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One of the questions I get asked frequently is “which search conferences should I attend”. Seeing as conferences end up costing you between $3500-$5000 a pop when you include travel, lodging and meals I thought I’d share my experience.
Earlier this week we had our IMNY monthly meet-up and our member Dani Horowitz was nice enough to host the event at her bowling alley Dani’s Strike Zone in Elmont NY. I have to say for bowling alley the place was pretty cool. Nice and clean, good food, and a huge party room. So big thanks to Dani for hosting a great night. You can also check out Dani’s website IT Discussion Community for Developers & Technology Enthusiasts.
There’s lots of hand wringing among publishers about duplicate content, and how other people who are authorized to syndicate, and scrapers who aren’t often outrank the original source, when Google gets it wrong. Here’s an example in action.
So I was reading the SEW blog today and came across an article from Frank Watson about Google allowing advertisers for the word vodka. While I think this might be bit of a weak argument, I’m always up for poking Google with a stick. However I think there something else to be learned from the [vodka] SERP. (screen shot below)
As an SEO you need to look at SERP’s and look for stuff like this almost subconsciously. it needs to become second nature and automatic, and when you see it you need take that extra peek and see what’s going on behind it.
So here’s a new tool for all you twitter people called Live Twittering be sure to check out my event How to Perpetuate Internet Celebrity
Ever since my initial SEO plugins for wordpress post almost two years ago, I get asked for an updated list a few times a month. Well since we’re up to wordpress 2.5 I thought the time has come. I’ll also put some of my other favorite plugins at the end, they either enhance wordpress features or just make things easier.
When you view satellite images in Google Maps you can see the building, however I just noticed you can also see the building outlines in standard view. For example here’s the Long Beach Westin Hotel where SMX local was held. Look at the building behind the letter A. You can see a curved building which is exactly the way the Westin hotel is shaped. (click to enlarge)
Now Shoemoney is a friend of mine, but regarding his post SEO Has No Future today, I am forced to disagree with him. Not only does SEO have a future but judging by the number of SEO clients I am turning away, and the number of job offers I am receiving on weekly basis to take on in house positions, all during a shrinking economy and a recession, the future is looking pretty bright for SEO …
Seems the giving away free templates with embedded keyword rich links has filtered up to the fortune 500 level as Hewlett Packard released a series of free templates today Hewlett Packard Giving Away Free Templates With Embedded Links »
I’ve often written that using a linkbait is like signing a contract with your readers. You’re luring them in with the promise of a reward at the end of the hook. Sometime you can give people what you promise but it’s not in a soundbite format and your readers feel like they never got the payoff.
When Your Title is Linkbait and Your Post Isn’t »
Hard to say which is more embarrassing or pathetic, the fact that their image hosting is over it’s bandwidth or the cheezy dating adsense banner. Sk-rt you make it hard for me to take you seriously.
Last week I attended the SMX Social Media Conference in Long Beach California, here are some of my thoughts about the event.
SMX Social Media 2008 Recap »
So hey Google care to explain why this isn’t a paid link page? Any reason you haven’t dinged the page rank of this known link seller or cut off their ability to pass page rank or anchor text? Now I’m not daft enough to believe that any of those companies gave money with the primary goal of getting a link, but at the end of the day no matter how altruistic their goals may have been, this implementation clearly doesn’t match with google recommended implementations.
The selective an uneven application of justice and rule enforcement is one of my major problems with the big G.
If you’ve ever wondered hey why should I go an SEO conference what the heck am I going to get out of it check out this interview with Gab Goldenberg, Sugarrae, Stuntdubl and myself from SMX West.
I had never met Gab before that afternoon, but he came across as nice guy, he didnt violate any of the SEO Conference Douchebag guidelines, and he ended up getting a decent interview, and A LOT of good information. He did the networking thing just right. So c’mon are you going to register for SMX Social or SMX advanced and start making conferences work for you?
SIDE NOTE
I’m not sure if this is confirmation I may have moved off Matt Cutt’s bad guy spammer list as he’s not mock throttling me in this picture … nah couldn’t be 
If you follow me on twitter chances are you seen more than one rant on bad web design, bad CSS, and bad/sloppy coding. Sure I’m a reformed CSS Zealot who used write XHTML 1.1 valid code for kicks. I may have returned to slightly more normal life, but I still believe there’s value in writing clean code. I was migrating a client site from a development environment to a production environment, and when I signed up for webmaster central the results were pretty interesting …
In my early days I played a bit more in the darker side of the game. I fully admit that I built and ran more than 1 or 2 scrapers, aggregators, and MFA style sites, but as a business model those type of sites are really on the decline, and not something I’d ever recommend to a beginner or intermediate level person. Why SEO Can’t Be Your Only Value Add »
So my buddy Loren Feldman over at 1938 media has been having grand old time giving a parody of Shel Israel lately. While it’s all been pretty funny I think there are a few points to learn from this. Are You More Entertaining than a Sock Puppet »
Dear Seth Godin,
I read your blog and I buy your books I like your stuff so much I gave them as Christmas presents to my clients, but when you write this kind of stuff it pisses me off
A quick glimpse at just about any profession shows you that the vast majority of people who succeed professionally also went to college
Really please stop it now, there are very few professions that require a college level education. Doctors, lawyers, accountants and so yep I’m with you, but for everybody else drive, and desire are much more important … really
While I was off doing some work Jill and Lisa engaged in a debate over whether or not we need SEO standards. Even though I’m a day late and a dollar short I’m still going to throw my 2 cents in. No Optimizer Left Behind »
As a young American boy growing up in the 70’s Evel Knievel was one of my role models. Aside from being a daredevil Evel possessed a strong understanding of marketing and engaged in a level of shameless self promotion that would have made PT Barnum proud.
