Posted by randfishThis weekend, Mystery Guest, Vanessa, Todd& I all hopped a flight from Seatac up to Edmonton, Alberta at the request of our dear friend, Ken Jurina. Ken's companies, Top Draw& Epiarwere celebrating not only their combined 21 years in business, but their many clients and recent spate of successes. At 32, Ken's been able to achieve amazing things - I've written about Ken's companyhere on SEOmoz in the past, and their technological prowess, particularly in the realm of automating keyword and topical research, has grown impressively even since that time. You can get a small sense for some of the value Epiar's able to provide to clients (and its own properties) from their blog posts, including this recent one on Presidential Candidates and ROI.The party was themed Moulin Rouge, but black tie attire was requested, so all of us donned our finest:_Left:Ken Jurina, our gracious host, with Todd Friesen. Right:Vanessa & I in front of the sushi bar._Left:I give Ken's lovely wife, Kim, the traditional SEOmoz greeting. Right:Curtis Dueck, Bonnie & I dance in front of the 10-piece live band._Left:An oyster bar made of ice. Right:Mystery Guest finds me a hat._Left:The night's events were masterfully coordinated by Matthew Glass. Right:Yes, they even had pole dancers.Now, admittedly, flying up to Edmonton, while only a 90-minute hop, is still exceptionally extravagant for MG and I, but Ken simply wouldn't take no for an answer. I must say, despite the whirlwind trip, it was the best party I've ever attended, period. And, while this might look like a bit of dot-com boom era extravagance, Ken sourced a remarkable amount of the food, entertainment and decorations from local firms that he knows or works with (even some of the scantily-clad dancers were local med students). Besides which, Ken has built something exceptional with his two firms - international quality software and services with the recognition of an organization 20X their size (together, Epiar & Top Draw have under 20 employees!) and I can't think of a better way to reward the people who've helped bring them to where they are. Ken's generosity is dwarfed only by his humility - if you see him at Pubcon, make sure to offer your congratulations.As Mystery Guest said after we returned to our hotel room, "There's nothing better than seeing someone so deserving have such great success." May the years ahead be as exciting as those behind you, Ken, and may your party invitations never cease :)And now, on to the week's roundup.Yes, Amazon's new Kindlemay be a bit ugly, but it (or a more beautifully skinned clone) is going to change the way we read. I actually want to order one right now, and I won't even buy an iPhone... Not to be missed - MadKastis a blog sharing widget that's actually remarkably usable. In the next-gen search space, Lijit is a cross between personalized search and social sharing that's got me thinking "Google acquisition."Darius shows off how online tech blogs played the telephone gamewith Nissan's color-changing paint. Is fact-checking really so difficult?166 comments and counting on what's surely one of Aaron Wall's most generous blog poststo date.Jon Mendez tests out Facebook adsand reports back with real numbers. And, speaking of Facebook, Rae has a ton of videos about the social sitethat I'm sure Rebecca and Jane will be digging through tomorrow.Andrew Goodman says the paid search recession is a farce. I agree - Steve Rubel just doesn't spend enough time in the space to have a solid grasp of when the ceilings on PPC value are reached. Andrew does.Andy Hagans has a killer list of valuable social media niche sitesto use for all your SMM campaigns.Ahmed at Performancing gives a good list of networking tips for non-US bloggers. Good stuff, and sorely needed.Get your site ready for the holidays with these three posts:Grokdotcom - Screencast: Guarantee Holiday SalesIan Lurie - 8 Ways to Get Ready for Cyber MondayMarketing Pilgrim - 8 Good Holiday Season Statistics for Internet RetailersAs always, if you've got other news, feel free to link in the comments.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishBiased manipulation runs wild on Wikipedia, and the extent to which it influences the pages of that site will probably never be known. In the field of SEO, where every link counts, Wikipedia's reference links at the bottom of articles and their external links in the body text of articles were once considered search engine ranking gold. Early this year, Wikipedia moved to institute nofollowon all outbound links, and many presumed the controversy would die there. It hasn't.I think the best way I can illustrate this massive problem is to attack the most common questions that come up around Wiki-hacking (yes, I'm inventing a moniker so I don't have to say "editing Wikipedia from a biased perspective in inaccurate, misleading or mis-representational ways" every time). Those who frequent Wikipedia would probably consider these edits to be "vandalism," but that's a very inaccurate representation of the actions that are actually happening. Vandalism refers to intentional destruction or damage of property - in the offline world, think graffiti or bricks through a window. These Wikipedia edits are, primarily, intended never to be detected by other Wikipedia editors or the outside world - a better analogy might be the subtle manipulation of a news report to slant in favor of a political party or candidate.Some major questions and issues:Why Edit Wikipedia Pages if There's No Link Juice?Reputation Management- if Wikipedia has bad things to say about a topic, there will almost certainly be someone who wishes to see that information removed. Link Traffic- Wikipedia articles, due to their phenomenal overrepresentation in search engines, can drive a remarkable amount of traffic, so many wiki-hacks are simply attempts to boost click-throughs Promotion- If you were a cellphone company, you might seriously consider editing the Wiki article on cellphone retailers, possibly adding a link to a list of "highest rated" stores by consumers according to a bogus study you host on your site (or another site) and then copying that list in short-format on the Wikipedia entry. Other promotional tactics are less obvious, but often more difficult to identify. And, yes, that story is a modified version of a true instance of Wiki-promotion. To Spite- If your competitor is ranking ahead of you on Google, or kicking you around in sales, you might find that Wikipedia is an excellent place to create a page on their company and detail the long list of terrible misdeeds they've committed. What's great (or horrible) about this practice is that generally, they'll be the ones who later come in and look like spammers for erasing the content or trying to have it removed, which actually helps to bolster the veracity of information in the eyes of other editors or administrators. It's a dirty but highly effective tactic to leverage against an opponent. I've even heard a story about using this technique for blackmailing the company referenced in the negative article, and pretending to "switch sides" in the editorial debate on the talk page once the money had been paid (it's DMOZ all over again!). For Link Juice- Wait, I thought there was no link juice on Wikipedia... Well, not directly. But, Wikipedia is such a reference resource that if your site earns links on popular pages, you'll find that those links find their way into forums, blog posts, articles, and journalistic publications more often than not. This is probably one of the most clever ways to use Wikipedia, because you'll need to link to something worthy of being spread, anyway, which probably means that even a heavy-handed Wiki-editor won't remove it, as it's typically relevant enough and interesting enough to belong there. One might even argue that this isn't Wiki-Hacking at all (perhaps it's the linkbait of Wikipedia?). To Earn Credit- The Wikipedia hierarchy rewards frequent, positive edits, and for many Wiki-hackers this is a great way to build up a solid, respectable-looking profile and potentially even be rewarded with administrator status. Wiki-Jacking- Since I've written about this topic previously, I won't cover it again in-depth. How Do Malicious Edits Happen?Anonymously- As of now, users can still make edits anonymously without logging in. Granted, Wikipedia will record your IP address, but you don't have to provide any personal information (not even fake stuff). Through Proxies - When one anonymous account just won't do, or you don't want the anonymous account to have any connection to your other account(s), using a proxy IP address lets you connect through to Wikipedia largely undetected (so long as the proxy provides solid anonymity). Through Trusted Accounts- For the more experienced Wiki-Hackers, a trusted account is a must have. Trusted accounts that make dozens of edits each day are much less likely to be accused of manipulation or have their content modified by another editor, even if complaints arise. Via Multiple Accounts with History- The savviest of Wiki-Hackers I've talked to runs more than a dozen unique, trusted accounts with positive history, and can use these What are Some of the Best/Worst Stories I've Heard?The Sock Puppet Betrayer- This is second-hand, so the details might be fuzzy, but the basic approach was sheer genius. Basically, this Wiki-Hacker created several accounts on different IPs, then vandalized a number of pages, mostly small and under-the-radar, appearing to look like a competitor (adding links, references, promotional content, etc). He then "investigated" these pages through his trusted account, "found" the "spammers," removed their content, and was praised by some other community editors. Later, he used the newfound trust to create subtle, but effective references for his own client. The Account Buyer- Supposedly, this fellow has been tracking down Wikipedia editors and offering to buy their account user names and passwords for the "trust" they've earned. According to him, he's only got 4 so far, but these have all been used effectively to help create and then "back up" favorable changes to a number of pages in a specific vertical. The Talker- One of the smartest Wiki-Hackers, in my opinion, is barely an editor of content at all, but simply uses a well-liked editorial account on Talk Pages, helping to sway the discussion in favor of keeping/removing links & content. On rare occasion, rather than actually making changes, the Talker will simply suggest that certain edits be made, then use a secondary or anonymous account to complete them if there's no pushback. The Bad Mouther - This particular Wiki Hacker got caught by another editor and in order to save himself, dug through every edit his accuser had ever made, and ended up being able to keep not only his account, but his edits by making it appear that the accuser was actually an "SEO," whose perspective and judgment were biased. Why Don't Administrators Stop this Behavior?They do, actually. You can see this popular project page called WikiProject Spam, where a "spamstar of glory" (yes, seriously) is awarded for stopping spammers on Wikipedia. A fairly immense to-do list exists on this page, and it's actually one of the Wiki-Hackers' most feared pages. Unfortunately, it's also a tool - Wiki-Hackers who want information removed or who want to build up the "trust" of their own accounts will actually become spam investigators and reporters. One of the best ways to reach administrator level is actually to catch some of the "trusted" accounts that are actually other Wiki-Hackers, and thus the community of Wiki-Hackers is not on particularly good terms with one another. Turning in other hackers puts you above suspicion in a way that few other actions on Wikipedia can, and thus, it's one of the holy grails of the infiltrator-style hackers.How do You Know All This, Rand?Two ways, really. First, I've played around first-hand with some of the pages with Wikipedia. In fact, prior to the "nofollow" implementation on links, I personally had a few editorial accounts through proxy IP addresses, though I probably haven't actively edited Wikipedia pages in the last 9 months. Instead, I've been connecting over email and in-person with a lot of folks who run reputation management and link building campaigns that do leverage Wikipedia. The number of stories, depth of detail, and actual examples (which I obviously can't share without betraying a lot of trust), including the stories I've recounted above, paint a fairly dark picture of what's actually happening at Wikipedia.Granted, because of my profession, I'm almost certainly getting an overrepresentation of the more manipulative aspects of what happens on Wikipedia. It's only natural. While lots of experienced Wiki-Hackers love to share their favorite stories of manipulating the site, very few of the truly quality editors are A) ever going to meet me at a party or go get some drinks with me at a conference bar, or B) boast about the terrific article they created about 70s-style tube socks as fashion accessories.Please do note that the specific stories I've recounted above have had details removed or even slightly modified to keep the identities of my sources anonymous. A couple, as I noted, are second-hand, as well, so I'm guessing some details may be missing. However, even with the details missing, you can still get a sense of the tactics for manipulation and the extent to which people are willing to go to in order to change Wikipedia in their favor.One Quick Example from the SiteThis comes from two friends at Wikipedia who really are legitimate editors and spam fighters, Jon Hochman(one of the foremost authorities on Wikipedia & SEO) and Durova (who spoke at SMX Social in October and had this terrificly informative interview over chat with Jim Hedger). From Durova's Talk Page Archives:I just spent 50 minutes playing cat and mouse with a vandal, and WP:AIV still hasn't acted on my block request. I guess its time to ask for the tools. What do you think? Jehochman (talk/contrib) 04:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)Done, 24 hour block. Sometimes it feels good to have the tools. Thanks for the heads up. Cheers, DurovaCharge!04:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC) This one is using proxies. He's over here now: 142.179.62.0 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)Jehochman (talk/contrib) 04:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)I think we are dealing with a black hat SEO who may be using some sort of script. I see a pattern in the edits. My suspicion is that they want one specific reference gone, and are attacking all of them to create confusion. Can we semi-protect the targeted articles, starting with Traffic Power? Jehochman (talk/contrib) 05:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC) Am I caught up on the blocks? Keep me apprised; I'm working on a complex investigation with another editor atm. DurovaCharge!05:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC) Semi-protecting. Give me the full list. DurovaCharge!05:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)Blocks are good. Here are the targeted articles. I think he'll be back soon. Jehochman (talk/contrib) 05:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)Obviously, this example above is a very amateur attempt, and Jon & Durova are all over it. Professional-level Wiki-Hacking is much more difficult to rat out.The most frustrating part for Wikipedians has to be that they themselves receive no financial reward for their efforts, yet their opposition, the Wiki-Hackers, benefit monetarily and directly when they have success penetrating the spam police.Do all of these Wiki-Wars Really Matter?The most accurate answer is probably "it depends." It's very hard to gauge how much the public trusts information on Wikipedia. My gut tells me that, sadly, a lot of people simply accept whatever Wikipedia says without checking real sources of information (yes, I'm saying that Wikipedia by its very nature is untrustworthy, even if 95%+ of the information there is factual, which is probably a big stretch). However, I can say with some certainty that businesses and individuals get a great deal of value and suffer a great deal of loss when Wikipedia contains positive/negative information about them (very similar to Google or other search engines). Thus, a secondary "black" market will always exist to exploit the site and attempt to change information. Even if Wikipedia went into immediate lockdown mode, there would be auctions for trusted editorial accounts, devious manipulation, and, probably, an even higher price on all of the Wiki-Hacking style activities.There's no real solution to the cat-and-mouse game, unless Jimbo wants to turn Wikipedia into some sort of Mahalo-like resource, where only those invited can edit (and even then, I'm guessing it will just mean higher prices, not an end to hacking).p.s.Yes, the nofollows on all links to Wikipedia are intentionally "nofollowed." Someone should create a blog plug-in to auto-nofollow Wikipedia links so the site stops ranking atop every query in existence.p.p.s.None of the content in this post is intended to suggest that I don't respect the project, its aims, or the lofty aspirations of many of the hardworking people trying to make it a good resource. In fact, I believe quite the opposite - that folks like Durova, in particular, and others like here have a noble, self-sacrificing streak that's both rare and praise-worthy. But, depending on your view of Wikipedia and black/gray hat social media practices as a whole, you might find some of her opponents equally admirable, or at least, impressively creative.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by great scott!Missed SMX London, or just got a taste of SEO and hungry for more? Can't make it to Pubcon, but still want a business write-off in December?  Don't fret! Our good friends at London SEO firm, Distilled are hosting a very unique, very affordable and sure to be very worthwhile training seminar covering the basics of SEO, PPC and Analytics.Will,Duncanand Tomfrom Distilled are not only top-notch at the SEO game, they're about the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet.  They'll be presenting this three hour seminar in London on December 5th, and attendance is extremely limited (I hear there are only about five spots left).  The seminar will not only offer in-person training aimed at business owners, webmasters, and beginning SEOs, but you'll have a chance to get answers about your individual website, a guide to useful resources online as well as a copy of Avinash Kaushik's book, Web Analytics in an Hour a Day, a definite must-read.You can learn more details and register for the seminarat the Distilled website.  As a special bonus, the guys have offered take £20 off of the normal price of £120 for SEOmoz Premium Members.  This makes for a truly outstanding bargain.  If you're going to be in Jolly Ol' in December, and you're looking to expand or refresh your general SEO knowledge, you'd be silly to pass this up.UPDATE FROM RAND:Also - if anyone is going and would care to cover the event with writeups, photos, etc for the YOUmoz/SEOmoz blog, we'd be very appreciative!Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by JaneCoplandI'm going to blatantly copy my fellow SMX London Linkbait and Viral Marketing presenter Ciaránand post my slides and notes here for you guys. What can I say. Imitation is flattering, isn't it? And the posts are a good idea: it means that you all get to hear what I said about all the slides and you don't have any irritating PowerPoint presentation to download. Because I know you all secretly believe that downloading massive .ppt files will take far too long and will crash your browsers.Apologies for the strange little boxes on either side of the SEOmoz.org logo. Photoshop thinks they're a different colour than PowerPoint would have you believe.The introductory slide. Brilliant. I think I started well; don't you? You have to love that font, and the way "Linkbait" is a bit bigger than "and the Real World."I had a hunch that most of the audience knew the basic definition of linkbait. If you've made it as far as a Linkbait and Viral Marketing panel, you've probably read at least one article about the subject. However, just in case, I briefly defined the concept and tried to shoot down some misconceptions you'll hear about linkbait. I believe that linkbait's name hurts it in terms of reputation because it implies a manipulation of people's intentions. However, people will always link to good stuff and abandon poor-quality content: if you can create this good content and benefit your business, go right ahead.Before I jumped into the actual content of linkbait, I went through some of the ways linkbait is spread... and tried to point out that Digg isn't the sole source of all social media traffic. My goal was to say "Digg" only once or twice in the presentation, but when it comes to linkbait, that's like trying to completely eliminate words like "um" from your vocabulary, no matter how much you'd like to.For some reason, people who use particular blogging platforms seem to like linking to others who share their interests and use the same service. Livejournal actively promotes communication between people with common interests. Communities such as http://community.livejournal.com/libraries/allow everyone who is interested in libraries to get together and chat. And you know, even to an English major, libraries can be pretty boring. Do you have library-industry linkbait? Let these guys know about it.Similarly, your Jeep linkbait can spread quickly through sites like JK Jeep Forum. The traffic mightn't be enormous, but it's targeted. General forums like Gorilla Maskand Farkcan send massive amounts of traffic to less targeted linkbait.Of course, you have to mention Digg and its esteemed counterparts. You also have to mention Sphinn, since it's SMX. The difference between industry-specific social news sites and the mainstream heavy-weights is similar to that of forums. Reddit isn't the place for Internet Marketing news; Sphinn is.If you've ever looked at the front page of Reddit or clicked Stumble, you will have noticed what becomes popular.  Some of the content is inappropriate, inane, or a dreadful combination of both. The winners of the "I Look Like my Dog" contest are pretty funny. Look at that grey-haired woman. Hilarious. But your client, who provides large mortgages to people who want to build apartment buildings, mightn't agree. Nor may your client like the "In case of zombies, break glass" gun. I have just realised how many mentions of zombies I made during this presentation...An example of a site where "anything goes" is Cracked.com. Has there ever been anything posted on Cracked that has received less than 1000 diggs? The slide is small when posted here, but the example content on Cracked's front page is the "5 Mental Disorders That Can Totally Get You Laid." Awesome linkbait. The health insurance company you're doing SEO for will totally love it.I provided an example of some linkbait former SEOmozzer Matt Inmanhad produced for Avatar Financial Group. Avatar Financial is a hard money and bridge loans firm, based in Seattle. Matt's piece, "21 things I learned about CakePHP," attracted a good number of links to the site, none of which were relevant to the financial industry.One of the tactics I use when dreaming up linkbait is to think about the problems, oddities, and quirks of the industry in question. The graph shows a painstakingly scientific (i.e: Wikipedia-based) research experiment we did to figure out how many American citizens wouldn't qualify for Green Cards (permanent residency) if they had to. Which they don't. And which Digg was quick to point out. The title of the Digg entry was slightly mis-worded and the concept of hypothetical situations was lost of most of the Digg crowd, but they still granted the piece 764 diggs. We weren't too upset with that total, given the fact that the content wasn't about Ubuntu, Ron Paul, or a video game.Some of the graph's features were more controversial than others (and some require some serious explanation). The graph is far from 100% accurate. Although the post itself explained all its omissions and oddities, few people actually read the surrounding text. This piece would have been a fantastic piece of linkbait for an immigration attorney. Unfortunately it wasn't, but it shows some of the neat things you can do in such an industry.Secondly, keep in mind the problems faced by your potential clients. What are they interested in? Student loans companies can consider using the ways people waste their money during university. They can pitch their content to Freshmen (first year students) and high school seniors, since the majority of the people looking for loans are of that age. Companies that specialise in refinancing student loans can pitch their content to university seniors in much the same way.Everyone wants to be linked to with the right anchor text. It helps a lot. "Click here" links are still links, but "student loans refinancing" links are even better. Unless your linkbait's subject matter is quite different from some of your keywords, attempt to use them in titles, descriptions, and the like. You can't control how people link to you (Rebecca's rocket ships?), but you throw them some hints.Dutch site Hema.nl produced this neat Flash presentationof their... um... products page? Product highlights page? No, I don't really know what it is, because I don't speak Dutch. But I linked to it because it's really cool, as did a whole lot of other people who don't speak Dutch and who didn't link to Hema.nl's Dutch competitors. And that's the point.While I don't recommend "hiding" linkbait, there's no need to have it splashed all over a corporate homepage. You don't even have to link to it from the homepage if you don't want to. But it's generally a good idea to have the content link back to the most important pages on the site! Remember that very popular pages within a site can appear as indented results for some searches, such as a brand or company name. You're unlikely to successfully "hide" anything popular.Here, I provide a "real life" example of someone else's linkbait that exemplifies bait for a boring website. Not that I'm saying wedding invitations are dull. If you're getting married, I suppose they're mightily interesting. Here, WeddingPaperDivas.com provide some "geek weddings" bait, featuring wedding parties dressed as super heros, Star Trek characters, and zombies. For those of you keeping count, that was zombie-mention number two.This piece of content links to all the site's important pages via its navigation template, but there are no links to the bait from the homepage of the site. Their linkbait is on-topic and highly appealing.I used the "Are you a Rebel or a Yankee" test to highlight a piece of linkbait that could have been more beneficial than it really was. This test - and others like it - were quite popular around six months ago, but this version of the test only provides a final result and a "send to your friends" link. For my third and final zombie reference, I provide an example of a cool badge that the quiz-makers should have made, so that I could show everyone that I have both a 67% chance of surviving the zombie apocalypse, and a 57% Dixie accent.This is a recent example of the ever-so-easy but slightly unethical practice of Bait and Switch. For Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon, we have pictures of limousines that have decided to drive over steep hills in towns like San Francisco. Who doesn't like high-centered limousines? Everyone gets a chuckle out of that. I linked to the limousines in a previous SEOmoz blog post. Upon re-visiting the blog post to find an example of good corporate linkbait, I find that the page now redirects to the company's Miami limousine rental page. Miami is probably their most profitable market. Most of the links that point to the page will contain the words "limo" or "limousine."While I'm not promoting the bait and switch, as it is a bit unethical and does result in people linking to something that they did not intend, it's an option that many sites seem to use once they're received a lot of links to a piece of popular content.There are three quick points about linkbait that you'll want to keep in mind.Negative commentary is normal in all arenas of social media, but you're well advised to turn on comment moderation before launching a piece of content. You can't control what people say on social news sites, forums, or blogs, but you can control the commentary on home-turf.The "real life" examples are being done right now. It's not impossible - and not even too difficult - to create linkbait for "regular" clients.(Yes, I know you can read the slides...) Linkbait sometimes fails to garner a lot of links, votes, or attention. Oh well! You've still created fresh content and it's likely that your practice will pay off in time. You'll learn what works, what doesn't, and exactly where and how to market that which you create.This is the point at which I thanked the crowd and stopped talking, and thankfully, they honoured the fact that I was finished by clapping. It would have been embarrassing if they hadn't. Again, I've uploaded the presentation hereif you'd like to have it for yourself and play it repeatedly!Update: The version at SlideShare appears to have been converted into OpenOffice format. Some of the slides' formatting appears to be a little bit strange. In London, the crowd saw the correctly-formatted version!Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishThis week, as Scott heads off on vacation for Thanksgiving, I'm posting our latest Whiteboard Friday on the concept of links as votes of importance from the search engines' perspective and how link juice passes. Below the video itself, I've created a few helpful graphics to better illustrate the phenomenon I'm discussing:  There are two big topics from the video that would benefit from additional explanation, and I think visual representation is probably the way to go (particularly since these are supposed to be for our more visual learners in the blog audience):How Links Pass Importance from one Page to Another:How Advanced SEOs Can Control the Flow of Link Juice:A word of warning - I don't say "advanced" lightly. We've had plenty of experiences where implementing what we thought was a smart nofollow strategy to control link juice has either backfired and cost us traffic or had little to no visible impact. The best way to implement strategies that rely on link flow control is, in my opinion, to start small, test, then refine and push out to the site as a whole. It's most effective in our experience on large domains with tens of thousands to millions of pages and lots of pages in "supplemental." When used properly, link flow can help to get these into the main index.Also - since raw link juice (aka global link popularity, aka PageRank) is one of several hundred factors in the algorithms at the major engines, don't be surprised if this tactic has little impact on competitive rankings. We find it to be much more valuable and effective in pushing up the visibility of very long tail material.Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! We will most likely not have a blog post up between now and Cyber Monday, so please enjoy a few days off (or, you know, go check out all the cool stuff inside premium you've been neglecting to read).p.s. Note that the images I've created are not to scale and don't correspond to any given percentage or amount of link juice lost or passed. They're only meant to be representative of the basic link flow concepts.UPDATE FROM RAND:A bit of my logic in the images is in dispute in the comments, and we're asking Sito take a look at some math to help us figure it out. Basically, the strategy of sculpting link juice is still sound, but the idea of a "leak" of juice through adding additional links to a page may not be accurate (at least, according to the original Google PR formula). Many thanks to Hamlet Batistafor bringing this up :)Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by Sarah Bird, EsquireNOTE FROM RAND:Our newest mozzer, Sarah Bird, comes with a pedigree in law and a passion for search and technology. Her addition to our team brings not only an in-house attorney (which has already proven invaluable during the funding and growth process) but a phenomenally vibrant and probing intellect to apply to areas where search intersects with the law. Please help me in welcoming SEOmoz's first "esquire." :)May it Please the Mozzers, I present myself to you as your legal resource for all things SEO/M related. A graduate of the University of Washington School of Law,I have spent the last three years litigating complex and diverse legal issues. With much gratitude and enthusiasm, I recently accepted SEOmoz's invitation to bring my expertise to the SEO/M community. Although I cannot give you legal advice, I can give you information about the law. My goal is to expand SEOmoz's scope and increase its utility by b(law)ging on legal issues and trends affecting the SEO/M industry. In time, I aim to provide sample contracts, cease and desist letters, DMCA takedown notices, and disclaimers for your use. I will also issue a weekly blog post featuring questions and answers on topics such as copyrightand fair use, trademark, privacy, contracts, International IP treaties, net neutrality, and license agreements.It bears repeating: This is not legal advice. Legal advice is when a lawyer applies the law to a specific set of facts. For legal advice, I urge you to contact qualified counsel. However, this blog post will help you avoid common pitfalls and determine when you need to seek out legal advice. I offer you my legal mind. In exchange, please forward me your burning legal questions. Because law touches so many areas of SEO/M, I would appreciate your guidance on topics of interest and importance to the community. Feel free to comment here or email me directly. I look forward to working with you. Let's get started! I’d like to start off my first Q&A post by answering a question posed by Will Critchlow from Distilled. He was working through the complicated intersection of U.S. copyright law and international law. More specifically, Will asked questions like:How does one know where a copyright infringement case is heard and what law is applied for violations involving parties from all over the world? Location of the server? Blogger? Copyright holder?Can a U.S. blogger employ the United States' legal definition of “fair use” if he or she is writing their posts to primarily UK-based viewers?Can a U.K. blogger employ U.S. definitions of “fair use” if she is posting primarily to Britain-based viewers?[note: for those of you who don’t even know what copyright is or why it is important, I plan on tackling more basic issues either through a weekly Q&A post and possibly a Copyright Guide. Please don’t be discouraged from asking beginner legal questions.]Mr. Critchlow has jumped right in to the deep end with this question. The short answer to his question [you're going to love this] is "it depends." [That'll be $500 bucks please.]  Stay with me now. While this kind of post may make you feel like you're about to expire from ennui, remember that this could keep you out of jail some day. At the very least, memorizing a few of the key legal terms and principles below will make you sound tremendously impressive at your next SEO/M event.There is no such thing as international copyright law.First, there is no such thing as international copyright law. Oh no. That would make it too easy. Instead, there is a whole conglomeration of international treaties, unions, and conventions. If it weren't for these international treaties and conventions, there would be no way for copyright holders to enforce their rights in other countries.Because of the rise of global commerce and the increasing importance of intellectual property, most nations of the world have entered into a series of treaties, unions and conventions. For the over-achievers, I am linking to a list of countries and the various copyright treaties/conventions they have entered into. For example, the U.S. has entered into the following treaties: the Berne Union, the Paris revision of the Berne treaty, NAFTA, the UCC, the Paris revision of the UCC, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, blah blah blah etc. etc. These treaties often have different levels of copyright protection and jurisdiction rules. This is part of the reason that the short answer to Mr. Critchlow's question is "it depends." I'm not just being coy.I'm going to give you some general principles and trends to try and make international copyright not seem so complicated. Then I'm going to ruin your new-found confidence by throwing several wrenches into the mix. Sounds like fun, right?Where will my international copyright case be heard? Very generally speaking, a copyright infringement case with international components (what I'm calling an "international copyright case") will be brought where the infringement took place. Lawyers refer to this principle as the “territoriality” of copyright law. Of course, this begs the question, “How do you determine where the infringement took place when dealing with infringements on the internet?”Courts around the world have grappled with this question, the same way philosophers have grappled with the mind/body problem. Is the infringement location determined by the location of the server? By the residence of the person authorizing the infringement? The residence of the copyright holder resides? Where the defendant resides? What about where the harm from the infringement occurred? After laboring over this issue, most courts in most of the world have given up trying to use a simple, one-factor test.  It’s just not that simple. Instead, judges are doing what judges love to do: considering all the factors and then going with their gut instincts. It’s similar to Justice Stewart’s famous definition of hard-core pornography: “I know it when I see it.” Despite the difficulty of determining the location of infringement on the internet, there are certain things courts all over the world agree on. First, the mere fact that you can view a website with infringing content in Country A does not give Country A jurisdiction. Now, if you can purchase infringing content, such as a book or a song from that website in Country A, then that may be different story. Second, the mere fact that a host server is located in Country B, without more, does not give Country B jurisdiction. If the connection is that minimal, it is not enough to establish jurisdiction.Because of the many factors to be considered, there may be more than one right answer in determining where your international copyright case should be heard. It is increasingly common in the global marketplace that two or more countries have jurisdiction to hear the dispute.For example, assume that the copyright holder lives in the U.K., the infringer lives in the U.K., butthe host server and the target market for the infringing website is in Russia. It is likely that the case could be brought in either Britain or Russia because both countries have substantial connections to the dispute.Don’t you just love multiple choice questions where the answer can be all of the above? What country’s law will the forum court apply?This surprises a lot of non-law people, but courts sometimes apply the laws of other countries. They don’t like doing it, but they do it in certain situations.Why would the court apply another country’s laws? Sometimes parties to a contract agree to a specific forum in advance. For example, Able Corporation enters into a licensing contract with Brutus Corporation that includes a choice of law and forum. Both parties agree in the contract that any disputes shall be settled using U.K. law and be filed in Britain. Able resides in the U.K. (hence the choice of forum) and Brutus resides in Brazil. When Brutus exceeds the scope of the license agreement, Able can bring suit in the U.K. and U.K. law will be applied. If there were no contract in place, then Able may have to bring the suit in Brazil and be subject to Brazilian copyright law. If there is no contract in place, and often there isn’t, then courts will usually apply the law of the forum country. More accurately, the court will apply the law of the country where the infringement took place. For reasons discussed above about jurisdiction, the country where the infringement took place is usually the forum country. However, that’s not always the case. Lawyers everywherecontinue to be in a tizzy about “extra-territorial” applications of copyright law. For example, in the case of London Film Productions Ltd. v. Intercontinental Communications, Inc., 580 F.Supp. 47 (1984), the plaintiff corporation was a resident of Britain. The defendant was a resident of the United States. The infringements took place in Chile and other Latin American countries. Which court do you suppose heard the case? The United States federal court. The court determined that it had sufficient contacts with the facts giving rise to the dispute to justify hearing the case, even though the infringements took place in other countries. Thus, the U.S. federal court judge was put in the position of having to apply several other Latin American countries’ laws. While courts don’t generally enjoy doing this, the alternative, reasoned the U.S. federal court, was to require the plaintiff to bring the case in several different Latin American countries. This would be a colossal waste of resources. Thus, after considering all the factors, the U.S. federal court determined it had jurisdiction to hear the case and that it would apply the laws of foreign countries where appropriate to determine whether infringements in fact took place. London Film Productionsis an example of a court having jurisdiction, but applying another country’s law. Location of the infringement is the one of the strongest factors in determining which country's law to apply. The cautionary tale of Hew Griffithsis another example of an international copyright case that was not decided in the same country where the infringement took place. But this case goes even further than London Film Productions by not even applying the law of the country where the infringement took place. An Australian citizen who never set foot in the U.S., Griffiths was extradited from Australia to the U.S. for making available to Australians pirated software that was copyrighted in the United States. Based on the trends and rules discussed above, Australian courts would have had jurisdiction and applied Australian law in this situation. That was certainly an option. Instead, however, Griffiths was extradited to the U.S. and plead guilty to violating U.S. copyright laws.What’s the point? The point is that although people will tell you that a case should be heard where the infringement took place and that country’s laws should be applied, that is not always the case as demonstrated by London Film Productionsand the tale of Hew Griffiths. But I heard that something called “the National Treatment Doctrine” determined the choice of law!If you do your own research on copyright infringement and conflict of laws, you may read that something called the “national treatment policy” determines which law is going to be applied. This is a common oversimplification. Don’t fall for it. The Berne Treaty, probably the preeminent international copyright treaty, requires that foreign copyright holders be treated the same as native copyright holders in that country’s court system. In other words, people from the U.S. can bring infringement cases in Germany and must be provided the same rights as a German citizen. This sounds as if the national treatment doctrine requires that German copyright law be applied to foreign citizens who bring cases in Germany. However, for reasons discussed above, the forum country sometimes applies a foreign nation’s laws. Depending on the facts of the case, “national treatment” could mean providing the same rights as a German citizen under German law, or the same rights as a German citizen under U.S. law.The moral of the story is that location of the court and the “national treatment doctrine” don’t always determine the choice of law.What if suit is brought in two different countries arising out of the same set of facts and courts in different countries claim jurisdiction over the case? If, after reading all of the above, you are thoroughly confused, you are not alone. Attorneys and judges regularly confuse these issues. Jurisdiction and choice of law issues require consideration of many different factors and reasonable minds often look at the same factors and come to different conclusion. In the end, it is entirely possible that two different courts, located in different countries, both have good reasons for hearing a case. This is when it is important to hire very top notch legal representatives to out-lawyer your adversary. For example, assume that you’re a U.S. resident and you have written something brilliant and wonderful and that you own the copyright. Let’s also assume that Brutus Corporation, domiciled also in the U.S., has made a parody of your work....in French. Brutus is using a server located in France to reach millions of French viewers with the parody. Your lawyers will tell you to go bring your claim in France because there is a good argument that is “where the infringement took place” AND French law is more favorable to your case than U.S. law. This is because the French have stronger “moral rights” to protect copyright and they have a much narrower definition of “fair use,” a likely defense to your claim.After you file your claim in France, Brutus Corporation is going to hire crackerjack attorneys to convince the French court that the U.S. is really the best place to hear the case because that is where both of the parties reside. Brutus Corporation has a great incentive to argue against France having jurisdiction; if they get the case before a U.S. federal court, they may be able to convince that judge to apply U.S. law. The United States Copyright Act has a very liberal definition of “fair use” that includes the right to parody copyrighted material. Thus, the defendant has a greater chance of winning if it can get the case moved. The plaintiff wants to keep it in France and the defendant would rather it be heard in the United States. A factual situation like this could really go either way because both courts have significant contacts with the parties to the suit and therefore could exercise jurisdiction.Now you are just as confused as all the lawyers and judges around the world.Alright mozzers. It is my hope that after you read this you will appreciate why lawyers and b(law)gers appear to be obfuscating whenever they respond "it depends" to your international copyright issues. There is not one right answer to questions of jurisdiction and conflicts of law. The law continues to sputter along after developments in technology.  From now on, you are more informed than most people about international copyright issues. And you are probably still confused. But hopefully you know why you are confused and that it's not your fault. All the lawyers and judges around the world are still struggling with these issues.As this area of law continues to develop, I will keep you updated.On a final note, be sure to consult a qualified legal attorney if you're struggling with a copyright issue. My post is not a replacement for specifically-tailored legal advice. Thanks for your attention to this post. Best Regards,Sarahp.s.Don't forget! Not only do I invite questions and comments about this particular post, but any legal questions at all for the (hopefully) weekly series of blog posts on legal issues in the search world.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by shorPhoto courtesy: Hughes500Top 5 questions to ask a PPC candidate in a phone interviewHiring is tiring. Take your typical interview process - a phone screen or two, multiple technical interviews, and culture fit interviews. You don't want to waste your time, your fellow interviewer's time, or the candidate's time. It is critical to make interview questions count if you want to save yourself significant heartache, especially during the initial phone interview. Unfortunately, if you surf around, you'll find the same classic phone screening questions:"Why are you leaving your current job?""Where do you see yourself in 5 years?""What was it like working with your current boss, what where his/her strengths and weaknesses?"Yes, these behavioral questions are the best predictors of future performance, but where are the relevant questions we can ask search marketing candidates? From experience, I've found the most valuable search-related questions to ask are those that kill two birds with one stone. Let me clarify.It is important to not only extract nuggets of a candidate's past behavior, but to simultaneously test for qualifications and competency. This is important when you only have 30-60 minutes to phone each candidate and dozens of candidates to screen.My favorite 5 questions to ask a PPC analyst:1. What is Google's Quality Score and what role does it play in ranking?This used to be a technical question I'd use in the first face-to-face interview but I was stunned to find that some candidates either a) Did not know what QS was or b) Thought I was talking about PageRank! While I do not expect Google's textbook answer, I am hoping the candidate understands the basic concept behind QS (clickthrough rate + other factors) and that QS is part of the Ad Rank formula where:Ad Rank = CPC bid X Quality Score. I now use this question to open the technical section of a phone interview. A primary function in their role as PPC analyst will be to educate non-search people. Their ability to explain Quality Score and Ad Rank to me in plain English is something I pay very close attention to.2. Our company brand is called "red widgets." However, we also rank first organicallyfor our brand "red widgets." What PPC strategy would you propose for the keyword "red widgets" and why?This question looks at the candidate's logic as well as their experience with branded keywords. Some good answers I have heard include: "Depends on the aggregate ROAS for both the organic and paid campaign. If we have a better return overall when Adwords is running, then go for it.""I would probably run a paid campaign because it is a brand keyword. Some studies I have read showed that running a paid campaign for brands acts a double reinforcement of the brand."There is no 'correct' answer that fits all industries or situations, but if you're interested, read Jon Mendez' case study on buying branded keywords.3. Our company has 5 million keywords. How will you manage an account this size?An open-ended competency question. Automation of mundane tasks and increasing productivity is a major focus at my company. All of our search marketers are dedicated to sourcing and trialling new tools and finding ways to be more time-efficient.Usually the interview candidate will refer to bid management tools, but what I'm looking for here is their PPC toolset experience (keyword tools, web analytics tools, inventory management tools, etc.) as well as their opinion.  We like opinionated, articulate people. Tell me why 5 million keywords are stupid. Or how you'd manage them on a tiered basis of top performers, has-potential, and dead wood. Another example: A candidate brought up the differences in in-house Google APIs and using Adwords Editor, which suggested to me she had experience in managing accounts with significant keyword inventory.4. I am advertising for "red widgets" but I'm concerned about the increase in costs. What should I do?Believe it or not, some candidates tend not to ask further questions and launch straight into a very long, complex solution. What would you do if your boss gave you too little information? Was it an increase in CPC or CPA? Have competitors begun a bidding war? Did you turn on broad/phrase/exact matching. Do you have negative keywords? If the question seems a bit vague or brief, ask the interviewer more questions to clarify!My favorite response was the cheeky candidate that said: "If all else fails, reduce the budget by $400K and hire 3 developers and a dedicated SEO guy."5. Let's pretend that I'm from a competitor who is buying the same trademarked keyword that your department owns. Despite a polite email, I have refused to stop bidding on your trademarked term. What steps do you take?In our organization, trademark infringement is an issue that rears its ugly head every now and then.This question tests not only candidate knowledge on Google's trademark infringement policy and best practices for bidding on a competitor's keywords, but also their conflict resolution skills. I usually choose to be an obstinate and prickly competitor that refuses to back down.This final roleplay question can often get heated or weird, but is the ulterior goal is to simply test their conflict resolution skills.Creating Your Own QuestionsThere are five technical questions that I like to ask during phone screening. Your own interview questions should be customized to your department or company's own objectives, but the intent is the same - use technical questions to put candidates at ease, allowing them to give away behavioral answers more freely. Save time by crafting two-for-one questions.I also make no apologies for the Google bias - in Australia, Google completely dominates the search market. Yahoo Search Marketing is a very small percentage of our spend and MSN hasn't rolled out adCenter locally.D'oh. I just realized that I'll have to come up with some new questions for any potential Aussie search marketers! Maybe instead of phone screening, I'll force them to use VOIP + avatar screening. I could see Rand interviewing prospective candidates in his virtual Pumas. The candidate would also have to negotiate their way across the virtual world to the pseudo-Mozplex, which is surely a good test of online savviness?As a relative newcomer to recruitment, I'd love to hear the interview questions you agency folk and in-house recruiters ask of PPC candidates.Next: SEOmoz goes organic in part two of this Hiring Search Marketers series!Technorati Tagsrecruitment, search marketing, PPC, hiring, interview questionsDo you like this post? 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  Posted by SiFishkinINTRO From Rand:Although my grandfather, Si Fishkin, has attended many industry events, provided coverage and helped with premium Q+A as well as some of our consulting work, this is his first post on the SEOmoz blog. Si was in town for the Thanksgiving holiday and generously contributed some time to the blog. Please welcome him!Last week, Rand posted a video and some diagramsthat I believe may be misinterpreted or misleading. To help make PageRank more clear, I've enlisted his help to construct some diagrams that should help to explain the issue succinctly.First, a simple and general explanation of PageRank:For those who are curious, the original PageRank formula is documented here, and I also like Ian Rogers' PageRank explained, here. Below, I've shown how pages acquire PageRank:Next, a look at the ability of pages to pass PageRank:In order to understand PageRank deeply, a few examples follow, moving from simple to slightly more complex:In the original PageRank formula, link weight is divided equally among the number of links on a page. This may not hold true today, but is still valuable to understanding the original intent. Next, a more complex example that shows PageRank flow back and forth between pages that link to one another:Finally, an example showing how PageRank can be "leaked." This diagram more accurately illustrates the concept Rand attempted to describe. The leak is not occuring due to a "leaky bucket" scenario, but rather, because PageRank that could be flowing to pages on the site is now lost to Wikipedia:The PageRank "leak" concept presented a fundamental flaw in the algorithm once it became public. Like Pandora's box, once those creating pages to rank at Google investigated PageRank's founding principles, they would realize that linking out from their own sites would cause more harm than good. If a great number of websites adopted this philosophy, it could negatively impact the "links as votes" concept and actually damage Google's potential.Rand and I both tend to believe that it is likely Google has changed and refined the PageRank algorithm many times. However, familiarity and comfort with the original algorithm is certainly a responsibility for those who practice optimization of Google results. As a caveat, I've included this graphic that Rand created several months ago for the blog to help show that while PageRank may present one way links as passing value, other concepts certainly exist.Several resources that proved valuable during my investigations into PageRank include:Google Page Rank Whitepaper from Ian Rogers Braintiques' Chapterson Google & PageRank The original Google paper - Anatomy of a Large-Scale HyperTextual Web Search EngineAn impressively detailed PageRank Calculatorfrom WebWorkshop I am currently working with Rand on another blog post about using nofollow to control the flow of PageRank. I hope to have that entry up soon.UPDATE:I've noted that many in the comments seem to be confused about the relationship between the information in this blog post and the PageRank Google shows in their toolbar. I have NOT studied the toolbar PageRank - this information relates only to the PageRank formula. The rounding and inconsistency of updates to toolbar PageRank makes it very difficult (perhaps impossible) to connect with the formula.Technorati Tagspagerank, pr, google, seo, page rankDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by CrashHaving battled the SEO war on all fronts (for myself, for clients, for a firm, and most recently, in-house), I’ve learned a lot over the years when it comes to link campaigning. Although I am completely FOR generating content that will get linked to naturally, often time this is easier said than done. If you’re not a link baiting aficionado or if you’re limited by what you’re authorized to do, then you’ll need to get links the old fashioned way and simply ask for them.Do I want this link? How can I get this link? What anchor text should I target for this link? Is this link actually attainable? Does this link have value? These are all questions I ask myself when looking for suitable link candidates. Answering these questions helps me decide which approach I’ll take (if any) and how far I’ll go to get the link.Everyone’s best advice is to start by doing an in-depth analysis of your competitors' backlinks. This is exactly where I start my digging, but it’s important to keep track of everything within an excel or word doc; otherwise, what’s the point? Not only will this keep you organized, but you’ll be creating a link map of your entire industry as you go along. Soon enough, you’ll have collected a large list of related websites. These will be your link prospects.Note:I also use - http://*.domain.com - to get a broad view of where my competitors are being mentioned (utilize absolutely every tool you can).As you visit the sites your competition is linked from, keep a sharp eye out for “add url” or “recommend a site” links. Sometimes it’s as easy as filling out a form and clicking send. Other times, you’ll have to do some creative digging. For example, there was a educational research page I wanted to get my site listed on but there wasn’t any contact info or an “add url” sort of link…that I could readily see, that is. As it turned out, the “add url” link was buried within the list of research links on the page. I was only able to locate it after utilizing “find:addurl.” This approach also works on some online contact forms. Rather than using the form to send your link request, you can search for an email address by “viewing source” and then using the “find:@” command.Organization is KeyOnce you’ve got a healthy list going, stay organized by grouping your list of link prospects into different sections.These can include:Authority links (.edu, .gov, etc)Directory linksBlog linksNewsgroup linksSocial Media linksForum linksetcDepending on the industry, your list can even be further categorized. For example, if you’re an “energy” related site (like me!) you can have headings such as:Oil and gas sitesPetroleum sitesAlternative energy sitesSolar energy sitesEnergy stock sitesetcOrganizing your list this way helps determine which anchor text you’ll be targeting. Presumably, you’ll be using your “oil/gas” keywords for the oil and gas sites, your petrol keywords for the petroleum sites, your energy keywords for the energy sites, etc. This also helps you determine which page you’d like them to link to. Perhaps you have an inner page that is more suited to their specific content than your homepage. Having backlinks that point to your inner pages are just as important and often are harder to get. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to do so.Once you’re organized, you’re ready to roll.But wait! The biggest mistake you could make at this stage is to contact every single site on your list all at once. It’s important to first come up with an approach and try it out a couple of times before you decide it’s a keeper. If you email 5 sites and get less than a glowing response, you’ll know that your approach could be better. In that case, you can brainstorm something else and email another 5 prospects. Doing it this way, you’ll eventually generate an approach that works and you won’t have wasted your entire list of link prospects on one bad pitch. Keep in mind that what works for some, won't work for all. An approach that works for ecommerce sites won’t necessarily work for blogs, and an approach that works for .edu sites won’t necessarily work for obtaining .gov links, etc.Being “Sneaky” is Sometimes RequiredOnce I’m ready to begin actively campaigning, one of the most common problems I run into is lack of contact information. This can make opening up the lines of communication extremely difficult. For this reason, sneaky tactics are sometimes (often?) necessary, both in finding the info you need AND getting that link.For example, there is a prominent blog that I was salivating for a link from. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate a single shred of contact info…anywhere. Since the blog owner’s name is published after each post, I Googled it and found him on LinkedIn. From there I invited him to join my network, telling him I was a big fan. (A fan of getting a link, that is! Shhhh!) It took roughly 2 weeks, but he finally obliged. After a few emails back and forth, he included my site within a related blog post. Mission accomplished! Even better is that I now have the ear (and personal email) of someone who is an icon within my industry. He’s actually emailed me a few times requesting verification about data he was about to post!Another time, I was tracking a blog and patiently waiting for my chance when the blog owner posted about basically “disliking” my entire industry (news/media). She felt very strongly that the news wasn’t worth watching anymore because it all had a negative spin. Where most would see a lost cause, I immediately saw opportunity. My approach included contacting her regarding her thoughts and, for the most part, agreeing with her opinions. I then asked if she might have a look at our site and offer a review of how we could improve our coverage. I didn’t ask her to post the review to her blog, but she did anyway (everyone needs fresh content). Once again, mission accomplished.My point is, if you’re comfortable with being somewhat sneaky and sometimes having to “stretch” the truth, do it. As long as no one’s getting hurt in the process.  Keep track of your progress.Once you start getting responses, try color coding your results (such as green for “link obtained," red for “no such luck,” purple for “email was returned,” blue for “no response,” etc) as you record them. Keeping impeccable track of your linking progress not only helps you determine your rate of success and helps with tactics, it also serves as something tangible for you to show your boss!Be sure and record the date you contacted the link prospect, how you contacted them (email, online contact form, comments post, etc), what approach you used, and any other relevant info you can think of. After a few days your list will presumably look something like below (this is only a wee portion of my latest campaign): Oil and Gas:oilweek.com/ - emailed Oct 18 – pitched the oil rally video. NO RESPONSE.oillinks.ie/html/links.html -- emailed Oct 25. LINK OBTAINED.survivingpeakoil.com/links.php  - emailed Oct 25. EMAIL RETURNED.Oilfield Companies:kalpub.com/industrylinks.html - requested via OCF Oct 17. NO RESPONSE.claymorefieldservices.com/ - emailed Oct 27. LINK OBTAINED.mostardirectional.com/industrylinks.html - emailed Oct 27. LINK OBTAINED.Organizations:davidsuzuki.org/Links/ - emailed Oct 16. LINK DENIED.climategroundzero.org/ - emailed Nov 13 through OCF using a version of Rand's link request email template. LINK OBTAINED.(Thanks Rand!)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_topics – Oct 16.LINK ADDED and sticking. (Note: nofollow means don’t follow, not don’t count!)News/Media:fortmcmurraytoday.com/ - requested via OCF Oct 18. Plugged “oil rally” video. NO RESPONSE.topix.com – Applied to become editor oil/gas & energy cat. Oct 25. LINKS OBTAINED.mediamag.ca/index.php?option=com_magazine&Itemid=419 – emailed Oct.13.LINK OBTAINED.Canadian:choa.ab.ca/links.html - emailed Oct 19. LINK DENIED.vivelecanada.ca  –  emailed Oct 19. Plugged our “Alberta oil rally” video. LINK OBTAINED.petro-canada.ca – emailed re: Petro-Can President interview video Oct 30. NO RESPONSE.aeri.ab.ca/sec/links/links_001_1.cfm - emailed Oct 30. Pitched video interview with Stelmach - LINK OBTAINED.landsolutions.ca/links.html - emailed Oct 27. LINK OBTAINED. My actual list of link prospects runs 8 pages long and my success rate, although not stellar, is definitely improving. I also add to the list whenever I come across a page or site that’s related to mine. And being an editor of related categories at various directories helps me stay informed of up-and-coming sites within my industry. My list therefore keeps growing….and growing…and growing. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to publish my very own directory!There are plenty of different ways to embark on a link campaign, and I’m sure everyone has their own different style. I realize, to some of you, this may seem a little like "Link Campaigning 101," but I sincerely hope a few of you find the opinions and strategies expressed within this post to be of someuse. Best of luck in your linking endeavors!P.S. If I don’t get booed off the proverbial stage, I plan to post more about specific link request strategies that have worked for me. Maybe they’ll work for you too.  Life is a search engine. We are the content.Do you like this post? YesNo