The Moz Blog

Whiteboard Friday - SEO for Branding

Sorry for the delayed Whiteboard Friday, folks. You'd think I was asking Rand to drag himself half-way around the world to film the damn thing...jeesh. Nonetheless, this week Rand discusses how SEO campaigns and their results can have a dramatic and valuable impact on your branding efforts. Enjoy! Video goes here ...

Thursday Roundup for the Week of 4/13/08

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week: The links are a bit scant this week due to being super busy and Rand being out of town. Special thanks to David Lindop for providing me with some nice roundup link suggestions. Thanks, David!

Is Yahoo Buying Text Links?

This was brought to my attention a few weeks ago, but I've only now been able to look into it. This site that rates schools across the nation is a useful resource for parents--it even won an award for "Best Family & Parenting Site." Looking at the "Glendale Schools" page, at the footer I see a link that says "Glendale Real Estate." ...

Content is King, Baby!

<p>One of the most important things you can do to help create a successful web site is to build a site that provides a remarkable experience. If we look past the popular phrase "linkbait" (a term I don't like because of its negative connotations) we need to answer the question: "why would someone link to our site?".</p><p>When I first talk to a clien...

I Submitted to Digg But All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

If you are involved with internet marketing for more than five minutes you will inevitably hear someone preach about the power of Digg. It is funny how hard people work for their 15 minutes of fame. Yes, if you make it on the homepage your website will receive hundreds of thousands of views in a single day. Yes the links it provides will help your search rankings. And yes the ...

Google's Ajax APIs

At Stone Temple Consulting, we've spent some time playing with the Google Ajax Search API and the Google Ajax Feed API. These are great tools for embedding dynamic content in your web site. This post is going to talk about how to use these two APIs to do just that.

Widgetbait Gone Wild

Here's the deal: I build links. I build a lot of them - tens of thousands every month. How do I do this? I create fun online quizzes and then provide HTML code with quiz scores that bloggers and website owners can embed on their own sites. A good example is this widget, which tells you if you talk too much in your blog, or ...

Class Action Trademark and Anti-Cybersquatting Lawsuit Against Google and Domain Parkers Gets the Green Light

Vulcan Golf v. Google et al. is an important case because it's the first time (as far as I know) that trademark owners have tried to hold Google liable for domain-related conduct. Plaintiffs are taking what they learned in the keyword advertising context and applying it to domaining. Further, because the case is potentially a class action, there are mega bucks on the line. Think about it: anyone who's ever had her trademark infringed by a domainer using a parking company and Google Adsense could theoretically sign up to be a plaintiff. The recent ruling paves the way for trademark holders to sue companies who provide advertising services, but neither own or register the offending domain name, to be held liable for trademark infringement and cybersquatting.

Search Secrets Revealed, Amazing People Met, & Incredible Sites Seen at SMX Sydney

As SMX Sydney wound to a close on the north bank of Sydney harbor, I stood with new friends and old, eating shrimp off the barbie (no, really), drinking beer and staring at the incredible view of the Sydney Opera House & the Harbor Bridge. Was this the best conference I've ever attended? Quite possibly, yes (and that's saying a lot). ...

The Dangers of Cloaking Revealed at SMX Sydney

Today at SMX Sydney (which I'll have a more detailed post about this weekend), Danny Sullivan and I sat together on a site review panel in the late afternoon. One of the sites we were asked to review was DiscoverTasmania.com. During our investigations, we stumbled across some remarkable cloaking f...

SEO-Friendly FLEX Websites

When building a FLEX( Flash ) application that must be available to the user via Internet, always comes the next question : Will the website containing the application be SEO friendly?And the answer is NO. Google and other search engines cannot see inside your FLEX( Flash ) website/application and and index your pages. If SEO is important to you, and it should be important, you...

Colloquial Copy: When Perfect is Wrong

My brother, a Long Haul Trucker with a Bachelors Degree in English Literature, happened to be passing through Denver Friday and dropped by for a visit. "Any reason for a home cooked hot meal and a sleep in a room not equipped with shock absorbers," I would chide. Late Friday night we were discussing the economy and the like, as fuel costs have affected his business rather drast...