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01 31st, 2008| 
Posted by rebecca
Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week:
Three star links:
- This amusing video demonstrates just how advanced Google Maps’ Street View feature is getting…
- I received a press release from Hitwise stating how, unsurprisingly, "heath ledger" was the fastest moving search term across all search engines by U.S. Internet users for the week ending 1/26/08. Heath Ledger-related queries such as "heath ledger dead," "heath ledger death," "dark knight" (the Batman sequel in which he was cast as the Joker), and "michelle williams" (his ex-girlfriend and mother of their child) were also incredibly popular, both in All Categories and in Entertainment.
- Frequent SEOmoz commenter and YOUmoz blogger, Dr. Pete, was interviewed over at Distilled. Check it out and daydream about Pete and Will jousting each other, American Gladiators-style.
- Rand got nominated to be inducted into the "Blogging Hall of Fame," so cast your vote if you think he should be let in. I have no idea what induction entails. Shouldn’t nominations be required to have to wait 25 years after the publication of their first post before being considered, a lá the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
- Speaking of Rand(fish), he wanted me to include this image in today’s roundup because he "kinda loved" it. I "kinda love" grouper. It’s delicious.
Four star links:
- Via Slashdot and our programmer, Mike, I came across this article titled The Gray Areas of Search-Engine Law. It talks about how "the law is always playing catch-up with technology," and how the Internet is moving faster than law is able to keep up. It discusses broad areas like the extent of fair use, the openness of search algos, and the Google Book Search lawsuit as interesting topics that really open up a lot of questions about the Internet and law.
- Sugarrae is back again, and this time she brings us 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out. Various SEOs (including Rand) weigh in on their link building tactics and which sites they feel offer valuable links. Give it a read–you discover a nice link building tip or two.
- Smart restaurants and bars are leveraging Facebook’s easily accessible birthday information to offer birthday boys and girls discounts at their establishments. Very clever marketing tactic!…until they realize that every day is Dax’s birthday.
- Small Business Trends published a post about "top experts" sharing their best kept marketing secrets. Some of them are no brainers while others are no brainers that you’ll kick yourself for forgetting.
- a) You love my weekly roundup posts.
b) You click on some of my roundup links.
Conclusion: You will click on this link that takes you to a fun logic test. Valid or Invalid?
Five star links:
- GlobalScholar has officially launched, and I think the site’s premise has great potential. You can choose your instructor (whose credentials and background are verified by the site) and study up on various subjects, such as English, foreign languages, the SATs, etc. It’s an incredibly innovative transition to online learning, and I’m curious to see how it fares. They’ve already raised $27 million in funding, so hopefully they’ll spend it wisely.
YOUmoz entries:
- Purple Cows in SEO. Hjortur talks about the purple cow mentality (as coined by Seth Godin) and how you should translate it to your link bait, keyword research, company/product naming, and branding efforts.
- How to Make a Spider Crawl Backwards. Identity teaches an ol’ spider new tricks and shares how to do a "reverse spider crawl."
- Join an SEO Test and Get Free Inlinks Using Your Specified Anchor Text! Brent D. Payne offers out free links on his site so that he can do some SEO testing and study the ranking effects.
- 6 Strategies That Will Take Your Business into the Future! Joseph Stein offers up some good tips on creative and innovative ways to market your products and brand your site.
- It’s a Beautiful Day for Automated Social Posting. OliverTaco talks about automated social posting, the importance of terms of service and privacy policies on your website, monetization, database backend, and more.
- If Google is a User’s Sat-Nav, Don’t Let Your Site Be a Cul-De-Sac. Ciarán uses the title as a metaphor for why your site shouldn’t be stingy with external links.
- Create Your Own "Bullet Train" to PPC Optimization. Bookworm-SEO gives some "quick and dirty" tips for your PPC campaign.
Best of YOUmoz:
- I personally think that Dave Naffziger’s "Maximizing the Likelihood of Getting Dugg" post is of high quality because he put a lot of effort into his study and backed it up with nice visuals. Interesting findings, Dave. We’re looking forward to more studies from you in the future.
New events added to the Events Calendar:
No new upcoming events, although Mel has some new calendar features he’ll be rolling out soon, so keep your eyes open for those. Hopefully the newer, snazzier Events Calendar will encourage more participation!
New additions to the SEOmoz Marketplace:
Featured job postings:
- Consulting in exchange for accommodations at Whistler in Seattle, WA
Featured companies:
United States:
- Deck Internet Solutions in St. Louis, MO
United Kingdom/Europe:
- Strawberrysoup (sounds delicious!) in the UK
- FireflySEO in London, UK
Asia:
- nBridges Media in India
- Seo-Websolutions in New Delhi, India
Featured resumes:
- Martin Bell is an experienced web professional with a background in writing and content creation.
- Randy Duermyer offers SEO and SEM services as a subcontractor.
