Cybersquatting Alert – It Does Not Pay!
Cybersquatting is the practice of using a domain name that is either 1) a recognized name brand and which would otherwise raise trademark or copyright suspicions if used in another context or 2) that is close enough to a recognized name brand that it could be confused with the name brand by unsuspecting consumers. Examples of cybersquatting web addresses would include: Gogle.com searchengineotpimizationjournal.com wamlart.com mcdonallds.com As you can see, the clear intent is to confuse people who might not notice the missing o in Google, the rearranged t and p in optimization, the rearranged l and m in Walmart, or the extra l in McDonalds. One court ordered a cybersquatter to pay a hefty $33 million to Verizon for the nefarious activity. Perhaps this is a turning point in CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Are Behavior Based Ads Good For Publishers?
Much ado is made of privacy (for good reason). Lately, that ado has risen to a fevered pitch. Fantomaster wrote a comprehensive blog post on Google and privacy issues that will astound you. One of the links he provides is to this blog post by DazzlinDonna about her experience as a publisher using behaviorally-based ad targeting. In her view, it just wasn't worth it. According to Donna, there were two issues related to behavioral-based ad targeted that made it a big turn off for her: Her users freaked out and thought that she, not the ad company delivering the ads, were spying on them; She experienced a lousy CTR Both of these are understandable. Privacy issues aside, though, the drawback for publishers (besides having ticked CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Can DMOZ Editor Abuse Affect SEO?
The Open Directory Project included a blog post a couple of days ago discussing editor abuse and what they do about it. It's a good read even if you haven't been a big fan of the ODP. But I wanted to address the search engine optimization effects of editor abuse at DMOZ. Of course, the blog post went to great pains to define abuse. Not every instance of inappropriate editing is considered abuse. Like most forms of human behavior, there are a lot of gray areas. Abuse need not be but often does manifest as intentional behavior. Therefore, if an editor makes an honest mistake, that's not abuse. On the other hand, if an editor makes the same mistake over and over again after CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Does Your Search Marketing Ooze Trust
The economy has been down and everyone has felt the pinch over the last 12 months or so. Things do seem to be on the up side these days and so with Christmas looming on the horizon, how well prepared is your search engine marketing and optimization? I was struck by a couple of statements on Search Engine Journal about landing pages. The first says a lot about the current state of search marketing: Landing pages are becoming overly complicated data dumps where the short attention spanned consumer is left to sort through the pop-ups, multiple focus points, talking heads and flashing pictures. There is certainly a lot of overkill when it comes to landing pages. The post on SEJ centers around seven tips to increasing CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
The Bing Review – The Numbers Stack Up But What Next?
Bing has now been around for a small while, probably long enough to start losing the 'newbie' tag and the associated traffic. Is it going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future? Has it made any impact to date? The Cuil Blog has an interesting analysis of Bing comparing it to Google and Yahoo! across several different test scenarios that impact search engine optimization and usability as well. How did Bing stack up? It appears it is more competitive than both its predecessor and Yahoo! and could give Google an interesting run for its money - but will it? Let's look at the major differences identified by Cuil - Bing seems to give more weight to: Keywords in URLs; Capitalized terms; and Large CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Get a Little Natural And Get The Links Flowing
As you start to execute the link building part of your search engine optimization strategy, I would recommend to make sure you always try to keep it natural. Doug Caverly at smallbusinessnewz reports on Phil Orford, the CEO of the Forum of Private Business, taking a casual 84 mile walk over the four days for a children's charity. It's no mean feat and will be reported in dozens of places around the web and the reports will no doubt include links back to his site. In fact Doug Caverly's report links to both the web site and the Twitter profile. If you, or one of your employees is involved in a fund raising venture like this, particularly where sponsorship is involved, why not broadcast the CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
The Next Step In Search Engine Specialization?
I wrote earlier this month about search engine specialization and Bing's bent towards travel, shopping and finance. Yahoo! have just released a new search design an while releasing it, also spoke on the future of search. It is often interesting to hear what the search engines themselves have to say, and at times, what they don't say. This will have an impact on your long term search engine optimization efforts... Yahoo! appears to be going on the attack when it comes to people search. When the new search design comes online a people search will result in profiles from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and FriendFeed appearing the results (all the more reason to ensure they are up-to-date). According to a WebProNews report: "When we launch CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
