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VodafoneUK NOT to Hunt Beavers!


By On February 6, 2010 In linkbait, social media, twitter With Comments Off

Image: Happy Beaver by stevehdc.

Welcome back to the weekly Twitter column. Yesterday many people on Twitter cried out in outrage about a misled tweet from @vodafoneuk – in it some apparently tweeting under the influence employee made a badly spelled comment about the hygiene of homosexuals.

Then the person also threatened to hunt for beavers!

This is indeed outrageous! As you probably know beavers are an endangered species and have been extinct a few years ago in the UK. Hunting them just to vent your anger is the last thing to do.

Wicked by xlorddashx.

Black hat SEO is both a myth and a reality we have to face sooner or later as SEO practicioners. While I abide by probably one of the strictest SEO codes of ethics around and SEOptimise is a clean white hat SEO company company itself we still can’t deny that there is black hat SEO.

The sheer existence of black hat SEO techniques must be acknowledged for several reasons.

As Rishi Lakhani noted on his new SEO blog: You need it at least to know what to avoid or to know how competitors who perform worse than you still manage to outrank your site.

Christmas isn’t Christmas without someone butchering a much-loved song to make a marketing point and this year it’s our turn. Brace yourselves for the SEOptimise Twelve Days of Christmas Special…
12 Days of Christmas

Image credit: krisdecurtis

robert-scoble-alex-de-carvalho

Robert Scoble by Alex de Carvalho

In the attention economy the attention rich win over those who get less attention. As controversy and ignorance creates more attention than common sense and boring expertise we have to deal with the phenomenon of SEO bashing every now and then. People pointing fingers saying “look at that, how stupid they are bashing SEO again” create even more buzz.

Web 2.0 celebrities can use this attention gap in order to push their own interests. Failed entrepreneurs like Jason Calacanis have done that in the past repeatedly to ride the wave of negative hype. So this time I was a little bit astounded to hear it from Robert Scoble the web pundit everybody seems to listen to.

Link Baiting?

CC Image by radcarper.

Do you remember the term link bait or link baiting? While 2006 and 2007 link baiting was all the rage in recent years it seems people don’t talk or write much about this practice anymore. Has link baiting vanished? Not at all.

Link baiting is daily business right now, it’s the norm.

Indeed I would go as far as to state that link baiting is currently the most important link building tactic or strategy (depends on the bait really).

TechCrunch turns to Hackcrunch

“He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone.” I admit reading or rather scanning the “confidential” Twitter documents obtained by Techcrunch from a hacker and published in excerpts. Of course I was curious. On the other hand:

Was this whole Techcrunch Twitter hacked scandal worth it?

Are we wiser now? Has humanity gained some new insights? Did Techcrunch prevent a corrupt president from breaking the law?

“Yeah, I’ve launched an SEO campaign based on generating buzz through the blogosphere and increasing my link juice to ensure I get great SERP positioning…”

What is social media marketing

More and more conventional link building methods, like directory submission are of less and less value, Google does not even recommend high quality paid directories any more. In fact soon we’ll see a situation where all artificial ways of link building will be frowned upon.

On the other hand former SEOptimise writer and renowned UK search marketing blogger Patrick Altoft reported a few days ago about companies which spend thousands on link buying budgets per month. This way of link acquisition is not allowed by Google for a long time by now and many high profile sites have been penalized already.

While the urge of spending money on links comes as no surprise it is met by an often low quality shady part of the SEO industry. Getting links naturally requires also an investment, an allocation of time and resources combined with know how in some Internet industries like web design or development but not solely.

The money gets spend not on the links directly but on a web venture that gets links naturally and sustainably over time. The allure of “free” is in most cases the key to get links but also altruism leads to a direct ROI in terms of links. So think twice before spending money directly on low quality links.

Stop link building artificially and use one or several of the following 30 ways to get links naturally:

  1. Create a timeless or regularly updated resource list, example Web developer’s Handbook
  2. Program a free tool or software everybody needs in a particular niche but not everybody offers yet (compare the query font tester vs color picker)
  3. Develop a high quality theme or template for a well known platform like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla that gets updated along the software
  4. Program a WordPress or other popular blog platform plugin, in the best case a platform independent one like Akismet
  5. Develop a Firefox plugin for a recurring task or dealing with a widely spread annoyance like BugMeNot
  6. Organize a genuine yearly recurring competition like the Web 2.0 awards
  7. Organize a Recurring charitable event like the Blog Action Day
  8. Forge a lasting partnership with a similar service provider, like a graphic design agency joining forces with a PSD2XHTML provider
  9. Build a community like 9Rules where people “proudly” are part of and display on it on their sites
  10. Support artists with free or cheaper web hosting (or anything else they need) like MediaTemple does
  11. Mirror a high traffic site, for instance an open source software or an activist site
  12. Offer a rebate for a particular group, especially students but also workers class families, veterans or whatever disadvantaged group
  13. Offer free music or other audio downloads. or at least a way to listen to the audio online, that’s the secret of success of MySpace
  14. Offer free ebook or better free ebooks (more than one) like O’Reilly for instance
  15. Maintain a business blog updated regularly with high value resources, best example is Inside CRM
  16. Get your content translated and republished in multiple languages and countries
  17. Join a community and become one of the most valuable members like Maki of DoshDosh did on Sphinn and Digg
  18. Offer high quality free icons for download and free use
  19. Offer background patterns for free for web designers
  20. Offer free wallpapers for download and invite artist to modify them
  21. Create a Facebook application and maintain it over time
  22. Create a CSS solutions for common tasks or CSS problems or even better are whole set of solutions
  23. Offer free scripts and “chunks code” (like CSS as it’s not a script) for webmasters to use freely
  24. Create a highly useful and visually appealing Flash application like SimpleViewer
  25. Give away images using a creative commons license on your website
  26. Publish recipes for healthy, Italian, French, Chinese or any other kind of desirable food not everybody can buy
  27. Offer fundamental self improvement advice like hackyourself does
  28. Start a green initiative, whatever it might be, there are thousands of ways to do that, carbon free websites is great example
  29. Educate children, especially from poor families be it in the West or down in the “global south”, e.g. the 100 Dollar laptop gained huge recognition
  30. Help animals and boast about it displaying images of them you don’t have to as obnoxious as PETA

As you see many of these ways of getting links naturally are projects based on market forces or in other words on what many or most people need. The best thing on the Web is additionally that even free things normally not provided by the market can be offered in a profitable way as by gaining links the investment is made profitable at last.

Of course all these ways of getting links also get you reputation and fans and thus traction in social media too. People hate companies and businesses overselling but they love free stuff and those who offer it. When everybody loves you also those who are willing to spend money will find you.

In case you wonder now “how can I achieve that, I’m no programmer, designer, content creator, artist, activist” you don’t need to be, there are plenty out there are they’re short on money especially those from India. Sometimes even 100$ are enough.

Most website owners rely on quick website tweaks and the right tools for measurable website success. That’s not wrong but that’s also not enough. Being serious about business, a webmaster must get links to get additional exposure via search engines, of course predominantly Google.

Google still judges a website mostly based on the number and quality of links pointing to it (backlinks). So even today you got to get links, be it via outstanding content, viral campaigns or just conventional link building. Still most people do not take all the measures easily available on the Web today. Some have been around for ages, others just popped up recently. Check the 30 easiest ways to get links and exposure.

    Instant Link Building

  1. Submit to paid web directories free ones are often low quality lately
  2. Submit to a few quality article directories
  3. Send out a press releases via a few online services
  4. Answer questions on Yahoo Answers etc. and in forums
  5. Add resources to user generated content sites like Zimbio, Associated Content or others
  6. Ask your friends, family, employees to link to you
  7. Add your link to your profiles on Web 2.0 services like MySpace, Twitter (in the Bio) or Propeller

    8. Common Linking Incentives

  8. Get a Delicious badge, and display the number of bookmarks as well as the tags
  9. Offer a badge of honor, something like “a carbon neutral site”
  10. Offer a button for voting to install on other websites & blogs
  11. Offer a widget for bloggers, something useful that will spread by itself
  12. Stage a contest, it should be fun and the prizes should be worth it
  13. Organize a blog carnival choosing a topic that matters for many people
  14. Link out plenty, especially to bloggers, some will link back others will bookmark, some links will appear directly as ping and trackbacks
  15. Contact people who might link to you (I do not mean a reciprocal link request)
  16. Mirror a popular high traffic site, all the webhosters do it that way
  17. Give away content with a creative commons license, especially if you can offer images or music (or other audio)
  18. Let people translate your content and republish it for free

    19. Link Bait Ideas and Practices

  19. Praise experts in your area who have blogs
  20. “Pull a Calacanis” – Say something stupid to stir controversy (like “SEO is bullshit” or “Web directories are Web 3.0″)
  21. Be the first to break a story, indeed check original sources first before just recycling news
  22. Write a useful list, “100 ways of something” always get linked
  23. Give away a real freebie, a fee version of your product, should be valuable for users
  24. Use images of barely clad ladies, sorry I mean beautiful women to illustrate your point
  25. Support a cause, like Blogcatalog does
  26. Write something unbelievable, intriguing or that “strikes a chord”
  27. Do something useful for the Linkerati, a list of Digg users who blog for instance
  28. Create something for the lowest common denominator, best topic is cute cats
  29. Declare something alive and kicking dead but in a way it makes sense
  30. Say something funny like “SEO is Dad” ;-)

Please not that I intentionally did not include some not entirely ethical grey hat methodes like “submit to social bookmarking sites” or “comment on dofollow blogs” as these tend to become spammy in the wrong hands.

Along with the “no future” fable in recent days we have seen another talk of the town or rather the global village: Spreading false information as SEO tactic of link baiting. Now I’m really glad! Finally Google will ban Jason Calacanis for spreading false information about SEO (“SEO is bullshit”) and his web directory Mahalo. Now let me explain the situation.

Matt Cutts in a discussion made clear that using such methods is fraudulent and can lead to a penalty by Google. Why did he say that in the first place? A hugely popular made up link bait article was disclosed as a hoax by the author of it, Lyndon Antcliff of Cornwall SEO. It was too late for Fox News and other news outlets on the British Aisles though, they reported the story as true without checking the facts or sources.

The implications of spreading hoaxes via the press is not my main focus here. It’s really a sign of low quality of major news outlets. That said let’s take a look at the Jason Calacanis case which is very similar to the undisclosed satire piece at Money.co.uk: He repeatedly stated that “SEO is bullshit”. Also he used at least one other version of this statement by saying “affiliate marketing is bullshit”. His “argument” was debunked dozens of times already so I won’t add another one of these SEO primers. I want to stress the undisclosed satire aspect of this infamous link bait.

Mr. Calacanis also is the man behind Mahalo. What is Mahalo according to it’s own definition?

“What is Mahalo? Mahalo is the world’s first human-powered search engine”

When you take a closer look at the “engine” you quickly realize that it’s a not a revolutionary Web 3.0 concept it’s sold as but basically a web directory like any web directory we know since the early nineties. There are no robots or spiders and the algorithm seems to be rather a simple CMS that allows to publish a few thousands of pages.

Now is Mahalo a human-powered search engine? No, it’s not, it’s clearly a static website provided by editors (aka guides) and augmented with some user input. I’m sure the new, yet to be established Ministry of Truth, led by Mr. Cutts, truth expert of Google will quickly find out about that and ban Mahalo.

Also it is obvious that SEO is no “bullshit”. I even did some research on agriculture in this context. Livestock breeding experts agree that bullshit at least stinks. Now as SEO is purely virtual and limited to the Internet it can’t stink, so it can’t be bullshit either. Unfortunately this link bait tactic based on this false information has already spread and other people are using it. Now as Matt Cutts truthfully has spoken out about this problem I’m sure they all get banned. I’m glad. Please Google, ban them all. We really need a Ministry of Truth.

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