SEO Egghead Consulting Group

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Excerpt: This post is now (mostly) obsolete and replaced by WordPress SEO Pager — → WordPress SEO Pager I know of many architectural mistakes that can totally torpedo a web site's rankings — using URL-based session IDs, adding duplicate content for fun, etc.  But one thing stands out in WordPress blogs as a culprit.  I call it "death by pagination," and it's another way to screw yourself.It's common knowledge that pages buried deeply within a web site, for various reasons, will likely not rank as well as those that are linked from top-level pages.  Typically, the solution employed is a site map.  This…

I guess Google's adult-filter went on vacation with me this weekend, because there was a buxom blonde baring it all for everyone on the Google News homepage:

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable says:
"I see it myself, I took a screen capture and blacked out the offensive part."

I don't get it, what does he find offensive?

QuadsZilla's latest link bait experiment is going to read like a who's who on viral marketing (if it works). It's a bit cheesy, but cheesy tops the Digg front-page every day.  Mr. Black Hat may just rank for "viral marketing" and "link bait" soon …

I'll have the site reviews from last month done this coming week; I haven't forgotten

I guess I think like a hacker, because I thought of this before seeing RSnake's post about finding vulnerabilities with Google Code Search.

If you want to find lots of PHP-based web applications that are likely vulnerable to HTML injection, try this search out:

lang:php (print\(|echo)\s\$_(GET|REQUEST)

This says "Find all PHP code that calls 'print' or 'echo' to display $_GET or $_POST (likely) without escaping anything.  What a great way to find places to inject stuff!  This is useful to find XSS vulnerabilities as well.

Organizing the world's information is useful — for many things

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Excerpt: If shoemoney can write how to stop spam, I can write how they're keeping it coming!  Don't get me wrong.  I hate spam — except when it makes me laugh or impresses me.  And as the days go by and more people read this blog, I've noticed that an increasing number of spammers are paying their respects as well. I've noticed a few things about the successful ones, though.  And I'm posting the best approaches I've seen so white hat bloggers can, 'ahem, understand them and deal with them more effectively:0. First, in response to Shoemoney's …

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Excerpt: It's clear to me that advertising using someone else's trademark to promote a competing service or product is a violation of the law.  However, using only those words that are generic strategically in a title (and/or copy) is not.  This opens opportunities to ride on the coat tails of certain competitors effectively without violating any laws explicitly.  As to the actual morality, I cannot speak.  I am not God, and I am not here to judge you.  All I know is — this likely works.  It works especially well on trademarks that contain lots of generic words. For example,…

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Excerpt: I'm a sinner!  I violate Google's TOS daily.  But the guy standing next to me on Yom Kippur made me look like Jill Whalen!  He was a spammer — and a pretty devious one at that.  Some of it was muffled by the sounds of unfed stomachs growling for forgiveness, but I managed to hear these 5 things he said:1. I'm sorry, my Lord, for using 1000s of vulnerable .edus as parasites to promote Viagra, a drug that increases the pleasure and frequency of illicit carnal sin. 2. I'm sorry, my Lord, for causing many of those aforementioned individuals to…

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Excerpt: Hacking up old web sites sucks.  Many were built without regard for search engine optimization concerns.  Just thinking about fixing the architectural problems sends chills down the spine of the web developer.  However, a few great enhancements can be performed without disturbing site architecture at all.  These items are worthwhile for most web sites and should typically be tasked without concern of detrimental effects.  Everyone knows them pretty much, but it's useful to summarize those that are easy.  Here's my list:1. Streamline Social Bookmarking Functionality.  People = Lazy. Social bookmarking sites allow users to bookmark and tag content with certain…