One of my favourite things to do when browsing the web is take screenshots of interesting things I notice, particularly in the SERPs, but also on other sites. It’s an easier way of taking notes and learning from others. Featured below are some sites you know, like DoshDosh, Treatment Search, Sphinn and others.

There’s also the genuinely stupid Stupid.com, some much more intelligent Sphinn spammers who’ve carefully observed what tips us off to spam, and more. In the interest of load times, I’ve linked to some pictures rather than post them here. Enjoy! (more…)

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My reaction was a loud WTF when I tried logging in to check my click stats. Click Audit, the link/click tracking tool I was using until very recently to track subscriber count to SEO ROI has just been turned into a parked domain! In other words, it just features a bunch of useless ads. It may be a temporary thing, because the site likely didn’t make the owner(s) much money, but I’m not waiting around to find out.

I’m not going to cave in and go to Feedburner. Or annoy you guys with ads from Pheedo. What I will do is set up my own click tracking script on my server and just run things that way. Anyone got a favourite free click tracking script that’s easy to install and easy to use? I’d like it to have a similar interface to Click Audit, preferably, if you know what that was like. Helpful suggestions for alternative scripts to track subscribers with in the comments will be rewarded with dofollow links in updates to this post.

Oh, FYI: I had 1300+ subscribers (or clicks on subscription links, which is how I was counting subscribership) as of yesterday. Feel free to subscribe (and let me know that you did in the comments, since I have no way of knowing now that Click Audit is gone..

Lesson to the wise: Be as independent of third party services as possible.

UPDATE: John of Z Scale Model Train Layouts (who sell PSW concrete abutment sets and a Blasted Rock abutment set) shared a free script that’s very easy to install and use. There’s almost all the functionality of Click Audit (there are no groups and no PPC cost measuring) and most importantly, you can install it on your own server! So I’m now using PHP Junkyard’s Free PHP Click Counter.

Update 2: In a further helpful comment, John highlights some problems with the database being text based,
such as it not being able to handle very high volume. Also, Click Audit appears to be back up for the moment. I’m sticking with the script for now. Also, for future reference, here’s a screenshot of where my sub stats stood as of May 12th, per Click Audit.

My understanding of total clicks is that it comprises those clicks coming from the same Ip within a given period of time (like 24 hours). So someone whose feedreader was slow to grab the click and turn it into a readable subscription might click a second time, for instance. That’s why I refer to the unique clicks count as my subs.

At the Domain Roundtable, Matt Cutts said that Google will cut down any sites that get sold back to zero ranking value. So after a site has built up SEO strength for a few years, the asset could be worthless on the search market because Google - which controls the overwhelming majority of North American and most Western search - makes the rules.

This is clearly unfair to webmasters. Not to mention that the Fortune 500 are again on a different playing field, because their purchases are just mergers and acquisitions, not “site purchases”…

Update: Apparently this treatment is reserved for sites that also change topics. The technique thus remains useful, but obviously the problem it resolves is narrowed to particular situations. Hat tip to Gustavo Cardial for pointing out the error.

Lady Justice, blindfolded with scales and sword by California Criminal Defense Lawyer Rob Miller.

In an effort to balance out the scales, I’m sharing a legal technique called “the trust.” My hope is that it will enable webmasters to buy sites and sell them without fear that their hard SEO work will go to naught.

Disclaimer: As I’m just a law student and not a lawyer, let alone an expert on trusts, please only take this as information, not legal advice, and (more…)

I’d love to hear your thoughts and I’ll bet that conference organizers would too. So go share your thoughts at Sphinn (and feel free to sphinn the discussion ) on whether you’d attend a greyhat SEO panel at SMX/SES/Sphinncon/Pubcon/SEM Canada etc.

Rishi Lakhani, in particular, had a great suggestion in the comments, which were quite entertaining on the whole. Dofollow link for his Treatment Search site.

On a related note, Andy Murdoch had a great suggestion on fighting Sphinn spam. Dofollow link for Andy’s forum moderation services. Do weight in there too.

Finally, Sphinn’s reaction to that thread (or perhaps they were planning this independently) was this idea to fight spam, which I’m staunchly opposed to. Please tell the mods that you dislike the idea!

p.s. I’ll have the legal series up later this week.

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Legal fictions can be used by greyhat SEOs to overcome Google’s nearsighted paradigms on buying websites and buying links. While Google is trying to pass off its guidelines as law - and is succeeding in convincing some people of that fact* - the facts are otherwise, and my two-post series on the topic will show that the law can actually enable people to skirt Google’s techniques and expose its faults. (more…)

Want to find out competitors’ keywords? Want to avoid getting your keyword research ripped off? Here’s how to do competitive keyword intelligence for free. (more…)

I’ve been asked the question recently in connection to business blogs: Should I blog on the company’s official site/domain name, or should I blog on on a fresh domain name? Each approach has its advantages, but with current search engine algorithms, my advice is to have the blog on (more…)

I recently got this email:

Dear SEO ROI Services author,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.2 score out of (10) in the Technology category of Blogged.com.

This is quite an achievement! [If you say so, then it must be!]

http://www.blogged.com/directory/technology

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style. [So quality wasn’t a criteria? I guess I’m finally getting through to people how little quality content matters!]

After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.2 score.

We’ve also created Blogged.com score badges with your score prominently displayed. Simply visit your website’s summary page on Blogged.com:

[Badge picture was here.]

Click on the “Show this rating on your blog!” link underneath the score and follow the instructions provided.

Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!

Sincerely,

Amy Liu

Marketing

amy@blogged.com

www.blogged.com

Matt Inman’s widgetbait for his new dating site got pre-emptively wrecked recently, in what most SEOs (see the comments on that post) thought was unfair punishment for someone starting out fresh in a legitimate, whitehat way. If we’re going to talk about widgetbait as spam [because it’s unsolicited and obviously worthless here], this here is the prototype example, not Matt’s fun quizzes and such.
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You’re likely to see some of these in future posts here and aroud the various lovely places that take my stories. So check out as many of them as you have time for, cuz there are some real sweet ones in here.

Diorex doesn’t blog anymore, so Smaxor republished some of his classics. (more…)

Two techniques I’ve thought of recently to modify the traditional “look at the top 100 to find targets” link building technique:

1) Use the Google Global Firefox extension to see who’s ranking in different countries. You’ll often find very different results; since most business compete within a defined geographic area, they probably won’t mind linking to you if you’re in another country.

2) Search for your keywords with a typo. The pages that come up will likely still be strong and/or trusted, but they might not even show up in a top 100 search.

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