Search engine forums have been around for years. One of the more popular of late is the Searchenginewatch.com forum.

In this article I take a look at even more of the more popular forum topics.

So, you’ve gotten through my last article highlighting the top Searchenginewatch forums and are hungry for more.

And by now, most of the Turkey dinners are over and you are onto leftovers. Just gotta love Thanksgiving leftovers.

In light of that, I thought I’d provide you with some more light reading in the form of the most active topics that can be found today on Searchenginewatch.

Oct. 2005 Google Update “Jagger”

Of course the most active one of recent is the thread dealing with the most recent Google update called Jagger.

In it, people provide speculation and clues as to what has happened during the update.

The interesting thing about this post is that it spans some time – from just before the update began to just after it ended – about three weeks. And it is interesting to read comments from SEO and SEM types as the update is happening.

One thing is for sure – people are much more comfortable with updates nowadays. It’s not like the old Google Dance days when people would drink excessively and rant endlessly when their site dropped from 2 to 3.

New Middle Of The Page “More Results” Experiment On Google

Then there’s the thread started by yours truly.

In it, I started talking about how I’d come across new SERP’s pages and how Google was experimenting with new results.

Since then I’ve seen many variations on the pages including a new one that I posted earlier this week.

It is interesting to see how much interest this post has generated. Primarily because Google hasn’t really touched their results page since they’ve launched, other than adding ads a while back. So this is the first real effort on Google’s part to make a change.

But, if you look at the survey results at the beginning of the thread you see most people are annoyed with them. I’m not sure if that means they are truly annoyed with the results, or just annoyed at the fact that Google is making changes.

Urchin Now Google Analytics, Now FREE

As Jarrod pointed out in an earlier article Google has re-released Urchin on demand as a free analytics solution for small to medium sized websites.

The only problem was that there was so much demand for the product that Google quickly turned off the free sign up. I would expect this will be off until Google expands the capacity of the product.

I must say I’m glad to see this happen. I have clients who have been using Urchin on Demand and I’ve got to tell you that I find it to be an exceptional analytics package. It was exceptional at $199 per month (or whatever the cost was) and it’s even more exceptional now that it’s free.

I highly recommend that when you can actually sign up for it you should, and do with AWStats or whatever other free tool you are using. Because there just isn’t any other free analytics that can compare to this.

Further, there aren’t too many paid ones that can either.

Is SEO Getting More Gray?

This is one of my favorite topics, so it was good to see Danny Sullivan (no relation that I know of) set it up.

I particularly like this topic because I feel that any SEO or SEM is at least gray hat. You can not manipulate a website to get rankings and call yourself white hat. There just is no way, in my mind, that white hat can mean anything other than leaving a site to fend for itself without any form of manipulation.

And I like to call white hatters out on occasion. Mostly because I feel that there can be no such thing as white hat SEO.

Let’s face it, when you are in SEO you are manipulating search results. You can’t not manipulate results and call yourself an SEO. Therefore if you are in SEO the best you can do is gray hat. But is that so bad?

Reciprocal Linking – Dead or Alive?

In the heels of the Jagger update many started to speculate that the target of the update was reciprocal linking.

You will find tons of SEO blogs out there proclaiming that this is the case.

And while it may appear that way, I don’t really believe that Google wiped out reciprocal linking. It may have done some good damage to it, but every site that was involved in it didn’t get wiped out.

And even if true reciprocal linking was wiped, there are still other forms of legitimate link building out there.

After all if that wasn’t the case then companies like this one would be out of business.

So here’s my plug for TLB – if you do think your site was targeted by Google’s reciprocal linking police, why not check out the other link building options Text Link Brokers can offer you.

Mike Grehan: Google is done

Finally today I thought I’d throw in one of my favorites. Not because of the topic per se but because of who it’s about – Mike Grehan.

This is because I’ve heard him speak at many trade shows and I have to tell you that he is one of the most entertaining speakers out there that you can actually learn something from.

I remember sitting through a linking seminar (I think it was) in either Chicago or New York and he was on the panel. I almost fell asleep during it because the other speakers were less than entertaining (to put it mildly). Once he started to talk, however, things picked up and I managed to stay awake for the rest of it.

So when you see something like this you wonder – Does Mr. Grehan really feel that way?

The truth sounds like he was badly misquoted at an event where there was more alcohol than ink flowing.

While it wouldn’t surprise me to here him say something like this (because that’s the type of guy he is – one to make bold statements) I found this to be an entertaining read.

So there you have it – some more light reading while you’re chowing down on your Turkey leftovers.

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com

Search engine forums have been around for years. One of the more popular of late is the Searchenginewatch.com forum.

In this article I look at some of the more popular forum topics.

When your belly is full from all that turkey you are going to eat, and you aren’t sure if you should nap or read perhaps I can make a suggestion.

Why not check out a few of the more popular searchenginewatch forums as voted on by the readers.

These are the forums which the users of searchenginewatch have picked to be the best, either in terms of content, information provided and opinions expressed.

Keywords Co-occurrence and Semantic Connectivity

One of my favorite posts. I’ve read through most of it.

Some of this stuff is very technical, and gets into the mathematics behind semantics and how search engines apply it.

If you are a technically minded person I’d recommend reading this one. Even if your eyes begin to get droopy from the turkey dinner, drink some coffee and continue reading. You will learn a whole lot more about where search is going.

Google Sitemaps Now Accepting Web Page Feeds

Another good topic regarding Google’s Sitemap Submission program.

With this program you can create and submit an XML based sitemap. Personally, I feel that if you’re having problems getting indexed by the engines to begin with, then a Google sitemap isn’t going to do much for you.

Sure it will get you indexed, but all those factors such as link popularity and PageRank inheritance which can help improve your rankings can be lost.

While I still feel that you should first make your site appealing to crawlers and get them to crawl naturally, it’s still worth the read through.

whitehat vs. blackhat, it is all BS

One of my favorite topics because there are a lot of self proclaimed white hatters who are really more a shade of gray than pure white.

My feeling is that if you do anything to manipulate search rankings you are not truly white hat. Therefore there is no such thing as white hat SEO.

That being said, its entertaining to read some of the other opinions out there. Self proclaimed black hatters are the most vocal mostly because they accept what they do and will even admit that it’s not always the best thing in terms of search but, hey, they make a living at it. If site owners are willing to pay for black hat techniques then I say go for it.

Especially since many of the loopholes which allow blackhatters to exist are slowly disappearing. If they can still make a living with todays search engines then I say great for them.

Concerned about Validity of Overture & WordTracker Numbers

This has always been a concern with SEO’s. Mostly because these two sources for traffic numbers represent such a small percentage of the total online population one wonders if they can ever be accurate.

That being said, since there is no real alternative (at least not one that’s been made public) you do have to rely on these and a little gut instinct when choosing keywords.

While Overture seems to be wildly out, consider that these numbers only account for Yahoo! And MSN traffic. Wordtracker on the other hand uses second tier engines like Dogpile.

And this is where the gut instinct comes in – do you think the term is right for you? Look at the search space – can you compete? These questions need to be answered when considering the phrases these two sources suggest to you.

Hyphenated URLs

Another great SEO topic. There’s been much debate as to what’s the best way to separate phrases in your URL’s. For a long time many believed that underscores were best. More recently GoogleGuy Matt Cutts has come out to say that dashes are better.

On the other hand I’ve also had success with plus signs (+) and tildes (~).

So really, the choice is yours. Even with dashes there are pros and cons.

For example, some feel that a hyphenated URL may lead Google to think that this is a spam URL (much like cheap-viagra-delivered-to-your-door-discreetly.com). While Google hasn’t come out to say this is true, no one has yet dismissed it yet either.

SE-friendly Open Source CMS

Still another topic near and dear to my heart is SE friendly CMS systems.

For the longest time there was no such thing as a SE friendly CMS which generated static URL’s and allowed you to add custom meta tags.

Today that’s not the case. There are dozens, if not hundreds, and more coming out every day.

There’s even many open source varieties as well as search friendly e-commerce systems. So really a decision in this field comes down to your budget and your ability to implement the chosen system.

Still a worthy read though as there are many valid points brought up.

Editorial: The Lords of Ye ‘Olde ODP

My last recommendation for today has to do with the ODP. One of the staples of the internet, the ODP’s reputation has taken a beating lately. Rumors of corrupt editors, poor editorial skills and people having to buy listings have been circulating for the past year or so.

This post goes into a little more detail on the subject and does provide some good insights into the ODP including where it’s failed and what it can do to improve.

So by the time you’ve scanned these posts, and perhaps pulled a few gems out of them you will find that you now have room in your belly for a piece of pumpkin pie and another glass of Thanksgiving Cheer!

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com

Search engine forums have been around for years. One of the more popular of late is the Searchenginewatch.com forum.

In this article I take a look at even more of the more popular forum topics.

So, you’ve gotten through my last article highlighting the top Searchenginewatch forums and are hungry for more.

And by now, most of the Turkey dinners are over and you are onto leftovers. Just gotta love Thanksgiving leftovers.

In light of that, I thought I’d provide you with some more light reading in the form of the most active topics that can be found today on Searchenginewatch.

Oct. 2005 Google Update “Jagger”

Of course the most active one of recent is the thread dealing with the most recent Google update called Jagger.

In it, people provide speculation and clues as to what has happened during the update.

The interesting thing about this post is that it spans some time – from just before the update began to just after it ended – about three weeks. And it is interesting to read comments from SEO and SEM types as the update is happening.

One thing is for sure – people are much more comfortable with updates nowadays. It’s not like the old Google Dance days when people would drink excessively and rant endlessly when their site dropped from 2 to 3.

New Middle Of The Page “More Results” Experiment On Google

Then there’s the thread started by yours truly.

In it, I started talking about how I’d come across new SERP’s pages and how Google was experimenting with new results.

Since then I’ve seen many variations on the pages including a new one that I posted earlier this week.

It is interesting to see how much interest this post has generated. Primarily because Google hasn’t really touched their results page since they’ve launched, other than adding ads a while back. So this is the first real effort on Google’s part to make a change.

But, if you look at the survey results at the beginning of the thread you see most people are annoyed with them. I’m not sure if that means they are truly annoyed with the results, or just annoyed at the fact that Google is making changes.

Urchin Now Google Analytics, Now FREE

As Jarrod pointed out in an earlier article Google has re-released Urchin on demand as a free analytics solution for small to medium sized websites.

The only problem was that there was so much demand for the product that Google quickly turned off the free sign up. I would expect this will be off until Google expands the capacity of the product.

I must say I’m glad to see this happen. I have clients who have been using Urchin on Demand and I’ve got to tell you that I find it to be an exceptional analytics package. It was exceptional at $199 per month (or whatever the cost was) and it’s even more exceptional now that it’s free.

I highly recommend that when you can actually sign up for it you should, and do with AWStats or whatever other free tool you are using. Because there just isn’t any other free analytics that can compare to this.

Further, there aren’t too many paid ones that can either.

Is SEO Getting More Gray?

This is one of my favorite topics, so it was good to see Danny Sullivan (no relation that I know of) set it up.

I particularly like this topic because I feel that any SEO or SEM is at least gray hat. You can not manipulate a website to get rankings and call yourself white hat. There just is no way, in my mind, that white hat can mean anything other than leaving a site to fend for itself without any form of manipulation.

And I like to call white hatters out on occasion. Mostly because I feel that there can be no such thing as white hat SEO.

Let’s face it, when you are in SEO you are manipulating search results. You can’t not manipulate results and call yourself an SEO. Therefore if you are in SEO the best you can do is gray hat. But is that so bad?

Reciprocal Linking – Dead or Alive?

In the heels of the Jagger update many started to speculate that the target of the update was reciprocal linking.

You will find tons of SEO blogs out there proclaiming that this is the case.

And while it may appear that way, I don’t really believe that Google wiped out reciprocal linking. It may have done some good damage to it, but every site that was involved in it didn’t get wiped out.

And even if true reciprocal linking was wiped, there are still other forms of legitimate link building out there.

After all if that wasn’t the case then companies like this one would be out of business.

So here’s my plug for TLB – if you do think your site was targeted by Google’s reciprocal linking police, why not check out the other link building options Text Link Brokers can offer you.

Mike Grehan: Google is done

Finally today I thought I’d throw in one of my favorites. Not because of the topic per se but because of who it’s about – Mike Grehan.

This is because I’ve heard him speak at many trade shows and I have to tell you that he is one of the most entertaining speakers out there that you can actually learn something from.

I remember sitting through a linking seminar (I think it was) in either Chicago or New York and he was on the panel. I almost fell asleep during it because the other speakers were less than entertaining (to put it mildly). Once he started to talk, however, things picked up and I managed to stay awake for the rest of it.

So when you see something like this you wonder – Does Mr. Grehan really feel that way?

The truth sounds like he was badly misquoted at an event where there was more alcohol than ink flowing.

While it wouldn’t surprise me to here him say something like this (because that’s the type of guy he is – one to make bold statements) I found this to be an entertaining read.

So there you have it – some more light reading while you’re chowing down on your Turkey leftovers.

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com

Search engine forums have been around for years. One of the more popular of late is the Searchenginewatch.com forum.

In this article I take a look at even more of the more popular forum topics.

So, you’ve gotten through my last article highlighting the top Searchenginewatch forums and are hungry for more.

And by now, most of the Turkey dinners are over and you are onto leftovers. Just gotta love Thanksgiving leftovers.

In light of that, I thought I’d provide you with some more light reading in the form of the most active topics that can be found today on Searchenginewatch.

Oct. 2005 Google Update “Jagger”

Of course the most active one of recent is the thread dealing with the most recent Google update called Jagger.

In it, people provide speculation and clues as to what has happened during the update.

The interesting thing about this post is that it spans some time – from just before the update began to just after it ended – about three weeks. And it is interesting to read comments from SEO and SEM types as the update is happening.

One thing is for sure – people are much more comfortable with updates nowadays. It’s not like the old Google Dance days when people would drink excessively and rant endlessly when their site dropped from 2 to 3.

New Middle Of The Page “More Results” Experiment On Google

Then there’s the thread started by yours truly.

In it, I started talking about how I’d come across new SERP’s pages and how Google was experimenting with new results.

Since then I’ve seen many variations on the pages including a new one that I posted earlier this week.

It is interesting to see how much interest this post has generated. Primarily because Google hasn’t really touched their results page since they’ve launched, other than adding ads a while back. So this is the first real effort on Google’s part to make a change.

But, if you look at the survey results at the beginning of the thread you see most people are annoyed with them. I’m not sure if that means they are truly annoyed with the results, or just annoyed at the fact that Google is making changes.

Urchin Now Google Analytics, Now FREE

As Jarrod pointed out in an earlier article Google has re-released Urchin on demand as a free analytics solution for small to medium sized websites.

The only problem was that there was so much demand for the product that Google quickly turned off the free sign up. I would expect this will be off until Google expands the capacity of the product.

I must say I’m glad to see this happen. I have clients who have been using Urchin on Demand and I’ve got to tell you that I find it to be an exceptional analytics package. It was exceptional at $199 per month (or whatever the cost was) and it’s even more exceptional now that it’s free.

I highly recommend that when you can actually sign up for it you should, and do with AWStats or whatever other free tool you are using. Because there just isn’t any other free analytics that can compare to this.

Further, there aren’t too many paid ones that can either.

Is SEO Getting More Gray?

This is one of my favorite topics, so it was good to see Danny Sullivan (no relation that I know of) set it up.

I particularly like this topic because I feel that any SEO or SEM is at least gray hat. You can not manipulate a website to get rankings and call yourself white hat. There just is no way, in my mind, that white hat can mean anything other than leaving a site to fend for itself without any form of manipulation.

And I like to call white hatters out on occasion. Mostly because I feel that there can be no such thing as white hat SEO.

Let’s face it, when you are in SEO you are manipulating search results. You can’t not manipulate results and call yourself an SEO. Therefore if you are in SEO the best you can do is gray hat. But is that so bad?

Reciprocal Linking – Dead or Alive?

In the heels of the Jagger update many started to speculate that the target of the update was reciprocal linking.

You will find tons of SEO blogs out there proclaiming that this is the case.

And while it may appear that way, I don’t really believe that Google wiped out reciprocal linking. It may have done some good damage to it, but every site that was involved in it didn’t get wiped out.

And even if true reciprocal linking was wiped, there are still other forms of legitimate link building out there.

After all if that wasn’t the case then companies like this one would be out of business.

So here’s my plug for TLB – if you do think your site was targeted by Google’s reciprocal linking police, why not check out the other link building options Text Link Brokers can offer you.

Mike Grehan: Google is done

Finally today I thought I’d throw in one of my favorites. Not because of the topic per se but because of who it’s about – Mike Grehan.

This is because I’ve heard him speak at many trade shows and I have to tell you that he is one of the most entertaining speakers out there that you can actually learn something from.

I remember sitting through a linking seminar (I think it was) in either Chicago or New York and he was on the panel. I almost fell asleep during it because the other speakers were less than entertaining (to put it mildly). Once he started to talk, however, things picked up and I managed to stay awake for the rest of it.

So when you see something like this you wonder – Does Mr. Grehan really feel that way?

The truth sounds like he was badly misquoted at an event where there was more alcohol than ink flowing.

While it wouldn’t surprise me to here him say something like this (because that’s the type of guy he is – one to make bold statements) I found this to be an entertaining read nonetheless.

So there you have it – some more light reading while you’re chowing down on your Turkey leftovers.

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com