SEO Egghead Consulting Group

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Excerpt: Search engine marketers loved SnapNames.  Expired domains used to evade the dreaded "sandbox" aging delay.  I loved SnapNames too — but for a different reason.  I like domain names that don't stink.  The domain aftermarket is a boon for people searching for domain names that don't look like this:my-domain-name-idea-was-taken-so-i-registered-this-monstrosity-i-hope-you-like-it.comOK, so that's a slight exaggeration, but everyone gets the point.Google put a stop to this sandbox loophole awhile ago, and now it seems to be quite the opposite situation.When you snap a domain name, keep in mind that it may be subject to a penalty.  Such was the case for a…

OK, so it was just a temporary thing.  Phew!  Now my little application that watches stocks can resume its duties

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Excerpt: Oh no!  Real-time (ECN) stock quotes appear to be gone from both the condensed and the detailed Google Finance views.  Hopefully, it's just a fluke and it will be back tomorrow.  Take a look:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=AMD&btnG=Google+Searchhttp://www.google.com/finance?q=AMDThis actually annoys me, as I use Google to get quick real-time visibility on stock quotes without having to log in to my TDAmeritrade account. Yahoo still appears to give out free real-time quotes, but it's not accessible via standard query.  Here's how to get ECN quotes from Yahoo: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ecn?s=AMDNot sure why this happened, but it was one of the "sticky" features Google had for me.  Now…

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Excerpt: You might get sued!  Expect Google to mail lots of legal letters as they make a desperate effort to protect their ailing trademark.  Google has become almost synonymous with search — and if they aren't careful, they'll end up like "Band-aid," "Spam," and "Frisbee."If any of those terms have not lost their trademarks yet, they are already travelling down Generic Lane.  Ask yourself if you would say "adhesive bandage strip," or "plastic flying disc."  I doubt it.  And when a trademark becomes synonymous with the generic item, eventually it loses its trademark status — genericide. The word 'google,' with…

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Excerpt: Google just added a curious new feature to Sitemaps, now renamed "Webmaster Central."  It allows the webmaster to specify whether he or she prefers a site be indexed as www.example.com or example.com.  It is documented here.  This is curious for a few reasons:1. BigDaddy was supposed to resolve this issue.  In actuality, the problem seems fairly trivial.  It did not surprise me that BigDaddy was supposed to resolve it.  This feature is an admission that BigDaddy is not the end of the troubles in this realm.2. In my opinion, the current demographics of Sitemaps webmasters are such that anyone willing…

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Excerpt: This is a summary of the videos located at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/video-reinclusion-requests/ and http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/video-tips-for-ses-san-jose-2006/ titled "Video: Reinclusion requests," and "Video: Tips for SES San Jose 2006," respectively.  The latter is dated August 7, 2006.Note: As before, my opinions are in italics to indicate where I'm expressing an opinion, not citing Matt. In the first video, Matt discusses reinclusion requests.  He has a previous post here regarding the topic, but he asserts his recommendations have changed somewhat since that post.So what does Matt currently recommend you do when you think you have been penalized by Google for spamming?  He recommends using Google Webmaster…

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Excerpt: This is a summary of the videos located at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/another-two-videos/ titled "Another two videos," and dated August 3, 2006.  Note: As before, my opinions are in italics to indicate where I'm expressing an opinion, not citing Matt. 1) All IPs in a particular data center should typically report results similar to the rest of the IPs in that IP block.  But … 2) Even if you hit a given IP address in a particular data center, you may be subject to a load balancer that sends you to an entirely different data center.  This is "somewhat rare," but he says…

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Excerpt: Matt Cutts has a blog filled with lots of good stuff, and lots of boring stuff.  Even some of the SEO stuff is mundane and basic, so I decided I'd filter it out and enumerate the gems from his new videos.  Unfortunately, though Matt's videos are super cool and employ totally cool special effects and props, they are sadly not indexable.  This should help, and covers everything up to "Vidyo" on August 1, 2006.  Here they are:Note: My opinions are in italics to indicate where I'm expressing an opinion, not citing Matt. 1. Matt Cutts thinks link bait…