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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

AOL Acquires Tacoda

AOL announce that it is acquiring Tacoda, a behavioral targeting company ad network and technology company, according to Texas SEO. AOL is going to utilize Tacoda's behavioral targeting to Advertising.com that is the largest ad network online. AOL seems to be wanting to catch up with Google and Yahoo who already use behavioral targeting successfully.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

SEO-Metro- What's is a Name?

Well it seems like some over-zealous individual or company has purchased a similar domain name to our search engine optimization company, SEO-Metro, in the hopes of selling it to us (bribery) or to another unsuspecting individual or company for profit; the domain name is the same name, seo-metro.com without the hyphen.

The individual or company who we, SEO Metro, will research to discover the domain purchaser's identity, will be fully documented and sent a legal notice that any attempt to undermine or take from our company identity and to employ another individual or company to our demise will be considered felony conspiracy by SEO Metro and reported to the F.B.I.

SEO-Metro will not be intimidated nor coerced by a bunch of online thugs or thug attempts at intimidation by those who lack talent but have to succeed by bullying.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Online Marketing Mistakes

SEO Metro has noticed some bizarre marketing by websites that have thousands of links leading into them but use Google sponsored ads to direct traffic to them for terms that they don't even rank for or does it seem they try. I cannot imagine as a Texas SEO company that we go work and get hundreds of links but we are so inept at link building and content that we must use a pay-per-click program for expensive keywords.

These particular companies are geared toward global keywords that are so hard to achieve good rankings that it would take years of link building and content building before the desired rank could be achieved. That being said would not common sense dictate to use long-tailed keywords or geographic keyword phrases? One would think. Why build a website that takes many hours much less take hundreds of hours to build inbound links to go and purchase expensive adwords?

Speaking of adwords...how many internet users actually click on them? 20%? Does not appear to be the best strategy if you ask me. I am definitely not a marketing genius nor is it my discipline. Maybe I am wrong but if it were a chess game I would think I would be taking my opponents pieces off the board much quicker. If this were a real-life game, in which it is, I would think I would have more toys in the end than my opponent.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Microsoft Live Search Market Increases

Microsoft Live's searches are on the rise but it is hard to tell why.
  1. One reason is that they have a "Live Search Club" that is rewarded by the amount of searches users execute.
  2. Another reason may be that bots are on the rise that 'hit' Live searches regularly as if in a denial of service mode. The blog noted below states that bots are not counted and can be discerned from actual human users.
Compete.com commented on their blog about MSN Live that searches were up 67% from May, and 48% from a year ago which is quiet commendable. The blog also reports that Live took away about 5 percentage points from the other search engines, mostly Google, but SEO Metro is skeptical about these initial reports for several reasons, including preliminary comments about these statistics rattling Google.

MSN Search Market Results Skewed?

  1. There is a defined difference between human users and bots that could be manipulated by technology savvy individuals.
  2. Will this contest go on forever and do the latest search results comparing the search engines just discount MSN Live's Club and the prizes awarded? Compete.com believes so.
  3. Are these results being generated and exaggerated by those wanting to hype another search engine over Google? Actually appears that way regardless.
  4. May and June searches on MSN Live spike to over 3 million, according to the blog. Looking at MSN's past search records that seems out of the ordinary and would not be contributed to anything other than a contest. Noting kids are out of school this summer and wanting free Zune's and Vista operating systems that have been offered for prizes the spike should not be a surprise.
The results seem to be skewed if we are looking at the big picture and the long haul of search engines and number of searches.

Annoying Link Managers

SEO Metro is becoming increasingly annoyed at "link managers" and their requests and what they will do for our sites. These people tell us how they will link back to us and have multiple sites with many different niches that they can link back to our sites...yada, yada, yada. We explain our position that we are not "into" reciprocal linking but that we can link from several different sites giving one-way links. Then we post the link, email them the posting and ask for a one-way link into a different site for the "favor". These "link managers" are not heard from ever again.

For one, I would like to know what their (link manager) knowledge is on linking and link building. It appears they are just going for numbers and not quality. I just do not understand the lack of concern or ignorance over linking and how quality affects the search engines. SEO Metro received one flattering and notable email about one of our sites and that is was a perfect match and yada, yada, yada... I explained we were not engaging in reciprocal linking but were willing to give a front page link back to their site if they would take another one of their "many sites" and link back to another one of our sites. They were never heard from again.

It certainly appears these individuals or firms are after numbers versus quality just to show their clients the quantity of work versus the quality of work. We will certainly be taking this into account in the future and just may mail them the link to this post to see if the "link managers" would like to continue the dialogue.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Sky Ryders Drum Corps: Marketing Push

Sky Ryders Drum and Bugle Corps are having their first official reunion in Hutchinson, KS on July 28, 2007. This event coincides with Drums Across Kansas that will feature, Bluecoats, Carolina Crown, Crossmen, Mandarins, Seattle Cascades and the TROOPERS! The event should prove alot of fun with a BBQ picnic and a few parties to follow and most likely preceed.

SEO Metro will provide an internet marketing push to promote the drum corps reunion. There is a drive to put together a Sky Ryders' DVD, a t-shirt being offered and rooms in Hutchinson, KS.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Quality Link Building

Quality link building requires good decision making in order to give the best return of investment (ROI). Search engines have their own proprietary algorithms of course which they ultimately determine that value of the link but we have the final decision in where we put our links and if we are going to pay for directories, taking into decision making process that Google is devaluing paid text links.

Industry related links are the best choice and one-way incoming links are favorable over reciprocal linking. One way of finding industry related back links is to check the competition's backlinks. Also of course is the page rank of the webpage that is linking back to your site including the text link and description or way in which the link is incorporated into a text document.

Ways to Achieve Ranking Through Link Building

  1. As previously stated, Google frowns upon paid text links, however other search engines to not penalize or devalue paid text links. Search other competitors and see if they are using paid text links within industry topic sites. If you site is devalued with the text link their site will also be devalued but that needs to be taken into consideration; a conservative view may be the best approach long term. Another factor to consider in paid text links are the potential traffic the link may be. Bottomline is ROI for SEO efforts.
  2. Web directories are another consideration. High quality web directories bring good links along with some traffic which is a big plus. Yahoo's directory and DMOZ directory are nice especially taking into account that Yahoo's directory charges $299. Dmoz directory is human edited as with many other directories but it has high quality listing on high page rank pages but the drawback is it can take months to get listed.
  3. Blogs are important for link building and SEO . Quality blogs can be built that brings the latest industry news and issues and links them back into the site. Deep-linking strategies can also be built where new pages on the site can instantly be linked.
  4. Quality Content for Link Baiting is also important. Quality content will prompt other webmasters to link to you in order to further explain their positions and give examples and further educate their readership.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Google and Microsoft's Desktop Search

Google goes back into Federal court to complain that Microsoft's desktop for VISTA is not compatible with Google's desktop search and Google has ask the judge to interact in the case as a "friend of the court." Google complains that other desktop searches also experience sluggish performance compared to Microsoft's version.

Monday, July 2, 2007

SEO Defined on Wikipedia

Wikipedia finally has its "Search Engine Optimization" page that explains and defines SEO. The page has reported to have "no follows" on it so search engines will not follow the links and give a boost to external sites; hence SEO. Noted are some well-known SEO people and search engine optimization companies along with some history about SEO and some facts and history about Black Hat SEO.

The article smells political; as an example is the link to Wikipedia's SEMPO's page and when taken to that page on Wikipedia it appears that Wiki has left a note for them, "This article or section is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this from a neutral point of view per Wikipedia policy.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

New Search Engine: SPOCK

SEO Metro has recently learned of the new search engine SPOCK that has indexed over 100 million people and claims millions are added daily with SPOCK proclaiming they are "building the broadest and deepest people specific search engine. The search engine repots that Clearstone Venture Partners and Opus Capital Ventures "an early-stage venture capital firm with more than $1 billion in committed capital under management".

Spock is also committing to a contest with a winning purse of $50,000 for an individual or team that can overcome its obstacles in people search.

Negative SEO

Forbes has written about online sabateurs who may bring unfavorable search engine results to websites. The article talks about specific companies that are focused upon 'rubbing out' negative comments about companies to taking the competition down from the search results by different techniques and tactics called "negative seo" or "negative search engine optimization". Particular companies are engaged in sabotaging competing websites by spamming search engines with negative text links.

Setting up a competitor with negative link spamming is called "Google Bowling" although Matt Cutts with Google says he would prefer to call it "search engine bowling" with Mr. Cutts further stating that Google's algorithms are constructed to protect against negative link spamming.

SEO Metro
is not interested in contracting for negative SEO campaigns.