SEO Egghead Consulting Group

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: One of the things that irks me most about programmers getting involved with marketing is that most of them just don't know grammar.  SEO Black Hat mentioned "Google are," I mentioned "then vs. than," and now I'll mention one more thing — "a vs. an."  This one is a little different.  Most people know this rule intuitively.  But programmers frequently get lazy and do not look programmatically at the following word to decide which indefinite article to use.  Being a programmer makes me slightly more forgiving, but this still looks bad.  After I release this code, there are no more…

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: It's funny that of all the bloggers in this little SEO-blogosphere, it is one of those "evil" black hatters who had to admonish us for our poor grammar.I'm often very surprised at the horrible grammar mistakes in major SEO blogs.  I'm not going to point any fingers either, but the "then vs. than" mistake is my personal pet peeve.  "Then" is an adverb, and "than" is a (coordinating comparative) conjunction.  Mixing them up just looks really bad. You know who you guys are — there are many.  But when a spammer uses better grammar than you do in his Viagra…

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: It scares me slightly more than the DMCA itself that so many who should know better are totally ignorant of basic copyright law, and, even worse, benefiting from it in a way that most do not elicit.  Obviously, if the the thief charges for the content or uses it as spider-food on a network of spam sites, that is a problem.  Regardless, the author can claim an opportunity cost.  But there is another problem, and it usually involves totally lily-"white hat" sites. Assume every link on the internet to another page has a certain value in and of itself –…

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: A major copywriting concern becomes manifest when one realizes that many popular queries happen to be English, but they are just plain awkward constructions.For example, when a user is looking for a "Vioxx attorney," one must consider whether this phrase is actually English. The answer is yes — and no. Ask yourself a simple question:"Would I actually call up a law firm and say: 'Hello, do you have a Vioxx attorney?'"Maybe.  But I'd be more likely to phrase the question as follows: "Hello, do you have attorneys who handle Vioxx?"(BORING ENGLISH GRAMMARIAN RANT)English is a mixed-up language.  Many of the…