Found this on a 404 site today.  Turns out the Persian Gulf supporters are using some SEO warfare to try and keep the name from changing to Arabian Gulf.

If you visit the site, notice they are used the .info ending for the site.  I assume that was because the .com was taken.  However I like seeing this trend in willingness to use .info for informational sites.  As the web get bigger its bound to happen.  Time to grab those good .infos now!

Create a Good Foundation for your SEO Growth.

The SEO industry is one driven by community discussion and ideas.  SEO blogs are a dime a dozen now days.  Almost every “web” related firm has a blog of some sort, and keeping track of all of them is impossible.  Very quickly, however, most SEO’s create a list of the SEO Senseis that they listen to and respect.  Since there are different schools of thought for SEO, different styles even, it is important to develop a good source of input to shape your SEO Growth.

In creating this list I considered taking a strong look at what the industry would consider the top “teachers.” However I think its better to focus on the combination that various SEO’s use.

Here are a few of the SEO Senseis that I follow on a daily basis and why.

Michael Martinez @ SEO Theory

Michael Martinez loves to speak his mind.  His name pops up in the SEOsphere on a regular basis.  Mostly it is because of a strong statement he made about another SEO’s techniques.  One thing for sure is that he takes a very strong stand on his views.  Most of his SEO focuses on theoretical best practices as opposed to the “latest trick” type SEO.

Although he doesn’t admit it directly in his blog, you can get the sort of feeling that for him, the white-hat line is a bit blurry. What is more important is doing things to SEO standards, which is something that currently does not exist.

With a focus more on onsite SEO than link building, Michael’s ideas and theories ring very close to my personal opinions.

Rand Fishkin @ SEOmoz

Rand Fishkin is a bit of a superstar in the SEO community.  Being 25 years old and donning yellow pumas, he is sort of the youth of the industry.  His reputation is known mostly for running SEOmoz, an SEO Tools website and community.  Most of the time he writes about best practice SEO.  Although my personal practice differs slightly from his, I find his strong focus on quality a breath of fresh air.

SEOmoz is known for its link-bait abilities as well as its tools, and especially the quality they put into the link-bait topics.

One thing to keep in mind is that Rand is only 25.  He once was asked why he has a beard.  His explanation was simply that some business people want you to look older.  To be 25 and have achieved that level of success is fantastic.

Andrew Shotland @ Local SEO Guide

I would say that about 80 percent of the SEO we do in our firm is Local SEO.  Andrew Shotland has been a GREAT influence on our search practices.  Local search is a very finicky type of search to optimize for and his way of addressing a wide variety of local issues helps a lot.

Also I should add that his play by play of SMX Seattle was a godsend to those to us stuck in less amazing parts of the world.

Danny Dover @ SEOmoz Blog

Although Danny does not post as much as Rand on the blog, and he was born after the first domain name was purchased, he brings a really fresh view by being a young SEO in a still slightly open field. His writing generally discusses the business of being a young SEO growing up in the industry.  The SEO industry can be a scary one to try and break into (especially if you don’t live in Seattle).  To see a young SEO like Danny making good strong headway is a relief for those of us who are pluggin’ away.

Plus he really has some good ideas that make you pause a second.

XMCP (anonymous) @ Slightly Shady SEO

Slightly Shady SEO is NOT a white-hat SEO blog.  The methods that they discuss generally are ones that will both propel a site upwards in returns and also risk losing all traffic if you get busted.  I should note that although we do not practice these methods, It was a post on Slightly Shady SEO that helped me discover a negative attack on one of our clients a couple months ago.

It is important to keep an eye on wha the “dark side” is doing in SEO.  Although there are a lot of Black Hat SEO blogs out there, Slightly Shady shows how people are blending the white and black techniques to rise up the results pages.

Eli @ Blue Hat SEO

Blue Hat SEO is much like Slightly Shady SEO in that the blog focuses on grey-hat techniques from time to time.  He address a lot of link farm ideas and concepts.  The same reasons for reading slightly shady SEO apply to this blog as well.  I would also point out that it is the personalities behind these two blogs (although un-named) that make them the black hat blogs of choice.  The Blue Hat mentality is definitely one that I can respect and enjoy.

Wait you left out ________ !

Let me clarify, this is not a list of the top SEO bloggers in the SEO-sphere, rather this is a list of what I would consider my personal SEO Senseis.  Of course I recommend following the major aggregators (as I do), and sphinn.com.  One of the important aspects a good foundation is having a diverse list (Rand and Michael don’t always agree on everything, for example).

Another thing that is worth doing is getting in touch with some of the writers you follow.  I have corresponded with Micheal, Rand and Andrew on various occations, and they were very polite and willing to field my questions.  In fact, one of them even helped point us to our current link building campaign.

If you are going to try and be a tricky SEO, PLEASE at least be good at what you do. If you are going to hide text, and try to trick Google, make sure you either pass the bots, or you pass human review (preferably both).  Also if your going to try and be a tricky SEO, don’t do it in a vertical with competitive SEO’s.

I recently noticed a new website ranking in one of my search verticals.  This website was one that appeared all of a sudden 3rd in rank, which any site that appears all of a sudden is usually suspect (especially low page rank).  When I looked into it, I realized that the site was in fact a sub-site built to gather regional traffic in our area.  A bit more digging reveled the screen shot above.

Check out note C (sorry I noted them backwards).  See how there is a link with a font size of 1?  That makes the content of the <font> tag disappear.  This was a GREAT way to hide text in 1996.  Sadly a decade later some SEO companies are still trying to hide text.  Why is this bad?  Well because all that someone has to do is report them for hiding links, and a manual review by Google will get them penalized.

Also check out the amazing link text.  (a) is full of rich keyword for the link, yet only the name of the website (b) is in the anchor text.  My point?  Why would someone hire an SEO company that doesn’t even know how to SEO for themselves.  On top of that, why go through all the trouble hiding links to your dummy sites and ignoring the opportunity to build up traffic to your main site?

*sigh*

I was checking the traffic on the blog and noticed a minor spike on one of the posts I was not expecting traffic for.  Last month I wrote an opinion piece titled How does Google Work on the workings of Google, and how good SEO’s will be able to transition to the next round of SEO.

Well, it looks like if you Google Search “How does Google Work“, my post is number 3!  That’s pretty cool for a post less than a month old.  Now I’m not holding my breath however, because blog posts (and other web pages as well) tend to jump around the results a lot. So I wouldn’t feel too bad if I’m on the second page tomorrow.

Now back to work before Nate sees me goofing off on the blog!

Would you go to a Doctor who still used these?  I don’t think so.  As technologies advance, it is important to make sure that whatever service you are receiving is up to date.  Remember Dial Up?  DSL is so much better though, right?  A web design firm is no different than a doctor, in that they have to keep on top of their industry.

Small Town Web Design

The internet can be a pretty scary / new place.  Even for those of us who basically live and breath the net, it can be a place of head scratching and questions galore.  One trap that many small web design firms fall into is finding a “solution that works!” and sticking by that same solution over time.  Sounds good at first, right?

How many times has your website been re-developed?  Probably once every 2 or 3 years.  Now imagine that if your web design firm is using technology that is 6-10 years old (like frames/tables/animated gifs).  Right out the gate, your website is ALREADY behind by a long shot!  This is why it’s important to make sure that your design firm is not selling you a lemon.

Upgrade to the Top of the Line

When your car breaks down, do you buy a car with the engine light on and a few oil leaks?  When you are upgrading your website, the amount of energy and money you are going to put into that site, make it worth getting a top of the line developed site.  Websites have high return on investment, if they are built right.

The higher quality you go the more specialized and focused your site can be, making it a much better investment.

Good Firms Keep Up

A good design firm is good not only because they have a large amount of clients, but because they are able to deliver a top quality site.  Part of this is spending time researching the competition, the market and the latest techniques. It is not uncommon for a leading firm to spend many hours a week running tests on design response, conversion goals, learning new technologies, you name it.

A good SEO firm spends even MORE time running Google Tests, Keyword Tests, Density Tests, Reading blog after blog after blog, everything.  It takes a lot of work to deliver a top product, but it’s worth it.

How do you Know if your Firm is Up to Date?

Do they have a good presence online?  Ask them what they are developing in?  Do they use prepackaged software like Dreamweaver and Fireworks or do they actually write there own code?  These are all questions you should ask.  Ask why the use specific methods, this way you will feel safe in your investment in a new website.

Remember, this is the internet, web designers shouldn’t be affraid of it.  Thats why we are in the web business.

For those of you who have seen me in person… I am a very pale individual.  For this reason I always remember to wear sunscreen.  What I don’t always remember is to make sure my sunscreen is effective.

This weekend I spent a day on the beautiful beaches of San Diego.  Of course when I got to the beach, after placing my towel and stuff down I decided to get the sun screen going. This is were I made my first mistake.  A female friend of mine offered up her sunscreen, this fancy spray on type.  I thought to myself ‘well she uses it, she is pale, so it should work for me‘  This was my first mistake… turns out that although pale, she never burns…. DOH.  She then proceeded to spray on this aerosol / environment destroying / fancy sun screen.  Looking back, I now realize that it was a windy day… spray… ouch.

Next mistake was to run into the water, without checking to see if the sunscreen was “sport” water proof.  It wasn’t.  Three good waves later and the little bit of sunscreen I had is gone!

The last mistake was that when we were leaving the beach, I failed to consider whether the redness of my skin should be treated before the 2 hours drive home.  When the backs of ones knees are burned, that car seat tends to irritate.

So here are Julian’s ‘everyone already knows this’ tips to Sunburn prevention.

• Wear Sunscreen (my friend got it even worse) - had none at all.
• Make sure the sunscreen is waterproof.
• Make sure you cover all areas - Got a nice blotchy spot on the left shoulder blade.
• Re-apply - Seriously, put that sunscreen on every hour or two depending on the strength.
• Don’t go outside.  Yeah this is the best one.  It’s horrible being out here in Southern California.  Just stay inside.

Here are some thoughts on usability optimizing for the new Firefox 3 address bar.  It may seem a bit frivolous to worry about optimizing for the Firefox 3 address bar, however I tend to look at everything and try and at least understand it, and know how to leverage it.  So this is my take on the new Firefox 3 history address bar.

Firefox 3 has been out for a little over a week now.  With its launch brings beautiful things like fast javascript rendering, better tabbing, and a history based address bar that uses keywords in the URLS and Page Titles to show 5 recent sites you have visited.  In a quick survey of 6 co-workers (myself included) I was the only one who was actively using the address bar in the keyword way.  Two others had started toying with it, and the other 3 had just noticed.  Like most things, with time people will learn the system, so it’s valuable to learn it now.

Factors that contribute to the selection of which pages to show.

Keywords do not have to be next to each other. For example, I type “fryewiles admin”

Multi-word searches must have both words matched. (above only 4 pages were returned.)

Keywords do NOT need to be fully matched. (not that arch landed the word “search” in above listing.

Listing is keyword based if the word typed in appears at least once it will be “selected” and then put in chronological  order.

Both the page title and the page URL are used for finding keywords.

Visually improve your sites display.

Use a catchy Favicon.

Note in the example that Sphinn.com, although it may have the least “cool” looking Favicon (sorry Sphinn) it is the most eye catching in the small setting.  The green really pops off of the white background well.  It is also fairly large and simple.  It is worth noting that the Yahoo icon is the most heavily branded (still not used to the new Google favicon)  So I’d say Yahoo is a close runner up in this instance.

You only need the word to appear once in the title.

Your listing position in the 6 is based on history visit time, not on density/count.

Branding sits well at the start of the title.

The decision of brand name placement is a tough one when setting up titles.  If you are a brand heavy site you tend to stick the brand up front.  This is good for search engines and as the image above shows, good for the address bar as well.  This also helps with tabbed browsing.

Short Url’s reduce the clutter.

If you have a fairly short URL, then it will let your longer page titles stand out a bit more.

Why and when would you use this?

Well it’s important to know all this stuff, but beyond the knowledge importance are a few places that you could implement this.  For instance, If you have a site that people visit regularly, you could include keywords such as Google, main, yahoo, myspace, facebook, tube. This is a bit shady and odd, but hey, it’s up to you.

One reason you would want to have you site popping up is for brand re-enforcement.  For instance, because of the URL and they are usually in the last 6 sites with the word SEO.  SEOmoz.com as a website will be in my address bar.

Well that was fun.  I always love dissecting a new aspect of what we do. Cheers.

I’ll Google it.  This is the immediate response any of us have if we want to find out some information about something, anything.  Has Google gone too far?  How does Google work?

To Google is registered as a verb in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  It is easy to be blinded by Google’s draw and appeal, but how does Google work? I don’t mean in the sense of its spidering, or indexing.  I am referring to ‘How does Google Work’ as a company with the motto of “Don’t be evil”.

With great power comes great responsibility.

If you have worked in the search industry for any time, you may have a different view of Google.  I believe the most difficult issue to grasp, is that Google has a lot of power, and with great power comes great responsibility. No matter how much Google would like to, they are not able to make everybody happy.

The goal of the company is to provide a really, really good service to their users.  However, since they are a publicly traded company, they have a responsibility to make profit. Since Google makes the lion’s share of their profit from ads on their search engines, it is in their best interest to have people clicking on there Pay-Per-Click ads.  The easier it is for searchers to find their information via natural search, the less likely they are to click on the ads.  Does this mean that Google’s search efficiency is at odds with its profit model? How does Google work with this sort of conflict.

Quality is Key to How Google Works.

Why do we use Google as our search engine of choice?  Because it’s easier to find what you are looking for!  So if Google were to drop its product quality, it would lose its edge in the market, and have less traffic.
In some ways Google has set up its giant monopoly in a way that if it ever veers from its “Don’t be Evil” way of thinking, it will lose its monopoly status.  If all of a sudden the Google results were full of spammy pages that were not relevant to the search term, then people would just stop using Google.

How Does an SEO work with this premise?

If Google is running a multi-billion dollar monopoly towards offering users (searchers) top quality product, it is in your best interest to have the top quality product. This is why SEO (as we really mean Search Engine Marketing)  is really going to be more and more geared towards good information architecture and user interface design.

The better your website “is” the better it will rank, This is how Google works.
This is why the best / most prolific SEO websites are created with teams.  Not just a team of SEOs, or a team of designers or programmers (god forbid), but a well-balanced team with good leadership and direction. For the most part, the more money you put into web development (with the right team) the higher your Return on Investment will be.

How Can Google Work out the span and black hat SEO?

Fairly easily, they already do.  Just because a Black Hat site will end up high in the serps from time to time doesn’t mean that Google is failing.  Anyone remember 2002 Altavista, or Yahoo in 98?  That was spam.  We have gotten so used to the serps that we forget what they used to look like.

As searchers get better and better at using Google as a tool to find information, spam will have less impact , making it less and less cost effective.   SEO spam is not like email spam.  Email spam continues because it is so cheap to send.  Black hat SEO costs money and time.  It’s not that easy.

Bringing it full circle.

I make a living off of SEO.  You would think that in my realization that Google is really as powerful as it seems, and that they are in the right, I would be turned down.  However there will always be a place for people who build websites with search in mind.  We will just adapt to the industry.

Google is not going beyond its reach, it is creating an environment in which we, as web developers, information architects, and internet marketers, are able to do our jobs with some structure and be rewarded for doing them well.  Although Google may be a force to be reckoned with, they are not a bad one to have in your fold.  That’s just how Google works.