Here are some of my favourite - and your posts - that I’ve published since beginning to blog here. You’ll probably find a few that you never read before. I hope you enjoy!

Social Media Analytics - How to Measure Social Media Activity (more…)

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Curious why you should subscribe? The best reason I can give is that you'll find original ideas here. On a related note, if you need SEO services, here's where to get more information.

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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Things have been absolutely incredible here lately, as I’ve achieved a variety of milestones.

1. Matt Cutts complimented me and SEOROI.com by recognizing that I was one of the first two people (with Mike VanDeMar of the Smackdown blog) to notice Google indexing site searches. (more…)

And it isn’t Google Analytics, as I mistakenly thought. So I need to apologize to Google (and to you, my readers) for the error/false accusation and getting people worried for nothing.

Even more humbling, both Matt Cutts and the official Google Webmaster Central blog have called yours truly’s site “high quality.” So let’s see …

• Matt Cutts intervenes early at Sphinn and in my comments here to clarify that Google Analytics wasn’t at the source of these new items in Google’s index;
• In followup explanations by email, he shares where those site SERPs were coming from;
• Matt & Google provide a public explanation of what’s really going on, thus joining the conversation rather than ignoring it and hiding away
• Matt and Google compliment me/ SEO ROI (!) for having a high quality site worthy of this fancy treatment.

How’s that for reputation management? (Incidentally, on a prior occasion it took Matt about a month to get back to me on something, so it looks like they’re improving .)

A little while back I wrote about how I thought Google was indexing site SERPs for those sites that had Google Analytics tracking site searches. In effect, I mistakenly accused Google of leaking Analytics data into its index. I had enabled site search tracking and my friend Brian had too, and we were both seeing these site search results pages turning up in Google’s SERPs. Thus we were worried about the integrity of our data.

As it turns out, Google’s experimenting with a new form of discovering deep content on “high quality” sites. Whereas content hidden behind forms and javascript was once inaccessible, Google is now testing out new ways of discovering and crawling it, including performing limited numbers of site searches [and indexing the results].

Read the full explanations at Matt Cutt’s blog and the more technically detailed explanation at the official Google Webmaster Central blog.

Oh, and if you haven’t already, don’t you think it’s time you subscribed?! Consider that prior to the loud-titled “Google Analytics Is Leaking…” post, I had actually written about the topic over a month earlier! If you pay close attention to my blog, you’ll learn/discover nuggets of information waaay ahead of everyone else!

First, I present to you this amusing little email:

from seo expert <seseoexperts@gmail.com> to seseoexperts@gmail.com, date Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:04 AM subject Obligation signed-by gmail.com

hide details 8:04 AM (4 hours ago)

Reply

Hi there,

Thank you for taking time to read this email.

We provide high quality graphic design service like Web design, banner design, logo design and web development at a very low cost.

If you are interested, we are willing to Exchange link with you for our mutual benefit.

Please do not hesitate to contact fastlinkmaster@gmail.com for further inquiries.

Thanks and Best Regards
Link Department

We are not spammers and are against spamming of any kind. We are sending this mail with sole intention of link exchange for mutual benefit. If you are not interested in Link Exchange then you can reply simply “NO”, we will never contact you again.

Second, I’d like to share some genuine link love with people who’ve produced good content or have some points that deserve your attention.

1) Uber Aff has made some great posts, some of which are unfortunately buried in archives. Today’s post on how much to spend is a good place to start, then here’s something for those who are interested in blackhat PPC, how to contact human support at AdWords is another great one, and then this video Q&A just made me burst out laughing.

2) Daniel, a bright and friendly Sitepointer, has this very nice blog on building trust and credibility.

3) Quadszilla has an explanation on how to daisy chain your Diggs and gain more social success.

4) This is a year old, but imho, still very true and still very fresh: Crowd Clout aka collective purchasing power.

5) Besides trolls, there’s a much darker face to Web 2.0 and social media. Read antisemitism in web 2.0 and social media to find out more. On a related note, please do link to Jew Tube and to this Jew. If you’re wondering why I’m doing that, read this: Google’s explanation of why the antisemitic Jew Watch ranks for “Jew”.

6) For those of you interested in outsourcing tech overseas, Israel has some of the best IT labour in the world. Thus have a look at Launchpad Israel’s relaunch. On the more strictly search marketing side of things, that link right there takes you to my friend Omer Shoval’s Israeli search marketing company. If you’re in the job market, you can check out these Israeli SEO Jobs (in Hebrew).

7) This one is new to me, but not new generally: How Google Emulates the Las Vegas Casinos in Trying to Control The Web’s Rules. John Andrews is a bright guy, and that’s a cutting indictment!

I’d like to point out to you that from now on, you can find all my blog posts at SEOROI.com/blog, while the best ones will be reserved for the front page. That was the original intention, but my original developer never got around to doing that (although the other stuff he programmed works pretty well).

p.s. Coming soon: My interview with Barbara Ling, a veteran webmaster, as well as some affiliate marketing posts that compare networks by an objective criteria and help you decide who to sign up with.

• If knowledge is power;
• If information is knowledge;
• And if Google is organizing - and, more importantly, distributing - the world’s information;

Then isn’t Google the single most powerful organization in the world?

(more…)

Actually, I didn’t. And that’s why this post matters. (more…)

I’m a Bookworm. Really. So I’d say I’m reasonably well-placed to give out some Charity Awards for for Search Education. The way it’s going to work is that everyone who wins an award gets a shiny badge and has their name added to the donation I’m making to the Africa Is Real charity. They’re a Montreal group started by some friends I met at the OWN conference. (more…)

I’ve gotten two emails from a certain “RankRanker@gmail.com” (aka “webmaster@RankRanker.com”) trying to sell me their “Free SEO System and Link Exchange With Extra Earning”. While spam email pitches for terribly named, grammar-rule-flaunting, “get rich quick” systems (NEW: Now With An SEO Twist!) (more…)

Vanessa Fox and the team at Third Door Media have given me an incredible opportunity - the opportunity to speak at SMX. Following Danny’s great explanation of what they were looking for in terms of pitches, I thought about my experience and what I could share with attendees. I pitched some ideas for local and voila - I’m in for the local panel ! So Third Door: Thanks a lot for taking a chance on me. I can’t predict the reception, but I can promise you I’ll be working like mad to make that presentation worth it for your attendees.

I highly encourage you guys to grab the early-bird special before it expires - you save $400! (No, that’s not an affiliate link.) It’s THE search marketing conference, and besides, I’ll be there ;). Not to mention that you’ll be able to hear Eric Lander on the same panel as yours truly, plus three reps from the major (*cough incompetent cough*) SEs. Eric’s written at SEJ, SEG (does anyone else get them confused a lot too?), the ISEdb (hey, me too! :D) and SEO Today. SEO Today? You know the man’s an OG.

In the meantime, see my latest post on how Google Maps have updated their SERPs with a booking engine, pics from their Panoramio site, and inserted reviews directly below each listing. This item on local-oriented domaining with Google Trends might also appeal to you. Did I mention my old blog also covered local search, and that it ranked for ‘local seo,’ in the not too distant past (if you’re wondering, that’s a useless keyword traffic wise).

I was trying to figure out how to make this post more informative and share some tips, but I’d have to get more info from Vanessa and co. on what they liked about my pitch. Considering how busy they are with preparations and organizational work, I think that can be best left to asking at the conference, in person.

Besides that, I’d like to ask if any of you other internet marketers (*cough Sphinn/SU/Youmoz friends, commenters, etc…*) who are going might care to share a room? I may be speaking, but $200+ a night is still expensive for me. FYI: I’m a clean guy, sociable, won’t wake you up if you like to hit the sack early and we might even trade some good tips ;). (On a related note, my sister used to rent a 1 and a half apartment here in Montreal for $800 a month …

Please write me at gab at this domain if you’re interested in sharing a room.

P.S. A pisher is Yiddish for a [usually little] kid. “Hey pisher,” is a phrase my older sisters frequently use ;).

P.P.S. For those of you wondering why I haven’t posted lately, there are 2 answers.

One is that my site’s technology has a bug; it’s supposed to output on a /blog page but doesn’t. Only posts categorized a certain way show up here on the homepage, but if I want the permalink to use a different category, I have no choice but to leave the post off the homepage. Hopefully it’ll be resolved soon. In the meantime, see what these credibility failures taught me about linkworthiness/linkability.

The other answer is that I’m working on a large SEO audit that’s taking up most of my free time, and what little I have left is going into working on a longer, more value-added post on motivation and influence.

Update: Motivation and Influence aka Be Nice to the Loner Kid is posted. Also, I had a blast at SMX and met a bunch of people, largely thanks to SEOmoz.

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