SEO Egghead Consulting Group

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Excerpt: Yahoo recently announced that they are releasing a free enterprise search tool to the masses.  I would argue (and so have many others) that this cannibalizes the market for Google.  The software runs on both Linux and Windows.  Google has had one of these for years — but it costs money.  The equivalent product from Google costs $30,000.  Google does include hardware at that price, but the cost of hardware is negligible. "They're going to create a real headache for Google at that tier," notes Forrester Research analyst Matthew Brown.I agree.  Most of Google's IP is in seeing through the…

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Excerpt: I was all excited about the sitemaps standard when I first heard about it.  The catch is, it's not clear when everyone will support it.  This URL indicates that the following URL-template:<searchengine_URL>/ping?sitemap=sitemap_urlis used to ping the various search engines to let them know that a sitemap is present, or updated in the sitemaps standard.  I've attempted the following requests (Google's works — http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=www.domain.com/sitemap.xml):According to the spec, something like these should work for the other SEs: yahoo.com/ping?sitemap=sitemap_urlsiteexplorer.yahoo.com/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url (guess?)search.msn.com/ping?sitemap=sitemap_urlNone of them work.  I can't find a specification for what the URLs will be.  So when will it be implemented?  I sit here…

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Excerpt: Some of you may have noticed my appearance has been a bit spotty lately.  That's because I'm working feverishly on putting the final finishing touches on my book — chapters 9, 10, 11.  Some material has changed since the first drafts and I now must rewrite it.  This industry moves so quickly.Obviously, this takes time.  No, I haven't abandoned this blog.  But I am looking for guest bloggers.  The perk would be getting involved and getting visibility in an already lively well-trafficked blog.  You should be:1. Smart, preferably geeky2. Well-versed in SEO, but not necessarily a blogger3. Not looking to…

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Excerpt: Smart search engine marketers like you and me know to write rich content.  This helps to target the the oh-so-famous long tail of user searches.  But some people search for weird stuff; and sometimes Google just doesn't cut it on the relevancy.  In that case, we search engine marketers get a little tail we didn't expect upon analysis!Because I'm such a nice person, and my blog didn't answer the following fine queries adequately, I will quickly try to fulfill them in this post.  Here's the list:Note: Yes, they're all real — pulled from Google Analytics. 1. SEO is bullshit"After extensive…

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Excerpt: Most SEO is bullshit.  I'll be the first to agree with Jason.  Yes, I said it — and I'm an SEO.Jason Calacanis states on his blog: "I don't hate SEO folks, and I don't think it's all B.S. — just most of it."Now, let's get this straight.  I'm not an idiot; I don't think those black hat SEOs that rake in 20k+ per month are wooing search engines with "bullshit."  And I certainly don't agree with Jason Calacanis on every issue.On the other hand, like Jason, I don't agree with SEO firms that make you sign contracts that don't actually…

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Excerpt: Posting has been a bit erratic.  But I haven't been sleeping much, either.  Guess what I've been editing?  Here's a preview — You: Hybrid Programmer and Search Engine MarketerGoogling for information on the World Wide Web is such a common activity these days, that it is hard to imagine that just a few years ago this verb did not even exist. Search engines are now an integral part of our lifestyle, but this was not always the case. Historically, systems for finding information were driven by data organization and classification performed by humans. Such systems are not entirely obsolete –…

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Excerpt: This magazine just keeps getting better.  It's now a permanent fixture in the basket within my "WC."  3 installments have now arrived; here's the skinny on the stuff I found interesting in Winter 06/07 edition:1. Eric Ward talks about what to do if an SEO Firm gets you banned in "My SEO Firm Got Me Banned! Now What?"  It's a great how-to, and details something ominous-sounding I didn't notice on Microsoft's re-inclusion page.2. Nacho of iHispanic talks about the Hispanic Market.  The guy has a funny name, but he really knows his stuff.  I spoke with him a few times…

No laughing!

Everyone has that very first project that got them started in the search engine marketing scene.  Unfortunately, today, I have little time for it anymore; and, sadly its rankings have been falling.

Unfortunately, the combination of sparse content on the pages and few actual inbound links has now relegated them to the dreaded supplemental index.  Thank you, Google.

I suppose the link whore in me has motivated this post, but I'm curious if anyone would like to reveal any of their very first SEO projects?  Leave a comment.  I promise I won't make fun!