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News

Trading In My White Hat For a Black One

While I did not expect much in the way of news here in the U.S. due to the Thanksgiving holiday, it appears that Google took the opportunity to update their web master guidelines regarding paid links. The changes essentially reveal that buying or selling links that pass PageRank can penalize a site not only in its Google Toolbar PageRank status, but also in Google search results. ...full article

posted Friday, November 30, 2007

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Detecting more "undetectable" webspam

I've been following a case in Denmark where a cloaking company has been making a couple interesting claims. First, they claim that if a "brand-name" company cloaks, Google won't remove the brand-name domain. That's simply not true; if we believe that a company is abusing Google's index by cloaking, we certainly do reserve the right to remove that company's domains from our index. Next, the cloaking company claims that their method of cloaking is undetectable. I've written about "undetectable webspam" before. In that case, the "undetectable spam" could be found with a single Google query. ...full article

posted Thursday, November 29, 2007

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7 Steps to Get Your New Site Indexed in 24 hours

Most SEO's will advise you to buy an existing site/domain (lots of age benefit), but there are times when you need to start from scratch with a fresh domain. It can sometimes take a couple of weeks to get a new domain indexed by Google (even longer to start ranking!). In order to speed up the process of getting your site indexed quickly, even in 24 hours, follow the steps outlined. ...full article

posted Wednesday, November 28, 2007

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The Importance of Keywords Meta Tag in SEO

When in comes to achieving top search engine rankings how large of a role do keyword tags actually play? This is a simple question with no easy answer. Not only does the answer vary depending on which search engine a marketer is targeting, but it also depends upon the changing valuations search engines place on these tags. ...full article

posted Wednesday, November 28, 2007

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URL Structure and SEO

We get a lot of questions on URL structure and how it can affect search engine rankings. So we decided to discuss some of our thoughts on this topic. This is based on our experience with our own sites and with clients that we have worked with. The one single best piece of advice that I like to offer is to make your URLs user-friendly. ...full article

posted Tuesday, November 27, 2007

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The Google Set-Top Box (Think Android For TV)

Deep in the Googleplex there is an engineering team thinking about how to extend Google's reach into your TV. ...full article

posted Thursday, November 22, 2007

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What's the Difference Between a Subdomain and Domain?

How do search engines handle subdomains in terms of SEO? ...full article

posted Thursday, November 22, 2007

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Starting from Scratch: A Paid Search Primer

We've talked a lot about how to get the most out of your Paid Search program, as well as how to get the most bang for your buck from your SEM. But what if you've just decided to venture into the paid search arena? How do you get started marketing your products via paid search? ...full article

posted Thursday, November 22, 2007

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They're Dead, Jim

The end of the target audience?

One of my pet peeves is website owners who think they should target "everyone" with their website marketing. Look, I don't care what you offer, "everyone" is not your target. ...full article

posted Wednesday, November 21, 2007

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6 Ways to Get Your Visitors To Contact You From Your Contact Us Page

Along with the About Us page, your Contact Us page is one of the most important and crucial pages on your site to get right. In fact, the Contact Us page could be considered the absolutely most important page. Even if the rest of your site succeeds in the goals, if visitors fail to find the information they need to contact you then you will bring their shopping experience to a screeching halt. ...full article

posted Tuesday, November 20, 2007

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Big Picture SEO vs Small Detail Obsessions

I've always been a baby steps kind of guy when it comes to SEO. According to Google, they, and probably other engines too, look at over 200 different signals when it comes to analyzing pages for rankings. To attempt to optimize each of these signals perfectly would require a significant amount of work and continuous tweaking in order to find the "perfect" combination. Or let me put it another way, the task of creating the perfectly optimized page is darn near impossible. ...full article

posted Friday, November 16, 2007

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Does Registering Your Domain for Longer Periods Help You Rank Better?

There's a conversation going on in our Small Business Ideas forum about domain registration and the impact it has on search engine rankings. Generally, when I hear small business owners ask about this, they want to know if the age of a domain has any impact on their rankings. In the case of this thread, the original poster is asking if the length of domain registration has anything to do with rankings. I've heard this question pop up more often in the last few months, so I thought it might be worth throwing down a few thoughts on the issue. ...full article

posted Friday, November 16, 2007

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SEO Design and Development Best Practices

When developing a Web site from scratch, you can apply multiple SEO best practices related to design and development. You don't necessarily have to follow every measure to a T to obtain a search-engine-friendly Web site. Plus, you'll inevitably be forced to compromise on some factors. Integrating as many best practices as possible will serve you well in future SEO endeavors. ...full article

posted Tuesday, November 13, 2007

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How To (Kind Of) Buy A #1 Organic Search Ranking On Google

Google adamantly denies that payment influences organic search engine rankings. In an ideal world that might be true, but exposure begets exposure. Here are some of the cheapest and fastest ways to get your message to the top of the search results without paying for every click. ...full article

posted Friday, November 09, 2007

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When Is The Right Time To Bring SEO Into The Process?

If you are thinking you need some help with search engine optimization you are probably also wondering when is the right time to bring SEO into the process? And the answer is...right now. ...full article

posted Thursday, November 08, 2007

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The Great SEO Lie Exposed

I'm not a Google hater. In fact I have no real problems with Google other than the standard fare. I don't always agree with what they do and they, at times, appear to be quite hypocritical. Many would simply chalk that up to big-business. But Google's no Enron, at least not yet. My only real problem is that Google tends to talk out of both sides of its proverbial mouth, and expects the SEO community to take them at face value. But we really can't anymore. ...full article

posted Thursday, November 08, 2007

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20 Nifty (and free!) SEO Tools

Who doesn't love a new SEO tool? They make our lives easier by saving us time and money; they also do a great job of pointing out where our sites have room for improvement. I've put together a list of 20 completely free SEO tools as a resource for search engine marketers and for newbies who are just getting started. I do plan on updating this list in the near future...so check back often for more free SEO tools! ...full article

posted Saturday, November 03, 2007

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Ten Ways to Avoid a Google Reputation Management Nightmare

Google is no longer just a search engine. With your potential customers, future employers, and members of the media turning to Google for information about your business, Google has become a reputation engine. ...full article

posted Thursday, November 01, 2007

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7 Ways to Make Your Home Page a Home Run for Usability

Your home page is the single most crucial page of your site. This is the page that will be the primary entry point for a majority of your visitors. It is also the page that sets the stage for the rest of the site giving visitors a birds-eye view of who you are, what you're about, what you can do for them, what you offer, and how they get the information needed. ...full article

posted Thursday, November 01, 2007

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Ramblings of a Directory Groupie & Some Directory Freebies

Directories are like any other business; some are well run and provide a good service while others don't. My purpose for this post isn't to point out the less-than-stellar general directories but to showcase directories I consider to be solid and explain why they're still a viable option for link building. ...full article

posted Thursday, November 01, 2007

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