of black and white are out of the picture. I would argue, that the chasm between whitehat and blackhat when it comes to services-offered by SEO firms has made whitehats less...