Weekly Search & Social News: 07/06/2010

Webmaster · Tags: News 07/06/2010, Search, Social, Weekly

Hello my wearing web wandering search geeks and welcome to another edition of ‘7 Days of Search and Social‘ – if there are two things that slow down the news/blogging world in the search industry; it’s summer and holidays. We had both last week (two North American holidays at least). But the funny thin? It was actually super busy my fellow geeks. Seriously.. I had boat loads of stuff to sort through (so much for my holiday ‘eh’?). So sit back and get right into all the greatness that was last week!

And away….

Lead Story

Crap hat link building

Ok, this week’s lead in really isn’t a ‘top story’ as much as it is a serious pain in the ass. Sure, I may be a little bit of a wholistic search guy, but seriously, why bother with the crap hat stuff?

Case and point; A Comprehensive Guide to Link Building via Blog Commenting

WTF is there to be ‘comprehensive’ about? I have often referred to the crap-hat SEOs as ‘link whores and hype merchants’ because of the tendency to go after the low hanging fruit and not having a REAL plan in place.

I personally don’t believe comment links are a friggen strategy. Not only is it bloody lazy, but it certainly doesn’t stand up to the tenant of future proofing one’s SEO. It doesn’t require a large leap of faith to figure that search engines see them as spam and may devalue them some day.

If you are being paid to build links, start with a strong content strategy. Don’t be a half assed dumb nuts that picks the low hanging fruit for clients. Try actually building some strong links that will stand the test of time.

#justSayin’

Future Proof SEO – On the Trail and Future proofing SEO (on WordStream)

Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Going Vertical – Videos – Tools – Patents -

Talk of the Town

Link Building Opportunities Big Brands Miss- my pal Rishi is now writing for SEJ which is kinda cool since we also write on SEOBS together. This is his first post over there and it touches on one of my personal pet peeves; how crap a lot of major brands/corps are at SEO. Nice one RL!!

How do you know what is search spam? – is an interesting post over at SEW that I thought worth highlighting. Why? Because a lot of folks in the IR world believe ANY manipulation of the results is web spamming. What do YOU think is the threshold?

Study: Three-Word Queries Drive Most SEO Traffic – was a post that SEL ran highlighting some research done by Chikita. Why am I putting it here? Because this is by NO MEANS a definitive study folks. Please be careful when running with such stuff… at least without a qualifier.

What if My Competitors Point Spammy Links to My Site? – is an interesting topic and I thought to highlight it because I have to agree it is a brain dead strategy. Seriously… at very worst search engines would simply devalue the links, not penalize the site. M’kay?

Future Thinking: Planning an SEO campaign for an emerging market – The ‘Goosh Man’ had a good post that highlights the art of nailing a query space before it becomes competitive. Not something new, but certainly worth highlighting for those that aren’t already keen on the approach.

Google Stop The Rot Please – total trifecta! One of my fav blogs, fav peeps and a topic that we’ve heard a lot of over the years. Google and the world of link spam. Will Google ever get away from the reliance on links? It’s says here, YES, to a degree.

Bing vs. Google: 5 Real World SERPs Analyzed: Part 1 – Tony Verre dropped into the Trail with a groovy bit of SERP analysis that I’d advise ya’ll to read. More coming soon in Part II.

All Good Content Starts Here: Keyword Research – if there are two things I can’t get enough of it’s (good) posts on KW research and Stoney. This is a double bonus since he’s one of the best when it comes to the topic. A worthy addition indeed.