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Excerpt: Guest post by Joost de Valk. Every now and then when you search, whether it be Google, MSN, or Yahoo — RSS feeds show up in the SERPs. For instance, if you search for the popular blog boing boing on Google, the third result is the FeedBurner feed of that particular blog. This, of course, is a "bug." Most of us don't want feeds listed in the SERPs. It does however, make you think: Feeds are bound to rank for some terms unless they are excluded somehow. I won’t go in to why…

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Excerpt: Are you a blogger?  If you'd like, send me an email with your snail-mail address and the blog you administrate, and I may be able to get you a free preproduction copy of the upcoming book.  Please do not provide PO Boxes, as the publisher will not send mail to them.  I'd love a review on your blog when you receive it and have a chance to peruse it — but that is voluntary, of course. Also, if you're one of the people who provided input in the writing process, I would l…

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Excerpt: I've been feverishly working to meet deadlines on the seo book and dealing with a sickness — so I've been quiet.  But I haven't been sleeping.  The book is now 100% done and edited.So here's the introduction from Chapter 3, "Provocative SE-Friendly URLs."  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.  Or just buy it :) “Click me!” If the ideal URL could speak, its speech would resemble the communication of an experienced salesman…

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Excerpt: Your computer sucks.  The Core Duo is dead — now you need a Core 2 Duo!  Well, at least nobody is selling them.  And if the web page was located at /Core-Duo.html, one can 301 redirect /Core-Duo.html to /Core-2-Duo.html.  This channels the legacy equity to related updated content.  This practice is superior to returning a URL not found (404) error, both because it transfers equity contained by that URL instead of dispensing with it, as well as refers any old links to re…

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Excerpt: It's my birthday on January 16, so it's time for everyone to leave a comment — and for all of my friends to buy me drinks.  I'll be doing something that involves a bar and drinks in NYC on January 13. I figure I should reschedule my birthday like presidents do for maximum convenience.  If they can do it, I can too!  And if we're not doing a bar, we'll do a hookah bar instead.  Likely venues include:Horus Cafe; 93 Ave. BDive Bar; 732 Amsterdam Ave. If anyo…

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Excerpt: One thing I've noticed in my PPC adventures is that Google AdWords is anal-retentive when it comes to using drug trademarks in the legal space.  This probably isn't the only area where trademarks become an issue (The Apple trademark seems to be another one), but drugs are where I've noticed it most.  Accutane is a drug that is designed to cure extremely bad cases of Acne.  Unfortunately, if you litigate on it, Google makes it impossible to use the trademark in your ads…

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Excerpt: Stealing is wrong; but some people just don't seem to get it when it comes to intellectual property.  Some of my posts take a few hours to write.  It's just plain annoying when people steal my work.  I'm sure that you feel the same way. Now, normally, I don't call out spammers — but since this fine individual also decided to "syndicate" both Matt Cutts (spam assassin extraordinaire) and SEO Black Hat (spammer extraordinaire), I will document exactly what…

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Excerpt: I logged in to Gmail earlier this past December 2006 — only to find that my localization setting was set to Chinese.  It took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to get it back to English, mostly because I don't read Chinese! I assumed it was just a fluke.  Maybe my cat walked on the keyboard?  My password wasn't particularly strong, but based on what happened, I doubt it has to do with that.  The data is just plain missing.  But then I noticed something e…