Another year older, another year wiser?

Well, today is my birthday. Man, the years sure go by quickly. I’m off to go look at some land that I may be interested in buying. With age, comes the desire to get out of the suburbs and into the country. The number one requirement, however, is that the area has high-speed net access availability. Not all rural areas can accomodate that. We’ll see. No matter where I end up, I have to stay connected. So, everyone have a lovely day. I’ll be enjoying myself away from the computer today.

New SEO contest coming up

Over at v7n, they are holding a new SEO contest (similar to the nigratude ultramarine one of the past). This one comes with cash prizes. $1000 for first place, $500 for second place, and $100 for third through fifth places. The contest begins January 15, 2006, which is when the keyword phrase to target will be announced. If you want in on the action, go to www.v7n.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22836 for further details.

Update to Kooky Theory a year later

Back on January 13th, 2005, I created a thread over at SEO Chat, entitled Kooky Theory. In it, I said (paraphrased), I have a handful of seasonal sites. These sites are ones that people generally don’t go to unless the time is right – and of course the searches are seasonal too. The odd thing I’ve noticed is that when the season hits, and I start getting traffic to them (say, from yahoo and msn), my google rankings for those sites go up too. As soon as the season is over, the google rankings fall to barely nothing. The backlinks don’t change appreciably during the season (maybe a handful more than usual). And yahoo and msn rankings don’t fluctuate the same way. Only google. It almost feels like Google is using alexa traffic ranks in its algo. If a lot of people are going to a site, then let’s rank it better. If no one is going to a site, then let’s drop it. Now, I realize this is a kooky theory, and I’m sure it could be shot down in any number of ways, but for the last 3 holidays, I’ve seen this exact same pattern with Google. Of course, my non-holiday sites don’t have such big spikes during the year, so I can’t evaluate them the same way. Anyway, just thought I’d throw out the kooky theory for the day for everyone to poke holes in.

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SEO podcasts

So, one of my Christmas presents this year was an IPod Shuffle. I was pretty excited to receive it. But I was even more excited when I realized I could now download the WebmasterRadio podcasts and listen to them whenever I wanted. You see, I always forget to listen in at the scheduled times, so now I can have my ITunes automatically download them. Way cool. In case you haven’t checked out the WebmasterRadio shows that are available lately, go to www.webmasterradio.fm/episodes/ to see what they have to offer.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope Santa was good to you.

One day only, get a free link tool

Just got an email from the folks over at LinkAssistant, that for TODAY ONLY, you can download a free registered version of their product, LinkAssistant. All you have to do is go to www.link-assistant.com, fill out the form, and get a registration key. Today only, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2005. If this is something you want or need, grab it now.

Letting go of cash to make a site

So, a few days ago I had an idea for a new site. My family hates hearing me say those words. It always elicits a groan from them, because they know that I go into a new site zone and block out everything else. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m a cheapskate. I rarely pay for anything if I can accomplish the goal for free. But this time around, I decided to put some actual money into the site.

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Google answers the AOL deal critics

So, Google has come out on their blog to discuss the AOL deal, and clarifies many of the issues that everyone has been upset about (such as banner ads cluttering the page, preferential treatment in the organic results, etc.). Check it all out at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/about-aol-announcement.html.

A good site backup tool

I assume that many of you, like me, have multiple web sites. If you wear a black hat, you may have hundreds or thousands. However, most of those are throwaway domains, so losing them is probably not a big concern. If you wear a white or gray hat, however, each of your sites is probably very important to you. Managing to backup both a site’s pages and it’s database is fairly trivial, but keeping up with backups of multiple sites and databases can be a daunting task.

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Q and A for SE Roundtable Moderators

Barry, of seroundtable.com, is implementing a fun new event at his new forum. Basically, he is setting up a moderator roundtable thread, where you get to ask questions. The mods will then debate the answer to that question in a locked down thread. Once the debate is over, the thread will be opened up to the users for comments. You can ask your questions at http://forums.seroundtable.com/showthread.php?t=115. Once the questions have been chosen, new threads will be opened for the moderator debates. More info from Barry at http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002992.html.

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Is Google trying to compete by using AOL content?

I have been mulling over the whole Google / AOL deal and trying to figure out why it would be promising so much. For example, Google will be showing AOL ads that link directly to AOL topics which match the search term. At first glance, this sounds like simple favoritism designed to be able to keep AOL as a revenue stream. However, after thinking about it, it may go beyond that. What do MSN and Yahoo! have that Google does not have? Original Content. What does AOL have? Original Content. Just as Google uses the DMOZ directory as if it were its own, it may be trying to compete with the likes of Yahoo! and MSN by using AOL’s content as its own.

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2006 Search Engine Predictions

Ok, I guess it is that time of year to gaze into the SEO crystal ball and make some predictions. My predictions for last year were way off the mark, so hopefully I will do better this time. Read more

Yahoo update must have been mild

I saw basically no changes at all with the Yahoo update, and the forum patter about it seems to be pretty light, so I have to assume it did not do tons of damage to most webmasters. In fact, I saw more positive responses than negative, so I suppose that is a good sign. If anyone knows of any threads I might have missed where mass panic ensued over the update, do let me know.

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