SEO UPDATES

BlogSEO has an interesting piece about how word of mouth advertising can also bring you visitors, and does wield some potential, conrary to what many may think.

In a nutshell, here’s what is advised:

• Become a member of forums that are focused on the topic you are interested in. And post meaningful topics and replies there, of course!
• Add a link to your signature and include it with all your outgoing mail. It seems logical, but very often we don’t even think of that.
• Tell your friends about what you do. Blogging or having a website is nothing to be ashamed of, and there’s really no need to hide it, is there?
• Comment actively on other blogs. Alright, this is worth for blogs. And it sure works pretty well.

Ignat has already seen some benefits thanks to this tactics, so it’s indeed worth the shot!

For anyone who could be interested by SEO techniques applied to blogs specifically, Darren Rowse at ProBlogger has started to put up an interesting series about Search Engine Optimization Tips for Blogs.

The series isn’t finished yet, and will very likely contain a few more articles before it’s declared “closed”. However, the ones that have published so far all contain interesting tips, among which the use of keywords and internal links, and the importance of regular posting.

This isn’t about SEO in general, but more focused on blogs and how to build (good) links networks and get some viewage along the road. Aaron Wall from SEOBook hands out a few pieces of advice, as well as links to posts and resources illustrating the point:

With blogs you can just whinge on about whatever, and so long as it is usually on topic some people will read it. Sometimes the smallest things, like mentioning a 20 pound AdWords coupon can get you multiple free links from other regularly updated channels, and the attention of people who read those channels.

If you are looking for resources to cite you can use a tool to look at topical trackbacks (which also point links your way) and help get you noticed by some of the leaders of your community. Of course you can go too far and be labeled a spammer so you want to use some caution / restraint.

A few tips that are likely worth to be taken, here.

Sorry there haven’t been too many updates around here lately… If you’d like to try your hand at blogging on Search Engine / SEO news, we’d love to have ya join us here on the Niner Niner network and SEO Updates.

You can signup to write for Niner Niner over on the Signup Page, beta password is: niner

Now, onto some AdSense news from a few days ago (in case ya misted it!):

JenSense broke the story of Google’s own AdSense page being hijacked in the SERPS of Google.

This is just silly. Someone thinks they can hijacks a Google page get away with it? LOL. Not.

Jen sez:

When you decide to hijack a site in the Google serps, it makes sense to do one that will benefit you in some way, while not raising yourself too high on the search engine’s radar. So, it obviously makes perfect sense to go and hijack the Google AdSense site

This is the best though. Kevin at All-In-One-Business.com replies back in the comments:

I want to thank JenSense and others for posting this thread.

Thanks for the comment Air Charter. I just got off the phone with two different tech writers explaining why I would have a meta redirect on my site.

It isn’t an attempt to profit from either Google’s page rank or some cloaked affiliate link.

I am no hijacker. In fact, I’m not sure how I could in any way benefit from this link.

The simple fact is this: I write and syndicate articles all over the web. I used to put into those articles direct links to sites I was talking about.

A couple years ago I had a problem when I had written and syndicated several articles about GoTo.com when they changed their name to Overture. There were dozens of websites to notify and ask them to update the links in my articles.

So I decided to begin using meta refresh redirects rather than listing the URL’s directly. I can then keep the links current in all the articles I write.

Hopefully Google will look at this and decide to make some changes so this won’t occur. It’s hard to believe I got a number 1 listing without trying.

Can anyone these days ever just admit when they’ve f’d up and come clean? Feh.

Aaron Wall of SEO Book tackles Ethical SEO in this article.

A quote (from an email he received):

I think when people talk about ethics in business they are concerned about someone cutting into their profits or threatening their profits. It has nothing to do with human rights or suffering (which is wrong). Either way, business people will continue to talk about ethics all day - even while they own sweat shops - because sweat shops have very little to do with ethics.

Definitely worth a read. I like Aaron’s contrarian thinking.

Just to extend the line of reasoning from the article (so that we’re all on the same page), these are a few statements of fact that can also be made:

• Hitler was ethical
• Killing babies is ethical
• Genocide is ethical
• Comment Spam, Email Spam, DNS Hijacking, Stealth Spyware Installation, etc etc is all very very ethical

Why? Because (just going off this article) ethics is a tautology defined by you. Whatever you say is ethical, is, well, ethical. Or to quote Mr. Wall:

The people who push the ethics concept, are by default, ethical.

This was my favorite quote from the article:

Search engine spam is not the same as email spam or blog comment spam as you are not directly immediately wasting some persons time.

I love that: “directly immediately”

I’m actually not finding fault here, just picking apart the words…

So… is it okay if I’m only indirectly immediately wasting someone’s time. Or what if I’m directly, but not immediately wasting someone’s time?

Aaron - here’s all we (speaking for anyone with a weblog and comments turned on) are asking:

Do you, Aaron Wall, think that using blog comment spam (as a technique) is unethical?

That is, from your own code of ethics that you wake up with, make money with, live and breath, everyday.

If not, I think people should start linking to you with the phrase: ethical comment spammer

…as a joke

Update: Aaron responds -

>ethical comment spammer
I actually have not done anything like that in a while. feel free to link up though

Glad to see Aaron hasn’t gone to the dark side of SEO.

Duncan Riley outs a comment spammer (Amy Cross of realtrafficsite.com) over on blog herald:

Duncan Riley> Whilst digging for my last post I also discovered an SEO who is not only using comment spam on blogs as a tool, but is actually soliciting for new comment spamming scripts using Freelancing sites.

(Drum roll please) And the SEO is: Amy Cross of realtrafficsite.com.

Now its one thing to be unscrupulous enough to spam blogs in the pursuit of search engine traffic, but it takes a particular level of stupidity to advertise for someone to write you a new script as Amy has done at Get A Freelancer.com.

If you follow the link you’ll also disturbingly find that there are quite a few offers from programmers willing to help her in her comment spamming ways.

So who is Amy Cross, if that is indeed her or his real name? Well the whois information provides little use, with the contact details being held from public view. On her site she describes her self as follows: “Amy has been recognized as an effective leader who is in tune with her client needs and has one of the single highest customer satisfaction and consumer confidence ratings ever recorded”. For somebody so well known I cant even find her on Google.

We do know however that the site is hosted on marketrends.net, a Sacramento based hosting company. So if we don’t know who Amy is, we do know a little about one of her customers, who provides a customer reference to Amy right on the front page, and guess what products they are flogging…..if you guessed cialis you’d be right! So Joe Hopkins of genbucks.com, come on down! But you know, for some strange reason these comment spammers don’t want to be found because Joe also uses a cloaking company for his domain registration, and even the dns for his host is cloaked.

So a dead end for now, but none the less the world is hopefully a slightly better place for the exposure of this comment spamming scum. Have a nice weekend!

Amy Cross - you’re busted!

How would you like to plead to the court of public opinion?