In his article “The Google Sewage Factory, In Action: The Chocomize Story,” Sullivan relates how an innocent visit to Google Trends turned up something that he thought was very fishy. Finding the word “Chocomize” in the top ten Hot Searches one day, he noticed that this term, actually the name of a custom chocolate bar maker, had in fact spiked, causing many observers to wonder why. The Google trends page turned up a list of sites suddenly mentioning Chocomize. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the first listed site really had nothing to do with Chocomize or chocolate, but had merely added content about Chocomize. This caused Google AdSense to place PPC ads for two chocolate sellers on the page.

The second page listed in the search results, Sullivan says, was even more blatant. Supposedly a list of news articles, the site is merely another list trying to ride Chocomize’s trending.

Ultimately, Sullivan discovered that what got the Chocomize frenzy going was a CNN article listed in Google News that probably coincided with a CNN TV report about Chocomize. Companies saw the spike in searches for the company and jumped on, adding content about Chocomize just to ride the popularity bandwagon for as long as the wave lasted. Google, Sullivan said, allowed this to go on without so much as a warning to cease and desist.

Sullivan calls Google’s “pollution” of its own Google News “ridiculous…we get ‘news’ sites that have been admitted (by) just jumping on the Google Trends bandwagon, outranking the actual article.”

Sullivan wonders why Google doesn’t appear willing to change its policies. He implies the reluctance may be due to the fact that all these extra links to PPC ads are earning Google more money.

Key skills include 3+ years professional programming experience with recent experience using;

• C#.NET 3.5
• MS SQL 2008 development with LINQ/ORM
• Agile/SCRUM application development lifecycle management
• Object-oriented programming and relational database design
• Debugging, systems testing, and production support
• Understanding of development and programming principles
• Application architecture and design
• Superb problem solving skills and troubleshooting abilities
• Excellent communication and documentation skills
• Track record of delivery and support of business applications
• Experience with MOSS, SRS, Silverlight and Telerik beneficial.

Location: 1580 N. Fiesta Blvd #102 Gilbert, Arizona 85233 (Country Club and Baseline)

If you meet these requirements and want to be part of our fast growing company, apply immediately to humanresources@TextLinkBrokers.com. Local candidates only. No agencies please.

• Development of interactive applications and web sites (Customer Service, Web Store Portals).
• MVC frameworks in PHP (CakePHP, CodeIgniter, PHP on Trax)
• Experience developing with JavaScript Libraries (Mootools, JQuery, Dojo), HTML, CSS on LAMP (Linux / Apache / MySQL / Perl / PHP)
• Database Design and development in MySQL
• Object-oriented programming and relational database design
• Understanding of development and programming principles
• Superb problem solving skills and troubleshooting abilities
• Excellent communication and documentation skills
• Track record of delivery of applications for production use
• Management and use of source code control tools (SVN)

This role reports to the Chief Technology Officer.  It requires technical development skills in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.  Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required. Candidate will have applicable industry experience, with the full spectrum of abilities from design documentation to well-structured, scalable and maintainable code.

Additional beneficial skills;

• Development experience on an Agile/Scrum team.
• Relevant W3C standards and best practices

Location: 1580 N. Fiesta Blvd #102  Gilbert, Arizona 85233  (Country Club and Baseline)

If you meet those requirements and want to put your future in your hands, apply immediately to humanresources@TextLinkBrokers.com.

First, Ann Smarty at SearchEngineJournal .com published a blog on how she considers Microsoft Excel to be “the ultimate SEO and productivity tool.” In her article, “Using Excel for SEO – the Grand Collection of Tips,” she adds that while she’s no expert at Excel, she understands it enough to never want to be without it. She shares with readers the most useful tips that she has collected for combining Excel and SEO.

Smarty’s first tip is a reminder that you can export any data to Excel, from virtually any format. From Backlink data to information from Yahoo Site Explorer or Google analytics, all of this information can be transferred onto an Excel spreadsheet for immediate comparison. Smarty also provides information on how to export files from each of these formats, and even provides a link to six more ways to export backlink data to Excel.

For her second tip, Smarty says she likes to use Excel for keyword research. It allows her to create pivot tables for easy rearrangement of keywords. She provides a link to a systematic tutorial on how to make a pivot table with “drag and drop” capability, that allows for various comparisons and analyses. She then uses the “Find and Replace” feature to help her visualize keyword patterns. Her illustrated example demonstrates how to find the most frequent modifiers in any set of statistics as illustrated below:

• “Use CTRL+F (“Find and Replace” feature);
• Click “Find and Replace” tab;
• Type the word you think may be frequently used with your core term,
• Click “Options” button;
• Choose to “replace with” format;
• Click “Patterns” tab;
• Choose the color you want to highlight the cell containing the word:
• Click OK and then “Replace All”;
• You should then see how many times the word was used, plus the cells containing it will be highlighted.

Smarty finishes her list of tips by showing how she uses Excel to help her handle URL manipulation tasks. She provides separate instructions for extracting URLs from a list of linked words and for activating URL lists.  She says this becomes particularly handy when exporting large amounts of data from hundreds of URLs.

In another recent article at SearchEngineJournal.com, “Use Excel to Plan Meta Tags, Titles and URLs for SEO,” Loren Baker at SearchEngineJournal.com shares a tip from a reader who stresses the importance of differentiation in meta descriptions, and how Excel can help you keep track of your titles, file names, keyword descriptions and more. He also stresses the value of the LEN() function, which can provide the character counts of any cell in your Excel document. Baker provides a screen shot of a typical SEO page layout, and instructions on how to set up your columns for best use.

Meanwhile, from the analytical side, Yaov Ezer at SearchEnginePeople.com recently blogged about the ease with which you can use Excel to track your position on Google over time.  He provides a detailed, illustrated example based upon a study he performed for Webmaster World.

Ezer points out that while you can spend a lot of money for commercial products to help you track positions, both time and cash can be saved by simply using Excel.  To demonstrate, Ezer uses information culled from his friends at WebmasterWorld.com to conduct the test.  He then provides a link to an illustration represented in his column, so that you can actually create the same macro and perform the same test that Ezer did.  He provides easy-to-follow instructions for performing the test, and lets you know what you should be seeing when you enter all of the info.

Ezer also goes into detail explaining how the macro works. “Essentially what we are doing here is ‘scraping’ the search result, then looking within the returned content for specific strings (our links),” he says.

If you like using the macro, Ezer’s article includes all of the code you need to make it run automatically whenever you open a designated file.

Parr discusses the five sites (or tools) he finds most helpful  when he needs answers that he can’t find on his own. Here’s the list with a quick overview of each:

Quora.com – This Q&A tool is a popular site where users can find answers to virtually any technological dilemma, as well as questions relating to running a startup business.  Prominent SEO experts, such as Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz.org, regularly post and answer members’ questions on Quora.  Virtually any topic can be found on Quora, as well as divisions of those topics. For example, a search of SEO yields separate groupings for “SEO,” “SEO tools,” “On-Page SEO,”  “Are Typekit fonts SEO friendly,” “What is the best SEO podcast?” “Does Google SSL search affect SEO?” and “The effects of URL shorteners on SEO.”

OnStartups Answers – Billing itself  as the site for entrepreneurs, Onstartups.com  is overseen by Dharmesh Shah, a successful software entrepreneur. Essentially a blog, OnStartups is particularly directed at software startup companies, but Parr (and others) have found practical answers to all kinds of questions on the site’s “Answers” page.

Sample questions on a recent visit: “Can I work on my SEO and have my web site “invisible”? “What are your top 3-5 SEO tips?” and “What is the best free SEO rank checker tool?”

Hacker News Network. This is a friendly “startup-centric” community. Its members are very open to questions and frequently go out of their way to help get something answered.  The site was recently resurrected after being dormant for 10 years. It was originally started to provide informed commentary to major news organizations regarding the “underground” aspects of the internet. The site requires a free sign up in order to get your questions answered.

Twitter:  Yes, Twitter. Makes sense, too. How many questions do you have that really take more than 140 characters to ask? And while it may take more than that to answer, providing a bit.ly URL to where your answer lies is easy for more people. Plus, if you follow the right people (or they’re following you), getting the answer you need can take no time at all.

Open Forum:  The active discussion forum at American Express of all places is, Parr says, an excellent free resource.  Used by thousands of people, virtually every kind of entrepreneurial question gets asked here at one point or another. Best of all, you don’t have to be an American Express Card member to use it.

Again, these are Ben Parr’s five favorites. Add them to your own Q&A sources and who knows? You may soon have an answer to any dilemma that comes your way.

As our business continues to grow, so can you. The best candidate will have experience in SEO and Link Building and be able to hit the ground running in order to identify powerful linking opportunities.

Responsibilities Include:

• Perform link research and acquisition

• Conduct analysis of link value based on established criteria

• Assist in day to day search engine optimization strategies

• Participate in social networking campaigns

• Daily, Weekly, Monthly reporting on newly found and acquired links

• Negotiation of link and advertising deals on behalf of our clients

Minimum Qualifications:

• Familiar with link building strategies, programs, tools, and search engine optimization techniques
• Knowledge of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.
• Proficient in MS Office (Word, Excel, Outlook) and Internet navigation skills
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and as a member of a team.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast, ever changing environment
• Strong Internet browsing and searching skills

• Blogging and content writing skills a definite plus

Additional Desired Skills:

• Hands-on experience with negotiating link placement deals

Location: 1580 N. Fiesta Blvd #102  Gilbert, Arizona 85233  (Country Club and Baseline)

Remote workers will be considered if qualified

If you meet those requirements and want to put your future in your hands, apply immediately to humanresources@TextLinkBrokers.com.

If this describes you, then consider joining our incredible Fulfillment Team where providing accurate and timely service 100% of the time is the norm. Compensation is $9 – $12 hour based upon experience. The working environment is professional, fun, and energized with a casual dress code.

Qualifications

• Minimum one year of data entry experience.
• Proven organizational skills, problem solving abilities, and analytical skills.

• Excellent verbal and written communications skills.
• Work independently in a fast paced structured environment with minimal supervision.
• Proficiency in MS Office (Word, Excel, Outlook) and Internet search/navigation.
• Positive attitude and a team player.

Location: 1580 N. Fiesta Blvd #102  Gilbert, Arizona 85233  (Country Club and Baseline)

If you meet those requirements and want to put your future in your hands, apply immediately to humanresources@TextLinkBrokers.com.

We are looking for results driven SEO sales professionals who know how to listen, research and analyze data, develop effective strategies, and turn leads into clients. This is an inbound sales opportunity.

Qualifications:

- Minimum 1 year  successful SEO sales experience REQUIRED
- Positive personality and the ability to influence business decision makers regarding the effectiveness and value of TLB’s products and services
- Strong interpersonal communication skills, both verbal and written
- Problem solving, decision-making, listening and creative thinking abilities
- Ability to take initiative and be a strong member of a team

- Desire to work in a fast-paced, fun environment where your actions significantly impact the overall growth of the company and your own success

Location: 1580 N. Fiesta Blvd #102  Gilbert, Arizona 85233  (Country Club and Baseline)

If you meet those requirements and want to put your future in your hands, apply immediately to humanresources@TextLinkBrokers.com.

Responsibilities Include:

• Social media marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, and development of other online marketing strategies.

• Review and interpret marketing and website analytics reports.

• Make SEO recommendations on improving SEO strategies through analysis to correct performance issues.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum three (3) years experience performing search engine optimization, SEM techniques.

• Some experience with PPC, Social Media Marketing, and link building strategies required.

• Expert using search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

• Analytic Tools experience (Google Analytics, Omniture, WebTrends, etc) a definite plus.

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office suite with particular emphasis on MS Excel, Word & Outlook.

• Proven analytical skills.

• Experience with HTML and web design highly desired.

• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple priorities and tasks in an ever changing environment.

• Effective performer who works well independently and within a team environment.

Location: 1580 N. Fiesta Blvd #102  Gilbert, Arizona 85233  (Country Club and Baseline)

If you meet those requirements and want to put your future in your hands, apply immediately to humanresources@TextLinkBrokers.com.