SEO Scoop

Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 28th, 2007 in SEO Tips

Did you know that Google Blog search has its own separate link: command? Did you also know that you can get near-real-time link information from it? I didn’t until today.

Yesterday, I had a forum thread go popular on Digg. This morning, I set up a Google alert using link:www.myforumname.com so that I could track links that may have resulted from the Digg. I was surprised this evening to receive an email from Google Alerts listing 8 brand spanking new links to that thread.

My first thought was, “Wow! That was quick!” After a bit of discussion about it with my buddy,…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 28th, 2007 in SEO Tools

HitTail, that neat service that helps you discover which long-tail phrases you should concentrate on, has announced a premium version. The free version isn’t going away, but HitTail Plus adds some nice features (for a reasonable fee). I admit that I haven’t logged into HitTail in quite some time for a very simple reason. I forgot. The one new feature in the Plus version that would solve that problem for me is the ability to receive e-mail and RSS notifications for keywords. All of the new features are:

• E-mail notifications for new keyword topics for writing suggestions
• Secure keyword RSS feeds for…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 27th, 2007 in SEO Tools

I’m always fascinated by online tools that attempt to value or grade a site. Any time I come across one, I put it through its paces. Tonight, I stumbled on SmallBusinessHub’s WebSite Grader tool. Naturally, I plugged a few of my sites into it, as well as a few other well-known sites in the SEO world. All in all, I thought it gave fairly accurate assessments. I’m not sure I’d use it often, since most of the tools in my arsenal handle my site assessment needs just fine. Nevertheless, I think it’s worth pointing out in case anyone can get some…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 26th, 2007 in General

As many are learning about tonight, a well-respected blogger, Kathy Sierra, has received numerous vile and life-threatening comments both on her own blog, as well as on other blogs. (Details at the link above). These comments and blogs even involve prominent, well-known bloggers. The horrendous and disturbing words and images that have been used against her are absolutely shocking.

I love the Internet. However, the Internet is NOT an excuse for vile or violent behavior. Anonymity gives no one the right to cross the lines of decency, nor does it give anyone the liberty of violence against others. Four days ago,…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 25th, 2007 in SEO Tips

A little over a year ago, I bought a domain name. I built the skeleton pages, but did not yet have content. A week and a half ago, I was finally able to add content, applying standard on-page optimization. (I could not add content before now, because the related “widgets” did not yet exist, but I knew they would eventually exist when I bought the domain name).

One week ago, I pointed a link to the site from a very related site. This related site, I believe, has a fair amount of trust. Two days after that, I obtained a listing…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 22nd, 2007 in General

It’s been a rough 24 hours. I had to make an emergency upgrade to a dedicated server for one of my sites to handle an influx of traffic. I got 3 hours of sleep last night, and the rest of the time has been spent being STRESSED OUT. But there’s nothing like a couple of SEOs verbally attacking each other to wake me right up.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t privy to the original sparring match that took place (which has now been removed from the blog it was on). But Rounds 2 and 3 contain some knockout blows! First I read this…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 21st, 2007 in Search Engine News

Just a quick tidbit here. Google is currently updating backlinks, which have not yet propagated to all DCs. The tidbit is that Google lost quite a few backlinks in this update, going from 1,750,000 to 1,480,000 reported links. Yahoo also lost some, going from 1,990,000 to 1,780,000. MSN, on the other hand, gained considerably, going from 1,130,000 links to 1,440,000 links, inching closer to both Google and Yahoo.

For comparison purposes, the #1 spot for “Click Here” (Adobe download page for Acrobat) has gone from 1,340,000 to 1,250,000.

Keep in mind, of course, that Google only reports a sample of all backlinks…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 21st, 2007 in Search Engine News

The first two things I read this morning were basically anti-Google sentiments.

The first was from a Microsoft pundit who states “IMO, Google will not be satisfied until they can track what you do from the second you wake up in the morning until you go to bed, from what you look at on the Internet, to what you watch on TV, to what you listen to on the radio and in podcasts. And that’s why I call them an adware company… because they want to bombard you with ads, no matter what you’re doing.”

The second was from Techcrunch,…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 20th, 2007 in SEO Theories

I have to tell this little story, even though it’s a little mean-spirited, but I don’t really mean it to be. For those of you who watch American Idol, Melinda Doolittle is turning out to be the best by far. I really like her, she sings great, and she’s extremely sweet. But…well…she’s kinda funny looking. (Sorry, Melinda). Before I’d seen her enough times to remember her name, I just called her that “no-neck chick”. Tonight, we were watching her sing, and it dawned on us that really she looks like Shrek.

So I decided to go grab a couple of images…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 20th, 2007 in SEO Tips

The title of this post says it all. Jim Westergren has compiled a nice guide on how to SEO for Wordpress.

Topics include:

Using the best URLs
..Handling URL Canonization
Title Tags
..The best title tag solution for advanced users
Headings
Navigation
Site Map
..What about a Google Sitemap?
Design
What About the Meta Tags?
CSS Positioning

And all that is just in Section 1. Sections 2-4 discuss How to Craft Your Articles, Increase User Interaction, and Get Links.

Definitely worth checking out. Nice job, Jim.

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 20th, 2007 in General

I don’t read enough web marketing blogs, but I probably should. Instead, I tend to use the old “try it and see if it works” method, which isn’t a bad method, but there’s nothing wrong with finding out what works for others as well. HarpzOn.com looks like a fairly new blog from a young man who has a large amount of web marketing experience already under his belt. As the originator of DevArticles (later sold to Devshed) and the co-founder of Interspire, I have to assume Mitchell “Harpz” Harper has a few nuggets of wisdom to share.

The first thing I noticed…

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 20th, 2007 in General

In case any of you signed up for ecomxpo, the show has started. I’ll be hanging out in the Lounge (look for the red door at the back of the show hall) most of the day. Hope to see some of you there.

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Posted by DazzlinDonna on March 19th, 2007 in General

Saturday, I talked a bit about the future of the Internet as the social aspects combine to create ways of communicating (and marketing) that we haven’t even imagined yet. Today, I read an article that excites me both as a developer and an SEO. Adobe (who I admittedly am not terribly fond of) has released an alpha version of a project code-named Apollo that really gives us a glimpse into the future.

“What we’re really focused on is to enable the Web to have a greater presence on the desktop, so as a Web developer you can create your application and have…

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