I was cheated, set-up, screwed, and was given unfair circumstances! That or maybe I was just pwned by true "awesomeness". For the 2nd straight year, Taylor Pratt of Awesome SEO wins our SEO Madness Pool put on by my good bud Matt McGee. To the winner, go the links! Congrats, Taylor.

Here are the top 10 standings in our pool:

Geez... I even lost to McGee... again. I guess I should expect that having finished 12 of 31 by picking 42 of 63 correctly. Absolutely horrible.

Labels: industry-happenings

So I'm thinking this is an "April Fools" joke from our friends at Gmail. It was hard for me to diagnose at first - because I really do believe that the egg-heads over at Google are capable of such things - but I spent the last 30 minutes trying to learn more about this new feature, specifically how to turn it on, only to come to a dead-end after every lead. I guess they got me. Good one guys!

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Labels: industry-happenings

What started off as a great NCAA March Madness tournament for me, in terms of competing against other SEMs in the "SEO Gang" pool, ended up to be not so great. After a tremendous first round of play (I picked 27 of the 32 winners - including the VCU upset over Duke), I went on to pick only 9 of the sweet 16 teams, only 4 of the elite 8 teams, and only 2 of the final-four teams. I did pick Ohio State to be in the championship, but unfortunately I also picked them to win... which as we all know didn't happen. Needless to say, I did not win our pool.

So who ended up winning the SEO pool? Well as much as I hate to have to announce the winner (because of the trash talking he did in a previous post), I'm reminded that doing so is actually the only stipulation of the contest. So, with that said, here you go Matt McGee of Small Business SEM... here's your damn link! (I'm such a bad loser)

In all seriousness, McGee picked a hell of a bracket and is certainly deserving of his recognition. In addition to his bracket filling skills, Matt is also a great writer. His Small Business SEM Blog is one of my favorite weekly reads, and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone. He offers lots of great commentary, as well as some great tips and recommendations for small business marketing. Subscribe to it, you'll be glad you did!

Labels: industry-happenings

Let the Madness begin... March Madness that is. The top 64 men's college basketball teams were chosen this past Sunday, and if you haven't yet filled out your brackets for your office pool or for your own personal amusement... now is the time to do so. The first round will start this Thursday.

In addition to our normal office pool, I have joined up with several others in the SEO industry and will be competing (mostly for bragging rights) in a March Madness pool for SEMs, SEOs, and other industry folks. The group is called "SEO Gang" and is hosted by Yahoo! Sports. You can check out Matt Mcgee's Small Business SEM Blog for more details on how to sign-up for the SEO pool.

When filling out my bracket, I had to make a couple of really difficult decisions and ended up picking a couple of underdogs to win some very key games. Here are a couple of the upsets that I am predicting:

• First Round: (12) Illinois over (5) Virginia Tech
• First Round: (11) VCU over (6) Duke
• Second Round: (8) Kentucky over (1) Kansas
• Second Round: (6) Louisville over (3) Texas A&M

If you're at all interested in knowing the rest of my game-by-game picks, you can check them out by clicking here for a pop-up screenshot of my bracket. But if you'd rather just cut to the chase... here are my final-four picks:

Happy March Madness to everyone!

Labels: industry-happenings

In his most recent post, Neil Patel of Pronet Advertising has issued an open challenge to Jason Calacanis, the man who has made such claims as "SEO is Bullshit" and that "90% of the SEO market is made up of snake oil salesman". Jason, without much hesitation, has accepted.

The challenge:

The Goal:

What ultimately lies in the Balance is not only Neil's reputation as a search marketer, but he inevitably carries our industries reputation with him as well. Neil, in my opinion, is one of our industry's best, and should he not be able meet the expectations of his own challenge, what would that imply about the rest of us.

In any event, "kudos" goes out to you Neil for a couple of reasons:

1. Being one of the few to step-up and address these claims.

2. Offering a "Put Up or Shut Up" solution, instead of a post that bad-mouths Jason's beliefs.

3. Fighting the fight, when you know your right (the Hulk Hogan Methodology)

4. For just being a "Bad-Ass".

Good luck bud.

Labels: industry-happenings

I just caught word from Jessica, my SEO partner in crime, that Todd's Stuntdubl blog was hacked. After checking out the situation for myself, I found that it was indeed hacked and that "FuckingPirate" is the hacker behind the all the chaos.

Here's a screen-shot of the Hacked Stuntdubl website:

Apparently "FuckingPirate" is the alter-ego of a well-known WhiteHat SEO who is out to have a little fun. According to his Blog (linked from Todd's homepage) Todd's Blog won't be the only one that is hacked. Here's FP's official hit-list:

www.mattcutts.com
www.spamhuntress.com
www.shoemoney.com
www.pronetadvertising.com
www.forumtrends.com
www.askdavetaylor.com
ha.ckers.org
www.v7n.com
forums.digitalpoint.com
www.webmasterworld.com
www.seoblackhat.com
www.boogybonbon.com
www.syndk8.com
www.stuntdubl.com
www.wolf-howl.com
www.seopedia.com
www.digg.com
www.techcrunch.com www.johnchow.com
www.seobook.com
www.pearsonified.com

With a list like this, I can't help but wonder who's going to be next.

*** UPDATE ***

As I was writing this, Jessica found that Graywolf's Blog had also fallen victim to an attack. Here's a snap-shot of his Hacked Blog:

*** UPDATE (01-16-07) ***

It looks like both Todd and Graywolf are back up and running... which is something I'm glad to see.

Labels: industry-happenings

Have you seen the recent Dilbert Cartoons? If not, take a moment and check them out... they're pretty funny, and even search related.

For the past week or so (since May 12th) I have been following Dilbert as he develops his own search engine technology, avoids death from a death-ray controlled by Google founders, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt, and eventually finds out that he is not the owner of his search engine technology, rather his former employer is. Tough break!

Have a look:

Disclaimer: Dilbert Cartoons are a copyright of Scott Adams, Inc./Dist. UFS, Inc.. For more information on Dilbert Cartoons or their copyright please visit the Dilbert Website.

A "thanks" goes out to Jessica for directing me to these cartoons.

With that... what is your favorite comic strip/book?

Labels: commentary-rants, industry-happenings

Ok... normally I'm not all about reposting what's already been broadcasted throughout the Blogosphere by everybody and their momma, but I am making an exception in this case, as the news does have me a bit excited.

On Saturday, May 27th at 12:15 (Eastern Time), some of the SEO industry's greats will be battling it out against one another in a private online No Limit Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament. The tournament will take place at Party Poker.com (hosted by Quadszilla) and is open to the SEO and Blogosphere community. The buy-in is $110 and prizes will be awarded based on placement (pending on the number of participants).

Now, I'm no stranger to the felt (just check out my profile picture above). I'm an avid poker player and even host my own weekly games, but I have yet to come to terms with playing online. For some reason, the online games do not excite me, and besides, it's damn near impossible to get a "read" on the other players. "Reading" other players is one my stronger skills as a poker player, if not my strongest. Obviously not being able to sit at physical table and look upon my opponents makes "reading" very difficult to do. Nonetheless the idea of mixing my 2 passions together (SEO and Poker) has got me pretty excited.

If you're interested in playing poker with some of your favorite Bloggers and SEOs... this is your chance. Some participants include: Jim Boykin, ShoeMoney, KidDisco, and Dave Naylor. Personally I think this will be tons of fun and encourage everyone get involved. I haven't checked my schedule yet, but I can guarantee you that if it's free, I'll also be sitting at that table.

Shuffle Up and Deal!

Labels: industry-happenings

Labels: industry-happenings