Stop HR 3261 (SOPA) and S 968 (PIPA) Internet Blacklist Bills

Congress needs to hear from you, or these dangerous bills will pass – they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from large corporations reportedly hoping to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet — recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora’s jar of “chilling effects” and other unintended (or perhaps intended?) consequences.

Please let your Members of Congress know you OPPOSE H.R. 3621 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and S. 968 “Protect IP Act” (PIPA):

• Phone, yes phone your Member of Congress! (House) (Senate)
• EFF Congressional Emailer – Oppose Internet Blacklisting (SOPA & PIPA)
• OpenCongress Congressional Emailer – Oppose SOPA
• Generic Congressional Emailer (You’ll need your Zip+4)

Learn more about SOPA, Protect IP (PIPA), and Internet Blacklisting:

• Growing Chorus of Opposition to SOPA
• Open Letter against SOPA from 83 Prominent Internet Engineers
• Why SOPA and Protect IP (PIPA) are Bad, Bad Ideas (Techdirt)
• SOPA News (Google News)
• SOPA Wikipedia entry
• SOPA FAQ (CNET)

Internet Giants Consider Blackout Against SOPA!

Where does your Member of Congress stand on SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)

Opponents of SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)

Supporters of SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corporation, VISA, Mastercard, Pfizer, Comcast, Time Warner, ABC, Nike, Walmart, Dow Chemical, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)

Online Reputation Management is becoming one of the most popular SEO related services online today. With hundreds of Reviews sites, thousands of complaint sites, millions of blogs & forums, there are countless ways a consumer to vent their anger about a business or service online. All of these facts make it inevitable that a business will at some point have online complaints or bad reviews that rank high on Google. From local pet stores to online dating services, no business is immune to bad online reviews.

Since online review sites are not held liable for content a user posts to their site (per the Communications Decency Act Sec. 230), it is nearly impossible to force websites to remove bad content that a user posts. The best option for anyone facing bad reviews online that rank high is to bury the offending web links deeper within search engine results. To do this one must launch a reverse search engine optimization campaign (Online Reputation Management).

By creating new content (web pages) and promoting existing content about the company or individual, and using SEO tactics like link building, you will be able to manipulate Google and other search engine results, making the Good links go above the Bad links.

Link Building is one of the most important ingredients to a successful Reputation Management and SEO campaign.  Link building is the process in which you go and obtain back links to your web pages and websites. Back links are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of back links is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page.

It is important to use proper anchor text when building links. Anchor Text is the word or phrase linked to your URL, or web page. This text defines the page that it links to, both for human eyes and for search engines. Ideally you will use the phrase you most want that web page to rank well for in the major search engines, and also a phrase that compels real people to click through and read the page.

As an example, this is Anchor Text: Blog Posting Service. That phrase tells Google that the page is all about Blog Posting Services. Using this phrase as the Anchor Text makes this page more likely to rank for that phrase.

There are many ways to obtain back links for the purpose of link building. One of the most popular ways is to use a link building service. A link building service will help you obtain quality back links that will help you boost your websites popularity and strength. For more information on link building check out some link building tips blogs online.

Did you know that dozens of Reputation Management Firms utilize blog posting services like BlogPostingNetwork.com to help their clients bury negative information found on Google and other search engines like Yahoo, and Bing?

It is a fact that some blogs will rank high for your name and business name by placing your name or company name in the title and within the body of the blog post. Not only will blogs rank high for your name they will also push up sites that you link to from within the blog. If you are trying to push up a page about your name or business then you would want to link from YOUR NAME to a site about you that you would want to push above other links (This is called anchor text). Anchor text is basically the word you link from.

Reputation Management is a very expensive service and sometimes a blog posting service is all you need to help yourself. Then again a blog posting campaign may not be strong enough to bury certain links. If you have hired a reputation management company you could mention BlogPostingNetwork.com to them as they may be able to compliment the work the Reputation management firms are doing for you.

Online reputation management is commonly used to: Remove RipOff Reports – Remove Compaintsboard, Remove Online Complaints, Remove Reviews, and Remove Bad Press.

Reputation management is usually used to bury negative links about a business or individual. If you have negative links ranking high on search results, a blog posting campaign will help you fight the negative links by creating hundreds of “Good” pages of content about you.

Blog posts are the #1 way to generate high quality low cost content that will almost always rank well on Google or help other links make there way above other links.

Vox.com was a very popular free blogging platform and blogging community made up of thousands of bloggers and blogs. Vox recently announced that they will be closing down forever. The reason for closing was not mentioned in the email alert they sent out to all of their members, but I suspect it is because all of the SPAM complaints and Spammers that abuse their free blog platform.  

Here is a list of official Google Blogs:

The Official Google Blog – Insights from Googlers into our products, technology and the Google culture.

AdWords Agency Blog – The latest from Adwords from you and your client.

AdWords Retail Tips – Adwords tips for the retailers

AdSense Blog – A look inside Google AdSense. With newbie, optimization, AdSense features, and more.

Adwords API Blog – The official source of information about the AdWords API from Google.

Adwords Blog – Google’s official blog for news, information, and tips on AdWords.

AJAX Search API Blog – At this Blog Google gives info about how to use the AJAX Search API.

Google Affiliate Network Blog – News, views and product information for Google affiliate network advertisers and publishers.

Analytics Blog – Here you can get the latest news, tips, and resources from the Google Analytics team.

Android Blog – Blog for developers working with Android, An Open Handset Alliance Project.

Base Blog – Get news, tips, and resources straight from the Google Base team.

Blogger Blog – The Official buzz from blogger.

Checkout Blog – The official Checkout Blog with news for sellers using Google Checkout.

Code Featured Projects – Blog about featured projects on Google Code.

Code Updates Blog – Read all about the latest Google Code updates at the Code Blog.

CPG Blog – News and notes from Google’s Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG).

Custom Search Blog – The latest news, updates and tips from the Custom Search Engine team.

Data APIs – Official Google Data APIs blog.

Desktop APIs – Your official source on the Google Desktop APIs.

Docs Blog – News and notes from the Google Docs team at the official Docs Blog.

Enterprise Blog – A blog about enterprise information, search, and the users that live there.

Feedburner Blog – The Official Feedburner blog of burning questions.

Finance Blog – News and views from the Google Finance team.

Gadgets API Blog – Intended for people who use the Google Gadgets API to write gadgets.

Gears API Blog – Keep up to date on Google Gear’s progress with Gears API Blog.

Gmail Blog – News, tips and tricks from Google’s Gmail team and friends.

Grants Blog – We started this Blog as a place to read about the latest Google Grants news and information

Let’s Take it Offline – The latest news form Google’s TV, Print and Audio Ads team

Lat Long Blog – News and notes by the Google Earth and Maps team

Are we missing any? If you know of more official Google Blogs leave a comment!

Yahoo! Inc might be pulling the plug on the “blogger” social networking service MyBlogLog.

ReadWriteWeb reports MyBlogLog will be closed down by Yahoo! in January 2010 (Next Month)
MyBlogLog is a social-network service for the bloggers that enables them to connect with other blog writers and readers visiting their sites. The website lists the profiles information of the writers as well as the blogs for the same.

MyBlogLog was a wildly innovative service that grew fast after launching in 2005. It was originally developed by Cloudspace, a Florida-based web applications development organization and was acquired in January 2007 by Yahoo! for around $10 million. There were over 45,000 blogs subscribed at the time.

Chris Yeh, Head of Yahoo! Developer Network (YDN) says, “Frankly, it’s no secret within Yahoo! that we’re actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it’s also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point. Is a shutdown on the table? Sure, that’s an option. But there are other options as well. We know this creates some uncertainty for current MyBlogLog users. While we aren’t quite ready to share more details, we promise to keep you posted.”

Yahoo! has shut it’s a variety of products in the past year, with the objective to cut-costs and be more focused on its “core” services. If MyBlogLog shuts down, I see a lot of MyBlogLog users being very upset. There are a lot of paid users and avid users of MyBlogLog.

Our blog (SEOFRIENDLY.COM) is on MyBlogLog and we get a fair amount of traffic from our listing with them. In my opinion, Yahoo! Inc. should stick with this project or at least transfer ownership to another company that could keep the site alive.

Why Do You Like Twitter?

This post is basically a question to all twitter users. Why do you like Twitter? Why do you use Twitter?

A lot of people do not like twitter and refuse to use the site. It seems that some people think that Twitter and Micro-Blogging is a squander of time and serves no business purpose.

So if you have a moment and want to share your thoughts please post a comment and let everyone know:

• A. Why do you like Twitter?
• B. Why do you use Twitter?

Twitter Video Below:

 Follow Us On Twitter

I ran across a great blog post (List) on TopRankBlog.com this morning when looking for some SEO blogs to read, and found something worth blogging about myself. If you are in the internet marketing, SEO, or web development industry you will love the BIGLIST of Search Engine Marketing Blogs. The list has over 400 blogs listed and this list includes some of the best blogs online. A few that I recognized included ShoeMoney.com, MarketingPilgrim.com, SEOMOZ, and many others.

This is by far the best list of useful blogs that I have ever found online. It is worth a look and a bookmark.

The list is maintained by TopRankBlog, a blog that has been online since 2003 and covers all aspects of SEO, Internet Marketing, Social Media, and more.

Tips On Making Money With Twitter

There are a lot of people online that sign-up for twitter in order to utilize twitter’s money making and marketing capability. I have personally made money because of my twitter account and not so much directly from my account. Some people post spammy affiliate links over and over and simply end up losing followers. Without a strong following of readers you are simply what I call a Sp-itter which is someone who just ads stuff to twitter and no one reads what you are posting, so what you are saying is worthless. If you have followers (a lot of them) then you will make money from and because of twitter.

How to Get More Twitter Followers:

Follow more people in your niche
Post at least 10 useful posts for every promotional tweet
Add Twitter to your blogs, forum accounts, and websites to get more followers
Use twitter Chains like FastFollowers.com to get followers faster (not the best way but works)
Promote your twitter account like you would your own website

How to make money with Twitter:

Join Ad.ly (www.ad.ly) If you have a lot of followers you get paid to tweet stuff (ads).
Post your blog updates to draw in more blog readers thus more money
Post affiliate links to programs you like and are successful with
Sell Sponsored Tweets (Charge A Fee To Post Announcements/Ads)
Create A Twitter Related Website or Service (Directory, ReTweet, Ad.ly)

There are a lot of ways to make money with Twitter. I do not think you will get super rich from using twitter but it can help you increase your revenue. It may be a building process but making “money” with Twitter is easy if you have the time and resources.