patio11

Google has and will continue to penalize sites that flagrantly buy and sell links. If you are buying or selling links: do it covertly & do it under the radar. However, in many instances there may be a better option that trying to buy a link from a s read more »
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While the ad world is obsessed with clicks because they can measure those, ad receptivity is more than just clicks. While people dream of adding clicks, ads have been tremendously successful without the clicking option. Brand recognition, for exampl read more »
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I will say Happy Thanksgiving to all you SEO’s and SEM’s out there and leave you with one questions. Do you prefer Dark or White SEO? Funny picture. read more »
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An example of a blog being penalized for duplicate content, possibly as a result of being Sphunn. Shows what the relevant SERP looks like. Also describes countermeasures you can take if you are erroneously detected as duplicate. read more »
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The big kid on the playground, Google keeps grabbing #1 PPC spots. Blowing its own horn could be routine as advertisers settle for #2 when search giant Google takes over #1 because its other outlets come up short. See images of Google's coupon promo read more »
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Ylayn takes a look at what Google isn't so good at read more »
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Gives 5 tips, with code samples, for SEOing up a Ruby on Rails site. Includes why you should rip out the default routes, avoid duplicate content penalization, and leverage the structure of your site to make linkbaiting easier. read more »
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It was in January 2007 when Matt Cutts left a comment saying "These posts rank among my favorite each month--keep 'em up!" and I would have to agree with him.

The 3 months in a row that SEL looked at their traffic stats were highly interesting (h read more »
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from the page "Is linkbait being devalued? Is it going the way of the reciprocal link?" read more »
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I wrote this article after I almost lost my blog to a server crash. Although one reads about the importance of backing up the blog, not everyone takes it seriously. I urge my fellow bloggers to take this very seriously and make a regular schedule to read more »
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"While I am hopeful about “RealRank” a possible solution and may replace page rank – the challenge will be to convince advertisers." read more »
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Describes experiences with Conversion Optimizer, Google's 1 month old pseudo-CPA product for the Content Network. Highlights: ROI increased from 20% to 100%+, fraud decreased to almost zero, time spent managing AdWords campaign down 90%. read more »
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The potential upside of a linkbait driven marketing campaign is growing smaller by the day. Dave Naylor hinted that he believed that Google is looking at how natural a site's link growth profile looks like, and discounting many of the rapid growth read more »
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Yesterday, AdWords pushed out what seems to be a very limited beta tool to some AdWords advertisers. From managing quite a few accounts for quite a few clients in different countries, it would appear that this beta tool is not country limited but ac read more »
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Bit of a light-hearted sphinn; take a look at some of the suggestions Ask lists. Leave your most ludicrous suggestion that YOU come across in the comments :) read more »
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Aimclear just released an interesting blog slide show on his site. I like the position Marty takes about getting a feel for each individual blog, rather than having your eyes glaze over from yet another RSS feed (yes, even full feed doesn't quite c read more »
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It's called "What The Customer Actually Wanted" and is both hysterical and dead-on accurate in so many ways. :-) read more »
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Many sites often miss out on valuable search engine traffic because initial site design and architecture didn't factor search engines into the design equation. Part of the reason is that many companies still don't know how much traffic search engine read more »
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Should Sphinn have a new page or section where the Editor (me) or Moderators can manually select the most important Sphinn stories? read more »
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Searchers will settle for any content that is minimally relevant and satisfying. Call it the Wikipedia Principle, where a search engine intentionally promotes low quality content that is minimally acceptable to searchers because it costs less to do read more »
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"I don’t know how to put this lightly so I will just come out and say it. Something has changed in the SEO Blogosphere and I don’t think it’s been a change for the better...." read more »
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Richard MacManus discusses Plenty of Fish, and compared it with Facebook.

Whilst the traffic numbers might not seem to compare, the CTR is much higher, and may make PoF a $1B two person company (Markus just hired an assistant) read more »
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If you’ve attempted to optimize and market a website you’ve probably learned from experience who is providing valid advice and who is pushy hype. Although this is by no means a complete look at the subject, here are ten things that I have learned to read more »
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A case study on linkbait in a conservative, non-technical vertical, with commentary on the general differences between the Digg crowd and The Rest of The World. SEO pros can probably skip the first three paragraphs, defining terms like "linkbait" a read more »
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The most obvious consequence of Google's crusade against paid links will be the shift from an open economy to an underground link economy. While many (perhaps even most) sites currently selling links will stop in fear of retribution from Google, a g read more »
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