One of the most important aspects of taking care of a site’s search ‘appropriateness’ is knowing what can get you penalized by Google (or any other search engine for that matter). Knowing how to assess the situation correctly so that you can tell if you have just been served a penalty can help you significantly to get the site back at the top for your search terms. Unfortunately, it’s a sure thing that Google is not going to publish the criteria it uses for deciding who gets penalized. So we have to make an educated guess. In the SEO community, our opinions come from spending a lot of time–in some cases years–observing what does, and doesn’t get good results. As with just about any other aspect of SEO, most of what I’m about to say here will be met with cyber-cries of ‘but I disagree,’ or ‘I can prove otherwise,’ pr even expletives! That’s the nature of what we do–there’s always a lot of room for disagreement. If you have been following SEO best-practices closely for some time, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll fall foul of the search engines to the degree that you get penalized. But sometimes as SEO warriors, we inherit a bad situation that someone else has created, and it’s not always obvious at first glance. Google Sandbox or
Tag Archives: spam
Your Story Contest – Win a Free Pass to the S&S Spring Summit
If you’re still trying to get a ticket to the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit, you must act fast! We’ve had contests going on all this week to give you a chance for a free pass: VIP package , Twitter and Youtube . Here’s another contest for you to enter! We want to know how you got into Internet Marketing. Was it through a friend? Was it a news article that captured your attention? How about a random opportunity? Make it as interesting as possible. It can be either long or short. You can check out Dave Snyder’s story here . Here’s my story: In 2004, I opened up a Myspace and Facebook account. I pushed FB to the side when it stopped being a “private reunion club” for college students and I went full swing with MS. I was a Myspace nut — pimpin’ out my profile and trying to get 50,000+ comments. I wanted to beat Tila Tequila. I failed. Well, a few years later, MS became loaded with spammers and I went back to FB. I played around with FB for a while. I was constantly writing on people’s walls, posting up pictures and giving out “presents.” It started to suck when I found out people were not adding me to their top friends list nor did I see myself in some of their photos. My jealousy took the best of me. It was so childish, I know. So during my last semester at the University of South Florida, Tampa, I ended ties with FB. I didn’t want it to consume my time anymore nor did I want to feel the abandonment. I was saying goodbye to all social media. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Gerontology in the Summer of ’07 and ended up landing a finance job in Corporate America with Wells Fargo Financial. How boring!!! I needed something to keep me alive so I tried singing in a MoTown/Classic Rock band. It never took off so I quit. At the same time I took up a fun part-time job with Creative Loafing, Tampa, a local alternative newspaper. I worked in their marketing department on the Street Team. It was a blast! Check out my coverage on Superbowl XLIII . Since the economy wasn’t doing so well (and it still isn’t!), things didn’t work out with Wells Fargo. With my successful failure at Monster and YahooHotJobs to find a potential employer, I tried my luck with Craigslist. Lo and behold…Search & Social! I had a meeting with Loren at a nearby Starbucks. I was told that this was just an intern job doing PR. Even though I had debt racking up from not having a full-time job, I wanted to get into PR so I said yes to it. So guess what, I showed my face to FB again. And then I started a marriage with Twitter. I even started a blog for the Tampa girls at Search & Social called SEOtini . Dave and Loren have taught me a lot about SEO, linkbuilding, social media and online marketing. I was so against it, but social media is a big part of my life now. That’s my story. Now go make yours! Leave your internet marketing autobiography in the comments section after this post. Comments may not always be posted immediately due to moderation and our spam filters BUT we will approve them once we see them pending. All stories need to be submitted by April 8, 2010. The winner of this contest will receive an all-access pass for the eight speaker sessions, networking with experts and businesses from across the country, casino night and calypso night, and breakfast, lunch and dinner on both days of the conference. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Your Story Contest – Win a Free Pass to the S&S Spring