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Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz had a good post today about link building and getting people to link to your site. In his list of turn-ons vs. turn-offs in regarding design, the list of the negatives was topped by “obtrusive ads”. Amen.

Not only do pop-ups and Las Vegas-style ads suck, they discourage anyone from wanting to link to you. In other words, a crappy design and presentation can negate the effects of good content if the website is, as Andrew Goodman says, “in the hall of shame.”

Pop-ups, pop-overs and blinking banners have sucked for a long time. If only, in their infinite wisdom, the Corporate America decision makers would fall in step and realize that a business need not be tricky or sneaky to monetize a website, the web would be a better place to hang out.

I read an interesting post from one of my favorite “black hat” SEO gurus today. There is an SEO contest, initiated by threadwatch.com, which is giving away a whopping $1k for being #1 on Google for the term “Dave Pasternack”. An article by Mr. Pasternack got under the skins of some SEO’s when he claimed that SEO was “not rocket science”, among other things. Apparently, this contest was to poke fun and harass Dave for making sweeping, negative comments about SEOs. It turns out that someone else named Dave Pasternack, a Master Chef in NYC, is getting his site kicked to the curb as a result.

First, I would like to repeat the statement that SEO is not rocket science - just like accounting is not rocket science, nor is gardening, painting or playing music. It is what it is. Besides, I have worked with a rocket scientist-turned-programmer and that man was a bone-headed assclown (thanks again, Greg…and no offense to other rocket scientists).

Some SEOs are infinitely more effective than others and no one should be insulted by the rocket science statement. The rock stars are making more than any rocket scientist anyway. Frankly, I try to de-mystify SEO at my job. Will that cost me job security? Hell no. I have experience and a proven track record. When my colleagues understand how SEO works, the more success we will have as a team.

But back to Greg Boser and his post. What Greg has suggested is that when the contest is over, people 301 redirect their web pages back to the chef Dave Pasternack’s site. That is very admirable. And hopefully this will happen to a large degree and no one will suffer because of a silly SEO contest. What is especially sweet about Greg’s post is that Mr. Boser is known as a “black hat SEO”, which is also synonymous with “unethical” in come circles. Kudos Greg, this is not only ethical, it’s admirable. And not a bad link magnet either.

There has been a lot of attention paid to the effectiveness of “paid” links to a website’s SEO success. In a recent post by Matt Cutts, he makes a point about how companies tout their paid links as “undetectable” when, indeed, the Google crew is able to filter them. Matt has mentioned in the past about detecting “networks” and devaluing those networks and the links they produce. So what links actually count?

The answer, as usual, is ‘it depends’. But I think the key to detectability is the “network”. Who knows how long it will be before Google recognizes Text-Link-Ads and devalues those listed in that network? It just depends on whether Google sees that company as a threat to it’s relevancy algorithm. Think of it this way - a brothel is much easier to discover than a lone prostitute simply because of the traffic. The question is, how far will Google go to “clean up the streets”? To take the analogy further, how will Google determine the difference between a ‘paid’ relationship or just a really expensive date - or will they bother with this determination? Google treats the Yahoo directory as a high class date. Given their earlier attempts to make all of their search listings paid, I tend to think of Yahoo as a whore…ok, maybe just a mistress.

As long as there is a relationship between linking and SEO success, there will be those that buy and sell links for cash. Linking is a commodity. What will be interesting to see is how Google polices this commodity.

Chris Sherman, an internationally known expert on Search, spoke today about the growing importance of Social Media. Although it will not replace traditional SEM efforts, Social Media, Social Networks and Vertical site directories are certainly impacting the landscape. Chris pointed out some of the big brands that have MySpace accounts. But it’s not just participation in Social Networks that gives rise to some successful branding, it’s the ‘attitude’ that the brand brings. As Chis points out, the most popular Social Networking sites “have attitudes that are very much ‘anti traditional’ marketing.” Some brands aren’t even recognized easily. To effectively leverage the power of Social networking for branding, linking, creating buzz, etc. a certain bit of ‘edginess’ is usually required. If it’s not compelling and relevant, the back button is 1 nanosecond away. Even worse, companies that are identified as spammers can easily have their efforts backfire, generating negative associations with their brand.

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I find it quite amusing that Wikipedia has done a wholesale negation of all of its links because of an SEO contest.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about (and who really does?), SEO (search engine optimization) success has a large deal to do with who links to whom. Getting a reference link from an authority makes search engines improve their view of that website. For instance, anyone wishing to land a decent job has to provide references. Strong professional references from a known authority help validate any claims in one’s resume. The same is true for search engines.

When a respected authority website such as Wikipedia links to another site, it essentially is casting a vote in favor of that website. However, since Wikipedia (notice the lack of link!) is frightened that SEO ’spammers’ might wrongly influence the links of their authority website, they put a barrier up so that NO ONE can have an outbound link that can be seen by search engines. A few bad apples certainly ruined a good thing. In my favorite terminology of SEO professionals, Wikipedia now prevents the passing of ‘link juice’ by putting a link condom on all of their outbound links. Actually, it’s more like a site wide vasectomy. (more…)