SEO Dance

Ituloy AngSulong 2nd SEO Philippines SEO Contest Mechanics

Contest starts October 28, 2006 8:00 PM and ends February 23, 2007 8:00 PM.

The contest is open to all Filipinos. It’s also open to non-Filipinos who can be present at the awarding ceremonies. If a non-Filipino should win and he’s not physically present at the event, he is disqualified from the contest.

For this contest, we’ll have three sets of winners: forty (40) for Google, ten (10) for Yahoo! and five (5) for MSN.

To win, you have to rank from #1 to #40 in Google (http://www.google.com), #1 to #10 in Yahoo (http://search.yahoo.com) and #1 for MSN (http://search.msn.com) for the contest keyword. Each spot has its corresponding prize.

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The SEO industry is known to be one lucrative marketing wing. The advent of Internet made innumerable businesses understand the need for online presence with the help of search engine optimization companies. However, Dave Pasternack, the president of Did-it.com, a search engine marketing firm pointed out that revenue from the SEO industry has reached a painful decline in growth.

Pasternack based this information from MarketingSherpa.com’s research, which have shown a good increase in SEO companies’ revenue growth rate of 124% from 2004 to 2005, and stalled in 2006.

Here are three reasons Pasternack gave behind this revenue slump of the lustrous SEO industry:
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Search engine optimization, like many technological advancements, has good and bad side. In SEO, these two sides are known as “Black Hat SEO” and “White Hat SEO.”

So what’s the skinny about these two SEO Hats?

“One Night Stand with a Black Hatted SEO”

I have nothing against one night stands but black hat SEO is known to be something like a wham-bam-thank-you-Ma’am kind of thing. Black hat SEO is a set of relatively unethical marketing methods used by SEO blackhatters, which are often labeled deceptive, thus are frowned upon by major search engines. What makes them deserving of the “one night stand” metaphor is that since they are now more easily tracked by search engines, their effects can easily backfire. If your site is now ranking high on the SERPs because of black hat techniques, it is expected that it will soon be ranked low when the SE’s find out that the methods you used to make your site go sky high are those that violates their guidelines.

“Dreaming with Puritan White Hatted SEO”

A puritan is someone who adheres to strict religious principles; someone opposed to sensual pleasures. The sudden spike of a site’s rank is allegedly what a white hat SEO tries to avoid. As if there really is some strict search engine principles, white hat SEO techniques are labeled as ethical.

Information about SEO techniques under each side of the SEO dichotomy soon.

Ituloy AngSulong is the keyphrase all SEO experts and beginners should work on to make their sites get the top of the 3 major SE’s search engine results page.

This will be the second SEO contest that the SEOPhillppines e-group has organized. The first SEO contest which gave out prizes as much as USD2,600 was for the keywords Isulong SEOPH. Isulong SEOPH is a Tagalog phrase meaning to advance SEOPH (short for SEO Philippines). The first contest resulted to horrendous comment spamming which is what the 2nd contest will avoid with the help of new rules. Uh-oh!

Now the keywords are Ituloy AngSulong, which means “continue to advance.” Quite clever, eh? I have checked the SERPs of Google, Yahoo, and MSN, the 3 search engines the Ituloy AngSulong SEO contest participants will be optimizing for and found no results for Yahoo and Google yet. But, MSN yielded 2 results (one’s indented) for this early bird of an SEO guy. Whin of BicolBusinessDirectory who actually won the 2nd prize for the first SEO contest in the Philippines.

That and see the first screenshot that showed the Ituloy AngSulong domain name already grabbed? Considering that the contest has just been announced yesterday, I bet all the Ituloy AngSulong domain names were already grabbed. SEO experts in the Philippines are this excited! Haha. But no, it’s actually one good SEO tactic to start early, right?

Oh by the way, the SEO contest organizer Mr. Marc Macalua is still looking for more sponsors to make this contest merrier. If you’d like your website to gain quality link building from this contest, join the fun or be a sponsor.

Will be posting more details of this Ituloy AngSulong SEO Contest soon.

Via The J Spot

ituloy angsulong, SEO contest, Isulong SEOPH, link building, comment spamming, SEO Philippines

SEO experts and noobs alike can benefit from this new SEO tool, Search Status which is a toolbar extension for Firefox and Mozilla. Of course, Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox browser is required to be able to run SearchStatus.

Search Status can deliver the following search-related benefits to search engine optimizers:

- View any website’s Google PageRank
- View any website’s Category
- View any website’s Alexa Popularity Ranking
- View any website’s Alexa Incoming Links
- View any website’s Alexa Related Links and
- View any website’s Backlinks from Google, Yahoo, and MSN

More details and download Search Status via Quirk

searchstatus, search status, seo tool, firefox, mozilla, firefox plugin, backlink, Alexa ranking

(image from mcla.edu)

SEO forums are one of the great sources of SEO tips. And just this morning I have come across some optimization information about how long will it take Google to index or recognize that a site receives inbound links from a site with a high page rank.

Here’s what a WebmasterWorld forum member speculated:

For a high-quality link from a site with “a lot of trust” I have seen it affect rankings in as little as a week.

Another SEO forum member mentioned that what makes it easier for Google to index a site with IBL from a high page rank site is its “age”. Does it mean that it will take ages before the Google search engine finds out that it should be doing its work and show the site on its SERPs already?

I’ve been a witness to that less-than-a-week speed of Google to recognize that your site is receiving some sweet Google juice from some trusted sites. But I’d want to know if the level of page rank will also affect that speed, say how long will Google index your site if you receive a .edu or a .gov (which are said to be “very trusted sites” inbound link or a link from a PR 8 or 9 sites.

You can follow this Google link building recognition discussion by visiting the WebmasterWorld forum.

Google, link building, search engine, indexing, WebmasterWorld, SEO forum, SEO tip

(image from comit-hosting.com)

The widely-used search engine, Google, is starting to save its name for purposes that will only benefit the company. Its being used commonly as a verb for searching for certain info from just any search engine is one that the company is trying to avoid. Larry and Sergey would surely not want to let their company become just another Xerox, Zipper and baby oil.

For brand protection, Google has enumerated some examples on how to properly use the word Google:

“I googled him on Yahoo and he seems pretty interesting.”

Apparently, that statement will make Google’s lawyers unhappy.

Yes, people, we’re all prompted to follow the 11th commandment: “Thou shall not take the name of the Big G thy God search engine in vain.”

Read more about how Google as a word should be used.

Google search engine, google news, google use

After a week of my announcement of my SEO Dance Experiment. Yahoo! and MSN started giving in and gave me the following SERPs ranks:

SERPs for the keywords “SEO Dance” for October 26, 7:45 PM

Yahoo! Search yielded 2,700,000 search results and gave this new SEO blog the Top 3 spot today. See the screenshot of Yahoo! search engine results page for SEO Dance.

MSN Live Search yielded 255,620 search results and gave this new SEO blog the Top 5 spot. See the screenshot of MSN Live Search sengine engine results page for SEO Dance.

Google Search yielded 7,850,000 and gave this new SEO blog the Top 1 spot! NOT!

It’s something to be expected, the Google sandbox can’t be surmounted that easily. But I’m quite happy with Yahoo! and MSN SERPs today.

SEO experiment, Yahoo! Search, MSN Live Search, SERP, SEO blog, SEO

Kamrul was cool enough to include more points on what other factors affect a site’s page rank.

“I think not only inbound link but also Number of visits, the site the link is coming from is important. Means If your inbound links comes from low ranking site you won’t get that much credit and if accidentally inbound links comes from blacklisted sites, your sites future is in trouble. Since not only Google but also other search engines don’t like bad neighborhood’s. Kamrul’s comment on increasing PR of a site

Bad Site Equals Low Page Rank
Indeed, inbound links from blacklisted sites which Google has penalized is told to be one way to lower a website’s page rank. The bad neighborhoods that Google despise include porn sites, sites with duplicate content, link farms and other banned sites.

Reciprocal Linking for Higher Page Rank Tips
Link exchanges is being practiced by many search engine optimizers to increase their site’s page rank and also to drive more traffic towards their sites. However, reciprocal linking or link exchanges requires precaution. The trick to be successful in increasing the page rank of a website from reciprocal linking is through making sure that the site contains relevant content AND more preferably the page rank of the site that you will be exchanging links with is higher by even just one level than your site’s page rank.

blacklisted site, increase page rank, link exchange, reciprocal linking, relevant content, tips

If you have installed the Google Toolbar you will be able to see the pagerank of every site you visit in your browser. How? It has that PageRank icon with some green part or can be as white as a ghost depending on the PageRank of the website you are viewing.

What is page rank? Here is how Google explains it:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.

Ok, enough of the vote-vote important-important Google jargon about page rank. Simply put, page rank is the grade or mark that Google gives to a website. Now how is a website ranked? One popular SEO notion is that a website is given a page rank depending on the number of inbound links (IBL) it gets from other websites. So, to get a high PR (0 as the lowest page rank and 10 as the highest), link building is a key move.

So why would you want a high page rank? Here are what I believe the two best benefits of a high page rank:
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Bloghopping led me to this set of tips to make your blog launch a success. It dealt with the following aspects of blog launching:

The First Impression (which made me feel sad that I haven’t been able to post enough content yet)

RSS and Subscriptions (discussed about the “above the fold” requirement for RSS feed links to be found easily by readers; also reminded me to ask the boss for an e-mail subscription section)

Social Bookmarking (reminded me of a co-451-blogger’s Fark success)

Getting Networked

Link Building (one of my most favorite SEO chores)

Finishing Touches (this I’ll never be able to finish since I’m a very tweak-happy person considering the fact that I’m html-illiterate :()

Here, read all of ‘em 21 techniques to make blogging a lot more rewarding while I’m starting with the 2nd tip:

“Don’t get seen naked: Never launch a blog with fewer than 5 posts.”

blog promotion, blog SEO, link building, blog tip, RSS feed, social bookmark, Fark

Not sure what this could mean to all the SEO experts out there. But with this new customize your own search engine service that Google has launched, will aiming for the top of Google’s SERPs and other search engines a thing of the past or more complex?

From Google Co-op, this new do-it-yourself search engine allows the following options:

- Specify the sites you want to include in searches.
- Place a search box and search results on your website.
- Customize the look and feel to match your website.
- Invite your community to contribute to the search engine.
- Make money from relevant ads in your search results.

Try Google Custom Search Engine and tell me what you think.

Google, Google Co-op, custom search engine, make money online

(image from burkhardagency.com)

Aside from the recent SEO contest I’ve joined, getting my SEO blog to show up in the first few pages of the SERPs is one of the most challenging SEO endeavor I’ve ever gotten myself into. Thanks to the one who chose my domain name SEO Dance, (Is it Chrispian?), this will be one hell of a roller-coaster ride. Haha!

One of the first few SEO steps I have accomplished is to try to get as many IBL (inbound links) directing to my blog. It’s one tried and tested method to get out of the sandbox.
Link building translates to building trust as how many SEO gurus would preach. Whether they call that getting trapped in Google algorithm’s quicksand a sandbox or trustbox, one thing is for sure, everyone needs to get out of the darn box!

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Doesn’t that title sound like a kind of alien invasion film? If you haven’t read my SEO experiment announcement yet, I won’t do a recap for you. Please don’t be a lazyas$, do read it.

To those who have read it, as promised, here is my SEO-fu plan.

Search engine optimization is so much of a guy’s craft I’ve noticed. This is because I don’t know of too many ladies out there trying to tinker on SEO. However, although I can’t be those kinds of guys who can and would try to understand the Google algorithm, I do enjoy working on each aspect that allegedly compose the Google algorithm. Why am I having this love-hate relationship with the Google algorithm? Google is the search engine which is known to be the hardest to please because of its retro-virus like nature - it has already evolved even before any search engine optimizer or analyst has cracked its code.

However, since I’m not going to compete against those millions of search results because I have a client who will pay me for to reach the top of the SERPs, this experiment should not be that taxing. But still, having a blog that should be dealing with search engine optimization, I can’t be a runny-nosed invalid settling for a page 20 of the SERPs, which is one feat on its own already if you are competing with millions of blogs.

Ok, enough of the yada-yada’s. Here are my SEO tactics:
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What more fun way to get the ball rolling in this blog than to start with an SEO experiment, right? I gave the three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) a good rummage down to the fifth SERP (Search Engine Results Page) at least, but could not find my blog for the keywords of its domain name. Simply put, SEO Dance, when searched does not lead to my blog, “yet.”

This prompted me to discuss this SEO experiment I’ll be performing for my SEO Dance blog. If I want more traffic to my blog, of course, I need to get my blog found. So, yeah, the objective of this SEO experiment is to make http://www.seodance.com/ jump that long queue of SEO Dance wannabes and get to the top of SERPs.

If I want that to happen, I will surely be needing some really powerful SEO techniques, right? Yes, the adjective powerful just have to be there because while checking the competition for my keywords “seo dance”, here are the disheartening number of search results from each of the search engines:

Google has 8,520,000 search results for SEO Dance
Yahoo has 2,300,000 search results for SEO Dance
MSN has 246,052 search results for SEO Dance

With those millions of results to overtake, you think only prayers and bribing the search engine engineers will make my blog stand out and reach that coveted first page of the SERPs. But no, I prefer to take the challenge and do it the white hat way and I don’t have some moolah to shell out for the bribing part anyways. Oh, if you haven’t heard yet about this SEO technique dichotomy white hat and black hat, I’ll be blabbing more about it in the next posts to come.

Do check out this blog again if you want to know about the list of SEO techniques I will use for this SEO experiment. Also, I wish that you join me and do try to perform this SEO experiment on your own blog. It’s one cool and educational way to drive traffic to our blogs. Cheers!

SEO experiment, SEO technique, white hat, black hat, blog traffic, SERP