Pubcon Boston Link Building Clinic

I attended the Link Building Clinic session at Pubcon Boston 2006, Tuesday morning.  The format is that members of the audience volunteer up their websites, and the panel members (Rae Hoffman, Eric Ward, and a couple others I seem to have neglected to note down their names) do an instant analysis of their backlinks.

Somehow, I expected more in terms of positive suggestions on how to acquire good backlinks, but what it was mostly was the panel uncovering whatever questionable backlinks each site had.  Most, if not all, of the comments from the panel stuck very closely to the party line on SEO.

The worst example was probably the site that seemed to be just a well done AWS site.  The panel discovered fairly quickly that the content was almost entirely taken from Amazon, with maybe a sentence or two added from the site’s publisher.  Most of the backlinks seemed spammy, and of course it would be difficult for a thin affiliate site to acquire real quality backlinks.  Their advice was spot on, if obvious, to add more unique content.  A lot of the rest of the examples was just the panel telling people what not to do, and all very basics.
The most interesting example was from a representative from an SEO firm who has a pharmaceutical company as a client.  A real pharmaceutical, not a stupid affiliate site.  The site in question was Stalevo.com which is about Novartis Pharmaceutical’s Parkinson’s disease drug called Stalevo.  The panel made what I thought were some decent suggestions, such as trying to get linkage from places like the Michael J Fox website.  Seems that was a bit too obvious for the guy doing Stalevo’s SEO campaign, as he replied that stuff like that was what he’s already been doing.

I should have gone to the Domain Names session.

Thanks Jim Boykin

I attended Webmasterworld’s Pubcon conference Tuesday and Wednesday.  I attended as many of the sessions as I could, including all the ones on link building.  The presentation by Jim Boykin was head and shoulders above the rest.  Jim specifically asked us not to blog about what he said, so I’m not going to go into specifics.

All the other presentations, in that session as well as in others, were very much more general and more focused on what not to do with your link building campaign.  Jim’s presentation was very focused, and he gave concrete examples of a method that he uses for link building.

If you ever have an opportunity to attend a conference where Jim is presenting, be sure to schedule yourself to be there to see him.  If you’re looking for a firm that does link building too, you should consider giving him your business.

Pubcon Boston in the AM

Yea, perhaps I’ll drag myself into the city in time to see the 9AM keynote by Malcolm Gladwell.  I’m not sure exactly what he has to add to the whole thing.  I did read his book, The Tipping Point, a while back.  Frankly, I feel it’s a bit obsolete now, but the general gist of the book is good.  Just not sure exactly what he can tell a room full of Internet marketers.

Sessions.   I’m thinking I’ll hit the Affiliate Microsites and Niche Marketing session first.  I’m not too familiar with the guys that are speaking, but the topic seems a good fit for me.  The second session I don’t have much of a strong choice, they all seem a bit too introductory.  I’m leaning toward the Link Building Clinic, because I can always stay interested when the topic is link building.  The Domain Names seemed a bit interesting too, but when I saw that the description includes “from the simple act of registering a domain” I figured I might be soundly sleeping by the time they got to any information i might find useful.

I’ll be looking forward to the  Luncheon Session to listen to Matt and the other Googlers talking about whatever.  Onto the afternoon session, there’s some good choices there but I think I’ll go with the Organic Search Forum.  I’ll probably hang around in the exhibit hall for a bit after that, try to meet some people.  Maybe hang out at the Super Session for a bit, then try to get home before my kid’s bedtime.

Some other bloggers that have posted about the Boston Pubcon.  Shoemoney  Jim Boykin  Any others?

Wikipedia and Link Spammers - A “How-to” Guide

I recently witnessed someone at Wikipedia.org placing dozens of links to his own website. It’s not all that unusual for someone to place a link to their own website on the Wikipedia site, but generally the links get removed. The unusual facts of this case are the amount of links placed, dozens, and the fact that those links led to pages filled with unorginal content. So, I thought I’d follow the story, and write up an article on how to successfully publish content you’ve copied from other sources and get Wikipedia to link to it.

The first thing I did was place a couple of links to my own site on a handful of those pages, to see what admin would come out of the woodword. I got GraemeL. So, I posted a message to him asking why he removed my link, but not the dozens that the other guy listed. You can find that conversation here. This brief exchange resulted in GraemeL removing the dozens of links the other guy placed. End of story, right? Nope.

Another Wikipedia admin, Joe l, got involved at that point. The link spammer, Bobby, protested for his right to place links to his scraper web site wherever on Wikipedia he thought appropriate. He had a receptive audience in Joe l. Let’s examine the reasoning that Joe l used to justify reinserting the links. He states that it’s the same thing “as say adding los alamos to every chemical element page.” Really? The Los Alamos National Laboratory website is now on the same level as a website that copies word for word content from the best known publication in the industry, which is still in print by the way. GraemeL asked for proof that he has “permission to publish the extracts from the red book, or the book is released under some form of free license.” The response to that was “The grading standards are just that, grading standards, they don’t fall under copyright as they are subjective.” Well, that’s certainly a novel interpretation of copyright law.

But, the greater lessons learned her for future link spammers are. 1. Get yourself a few helpful edits under your belt. It seems that admins there are much more receptive to link spammers who appear to be contributors. 2. Get a “friendly” admin to back you up. It seems that other admins are unlikely to reverse the decision of another admin, even when evidence of stolen content is clearly given. 3. Don’t add the actual content into the Wikipedia, that just defeats the whole reasoning behind getting your link in the first place.

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Squidoo

Class Action on Google to Cease Anti-Competitive Behavior

I just saw this posted.  Seems a company called KinderStart thinks that Google has banned it.  The company is suing for damages, of course, but also seeks to get class action status on behalf of all websites that have been banned by Google.  The remedy sought is to provide more transparancy regarding why websites are banned by the search engine, and to require Google to send notification to those banned along with an explanation of how to get themselves un-banned.

Google Bowling

It had to happen, someone come out with a good article about it.  Google Bowling is NOT a topic that’s going to make Internet Marketing a more pleasant topic.  It’s one of those times when I think that this guy should just shut up, the less people that know the better.  I first started hearing about it last fall, and even managed to bowl one of my own sites right out of the SERPs.  Yes, I believe it works, but no I’d not be one to use it against a competitor.  Since I’ve known about it, though, I have made changes in the way I’ve been marketing my sites.  I’m focusing any of my sites that get more than 50% of the traffic from Google, to other traffic sources.  I can’t count on my competition to not Bowl against me, not that there’d be many that could manage it, that is.  But, even if I’m never the victim of Google Bowling, or anything like it, the eggs all in one basket theory still applies.  Google Bowling just magnifies it.

Maine finds PPC

This is an interesting blog post about the Maine Office of Tourism and their bull in a china shop like blundering into the world of Search Engine Marketing. To be fair, I think at least half of the blame goes to companies like Google for making Adwords so difficult for the advertisers to understand. While it may make perfect sense for the Maine Office of Tourism to promote Maine using PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising, the author of this blog, Lance Dutson, points out that the end result of their efforts is to drive the pricing up for legitimate Maine businesses. It brings the question to mind, if someone is searching at a place like Google for the terms “maine accomodations” one would suppose that they’re already intending a trip to Maine. Thus, is it really an effective use of the Office of Tourism’s budget to bid on those keywords? If they really wanted a return for their buck, perhaps they should advertise on keyword such as “new hampshire accomodations” and try to poach some tourists from their neighbors. The other part of Mr. Dutson’s complaint is that the Office of Tourism, by using a firm that really does not understand the basics of PPC advertising, their ads appear on keywords such as “Bangor Maine plumbing” which they really have no business doing. So, not only do resorts, hotels, inns and such in Maine have to compete with the Office of Tourism, but so does Paul the plumber in Bangor. Kudos out to Threadwatch for leading me to this post.

Please read in the comments, Thomas McCartin from the firm that manages the Maine Office of Tourism’s PPC campaign was kind enough to post his side of this interesting story.

Another great publicity stunt

John Scott, known for his recent SEO Contest, has come up with another publicity gem.  I like this one better, though, and hope that he can avoid the drama that he created in his last contest (though I suspect that he enjoys the drama).  Personally, I’ve never bothered with whether the people I link to are A listers or unknowns, and don’t have any special desire to ever be part of the “in” crowd of the blogosphere.  Good luck!

Podcast with G. Jarvis Coffin III co-founder of Burst! Media

I just got done listening to this, if you’re interested in any way with advertising on the web it’s worth the listen.
Listen here

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