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will pass – they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from large corporations reportedly hoping to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet — recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a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.

Well it looks like Google is doing some Google ToolBar PageRank Updates. A lot of my domains have see some positive changes today, however this one (seofriendly) dropped from PR3 to PR1… No big deal. Google toolbar PR does NOT necessarily correlate with how high you rank or how much traffic you get.

It seems like it has been months if not a year since Google did  huge pagerank update. Many of my sites get pagerank updates each month it seems, so I am always interested in seeing a major update like I am seeing today.

Anyone else seeing any major changes?

Hiring an SEO Company can be a daunting task, especially since there are hundreds if not thousands of companies online that offer SEO services. How do you know which SEO company will actually deliver results? Which one is overcharging? Which ones are scams? It can be hard to answer these questions on your own, so we will be featuring a trusted SEO each month that we believe to be worth looking in to.

SEO Company Of The Month: DotShot – DotShot.com

DotShot.com is a smaller yet very affordable SEO Service that offers SEO Packages starting at $99 per month and also has packages that cost $299-$499 per month. For larger clients with more competitive keywords they have custom pricing.

The DotShot SEO Service was founded in 2003 by a small group of search engine marketing professionals with over 10 years of experience in online marketing and search engine optimization.

The name DotShot is a spin off of “Hot Shot” and the name DotShot is referring to making your company an internet hot shot or maybe the SEO Firm is saying they are SEO Hot Shots? Either way DotShot shared some of there client success stories with us and they have delivered some impressive results for their clients.

They have delivered top 10 results for hundreds of keywords and hundreds of clients. The DotShot team manages dozens of high profile clients and hundreds of small businesses Monthly SEO Campaigns.

Their SEO Packages are very attractive and affordable. Their “Grow” package is the most poplar and purportedly most effective. At $299 per month with a recommended 12 month term the “Grow” package is designed to deliver top ranking for 1-3 keywords and help brand your business on social networks. Each package includes link building campaigns that will generate quality backlinks for your site at a pace that is acceptable by Google.

Other packages include the popular $99 per month SEO package that packs a punch for smaller companies and local search results.

To learn more about the DotShot SEO Company and the SEO Service they offer visit them online:

www.DotShot.com
Phone: 1-800-989-1172

For those of you who like to see what Google thnks about your website popularity, the Google PageRank update has started! Today at about 7 AM EST I noticed many of our domains were getting an increase in Pagerank. So far it looks like the update will put a smile on a few peoples faces.

We recently posted a Google PageRank predictive schedule and we suspected an update before April 10th. It is not the end of the world if your site does not increase in PR or decreases in PR, these updates (Good or Bad) will most likely not change your web traffic stats.

Happy PageRank Day!

We have a lot of webmasters ask the big PR questions very frequently: When is the next Google PageRank Update?

The truth is no one knows exactly when the next PageRank update by Google will actually take place. Based off of their past updates I created the unofficial Google PageRank Update Schedule. The “schedual” is my estimate on when the next PageRank update will take place.

PageRank Update Schedual:

Google PageRank Update  -   December 31, 2009 – January 10, 2010
First PageRank Update      -    March 31, – April 10, 2010
Second PageRank Update  -  June 31, 2010 – July 10, 2010
Third PageRank Update    -    December 31, 2010 – January 10, 2011

What is pagerank? PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web (Per Google). Google calculates that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes (Links) that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote (Linking To You) determines how important the vote (Link) itself is. Google calculates a page’s importance from hw many pages and what pages link to it.

PageRank is a scale of 0-10

Post a comment and let us know when you think the next updat will be or tell us when your site was last updated!

There is always a lot of Hoopla and Hype about Google Pagerank (PR).  Is Google PageRank worth all the web chatter? I see everyone talking about how important PageRank is, even I am caught up in the PageRank addiction.

I read a comment the other day on a forum and someone posted this comment about PageRank:

“The PageRank you see in the toolbar is a sketchy and stale metric of what a pages PageRank used to be. A simple analogy is getting into your car to go for a drive, knowing that the fuel gauge only shows the amount of fuel that was in your tank 3 months ago. But would you really trust that there is gas in it today?”

In my opinion the green PageRank bar is like your website’s report card.  It won’t help much on its own, but it represents other things about your site.  If a site has a PR7 and is ranking well, it’s not ranking there because of the PageRank itself, but because of what that PageRank represents – Dedicated SEO Work, lots of inbound links, several coming from other quality sites.

So it is not the PageRank that is important, it is what you did to get the PageRank that hold the true value.

I’ll certainly admit that PageRank isn’t as valuable as it once was.  However, it is still reputed to be a small portion of the Google algorithm (along with 100+ other factors), making it not entirely insignificant.  It might not help much, but if it helps at all then it can’t be considered “insignificant”.

What Is Your take on PageRank? Tell us by leaving a comment!

Here is a list of 25 high page rank web sites where you can post your content, create profiles, and link-up your site’s URL without any reciprocal link from your site. Once you create these high page rank backlinks, profiles, and accounts, they will be a source of web traffic for you. These sites are also great for reputation management campaigns. The sites will normally create a good ranking profile for your company name that in most cases willl appear witin Google’s search results pretty fast.

1. eHOW.com Write how to articles or videos. Post your link in your profile. Also a good source of information if you want to know how to do something.

2. WikiHow.com Same as eHow but you can edit existing wiki pages or create your own. Cleverly put your link in “Sources and Citations” section

3. 43Things.com You have to sign up for participation. Post your own goals or reply to posted “to do” list. Occasionally, insert your own link as a resource.

4. Squidoo.com This is one of my favorite. Build your lenses and you can add links to your site, embed your YouTube videos and flickr photos.

5. AssociatedContent.com You can add your link in your profile. Not a favorite of mine.

6. HubPages.com Another site like Squidoo and AssociatedContent. You can put links to your sites in the content you create here.

7. Digg.com The most popular news ranking site. If you have good blog posts you can post them here. If your article goes to the home page, you will attract thousands of high page rank backlinks and tens of thousands of visitors for a short period. Be prepared for handle the load otherwise you will bring down your server.

8. Reddit.com Another news popularity site. Same as Digg. Post your blog articles here but don’t submit your entire site.

9. Answers.yahoo.com Ask questions and post answers to others questions. You can post links to your site in your answers.

10. Xanga.com A community blog. Crete keyword rich contents and links to your sites in the posts.

11. Kiva.org A microfinance site. You lend to and borrow from individual entrepreneurs. Create a profile page and link to your site from your profile page.

12. Geocities.com One of the oldest site. Create a few mini websites and links to your web sites from the geocities pages.

13. Twitter.com Create an account using a keyword and post your link in your profile.

14. Propeller.com Another news popularity site. Put you site’s link in your profile page.

15. Tradebit.com A site where you can buy and sell digital contents. If you ebooks, your own recorded music, etc., put your keywords in listing pointing to your site’s URL.

16. Angelfire.com Another old site like Geocities. Create your mini sites and put links to your site on the mini site pages.

17. Weebly.com A web 2.0 site where you can create your own mini sites like Geocites. Use the same technique you use for Geocites and Angelfire for back links to your sites.

18. Blogowogo.com A blog aggregation site. If you are running a blog, add your RSS feed to their site and any time you post new articles in your blog, your page at Blogowogo will be updated.

19. Tumblr.com Post and share your photos, articles, links, music, and videos. Use you site’s link in the profile page.

20. StumbleUpon.com Discover great web pages and share with your friends. You can submit your site and individual pages to StumbleUpon.

21. eZineArticles.com The most popular article directory. Submit your articles with author’s box under each article. You can use up to two links to your site in each article.

22. Flickr.com The most popular photo sharing site. You can drop your site’s link on the profile page.

23. MyBlogLog.com Share your online activity on a single page. Link to your sites from the profile page.

24. FastCompany.com If you are passionate about business idea, you should sign up with this very respected site. You can use anchor text in your profile page to link to your web site.

25. YouTube.com The most popular video sharing site. If you don’t have an account with YouTube, you should sign up immediately. Upload interesting and funny videos. Create your profile and link to your site

Search Ranking & PageRank

Many SEO (search engine optimization) people become obsessed with Google pagerank. It was once considered to be an extremely imperative key in obtaining high Google rankings. I see Google’s PageRank as an indicator of Google’s opinion of a web pages authority within the web. I suggest focusing on overall SEO strategy and PageRank will in nearly all cases rise along with rankings.

PageRank is one of around 200 or more factors the Google algorithm takes into consideration when ranking a web site. It is a numerical rating of pages from 0 to 10, 10 being the highest possible score (Google Is A PageRank 10). PageRank is believed to be endlessly updated by Google, however public rough calculation are able to be viewed in web browsers via the Google toolbar. These values are updated at irregular intervals. I have noticed my websites PageRank being updated every 60-90 days.

Let’s observe some factors that may perk up SERP’s (Search Engine Ranking Positions) and PageRank.

1: Content

You’re most likely tired of hearing about the significance of content. Yet it is important today as it ever was. Google clearly examines content when shaping PageRank. Thus, one of the greatest techniques to improve PageRank is to simply make certain your pages have quality textual content. The content should be unique and applicable to the subject of the web site and search terms.

Opinions vary on the ideal amount of text to include on one page. 650-800 words seem a reasonable balance between content and length. I think there would be unimportant benefits in terms of PR from site pages with 2000+ words of content. However, at least 400 words is most likely a good baseline to establish subject matter and healthy page content vs. page coding ratio.

If the content on your site is written well your keywords should naturally appear in the writing style of the page. Be sure to include your keywords in the page title, headings, Alt-Tags, and body. Do not over use a single keyword within your body as it may be red flagged by Google. Also keep in mind that both search engines and humans will be reading your content so fashion your content to be “friendly” for both of them.

2: Inbound links (backlinks)

One of the main factors determining rankings and PageRank are incoming links to your web site and pages. Google assumes that there must be a good reason for a link to exist to your page and counts a link as a “vote of confidence” in the content quality of your website.

Links from high authority sites on your topic (high ranking and high PR pages) bear a far greater weight than links from sites virtually unfamiliar to Google – or from pages/sites that have nothing to do with your site content and niche. So having a football site link to a jewelry site is not as good as a jewelry appraiser linking to your Jewelry sales site. Also, One-way links are better than exchanging links.

3: Get Indexed Fast

A rapid way to have Google index your site is to link to your website from a forum or frequently updated blog. These links are not probable to carry a great amount of weight, but every bit helps and if you select your forums and blogs well, the results do mount up. Try to keep your posts on topic and informative and limit your links to signatures and your profile. If linking from a blog use in-content links. You could even post articles to bookmark sites (Like Pligg Sites) that are DoFollow.

4: Articles

Articles are a very good way of gaining credibility with Google and your target audience. Most article sites do not allow you to place your own links into the body of the article. However you can create convincing author footers with a link to your site. There are plenty of good article sites that can be found with a quick Google search for “articles”.

In closing: Remember organic SEO and SEO in general takes time and with enough effort and hard work you will soon see an increase in your SERP’s and PageRank. There is no such thing as Easy SEO. Check our blog often for new tips and advice.

Comment and let us know your thoughts on this Post!