SEO Video

Even better than SEO Radio...it's SEO Video. Well, not quite. But I definitely did appreciate Matt Cutt's responses to various SEO-related questions, which he filmed live from the Mattplex. After reading all day, it's nice to kick back and watch an SEO video...it was what drew me to SEO Radio (speaking of which, where did Brad Fallon disappear to? Ah! I just checked out his site...he's a proud new father...congrats, Brad! Check out his twins.)

SEO Urban Legend #2: Submitting to the Search Engines is Muy Importante

One of our clients recently received an email from a gentleman representing a certain SEO company (a company which, btw, is currently involved in a class action lawsuit for not delivering on their promises) who proudly claimed that they would submit his website to 8500 search engines! What I first wanted, of course, was to ask this guy to give our client a list of these 8500 search engines (or better, have him recite them from memory:-). As any good SEO knows, while a few of the search engines that matter might accept submissions, gone are the days when submissions mattered. Today, links matter...this is how the search engines will find the pages of your website. Set-up a site map, make sure that you don't have any dangling pages, and then go get some links!
BTW, I think I'm going to start yet another category of posts to eventually group together, "SEO Red Flag#". And the first red flag? SEO companies that offer to submit your website to thousands of search engines. Really. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I probably shouldn't mention it (lest my gentle readers consider me unkind), but not only was his SEO knowledge way off, his spelling and grammar were remarkably bad as well! Couldn't he have at least tried a little harder? Argh.

SEO Urban Legend #1: The Dangers of the Refresh Meta Tag

Well...hopefully this will satisfy some of the SEO appetite of R&S's voracious readers...nothing too profound, I just thought I'd go ahead and start another family of posts. We started out with "SEO Tip#" and now we have "SEO Urban Legend#."
I thought we could start out with the idea that has been bantered about on SEO forums and in various articles, that it is somehow dangerous, from the perspective of SEO, to employ the use of the, very-useful-when-employed-correctly, Refresh Meta Tag. As with most misinformed ideas regarding SEO, this one can easily be taken care of by stepping into the shoes of the search engines themselves.
Do the search engines really want to penalize sites for using a completely justifiable means of redirection, when the need arises? Umm...no. Besides, as there *are* legitimate uses of the Refresh Meta Tag, how could a search engine (which, let's face it, is not all that intelligent) possibly know when the tag is being used nefariously? It can't actually. Sure, it won't index the page that's been refreshed (duh!), but it won't penalize a site for using this tag.

Oh! And a Happy Memorial Day to all!

Busy. But still time for Blingo.

Well, I'm down to just one "busy," so there's definitely time for a post. Although I'm well aware that content is king...especially fresh content, sometimes life just doesn't leave you the time to do all the things you'd like to do...you know?
My new job has kept me on my toes for the past month, and I'm still processing everything that's happened. So...a post on Blingo is all I can muster right now.
Have you been out to Blingo.com? If not, you're missing opportunities to win great prizes just for using their search engine (well, actually, it's powered by Google). Another attempt to cash in on Google's advertising success. We'll just have to wait and see if they're in business in six months' time.
Sorry...that wasn't all that exciting.
I promise that the next post will be SEO related...a nice juicy post full of useful SEO info...
Promise.

Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy

Yes, life has become even more busy than it was during my last post...I should have anticipated as much, with the start of a new job! I know that my personal life is of little interest to readers of Rank and Smile, except insomuch as it greatly affects my ability to blog...which is, naturally, why I brought it up in the first place. Alas.

Busy, busy, busy

Well, this has been a hectic few weeks...hence, no new posts. I am about to start a new job and I just returned from a visit to the folks before that begins. The world continues to turn, of course, and the world of online marketing gets increasingly complex. Stay tuned!

Cool Little Things

Namely...a gadget that is destined to revolutionize the way we compute:

Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard

and technology that can begin to really get into the mind of the customer (remarkable, but spooky!)

Eye Tracking

As for the former, one can just picture the future: a telephone that projects a virtual keyboard in one direction and a projection screen in the other. And it looks as though it won't be too long in coming!

As for the latter...if it is effective, it could be incredibly useful. At the same time, I played the demonstration video and I have to say that I had a difficult time believing that the user's eyes did not focus on the large red banner ad in the middle of the screen. Really, they didn't? And if not, I'd like to know *why* not?