Bing Winter Olympics Homepage - February 25th 2010

I really didn’t think these Olympic games would draw me in… but they did. And Wow, what a finale!

Back to business as usual at Bing?

 
That’s exactly what Bing is doing. Well, sort of…

Oops, not quite business as usual for Bing after the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage.

Ignite Portland #8

WebRanking is a proud sponsor of Ignite Portland 8, which is being held on Wednesday March 3^rd at 7 PM at the Bagdad Theater. 

For those unfamiliar with Ignite, this geek friendly event gives 20 speakers 5 minutes on stage with 20 slides that auto advance after 15 seconds.  The speakers for this event were selected from over 75 entries and the topics vary from funny, to serious to the downright obscure.  A complete list of the speaker topics can be found at the Ignite Portland website.

The Ignite events are free and the doors open at 5:30 PM.  This is an extremely popular event, so if you want to attend make sure you get there early.  It fills up quick.

Well this has to be a first! It now appears that Google is showing their special Holiday and Event logos in their search engine result pages in a very similar manner to how Bing has been for almost a year.

Here are a few screen captures that show the new SERP’s.

Google Logo in SERP's

Yesterday on their official blog, Yelp.com announced that they have launched new categories for business owners.  The expansion is quite thorough and allows the niche business to separate themselves from some of the more general category listings.  From “Disc Golf”, “Tattoo Removal”, “Window Installation”, “Lasik” and “Cosmetic Dentists”, there are now specific categories to match up with more specific user searches (see the complete list of 70 new categories below).

If you have not yet claimed your business listing on Yelp…well, what are you waiting for?  Yelp is a fantastic way for local businesses to promote themselves to their community and allows business owners to gauge the pulse of how they are being received by their customers.  Smart business owners will see definite benefits when they monitor their reviews, respond professionally to negative reviews, and interact positively with their current client base that utilizes Yelp.

If you find a reoccurring theme in your reviews, like your receptionist is frequently rude, your valet parking prices are too high, or cleanliness does not appear to be a priority, then these are all areas that can be addressed internally and if rectified will create a positive buzz and better customer experience.  And most importantly…better reviews.

There have been many reports and rumors about the forthcoming Open Directory Project overhaul, dubbed DMOZ 2.0, from as far back as March 2008. Recent info has hinted at the End of Q1. But just yesterday (Thu. Feb. 11th 2010), there was a strong rumor of a dmoz.org launch that might set one of the last days of March as the Full Launch date.

 
So what exactly is going to change with the launch of Dmoz 2.0?

I love you. 

No, scratch that. I hate you. 

Wait, please don’t unfollow me.  I didn’t really mean that.  I’m sorry. I was…drunk, yeah that’s it. I wasn’t thinking straight. Really, it’s not you…it’s me. 

I really do love you…but to be honest, I think I might hate you at the same time.

Social Media is Breaking My Heart

We have been seeing each other casually now for quite some time, but I have to wonder where this is going?  I remember the early days of our relationship, when you were just an occasional blog post, or we would slum around together on SixDegrees & Friendster. 

Boy, the times sure have changed and you are more popular then ever before.  Everyone is talking about you and seems to want a piece of you.  Maybe it is out of jealousy, but it  hurts to hear my friends and Search colleagues talk about how you “put out” great results when they are with you. 

Personally, I don’t like to tweet and tell.

With Christmas only a few days away, those last minute acts of kindness probably aren’t going to be enough to get your name scratched off the naughty list and penciled into the nice one.  Sure, you might hope to slip by this year on some clerical error or a loophole in the revised 2009 Naughty and Nice Code of Ethics, but remember Santa is supposedly checking them twice (which makes me wonder if he has a Naughty & Nice app for his iPhone yet, or is still doing it by hand?). 

Yet whether your stocking this year will be filled with lumps of coal or gifts of joy, you are not alone.  We have sent out a request to our colleagues, associates and some talented search elves up north to come up with our First Annual Not Quite Definitive List of Who’s Been Naughty and Who’s Been Nice in Search for 2009.   

Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas.

* Google gets lots of gifts for attempting to innovate search with real-time results, social search, and more.

* StumbleUpon.com gets lots of gifts this Holiday season for leaving the hands off of eBay, listening to its community, and implementing changes around their desires.

– Jordan Kasteler

* Bing goes on this list for bringing more seriousness in competition to the search landscape. They’ve got a long way to go, but it’s the first positive step in a long, long time.

– Rand Fishkin

* Google Adwords new ad formats. This was a long-time coming in my opinion.  I am curious to see if Yahoo and MSN try to follow Google, or, wait until their platform merger.

* Google Analytics upgrades since October….specifically, more “Goals” and “Alert” system. 

* Google Webmaster Tools upgrades….specifically, their “Parameter Handling”.

– Clint Danks

SEMpdx’s fourth annual SearchFest event is only a few month’s away. If it’s anything like last year’s event it will be worth your time to attend, SEMpdx did a great job. There were many well known industry speakers and attendees at last years event, keynote speaker was Danny Sullivan and Rand Fishkin was a session panelist.

The Search Engine War against Paid Link Builders

Buying and selling links to directly influence search engine ranking algorithms has been a hot button in the SEO community for several years. The topic first started to really heat up back in 2005 when Google began taking stronger action against publishers and advertisers who bought and sold keyword targeted text links.

Today the search engine war against paid link profiteers still rages on, but with the majority of buyers and sellers going underground, the battle has become more of a guerrilla style conflict that is being fought through site by site skirmishes (penalties), media intimidation (education) and threat of treason (de-indexing).

Because of the problematic nature of purchasing links, it amazes me when I encounter new creative openly promoting links in the form of a commodity. Such was the case few days ago when I was deleting a bunch of spam from an old email account that I no longer use and noticed the following email that was just sent the day before.

Fortunately, due to some great partnerships this holiday season, we’ve been able to form what we call a MegaLink Package. This MegaLink Package includes 150,000 links plus 1,000 Twitter followers for a special rate of $1650 per month!!!

Here’s what is included: