Bruce Clay - Bruce's Guide to Appropriate Use of Flash

Detailed article by Bruce Clay on the good and bad to be found with the new search engine capabilities of understanding Flash technology:
Bruce's Guide to Appropriate Use of Flash

Search Engine Journal - Explore Your Competitors’ Backlinks Beyond Yahoo Site Explorer

Ann Smarty has yet another link article with good info, this one provides two other search engines to use in your link building work beyond Yahoo Site Explorer:
Explore Your Competitors’ Backlinks Beyond Yahoo Site Explorer

Graywolf Blog - Google’s Two Tiered Internet World Sinks to a New Low

Another debate on the Graywolf blog. This one centers on the new Google Trends for Websites tool showing your visitor trends compared to your competitors. This is a touchy subject for business owners and the fact that Google websites are not included in the information has made it even more controversial:
Google’s Two Tiered Internet World Sinks to a New Low

Search Engine Land - So, You Think You're A Search Engine Optimization Expert?

Well written article by Shari Thurow on what makes an advanced SEO. I like the comparisons between what the industry might view as the only way to be advanced (IT, programming background) vs the creative side (SEO copywriting, SEO skills) and the reality of multitasking that often means multiple people for multiple disciplines to get the job done:
So, You Think You're A Search Engine Optimization Expert?

Search Engine Land - Search Engine Land

In case you hadn't heard as of yet, Yahoo discontinued the Overture keyword tool. It appears they want you to use their Site Explorer tools instead:
Yahoo Officially Discontinued The Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool

Graywolf Blog - Hey Matt Cutts Be Fair if You Are Going After Paid Links

Really interesting debate on Google's take of payment or product influence for blogger reviews. The debate revolves around items such as comp stays for travel reviews and free products for review vs paying a blogger up front for a review and link:

Hey Matt Cutts Be Fair if You Are Going After Paid Links

Bruce Clay - Advanced SEO is Traditional White Hat SEO

Lisa Barone's article on how traditional SEO still matters. I have to agree, but I also use different link building methods along with traditional and I think both can work. You just choose wisely and test to see what works long term:
Advanced SEO is Traditional White Hat SEO

Stone Temple Consulting - Matt Cutts Interviewed by Eric Enge

Interesting interview with Matt Cutts with some info on what he views as reasonable linking techniques:
Matt Cutts Interviewed by Eric Enge

WebmasterWorld Supporters Forum - Significant Traffic Declines For Short Search Terms

Good thread on changes in Google for short term searches, the suggestion is that longer keyword phrases will work better compared to two keyword phrases (paid supporters forum):
Significant Traffic Declines For Short Search Terms

Link Juicy - Advanced Link Building - An Interview With Fantomaster

Excellent two-part interview with Fantomaster on advanced link building, don't miss this one:

Part One: Advanced Link Building - An Interview With Fantomaster

AND

Part Two: Advanced Linking Interview With Fantomaster

Yoast - WordPress: The Definitive Guide to High Rankings for Your Blog

Detailed guideline for getting the most out of your WordPress blog visibility online:
WordPress: The Definitive Guide to High Rankings for Your Blog

Search Engine People - 22 DoFollow Social Media Sites Offering Profile Links

Another good article listing social media sites you can use to for profile link building:
22 DoFollow Social Media Sites Offering Profile Links

SEMJ.org - Search Engine Marketing Journal

SEMJ.org is a search engine marketing journal accepting white papers for publication in their print journal to be distributed at various search engine conferences. I am an editor for SEMJ.org and have written a paper on link building for the first publication. There are a number of high profile search engine marketers who are editors of this organization. Look for the print version of SEMJ at SES San Jose in August 2008:
SEMJ.org - Search Engine Marketing Journal

Search Engine Guide - Deep Links: Web Users Want What They Want And They Want I Now!

Another great link building article from Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide, this article is about the importance of gaining backlinks to deep links on your website:
Deep Links: Web Users Want What They Want And They Want I Now!

Word of Mouth Marketing Blog - Negative Comment About Your Brand? What To Do!

Good article about online reputation management with detailed steps to follow to combat negative comments:
Negative Comment About Your Brand? What To Do!

Jim Boykin's Blog - The Achilles Heel of Free and Natural Links

Good article on the problems associated with free links and how important anchor text is to good link building:
The Achilles Heel of Free and Natural Links

Search Engine Land - Representing Your Business on the Social Web

Bill Slawski's article on social media and small businesses. Very interesting take on how small businesses can connect successfully online with their customers:
Representing Your Business on the Social Web

Hamlet Batista dot Com - Do we follow? A Look At The Notorious Nofollow Attribute

Article covering the debate about Google's rules regarding the nofollow attribute for paid links and PageRank sculpting:
Do we follow? A Look At The Notorious Nofollow Attribute

Search Engine Land - Eight Keyword Research Mistakes That Are Costing You Money

Excellent article on keyword selection. I especially liked the information about thinking like the search user, checking your competition and the competitiveness of keywords. You shouldn't rely only on keyword tools to make your decisions on the keyword phrases you use:
Eight Keyword Research Mistakes That Are Costing You Money

Search Engine People - 50+ Sites To Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company!

Long list of techniques to bury negative online reputation problems:
50+ Sites To Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company!

Small Business SEM - How to Put Your Flickr Photos into Yahoo News

Good article describing how to gain traffic by Geotagging your Flickr photos, which may then be picked up by Yahoo News:
How to Put Your Flickr Photos into Yahoo News

SearchRank - When Submitting to Social News Sites is a Complete Waste of Time

David Wallace provides a good outline of the correct way to submit to social news sites:
When Submitting to Social News Sites is a Complete Waste of Time

Social Networking Articles Blog - Wordpress Stats and Analytics Plugins & Statistics Programs List for Your WP Blog

Long list of helpful WordPress stats and analytics plugins for use with your WordPress blogs:
Wordpress Stats and Analytics Plugins & Statistics Programs List for Your WP Blog

ViperChill - What is Online Reputation Management?

Detailed article explaining what online reputation is, nicely done:
What is Online Reputation Management?

Search Engine Guide - Targeting Conversions and Traffic with Long Tail Writing

Another great article from Search Engine Guide with the topic of long tail writing:
Targeting Conversions and Traffic with Long Tail Writing

Search Engine Land - Tools For Engaging In Social Media

Detailed post on tools helpful for tracking your social media marketing campaign:
Tools For Engaging In Social Media

SEM PDX - Think Outside the Link

Clever article detailing different ways to think outside the box when it comes to link building:
Think Outside the Link

Smackdown - Sitelinks at #60 - A Warning Shot From Google

Very interesting Google info shared here relating to a -60 penalty for paid links in Google's search results:
Sitelinks at #60 - A Warning Shot From Google

Slightly Shady SEO - 7 Tips for the Paranoid SEO: Masking Your Intentions

Always interesting to see SEO from a different vantage point. Even if you don't use certain techniques it is good to know about them and learn from them:
7 Tips for the Paranoid SEO: Masking Your Intentions

Marketing Pilgrim - 16 Great Ways To Approach Social Media Marketing - A Beginner’s Guide

Good beginner's guide for SMM. I haven't dived totally into SMM and still have an affinity for good old fashioned link building, but the tips here are helpful:
16 Great Ways To Approach Social Media Marketing - A Beginner’s Guide

HamletBatista.com - Link Mass: How To Determine How Much Effort It Takes To Rank For Any Particular Keyword Phrase

Another very detailed link building post from Hamlet Batista, a great deal of good link building information in included in this article:
Link Mass: How To Determine How Much Effort It Takes To Rank For Any Particular Keyword Phrase

Google Webmaster Central Blog - Best Practices When Moving Your Site

Post covers Google's best practices for moving your website, some helpful tips included here:
Best Practices When Moving Your Site

Search Engine Journal - 55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

Good reminder list of known optimization tips. Probably a few I don't totally agree with and many I do agree with. That i what is interesting in the search marketing world, we all see things in a different way:
55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

SEOBook - Rank Checker Tool for Firefox

Handy open source rank checking tool created by SEOBook, access from your Firefox browser. Check out the advanced features available:
Rank Checker Tool for Firefox

SEOlogs.com - View Public Stats for Thousands of Web Sites

The author shares his search techniques for finding Statcounter statistics online:
View Public Stats for Thousands of Web Sites

Netconcepts - SEO Title Tag 2.1.3 for WordPress

Nifty plugin tool to SEO your title tags in WordPress:
SEO Title Tag 2.1.3 for WordPress

SEOmeter.com - What Determines Search Engine’s Crawl Rate?

Good info in this post on what factors are involved in determining search engine crawl rates:
What Determines Search Engine’s Crawl Rate?

Search Engine Journal - Six Explosive Organic & Paid Link Building Tips

Good link building tips, especially liked the relevancy paragraph and his take on finding different related verticals through directory structure:
Six Explosive Organic & Paid Link Building Tips

Marketing Pilgrim - 12 Reputations Every Company Should Monitor Online

Interesting article on reputation with some ideas on how to manage the good and bad of your company or client reputation online:
12 Reputations Every Company Should Monitor Online

Nick Wilsdon - Reputation Management Explosion in 3…2…1…

Interesting discussion of the new SEMCompare website allowing customers of search engine marketing companies to rate their services:
Reputation Management Explosion in 3…2…1…

Google Analytics Data Sharing

If you are using Google Analytics and haven't done so already you might want to set your data sharing setting. I believe the default on this is to share your analytics information. Go to your analytics dashboard, click on the dashboard analytics sharing link (Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings) and choose "do not share" if you do not want your analytics information shared with Google. There is also an option to share with Google benchmarking and Google products or Google products only.

Google's Analytics Data Sharing Options FAQ states it will limit some of the tools that are available if you choose not to share your analytics information:
>>If you select "do not share my Google Analytics data" in your data sharing settings, you will not be able to use benchmarking and may not have access to specific ads-related features such as Conversion Optimizer.

Here's more info on how the data sharing works:
Google Analytics Data Sharing Options

Bruce Clay - Local Search Engine Optimization Doesn’t Exist

Great take on using local optimization for your web pages. Lisa Barone's article seems like a no brainer. You should always include local information in your web pages to gain local search engine traffic, and I agree, it should be part of what you do for any search engine optimization project:
Local Search Engine Optimization Doesn’t Exist

Search Engine Guide - 8 Factors to Cover in a Competitive Analysis

Good article covering areas to focus on for competitive analysis of your online competitors:
8 Factors to Cover in a Competitive Analysis

Palmer Web Marketing - 25 Ways to Optimize for Local Search

Informative post on local search with some good tips for localized SEO:
Palmer Web Marketing - 25 Ways to Optimize for Local Search

Wordpress Crawl Rate Tracker Plugin and SEO Meter Tools

Hamlet Batista passed along these cool tools for tracking crawl rates:
BlogStorm - Wordpress Crawl Rate Tracker Plugin
and
SEO Meter

Search Engine Journal - Niche Marketing and Link Building Resources

Well written article with tangible ideas on niche link building:
Niche Marketing and Link Building Resources

SEOBook - Spying on Google: What is Spam? What is Relevant? Read This to Find Out

Aaron Wall discusses the Google Rater spam guidelines document found by an SEO Blackhat website member:
Spying on Google: What is Spam? What is Relevant? Read This to Find Out

Google Analytics Blog - Benchmarking now available plus additional opt-in settings

Google Analytics now has benchmarking available along with some opt-in settings:
Benchmarking now available plus additional opt-in settings

SEO Chicks - Yoda’s Ultimate Tool List Part 1: Competitive Research

Good article about tools used for competitive research:
Yoda’s Ultimate Tool List Part 1: Competitive Research

Pole Position Marketing - Link Building Secrets Revealed

Pole Position Marketing has a very good article from experts in the link building industry. A good read with great tips:
Link Building Secrets Revealed

Hamlet Batista dot Com - Long tail vs fat head optimization strategies

Good series by Hamlet Batista about optimization strategies, interesting stuff:

Long tail vs fat head optimization strategies – Part 1

Long tail vs fat head optimization strategies – Part 2

Long tail vs fat head optimization strategies – Part 3

10e20 Blog - Analytics on the Cheap: Six Free Stats Packages for the Startup or Small-Business Owner

Good compilation of free stats packages available for small businesses:
Analytics on the Cheap: Six Free Stats Packages for the Startup or Small-Business Owner

Top Rank Online Marketing Blog - The Fallacy of SEO Celebrity

Lee Odden starts the first of many conversations on SEO celebrity and what it means in the industry:
The Fallacy of SEO Celebrity

Small Business SEM - How to Market on Flickr

Detailed post on how to use Flickr for marketing your website:
How to Market on Flickr

TopRank Online Marketing Blog - 5 Lesser Known Google Analytics Features

The post covers five areas of Google Analytics reporting that you may not know about:
5 Lesser Known Google Analytics Features

Blah Blah Technology Blog - Improve SEO with Google Webmaster Tools

Interesting article focusing in on a few areas of Google Webmaster reports providing detailed information that may be useful to marketers and webmasters:
Improve SEO with Google Webmaster Tools

Wiep.net - Link Value Factors

17 respected link builders share their knowledge on 40 factors that possibly influence the value of a link:
Link Value Factors

Search Engine Land - When Linking Experts Go Underground

Eric Ward article about the link building industry and its need for decreasing the amount of public link building information:
When Linking Experts Go Underground

BlogStorm - Google Analytics Tutorials

Two part tutorial for advanced users of Google Analytics:
Advanced use of Google Analytics and the new interface

Google Analytics Tutorial Part 2

Sugarrae - 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out

Excellent article containing link building advice from 11 experts, a must read:
11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out

Search Engine Land - A Bad Month For SEO's Reputation

Danny Sullivan covers the topic of SEO reputation along with a great list of posts and articles on the subject:
A Bad Month For SEO's Reputation

Small Business Trends - Top Experts Dish with their Best Kept Marketing Secrets

Good list of marketing secrets helpful to SEO's and webmasters:
Small Business Trends - Top Experts Dish with their Best Kept Marketing Secrets

Gord Collins - In House SEO

Fascinating detailed article by Gord Collins on in house SEO vs professional SEO services for businesses. One of the better SEM articles I've read about our industry in a long time:
Gord Collins - In House SEO

WMW Paid Supporters Forum - When Employees Leave For Competitors

Discussion at Webmaster World Paid Supporters Forum. Thread talks about search engine marketing employees leaving companies after training and finding ways to keep trained employees on staff:
When Employees Leave For Competitors

Jim Boykin Blog - Link Buying: Reviewed and not Guaranteed is the line in the sand

Post on paid directories and guidelines suggested by Google:
Link Buying: Reviewed and not Guaranteed is the line in the sand

Junta42 - Leveraging Social Media Sites for Search Engine Placement - Get Content Found

Solid info on how to get the most of social media blog posts for optimization purposes:
Leveraging Social Media Sites for Search Engine Placement - Get Content Found

Search Engine Land - When Small Businesses Shouldn't Act Like A Small Business

Good article about small businesses and their small business mindset about online visibility:
When Small Businesses Shouldn't Act Like A Small Business

SEO by the SEA - Google Patent on Anchor Text and Different Crawling Rates

Very detailed account of the anchor text patent by Bill Slawski:
Google Patent on Anchor Text and Different Crawling Rates

Search Engine Land - Google Hiring Investigator / Threat Analyst For Safety & Security

Barry Schwartz has a very interesting post at Search Engine Land about a new job position at Google which may entail some online reputation management:
Google Hiring Investigator / Threat Analyst For Safety & Security

Search Engine Wiki site

Make sure to check out Kalena Jordan's new website Search Engine Wiki. Kalena's been involved in search engine marketing forever and has compiled a great deal of information on the site. Here's your chance to become a Wiki editor and add quality information to this new Wiki site:

Search Engine Wiki

Search Engine Guide - 9 Paths of SEO Enlightenment

Good series by Stoney deGeyter, parts I, II and III:
Search Engine Guide - 9 Paths of SEO Enlightenment, Part I

Search Engine Guide - 9 Paths of SEO Enlightenment, Part II
and
Search Engine Guide - 9 Paths of SEO Enlightenment, Part III

Search Engine Roundtable - Google Declares War on Paid Links: But Why Now?

Extensive list of discussions about Google's Paid Links strategies. One of the newest changes is that Google is disallowing AdWords ads that mention selling PageRank:
Search Engine Roundtable - Google Declares War on Paid Links: But Why Now?

Search Engine Journal - How to Add Content to Wikipedia the “White Hat” Way?

Good overview on adding information to Wikipedia:
Search Engine Journal - How to Add Content to Wikipedia the “White Hat” Way?

SEO by the SEA - Google Patent on Web Spam, Doorway Pages, and Manipulative Articles

Detailed information from Bill Slawski on a newly approved Google patent. I found the information under the section Individual Document Signals / History of the document very interesting. This certainly points to the algorithm picking up changes an SEO might make to the text of a web page. The "history of the document" and "anchor text" sections were very interesting as to what level of change on the page might trigger a flag by the search engines.
SEO by the SEA - Google Patent on Web Spam, Doorway Pages, and Manipulative Articles

Cre8pc.com - Are We Designing For The Human Experience?

Very interesting article by Kim Krause Berg on SEO and usability:
Are We Designing For The Human Experience?

Search Engine Guide - Five Common Paid Search Mistakes That Can Sink Your Campaign

Good overview of the mistakes new PPC users can make when starting up a PPC campaign. Another great article by Jennifer Laycock:
Search Engine Guide - Five Common Paid Search Mistakes That Can Sink Your Campaign

Search Engine Land - When Link Building Is Pointless

Another good post by Eric Ward, this one is about deciding when to stop link building on a project:
Search Engine Land - When Link Building Is Pointless

Search Engine Guide - Search Engine Guide Publisher Responds to PageRank Drop

Robert Clough's article about Search Engine Guide's recent Google PageRank drop and discussion on paid ads. Search Engine Guide has been around long before Google was created and is a great resource for small businesses.

Search Engine Guide - Search Engine Guide Publisher Responds to PageRank Drop

Search Engine Guide - Where Does the Responsibility of the SEO End and the Client's Begin?

I liked this article quite a bit, having had numerous clients who really didn't know what they were getting into in creating their online business. We work with a number of small businesses that go through major growing pains while we work on a project with them. One of our clients discovered just how much there was to having a viable business online, they had no idea what it took to make it work. Quite a learning process educating the client and a study in patience for us and the client.

Where Does the Responsibility of the SEO End and the Client's Begin?

WebmasterWorld - Is Webmaster-SEO Stuff Flatlining

Interesting discussion in the Paid Supporters Forum at WebmasterWorld about the status of SEO (Paid Subscription):

Is Webmaster-SEO Stuff Flatlining

Search Engine Guide: NoFollow is for Blog Spam...

Comprehensive series on Google's no follow rules and paid links from searchengineguide's Jennifer Laycock.

NoFollow is for Blog Spam...no Paid Text Links, wait...Paid Ads...Aww Heck, Just Stop Linking and Let Calacanis Decide the Rankings

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Google's Paid Link Crisis

I remember when I worked at O'Reilly and Associates as their in-house SEO many years ago I found out about this new search engine called Google. Most companies didn't know what SEO was and they certainly had never heard of Google search engine back then. When I discovered Google's new search engine I had a gut feeling they were going to be big so I made sure O'Reilly's pages were submitted early on back in the day of search engine submissions.

In the late 1990's things were simple. A link was a link. In fact, links were around long before Google ever was born. Too bad Google doesn't remember this. In fact webmasters linked to each other with no concern because they wanted to link to each other. Webmasters saw a great article they liked and linked to it. Webmasters even sold ads because it was their website and they were trying to make a profit. Pretty simple concept.

Google's crisis is the PageRank icon they created. Not so simple to tear down now apparently. They created it but can't control it. The world wide web is a growing entity. New ideas, new methods of providing users information and making a living off the web has been changing with the times. Google's initial idea of using link popularity to rank was built into their algorithm and the other search engines followed the leader.

And here we are today with Google deciding webmasters can't use paid links to make a living while Google makes its living from paid links. Its a sad statement really. From the beginning Google was focused on the search engine user. Things have changed. The reality is it is too difficult for Google to tell which ads are paid and which are not unless they use human evaluation. Imagine the number of pages they would have to evaluate manually. As webmasters and SEO's become more clever about linking its just going to get worse trying to detect paid links. Detecting paid links is not easy now, much less when paid links go underground.

My advice to Google is to share the wealth with folks trying to make a living on the web. Considering the web was around before Google appeared it seems like the user friendly thing to do.

Search Engine Land - The Big Paid Link Debate Roundup

List of discussions about Google's paid link crusade:
The Big Paid Link Debate Roundup

Forbes article: Google Purges The Payola

This article from Forbes quotes a number of SEM industry professionals about Google vs paid links. What I found most interesting is at the end of the article the Ask representative talks about the specific difference in how the Ask algorithm evaluates links compared to Google:
Google Purges The Payola

Kalena Jordan: How to Turn Around an Unprofitable PPC Campaign

Kalena Jordan's excellent article about dissecting problems in PPC campaigns.
How to Turn Around an Unprofitable PPC Campaign

e3internet: Search Engine Cheatsheet V.2 Free PDF Download

Good cheatsheet for Google, Yahoo! and MSN search engine queries, download the pdf here:
Search Engine Cheatsheet V.2 Free PDF Download

Lisa Barone of Bruceclay.com: You Can’t Automate Search Engine Optimization

A good post by Lisa Barone of Bruceclay.com. I agree you can use some automated tools to gather or parse information, but the thought of a company that automates SEO just doesn't wash with me. Without the "art", the human touch, its not the real deal and probably a bad investment for clients.
You Can’t Automate Search Engine Optimization

SEOMoz: What Makes a Good Web Directory, and Why Google Penalized Dozens of Bad Ones

This article by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz is pretty interesting, I especially like the "Twelve Attributes of Obviously Manipulative Directories" list. Its a good guideline for looking over the quality of directories you are thinking of submitting your website to.
What Makes a Good Web Directory, and Why Google Penalized Dozens of Bad Ones

SEO Theory and SEOptimise blogs: Link Building Posts

Here are a few interesting posts about link building, one focusing on the difficulties of link building and the other on external links and how they help you:

SEO External Links - How do external links help SEO?

6 reasons why link building is so hard

Search Innovation: Visit Our New SEM Research Directory: SEOExplore.com

Our new directory, SEOExplore.com is live as of today. SEOExplore.com provides information on every aspect of search engine optimization research available to the new and long time search engine marketing professional. The directory has information about search engine patents to link building. We've spent a few years working on this research site for search engine marketers and plan on adding new information often.

SEO Fast Start blog: Lies, Damn Lies, & SEO: Statistical Analysis of SERPs

Dan Thies debunks the myth of keyword density in an easy to understand post, its a good read:
Lies, Damn Lies, & SEO: Statistical Analysis of SERPs

14th Colony Web Development blog: Google plexed over link buying

Well written post on the Google Paid Links debate. Matt Cutts spoke at the recent San Jose SES and again addressed this issue. To me it seems strange for an independent business to tell another an independent business what to do. Paid links from online websites have nothing to do with the organic search engine results in Google. Link building, yes; paid links, no.

Google plexed over link buying

Search Innovation: Talking vs Doing SEM

Over the years I've kept up on the latest research and articles offered up by the SEM industry. I tend to read a lot of information but I don't spend much time posting to forums or writing articles. I'm just too busy workwise. There are industry SEO's that spend huge amounts of time talking about SEM. It always makes me wonder who's doing the work for them? Yeah, if you've got a team of people doing the work of course you have time to talk. Me, I guess I'm more of the hands on type. There is nothing wrong with having a team of SEO's to build a strong SEM company. Personally I've always opted for keeping our business small. The SEO work is provided by me and the technical website review by my husband. Frankly we don't want to expand our business with staff members. I need to know exactly what is happening with my clients step by step. More to the point I'd miss the hands on experience. Our company has outsourced optimization and technical website reviews for another company in the past. It was clear to me the company was big enough that the real work was being done by people like us. I have to say I just don't want that for myself. Granted it is harder to keep things organized, dealing directly with the clients and all, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Don't get me wrong, I do it all as the owner of Search Innovation Marketing. There is something to be said for being the visionary as president of the company and the person creating the source code hands on. So if you don't see me posting much in the forums or writing new articles it is because I'm too busy making client's websites successful in the search engines.

Redflymarketing.com PPC Articles

Three detailed PPC articles from Redflymarketing.com make good reading for those providing PPC services:

Do You Make These 12 AdWords Mistakes?

Dynamic Keyword Insertion - The Ultimate Guide

10 Ways To Increase Your Adwords Quality Score - A Mini Case Study

Search Rank blog: SEO Patterns, Ad Patterns and Search Engines

The article I posted yesterday http://www.searchrank.com/blog/2007/08/link-seller-caveats.html talks about not making link buying obvious. It got me thinking about how search engines are able to spot the obvious. When it comes to SEO we all know to vary the link anchor text coming from external links when link building. The same is true of paid ads. I've always thought (as David pointed out in his article) using a graphic would be a good way to keep ad information away from indexing robots. My take on paid ads and optimization being found by robots is to break the pattern.

Search engine robots are automated programs, there is only so much a software program is able to detect. Humans created the program, however clever it is. If your optimization pattern is broken up, how can an automated program detect exactly what is going on? The same is true of paid ads. If the ad text cannot be found on the page, if the ad text is not in the text links, if the ALT text has no ad information then common sense says detection is difficult at best.

Human programming is fallible and automated detection of text on the web page is based on recognizing patterns. Human detection may be part of what Google would use to find ads in their newfound mission to eradicate paid ads from websites. How feasible is it for Google to detect ads manually compared to automatically? You know the answer to that one. So the choice is, be clever and break the pattern.

Search Rank blog: Things That Bug Me Regarding Those Who Sell Links

David Wallace of SearchRank has an interesting article about link buying. I agree with his concepts on keeping things less obvious when selling links:
Things That Bug Me Regarding Those Who Sell Links

Google Webmaster blog: Supplemental goes mainstream

Results labels on Google supplemental pages are being eliminated.

Supplemental goes mainstream

SEOMoz: Answers to Ten SEO Questions & Some New Questions from Danny Sullivan

This is a clever list of answers to SEO questions for marketers from the original post at SEOMoz "Answer these Ten Questions Before You Charge for SEO Services".

Ten SEO Questions & Some New Questions from Danny Sullivan

SEOMoz: A Complete Glossary of Essential SEO Jargon

Nice glossary of SEO terms at SEOMoz, some I've never seen in glossaries before:
A Complete Glossary of Essential SEO Jargon

SEOBook Tool - SEO for Firefox

Cool tool created by SEOBook for Firefox. This extension shows all sorts of SEO information available when searching. Toggle the application on and off as needed:
SEO for Firefox