The Art Of SEO - The Science Of PPC

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Google Wants To Smoke A Doobie With My Son

My son decided to make brownies last night. Since he is of the Google generation, the thought of a cook book never crossed his mind. Instead, he headed right to his laptop and searched for brownie recipe .

Imagine my surprise when he asked me why Google was suggesting adding weed to his brownies. I consider myself pretty liberal as a parent and I don’t fault Google for returning porn if my child enters a keyword that calls for porn, but I really don’t want them suggesting adding drugs to dessert.

Google Suggests Adding Weed to Brownies

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Spammy Off Topic Widget Link Bait

What’s the difference between great link bait and spam?

Complaints to Google from sites you outrank seems to be the most important factor. Consider the two widgets below. The first sites ranks #1 for "online dating" while the second has been banned by Google for using spammy, off topic widgets after Google received some complaints about them. The second site has essentially been smoted from the index.

OK Cupid

Your Score: Read Minds

We’ve discovered your super power! Hope you like it…

You’re a psychic and you can read minds! But please don’t read my mind right now, because I’m imagining you naked. Of course, you’re probably already used to people doing that. Ah, the joys of being a psychic. At least you’ll always ace interviews and pass your college exams with no problems.

Link: The Discover Your Super Power Test written by
reikiwriter on
OkCupid Free Online Dating , home of the
The Dating Persona Test
View My Profile(reikiwriter)

JustSayHi

81%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

Free Online Dating

In fairness to Google, the folks at JustSayHi did stray into the dark side. After they ranked number 1 for most dating terms, they started promoting other domains with their widgets. They crossed the line with Google’s TOS. On the other hand, after a couple of failed re-inclusions, they decided to start over with a new domain and rebuild an entirely white hat site at One Plus You using the same quiz widgets. It turns out that Google considers the One Plus You quiz results widgets to be Spammy and Off Topic when they include the anchor text of "Free Online Dating".
The challenge for marketers is to know where to draw the line between very effective link bait and spammy, off topic link bait. As long as the algorithm rewards targeted anchor text, marketers will continue to find a way to get people to link to them using preferred anchor text.

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Google Gets Related Searches In The Golden Triangle

I spotted another interest UI tweak from Google, as they finally put Related Searches at the top of the Golden Triangle. We have seen these sneaking into the bottom of the SERP for a while and it was only a matter of time before the show up on top.

Does this mean the mighty G has decided that disambiguation is a better guide to user intent than ESP?

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Google Onebox Cheating to Promote Real Estate

Remember the uproar over Google self promotion less than year ago when Google tried to promote Picasa within natural search by using a “Tips” graphic?

How is it that we have all turned a blind eye when Google uses Onebox to promote their verticals? Why is a tip graphic bad, but no one even talks about how the Housing search completely ignores the algorithm. Imagine you are a small newspaper in wine country that has spent 20 years listing Napa Real Estate and Sonoma Real Estate, including 12 years on the web. Suddenly the top result for a Google search is a competing Google property with no history. I guess your out of luck!

I say that’s evil!

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San Francisco SEO – SEM

I seem to have never actually announced that I joined Alchemist Media, Inc, a firm a few months ago as the Senior Search Engine Marketing Director. Alchemist Media is one of the leading Search Engine Optimization companies in the world and I am thrilled to be working with them.

As of March 28th, 2008,I am back on my own and very happy to be heading my own SEO – SEM agency.

The opinions expressed here continue to be my own!