Google has proposed to the FCC to use undedicated white space to nationwide free wi-fi. What would the world look like if that happened?

First, it won’t go unnoticed that Google would, of course, be the sole provider of Internet service for that wi-fi if they managed to finagle a deal with the FCC. Even if the FCC allowed other search engines access to wi-fi traffic, Google is already poised to capture over 90% of the market share for that free wi-fi with its Android technology.

There are a lot of issues that will have to be addressed if this took place, namely:

• Privacy
• Antitrust
• Privacy
• Technical Support (who would provide it?)
• Government regulation?
• Changing face of Search Engine Optimization
• Social marketing
• Privacy

While Net neutrality would no longer be an issue, how much privacy would everyday people give up in order to be able to access the Internet at any time by broadband? Furthermore, how much of that broadband usage would be subject to blatant advertising messages? My guess is, a lot.

People who are not online now and have never heard phrases like “conversational marketing” and “permission marketing” would have no frame of reference or defense against banner ads, pop ups, and other blatant advertising come ons that those of us who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s have grown tired of and what to be free of. The Internet would become one massive advertising medium for corporate America, much like TV is and would, in fact, be integrated with television to deliver even more powerful messages than ever. Would it be a good thing? Yes. But there’d be a lot of baggage that comes with it.

Krillion performed a survey on consumer behavior and found once again that most consumers will research a product online and purchase it off line or purchase online and pick it up off line at a local store. Nothing surprising there. But how do you Search Engine Optimize your website to make product research easier for your customers? The answer may be in an article that appeared on SiteProNews today.

According to Angela Charles, the following copywriting tips will help the Search Engine Optimization of your website for product research and sales:

• Keyword research
• One topic per page
• Details, details
• Kill the sales brochure
• Create a content hierarchy
• Keyword density

SEO Copywriting Tips To Close The Sale

Keyword Research - Know the keywords that consumers will use to search for information about your products. They may not use the product name. They might instead use a feature of the product or search for a benefit that the product provides. They could also use a synonym of the primary keyword.

One Topic Per Page - Don’t water down your content. Stick to one topic per page. In other words, don’t put weed eaters and lawn mowers on the same page. If you do, make that page a catalogue-type page with links to separate pages for each item.

Details, Details - Consumers want information. Give it to them. Lots of it. The more, the better. They are, after all, researching your products. Give them what they want. You stand a much better chance of closing the sale, either online or off line, if you provide a lot of information.

Kill The Sales Brochure - Today’s consumers don’t want to find your company website and see a sales brochure. They want information that will help them make an informed decision. Kill the hype and give them rock solid information.

Create A Content Hierarchy - Understand consumers’ needs well enough to know how they will search for information about your products. Then organize that information in a logical fashion to make it easy for searchers.

Keyword Density - If you don’t use the keyword enough time in your online content then you won’t rank for it. Plain and simple. Use the keyword enough to make the search engines happy as well as the consumers. But don’t be a Search Engine Optimization spammer.

Angela’s article provides other useful information as well, such as these types of content that users of your website will find valuable:

• Product details, including features/benefits, specifications, data sheets, diagrams, flow-charts, video demonstrations and photos (with alt tags, see below)
• Technical tips, product troubleshooting guides, user manuals
• Customer testimonials, case studies
• Industry definitions
• Product selection guides, comparative information

See a common thread here? Consumers need information. Provide as much information on your website as possible. What consumers don’t find on your website, they’ll find somewhere else. The more information you can provide on your site, the more likely they will spend more time on your site and you increase your chances of making a sale. If consumers have to go elsewhere to find something that you don’t provide then you are making it easy for them to buy somewhere else.

Finally, Angela tells you where to go for information to put on your website. This is rock solid information. Here’s what she says:

* Competitor sites
* Industry portal sites
* Industry magazine sites
* Resource sites

If you are a retailer that sales products manufactured by another company, get information about those products from the manufacturer. They should be forthcoming about the information. If you can’t find it on their website, call the company and ask for a brochure. Don’t copy their information word for word. Include as much as you can but make sure it is original content.

The bottom line is, consumers are researchers. They want a lot of information to help them make an informed buying decision. Don’t disappoint them. Search Engine Optimization should be the tool to get them to your site.

In the meantime, for those complaining consider this. If I search for YOUR COMPANY and then decide to shop elsewhere–after using a site search for YOUR SITE and seeing an AdWords ad–how strong was my relationship with you in the first place???

Andy Beal once again makes a good point.

He’s addressing an article that appeared in The New York Times concerning Google’s new search-within-search feature. The feature allows searchers to search within a company’s website without leaving Google. The way it works is like this: The user makes a query. When a list of results appears on the SERP for that query, some results will show a search box beneath them. The user can then make another query within that search box to search within the company for which that search box appears. The problem, some of these companies are saying, is that competitors’ ads are appearing on that second SERP.

For instance, let’s say I search for Best Buy. The top listing, of course, is for the big retailer’s web site. But there is a second search box below that company’s listing in the SERP. That search box allows me to search Best Buy’s web site. Cool, huh? Well, some people don’t think so.

Let’s type in mp3 and see what happens. Wow! 527,000 results - all on Best Buy’s web site. Plus, two PPC ads for Best Buy competitors. When you consider that over 80% of searchers don’t even click on PPC ads, that’s not a real big deal. Is it? According to some retailers, they don’t want to take a chance on losing those potential customers. Amazon.com is one of them, and they’ve asked Google to turn the feature off. Didn’t know you can do that? Well, now you do.

There are two ways of looking at this. The first way is as Amazon does - that it’s a negative. You could lose customers (who aren’t really loyal customers because if they were then they wouldn’t click a competitor’s ad nor would they be searching for you in the first place because they’d either have you bookmarked or just type your URL into their browser window); or, you can see it as a way to help your potential customers find what they are looking for even if it’s on a competitor’s web site.

That’s right. Traditional customer service. In retail, everyone knows that sometimes a customer will ask for an item that is out of stock or that you don’t carry. You know your loyal customers will come back to you even if such disappointments occur from time to time. So why not seize upon the opportunity to provide them above-and-beyond customer service. Call a competitor, ask if they have the item your customer wants, and if so tell your customer where they can go to get what they want. It works. That kind of service builds customer loyalty because your customer will know that if you happen to be out of stock or don’t carry what they’re looking for that you will at least make the effort to help them find it. When they want something else, they’ll come back to you knowing they’ll get the same level of service. That’s the way that I see the Google search-within-search feature. It’s just good customer service, and I’m guessing that Google sees it that way too.

There are two things that good links do for your website. They’re both easy to measure and easy to accomplish, but it is time consuming to do it the right way.

Links can increase your search positioning - i.e. your rank in the search engines as part of your Search Engine Optimization. But it can also drive traffic to your website. Neither of these are really hard, but it can complicated trying to figure out what type of links you really need.

When it comes to traffic, there are two ways to think about it. You can go for quantity, in which case you simply try to get as many links as you can in as many places as you can. The danger with this is that you could get pegged as a spammer and your Search Engine Optimization benefits will decline. The upside is, if you do it right, you’ll get a lot of traffic. And you don’t necessarily need link juice in order to make this happen. Nofollow links work just as well as relevant links from high PageRank sites. If you are link building for traffic then don’t worry too much about the Search Engine Optimization.

On the other hand, to get the best links you’ll need to concentrate at least some of your efforts on building relevant links from high PageRank sites. By increasing your link popularity, you essentially are telling people that you are serious about building a brand. That link popularity will translate into higher search engine positions, which in turn leads to more traffic.

It makes sense, then, that if you want more traffic and higher search positioning then you’ll work on increasing the trust factor of your website and seek quality links. While quality is better than quantity, quantity is better than nothing and quality + quantity is best of all. So figure out a way to get as many really good links as you can and keep trying until you get it right.

When I read this I wanted to cry:

No, really. How hard is it? We know the search box in the upper right hand corner of your screen can get there. We know that Google.com in the address bar can get there. But, sadly, Nielsen’s study indicated that at least 24% of Internet users don’t know that. It hurts me just to type it.

Does this mean that searchers online just use whatever search engine happens to be at their fingertips, or whichever one they just happen to stumble upon? That’s what it seems to be saying.

Evidently, 24% of the Internet population uses the default search engine in their browser. That means that a certain number of people with AOL may never have used anything other than AOLs search function because they don’t know how to get there. Then there are the folks with Yahoo! or MSN pre-loaded on their computers who have likely never used anything else because they don’t know how to type in an URL in the browser window. As sad as it seems, I know that’s the case. And what that means to Google is that if there were no default home pages and searching was intuitive then there might not be any other search engine available. We’d all be Googling.

I have to remind myself every day that there are people who do not even understand the basics on searching. And if they have a hard time searching for information then how much more difficult is it for them to understand Search Engine Optimization? Am I talking over their heads? If so, I’d like to know.

If there are any newbies out there who would like to know more but can’t grasp the Search Engine Optimization thing, let me know what you’d like to know more about. I’ll see if I can put it into words that you can understand.

A recent post by Rand Fishkin highlights common features of spam sites. It’s an interesting post and I agree with a lot of it, but I just want to highlight a few Search Engine Optimization items on his list:

• .info, .cc, .us and other cheap, easy to grab TLDs - TLDs don’t matter. Spam sites use all the TLDs. .biz is probably the most prevalent for spam sites, but a significant number also use .info and .com.
• Short registration period (1 year, maybe 2) - This applies to most websites online. Most new webmasters register for 1 or 2 years until they decide they’re sticking with it long term.
• Few links to high quality, trusted sites - This also describes legitimate webmasters just getting started on their linkbuilding campaigns. We all start off with reciprocal links.
• High keyword frequencies and keyword densities - Yes, for some reason, spammer like to increase the number of keywords they use. I don’t know why.
• Registered to people/entities not associated with trusted sites - Google denies it, but I’ve often thought that whois information was tied to a website’s trust factor. Evidently, Rand Fishkin thinks so too.
• Unlikely to be bookmarked in services like My Yahoo!, Del.icio.us, Faves.com, etc. - Actually, I’d say spam sites are more likely to be bookmared.
• Often contain a large number of snippets of “duplicate” content found elsewhere on the web - This one contradicts the one below.
• Rarely have small snippets of text quoted on other websites and pages - This one contradicts the last point. Which one is it?
• Less likely to have .com or .org extensions - Actually, a lot of spam sites use the TLDs. Especially blog spam sites and you’ll see a lot of those on Blogspot.com.
• Likely to have links to a significant portion of the sites and pages that link to them - Just about every webmaster in the world does this. Most of us start our link building by asking for reciprocal links, although it can not be good for Search Engine Optimization.
• Likely to be registered by parties who own a very large number of domains - If a site is registered to a person who owns a couple of hundred domain names then they are likely a spammer.

I picked these points because they all could apply just as well to legitimate webmasters. That’s not to say that spammers don’t fit into these categories as well, but it is something to think about as you develop your business online and think about your Search Engine Optimization.

I found this paragraph buried deep in the middle of a half-way good article on Search Engine Optimization:

The world of search engines boil down to the stereotypical high school hierarchy. Search engines pay more attention to those that are popular. In high school, teens usually become popular by having popular people associate with them. The online world is no different. But how do search engines know that popular sites are associating with you? That is an easy one - they link to your website.

What many beginning webmasters don’t understand is that Search Engine Optimization is a popularity contest. You can have a well-designed website with keyword-rich pages, but that won’t guarantee your success. The more competitive your industry, the more you’ll have to do to compete for rankings. There are many factors that go into ranking for certain keywords. Some of the ones that don’t get a lot of attention are:

• How much traffic your site gets
• The velocity at which you attract relevant links
• Synonymous keywords

How Much Traffic Should You Have?
Most people don’t think about the volume of traffic, but that does come into play in search engine rankings. The author of the above-mentioned article gives a great example with eBay. Why is eBay ranked highly for almost any query involving the word “buy”? Part of it is because it uses the word in conjunction with thousands of other products, but it’s also a well-trafficked website with the age factor going in its favor. Being a popular site is a good thing in Google’s eyes because it means a lot of people trust eBay. If a lot of people trusts a website then Google believes it deserves to be ranked well for its important keywords.

Another example is Wikipedia. Why is Wikipedia on Page 1 for almost any query? Because it is popular. That’s the primary reason. A lot of people use it, therefore Google gives it additional rank juice.

So how do you become popular? There are two ways to achieve popularity on the Web. You have to work on your search engine saturation - the number of pages you have ranked - and link popularity - the number of quality inbound links you have to your site. The way you build search engine saturation is with number of pages. You just build pages. Pick a keyword and build a well-optimized web page around your central topic using a long tail keyword that will rank your site highly in the SERPs. Then you start building inbound links. Do those two things well on a steady basis (Google likes slow growth) and you’ll see your traffic rise steadily.

The Importance Of Link Velocity
Nice segue into the next topic. If you build your links too fast it could hurt you. You might find your website in the Google Supplemental Listings until a human can examine your links to see if they are spam or real solid links. A better way to build links is to do it slowly over time. There are several methods for doing that.

• Article Marketing
• Gradual Directory Submissions
• Forum Participation
• Comments On Blogs In Related Niches
• Link Exchanges With Related Websites And Blogs

The idea is to build steady, solid links by promoting your website with a steady marketing plan. Not a one-time surge, but a steady marketing plan over the lifetime of your website.

Use Synonymous Keywords
Instead of trying to optimize your website around one keyword on every page, try optimizing each page around two or three keywords that are related. For instance, if your website is about teaching florists how to make beautiful flower arrangements then you might built a website that is focused on arranging geraniums, tulips, and lion’s tails in one vase arrangement. Your keywords are pretty obvious, aren’t they?

• geraniums
• tulips
• lion’s tails

But you’ll also want to use “arrange” or “arrangement”, “flower arrangement”, “set”, or some other similar phrase in conjunction with your three primary keywords. The way I would do this is to make “flower arrangement” the primary keyword and each of the names of the flower types secondary phrases that support each other and the main phrase. If there is a name for this type of arrangement then that could be your primary keyword. If there isn’t a recognized name for that arrangement and you want to create a name for it, you probably shouldn’t use that name as a keyword because no one is going to know it but you. You can use it on the page, but don’t make it too prominent or it will compete with your real keywords.

Synonymous keywords get to the heart of semantic Search Engine Optimization. So many people are discussing semantic search as if it were some future development. It isn’t. It’s here now. Google uses synonymous keywords to help it identify a page’s real subject. Synonymous keywords are useful to helping each web page you build rank well for the right terms as part of your Search Engine Optimization.

Here is the most unique way to use keywords that I’ve ever seen:

Paragraph 1: Make this paragraph one of the longest and use each of your top three keywords one time. Use your number 1 keyword as close to the first word as possible. Use the number two keyword somewhere in the second sentence if possible but no later than the third sentence. Now use your number 3 keyword anywhere after number 2.

Paragraph 2: Use your number 1 keyword one time within the first one third of the paragraph text. If your paragraph is 100 words long, make sure the keyword is placed within the first 33 words, the closer to the beginning the better.

Paragraphs 3 and 4: Do the same as above using your number 2 keyword in paragraph three and number 3 keyword in paragraph four.

Paragraphs 5 through 9: Now mix things up a bit and use one or more keywords anywhere in each paragraph. Just do not use any single keyword more than three times total before you reach your final paragraph.

Paragraph 10: In your very last paragraph we will do exactly the same as we did in the first paragraph, but in reverse. Start it with your least important keyword and end with your most important.

I’ve heard people talk about a primary keyword and a secondary keyword. I’ve even done that myself. On occasion, I’ve heard people talk about a third keyword, but I’ve never seen anyone create a formula such as this one. My gut tells me that formulas don’t necessarily work, but I do get a sense that this type of keyword shuffling just might work for most niches most of the time.

I do agree with Paragraph 1. If you’re going to have three keywords that your web page focuses on then you want all three keywords in your first paragraph, but you want your most important keyword mentioned first and as close to the beginning of the paragraph as possible.

Making The Most Of Your Three Keyword Formula
Using this formula on a 10-paragraph page will cause give you 10 solid paragraphs and three keywords, each one used about 4 times. Assuming that paragraphs 1 and 10 are 200 words each, because they are supposed to be longer than your middle paragraphs which are about 100 words each, your keyword density for each keyword will be .003. That’s not really enough for me. I usually recommend 1 instance of your most important keyword for every 50-100 words of text, which will give you a 1%-2% keyword density. Keeping with that advice, you’d have to use each of your keywords in every paragraph on a 10-paragraph page of text. But considering that you are using 3 keywords instead of 1 or 2 then that might be a bit much. Here’s why:

Your keywords are going to be related. For instance, let’s say you are writing a web page about poetry. That’s a very popular topic and a lot of current SEOs learned how to do SEO with hobby sites like poetry. Let’s say you are writing a web page about Edgar Allan Poe and the poet’s name is your primary key phrase. Poetry is your second keyword. Your third keyword is Victorian verse.

Now we have three related keywords. Edgar Allan Poe is a poet so any query for his name is more than likely going to turn up pages that are about poetry. Very rarely will you see him mentioned in other contexts, unless it’s fiction. Add “poetry” as a related keyword and you have the poet’s name and his field of endeavor. Finally, add “Victorian verse” and you have three keywords all related to the same subject. They are, for the most part, synonymous. Figure the total density of your 1,200-word web page and you have a .0116 keyword density, about as low a density as I’d want to go, but high enough that you can be reasonably assured of decent rankings - if you do two other things.

Two More Ways To Improve Keyword Usage
The first thing you want to add to this optimized page is to use all three of your keywords in the title of your web page. The most important keyword should appear first, the secondary should appear second, and the third keyword should appear last, like this:

The second thing you want to do to add optimization to your already well-optimized web page is to toss in two or three subheadings. Actually, it should be one subhead for each keyword. You should have a subhead every third or fourth paragraph, but spaced out a little bit. Place an h2 or h3 tag around each subhead to further optimize them and draw attention to them. In your first subhead, use your most important keyword; in your second subhead use your second keyword; and in your third subhead use the third keyword. Now, you should have a web page highly optimized for search.

Thanks to Michael Small for the spark of a good idea concerning keyword management for Search Engine Optimization.

If you have a website that is online and indexed you are in good shape even if your website is not converting or getting good ranking from the search engines. Having a site that is already indexed means that need to perform some improvements to the website but at least you are indexed which means that the long wait to get crawled has already past. Now all you need to do is get the focus right.

Web usability is critically important for search engine optimization. If you spend valuable time and money optimizing you web, the traffic starts rolling in and your web is difficult to read, navigate or is slow to load, you are missing a big opportunity to convert traffic to sales or inquiries.
Here are five basic web usability tips for website improvement:

• Your web site should be easy to read.
• Your website should be easy to navigate.
• Your web site should be easy to find. Utilize some of the Search engine optimization tools that we mentioned in previous posts to accomplish this.
• Your web page layout and design should be consistent throughout the site. Sites with vast changes between the index page and the interior pages turn readers off.
• Your website should be quick to download.

The following is some advise to help improve your site on the user and search engine optimziation side of things:

1. High quality content
2. Often updated
3. Minimal download time
4. Ease of use
5. Relevant to user’s needs
6. Unique to the online medium
7. Net centric organizational culture, meaning that your process of doing business is built around using the internet as a core method of communication, information distribution and service to partners, sponsors, members, clients and prospects.

Making simple improvements to your website can score you a home run with your visitors and your search engine optimization efforts.

(Source) Yahoo’s investors have 8.8 billion reasons to stick it out with the company for a couple more years, as CEO Jerry Yang projected that as the company’s 2010 revenue figure.

You’ve got to hand it to Jerry Yang. When the going gets tough, he gets going and crunching the numbers and this time he’s saying Yahoo! will profit. Big time!

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was right. Display advertising is big and seems to be getting bigger just like Search Engine Optimization. Unlike pay-per-click advertising, display advertising isn’t so much based on keywords as it is based on big flashy images. And most people don’t click display ads. But who cares about that? If the company makes money selling them then that’s all that matters.

Of course, people go to search engines to search. At least, that’s Google’s philosophy. And Google would know, right?

But Yahoo! has figured out that search isn’t everything. It caters to a different type of user. The type of user that is more likely to play a game or two and waste some time then click on a display ad to see where it goes. The question is, can Yahoo! turn its ship around and navigate toward more profitable waters? I’m hoping it can.

Spend just a little bit of time in an Search Engine Optimization forum and you’re bound to hear someone talking about link bait - what it is, how do you do it, why it’s important, when it’s necessary, etc. etc. Well, there is link bait hype and then there is link bait tripe. But either way, link bait doesn’t have to be difficult. You don’t have to spend countless hours coming up with new and creative ways to get the blog next door to link to you. Sometimes all you have to do is make it simple.

Link bait comes in many ways and shades. Some people are going to link to you no matter what. Others are going to link to you because they like what you are doing. And some bloggers just won’t link to you. Period. What are you going to do? Twist their arms?

When you create a linkable blog post then the links will start coming. All it takes is a simple list. Come up with 10 things you like about an important concept in your industry. Or maybe 10 things you don’t like. A good way to get people to link to you is to list 25 of the most important people in your industry. Then send an e-mail to each of those people and let them know that they made your list. If anyone will link to you, they will. Then, their friends will link to you because the think it’s cool that their friend is on your list.

Link bait isn’t hard. Sometimes it’s the simplest things in the world that helps…

Jane Copeland wrote an interesting blog post about StumbleUpon traffic. I like what she has to say and I didn’t know that StumbleUpon revisited a website more than once. That’s good to know.

While StumbleUpon doesn’t give Search Engine Optimization link juice, it can increase your chances of getting link juice if you play it right. What you want is to encourage others to link to you, but how do you do that? If people are always Stumbling and not linking then are you really getting any benefit? I guess the key is to appeal to people who have not yet discovered your site and might want to link to you because 1) they really like what you offer and 2) they are in the same niche as you.

I’ve found that the best way to ensure that you keep targeted traffic Stumbling your sites is to use StumbleUpon in conjunction with other networking sites. For instance, BlogCatalog has a great networking tool in its groups and there are several groups devoted to social media and StumbleUpon, in particular. But those are general groups. While you want to network through those groups, you also want to network with others who blog and own websites within your niche. By networking with people within your niche at Facebook, BlogCatalog, and other such networking sites and asking them to Stumble your website or blog, you increase your chances of getting extra Search Engine Optimization link juice. Those are the people most likely to not only Stumble you, but link to you from their blog and website as well.

I just received an interesting notice in the mail from Domain Registry of America. It was real easy for me to identify these schmucks as scam artists, but the average consumer may not find it so easy.

In the top right corner of the mailing are the words “Domain Name Expiration Notice.” Then, below that, there is an 800 number and a web address (www.droa.com). It’s an official looking letter and arrives in an official looking envelope and a return envelope, addressed but not postage paid. The letter begins, “As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification of the domain name registrations that are due to expire in the next few months.”

Some people may not know when their domains expire, but I do. I also know who my domain registrars are and I have no interest in switching. The letter continues:

When you switch today to the Domain Registry of America, you can take advantage of our best savings.

Then the letter tells me when my domain names expire - several months away. But they want me to “Act today!”

First, if I did switch my domain registration to Domain Registry of America, I wouldn’t be saving any money. I’d be losing money; and that’s probably the case with anyone.

I currently pay $10 per year for domain name registration, the going rate. Some web hosts include this fee in their packages. Others offer registration for less than $10. In any case, I’d never pay more than $10. Domain Registry of America wants to charge me $30.00 for one year or $50.00 for two years. And in bright red letters next to the $50.00 price tag are the words “save $10.” Hmmm … by my calculations I’d be losing $15. Nice scam they have going there.

There are probably people who would fall for this. But I’d caution my readers to stay away from these people. After doing a little more research (like a Google search), I discovered that I was not the only person to have been solicited by these people.

Blog.Forret appears in Google as the No. 3 result for the company’s name. The No. 2 listing is the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). On the FTC website, I read:

The Federal Trade Commission has requested that a federal district court enjoin Domain Registry of America, Inc., an Internet domain name re-seller, from making misrepresentations in the marketing of its domain name registration services and require it to pay redress to consumers.

That was 2003. Evidently, these guys have been around a long time. There are 58,400 results on the Google SERP for this company’s name inside quotes. Most of them are negative reactions to DROAs aggressive marketing tactics and its penchant for misrepresentation. The company’s response? They threatened to sue a blogger whose blog posts ranked highly for their company name.

After browsing through five pages of Google’s SERP for the company’s name, I didn’t find one single result that had a positive thing to say about Domain Registry of America. Most of the results are angry bloggers accusing the company of running a scam. Others are other domain registrars upset about DROAs tactics as well. A result from December 2002 shows that Register.com filed a lawsuit against DROA and the judged ruled in its favor.

To add insult to injury, in its letter to me, DROA threatened:

You must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the Web, and now is the time to transfer and renew your names from your current Registrar to the Domain Registry of America. Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity making it difficult for your customers and friends to locate you on the Web.

This is blatantly misleading and incorrect. There are other considerations that affect domain name registrations. These considerations can include trademarks, registrar transfer issues, and other types of dispute resolutions where gray areas in the law are concerned or when there have been clear violations of an existing law, that can not help with your Search Engine Optimization efforts. For more information about domain name dispute resolution, you can visit the ICANN website.

I strongly encourage anyone who gets a letter from the Domain Registry of America to report the company to your country’s consumer advocacy agency. Most Western and industrialized countries have an arm of the government dedicated to consumer advocacy. Report them and don’t do business with Domain Registry of America.

I like reading Kalena’s Dumbass of the Week blog posts. They’re always entertaining and usually feature a real dumbass - someone who is a dumbass and doesn’t know it type of dumbass. In her latest post, however, Kalena’s dumbass actually turns out to be a dumbass who finds out just how dumb he really is after being outed by the Dumbass Identifier Queen herself. I must admit, though, after reading through the soap opera-like tale that at one point I thought the dumbass schtick had backfired on Kalena, exposing her as the Dumbass of the Week.

The brouhaha started when Kalena used her blog to expose a scraper. The industry joke is that this usually leads to the scraper posting on their own site the negative exposure concerning their own unethical behavior. It’s been effective for other Search Engine Optimization folks in the past and Kalena was just doing what we all at some point have done. As planned, and right on cue, Kalena’s scraper did just what she expected him to do - he outed himself on his own blog. How sweet is the taste of victory!

But, wait … not so fast.

Kalena, of course, did a victory dance. Wouldn’t you? You can see it here:

Some days, I really love my job. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if they scraped this post too?

Then, the awful truth came out. The “scraper” turned out to be some junior Search Engine Optimization person (a student) who built a fictional company to see how quickly he could rank in the search engines. Well, who hasn’t done that? Every Search Engine Optimization expert in the world - if they’re a real Search Engine Optimization expert - has done these types of experiments (and this is where I thought the joke was on Kalena). Then it dawned on me: Search Engine Optimization folks create fictional companies and perform experiments to see what happens when they employ certain techniques, but they don’t usually do that with other people’s content. That is, real Search Engine Optimization gurus don’t engage in scraping just to see how successful scraping is. If they do then they are at least up front about it in another forum or blog so that real people aren’t injured by their experiments.

And this is where the frayed edges unraveled. Kalena’s Dumbass of the Week post was Sphinned. A discussion ensued, which led to the dumbass’s boss making a confession:

Hello, I have just been alerted to this. What a lovely start to a Tuesday Morning.

One of the lads in my department asked if he could use the domain name webpropeller for some seo tests he wanted to do. AS we have no plans at the moment for the domain I did not see a problem. It would now appear I have been very naive. Our core business is a web design company

I have not seen the amount of contnet that was scraped from the sites. he removed the content this morning in a panic from his home before I was called by him explaining what he has done.

All I can do is offer my sincere apologis to both Hobo SEO who he aparently stole his copy from (he’s certainly no copywriter) and Kalena and Tim nash who he was scraping content via a wordpress plug in.

The Contact email was being sent to myself, I don’t recall ever recieving an enquiry. If I did, I would have paid attention to what was actually on the site.

anyone have any Suggestions for his punishment please?

He is due in in 8 minutes.

So it seems that Kalena had the wrong dumbass after all. She should have written about the guy who wrote the above post at Sphinn.

What’s the lesson here? If you have a junior SEO working for your company, DO NOT turn him or her loose on a domain that you own. If they want to run test experiments on their own without your knowledge, they’ll have to buy their own domain names and suffer the consequences of their actions on their own.