The debate over White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO is in the National spotlight with an article in the NY Times entitled “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search.” The ultimate goal of any SEO, whether using White Hat or Black Hat techniques, is to get their client’ website to rise to the top of the organic results.  An added burden of the Black Hat SEO is not to get caught using their deceptive techniques for fear of Google’s consequences.

As the story goes, JCPenney  was dominating the top of Google’s search results. They were occupying the #1 position for keywords such as “dresses”, “furniture”, “area rugs”, “skinny jeans” and a myriad of others. The question came up about how they are accomplishing this amazing feat! Through some investigative reporting by Doug Pierce, it was determined that JCPenney’s SEO company was utilizing Black Hat SEO techniques described as “the most ambitious attempt to game Google’s search results that he has ever seen”. (more…)

How would you like typing a serious question about international politics, for example, into everyone’s default search engine — Google –  and see in the suggested search box ‘france is set to concede that it is aware of an alien presence on earth by no later than Friday’? In the world of internet marketing, these small eccentricities amuse and confound.

That is what the two authors of Whoogles have encountered. They started compiling screenshots of Google search suggestions as of January 2010, and not even a year later they have a few thousand compiled in both blog and book. (more…)

As an SEO consultant for the last eleven years, I consistently let my clients know that our goals are a joint effort between getting traffic and converting traffic. Often you’ll hear me saying that a website is useless if nobody can find it. That statement basically confirms the need for search engine optimization because your positions and your online marketing efforts are what will put your website in front of the searchers. On the flip side of that statement, is let’s not send traffic to a poorly functioning website. Today’s blog will concentrate on basic website elements that folks have come to expect and trust. (more…)

Sure it’s only February, but now is the best time to start thinking about your Internet marketing plan for the 2010 holiday season. Why so early? Here are just a few good reasons: (more…)