In an email from Trellian concerning Yahoo Paid Inclusion products I was issued the following warning

Official notification to all Trellian affiliates, partners and resellers that are promoting Priority Submit services.

As of the 1st March 2004 the following programs and services will no longer
supported or offered:
- Inktomi Search Submit
- AltaVista Express Submit
- Fast PartnerSite

Please update your websites and any promotional materials to remove these Search Engines services from your offerings before this date. Any reseller orders received on the 1st of March will NOT be able to be processed.

What will the new Yahoo Paid Inclusion Become?

Who is this Linking Tips Post for?
The recent rash of SEO firms that have been asking for links off of me.

Why this Post about Link Requests?
While a few guys have been courtious, I have seen some real igornant stuff today. These link building strategies are not really strategies, just dumb.

What are some of the Exampes of Terrible Link Requests?

"Hi Aaron,

I was wondering if you would be so kind to add a link to xxxxx.
On your links page you mentioned that you are open to suggestions.

Xxxxx is one of the SEO leaders in the UK and Europe and has handled big
names and brands and it would probably deserve a spot on your links page for that. It's one of the few Scottish companies that have achieved such a
tremendous status.

Hope you will consider my request and please forgive me if it offends you in any
way."

This guy requested a link by saying his site deserves one. What is that?

Another large SEO company today spammed me with a link exchange request for their pharmacy from my drug information website.

Another firm used the "Where is our link?" question. A blunt answer to people using that technique is that "it will never be on my site." Of course I will not reply to their spam as it will only get me on more spam link request lists.

How do You Request a Link?
Find the webmasters details. In a personal manner contact them and explain where your link should be includded and how it adds value to their user experience. At the very least offer a link exchange back if you can not do a good job of explaining how your site adds value. When you offer a link exchange make sure you put your link up BEFORE you contact the person.

There is a bunch more to it, but that little paragraph would help the above SEO firms a great deal in their conquests.

The SEO Wars

Recently there has been a huge battle between different SEO firms as to who is using the correct methodology.

Linking is the Only Thing That Matters

Some people believe that linking alone is all you need.
John Scott (of Internet Marketing Research) & Phil Craven (of Web Workshop) are some of the major proponents behind this line of thinking.
The Basic Concepts of SEO

The problem with this idea is that buying links does not ad value. If one were exclusively focused on buying links then their site would not be operating as efficiently as it could be.

Quality Content Wins

Others think you need to create wonderful content that will make people want to link to it. The problem is that people will not be able to find it until there are some links.
Jill Whalen (of Highrankings.com) is a big propenent of this idea.

The Truth About SEO and Spam

Either way you look at it, all SEO is at least a mild version of spam, or there is no such thing as spam. - What the HELL is spam?

SEO's Fighting

There has been a bunch of bickering. Entire websites of hate content have been built for certain members of the SEO community and people are making slanderous remarks about each other in forums.

SEO Links, Content, + Reality

What it all boils down to is that links or content works UP TO A POINT, but greater success can be achieved by mixing links + content.

SEO Methodology + Terminology

Some people use different terminology for different things. Some people register sites. Some people buy or rent links. When you buy a Yahoo! listing at $299 / year, are you doing any more than renting links? Because Yahoo! is collecting that money is it any more honest than getting a link from Freds Farm Equipent? Why?

Discuss SEO, Content, Links, and Cheese!

Chris Ridings posted a great article on the subject for discussion in the SearchGuild forums "Content is King, is the King Dead."

Many webmasters have complained that Google AdSense was limiting their design ability. Google has came to answer these people with new ad formats.

Instead of the basic 4 AdSense layouts there are now 10 AdSense layouts to chose from. View the new Google AdSense layouts.

Google AdSense also supports new languages: Dutch and Portuguese

Aaron Schwartz's Google Weblog had his home page down. When you searched for it the first post that came up was his post that says he is killing the Google Weblog and is now going to craft an Overture Blog, from March of last year...I saw this at like 2 in the morning when I was tired and did not realize it was from last March. Many others syndicated this too :)
That shows the power of a funny blog post.

Many of the Yellow Pages type companies are learning that their content has value online.

On March the 1st SuperPages, Verizon's Internet Yellow Pages website, will launch a redesigned website which includes pay per click advertising. Duncan Parry previews the PPC product that will be on offer and asks James Palma, Directory of Strategy, how SuperPages aims to sell PPC advertising to local businesses. - from PayPerClickAnalysis.com article

• Verison is planning on charging by category to help business save time.

• The associated prices will weed out much of the advertising from the smaller unique competitors who are the ones that actually add the true value to the Verison SuperPages site.
• A much better way to price it would be to sell as a hybrid. Offer the category listings, and also sell keyword listings in a Dutch auction. Assuming they could place the direct matches about their category listings, this would increase the quality of their product and allow them to sell more ad space.

Do Links Count from Unrelated Sites?
Yes. Links count even if it is from an unrelated site.
Links count even more if they are from on topic sites. How do I know unrelated links still add link popularity?
One of my personal blog posts about "Paxil Side Effects" lists a horror story email from a drug councilor who was prescribed Paxil.

I linked to it from a few other spots on my sites and it now lists in the top 30 on Google for "Paxil Side Effects."

How Important Are Links?
That is an amazingly spammy category. My page uses no meta tags and is not even optimized. It is just her story...

Links are HUGE!

What Keywords Should I Use In My Links?
In your link text you want to use your primary keywords or a similar variation of them. You want to limit the amount of bla bla bla you add in the link. The more words there are, the less a link weighting goes into each word.

There are many phrases that are still easy game. On topic links are the best, but if you have a few good ones then some off topic links can propel your link popularity to the top.

Link Popularity Facts

• Google is second to only Teoma in clustering technology.

• Paxil and Paxil Side Effects are extremely competitive categories.
• My unoptimized page has no meta tags and no on topic inbound links is in the top 30 Google Search Results for Paxil Side Effects.
• Links are the most important part of search engine optimization.

It seems as though Yahoo! intends to separate its own site from Inktomi in some form. On the PositionTech website the following warning exists.

"IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT INKTOMI SEARCH SUBMIT:
Yahoo! Search has transitioned to its own search technology and is preparing to launch a new inclusion program. As a bonus for Search Submit customers, Yahoo! Search is providing a free trial of Yahoo! traffic that will end on April 15, 2004. When the new inclusion program launches, Search Submit customers will have the option of joining the new program for ongoing participation in Yahoo! Search results."

Two Yahoo! Search Indexes:
Some people have been questioning if Yahoo! Slurp is creating an entirely new index. Certainly the upcomming Yahoo! Search paid product would lead one to believe they are trying to create multiple different search indexes.

More info on the new Yahoo! Search:
They answer many questions about Yahoo! Slurp on their Yahoo! Slurp FAQ page.

Yahoo! Slurp indexes the first 500k of any web page, which is a significant improvement from the 100k Google indexes. They also have improved the relevance of the Yahoo! Search index by using existing spam filters which processing millions of emails each day. Today Search Engine Watch did an in depth review of the new Yahoo! Search product.

Andy Beal of Search Engine Lowdown stated that Yahoo! made the switch from Google to Inktomi. Earlier today I was still seeing Google results on Yahoo!, but am now seeing Inktomi.

A couple of my moderator buds over at SearchGuild are still seeing Google, but this is by far the largest scale testing of Inktomi Yahoo! has done. Most likely they are just finalizing the roll out.

They are already accepting feedback for the new Yahoo! search, and have a new spider by the name of Yahoo! Slurp, Yahoo! has also began keeping a cached snapshot of pages (just like Google.)

Frames are bad for SEO
The new Yahoo! Slurp page states "Yahoo! Slurp follows HREF links. It does not follow SRC links. This means that Yahoo! Slurp does not retrieve or index individual frames referred to by SRC links." Make sure you use noframes tags on framed websites if you want traffic from Yahoo.

Now the change is Official.

I will be the first to say that most SEO software is garbage. A complete waste of money. Most of what you want for SEO software is 100% free. This amazing find is no different.

Link Tree is a free web based link analysis software program which compares the links to other websites to your own. This is not a boring overly dressed up link tool (like what Marketleap offers), this tool is super duper cool. What does Link Tree Do?

Link tree looks for topical hubs which are not yet linking to your site.

How does Link Tree Work?

Enter the URLs of up to seven of your competitors and then your own URL at the bottom. Any page that links to at least two of your competitors which does not link to your site will display on the results.

What does that do for my site?

It shows you where some potential easy link opportunities are. If you have done a good job concentrating on creating quality content, then getting the links should be a snap.

Give Link Tree a try!

Creative ways to use Link Tree

• If one of your competitors moves websites you can tell the people who were linking to them that the site is no longer there. You can also state that you have a wonderful resource they may want to link to. People are more likely to help you after you have helped them.

• Find where link popularity is comming from if you have a couple competitors who are building bogus link popularity in kahoots. Perhaps you can also rent some quality inbound links to level the playing field.
• Find quality resources you did not know about by viewing the pages that link to many resources in your field.
• You can also set one of the test URLs to an extremely popular topical website, which will aid you in viewing the hub links which go into any one competitor at a time.
• You can set one of the URLs to a really popular site. It will act as an overly generic catch all to make it easier to find hidden smaller hubs in your field. After you have completed your task you can then switch to another generic link to find more micro hubs.

I originally found Link Tree from Larry Chase.

I also use OptiLink, but if you can not afford the $224 fee then Link Tree is probably the best link software on the web.

SearchFeed Fraud

Ouch, that sounds hard doesn't it? Earlier today over at SearchGuild a new member claimed SearchFeed is not fairly compensating its affiliates. A user by the name of sebans is claiming that he is not getting paid any credit from SearchFeed for his more expensive keywords.

Wether or not his claim are legitimate, this shows why I recommend creating a pay per click account on Google AdWords or Overture and then scaling out the account.

If you are advertising on low quality networks, low quality traffic, or limited distribution you may find yourself changing your site over and over again when the problem was not even on your site.

To be fair, fraud occurs on the largest engines too, but if you choose your keywords carefully and stay away from bidding wars you should be fairly safe.

Successful businesses have fast feedback loops. The largest pay per click networks provide the fastest pay per click loops.

Typically many sites could improve their indexability by having a static home page or by minimizing the number of variables used in their dynamic databases. Many search engines also have problems following java. A good way to tell if a search engine can crawl your page is by using a Lynx viewer.

The best ways around this are to create a static home page and to have a static site map which links into most of your primary pages.
Some sites designers think about the search engines after they are built. This is part of the reason directories like GoGuides are far more popular than Illumirate. A huge part of the value of a directory listing is the value of the spiderable text link. Each additional page in the index is one additional page that can be found in the search results.

Some good general tips

• Use a static page as the home page if possible

• If you use dynamic pages do not force feed the spiders cookies.
• If you use dynamic pages keep the id # at 10 or less digets per string.
• If you use dynamic pages use 3 or less variables if possible.
• Use a site map to give search engines a second path through your site.

An additional bonus with owning a site map is that it can provide keyword dense anchor text links into pages when site design prevents some of the links from being optimized through the regular navigation.

There are many places on the web where you can buy links. The problem with buying all your links is that in many industries it would be exceptionally expensive to compete if you were forced to buy all of your links. Via quick link keyword research we are able to see that all of these terms are getting over 20 searches each day.

• link me all over

• links
• link me up
• link rama
• business link
• realty link
• add a link
• link o rama.com
• link exchange
• link popularity
• link o rama
• greenguy link o rama
• link page
• link site

Even if you use extensive keyword research and link analysis software, there are still a limited number of places where you will be able to find links. A more effective long term solution is to provide content people are interested in linking to.

The Missing Link: Selling the Link

Are Inktomi Results Appearing on Yahoo?
Yes, I have seen them for a few days at my house. Yahoo is testing Inktomi results on their website. Yahoo said they will be switching from Google to their own search technology in Q1 of 2004.
How do I see Inktomi Search Results on Yahoo?
If you are one of the lucky test subjects you will eventually just run into the Inktomi search results. There is also a trick you can use to view Intomi search results on Yahoo.

By adding "&tmpl=E088" at the end of a regular Yahoo Search URL you will be able to see Inktomi results on Yahoo. Example Yahoo Search Searches
Search Marketing:
Regular Yahoo Search Results (Google)
Test Yahoo Search Results (Inktomi)

SEO Book
Regular Yahoo Search Results (Google)
Test Yahoo Search Results (Inktomi)
(found on Abakus Blog, originally from WMW)

OFF TOPIC General Internet Marketing

I got some sort of cold and I keep sneezing.

In case you do not know who Seth Godin is, he is an internet marketer and book author with a cult following. Godin's books are best known for emulating the very concepts they cover.

• Unleashing the Ideavirus is the most downloaded ebook ever.

• Purple Cow had a remarkable distribution chanel by coming in purple milk cartons.
• It is no surprise then that his most upcomming book, titled Free Prize Inside is to include special packaging (most likely with a free prize inside).

Free Prize Inside is set to ship in 10 weeks and I have already ordered mine.

I have seen Seth when he came to Rhode Island and have also went to his office to hang out for the day. If you look closely in the picture in this branding article, those are my hands holing the Yorkie bar while I am standing next to Seth.

Seth is one of the best speakers and marketing thinkers I have met. Here is Seth's post about Free Prize Inside.

Google Will Be Dancing With Itself

"Oh dancing with myself
Oh dancing with myself
Well there's nothing to lose
And there's nothing to prove
I'll be dancing with myself"
- Billy Idol

Why are the Google search results so crazy right now?
The crazy Google search results I saw recently had a logical explaination. Google is again dancing. Updated Google Backlinks are located @
http://216.239.53.98

see also: HighRankings Forum or Webmaster World (subscription required) Google's Blogger Goes Atom
Many companies (including Yahoo) have supported RSS syndication. Google is going against the grain with Blogger using Atom. Again Google is dancing with itself.

Lycos Leaving Search Business
This also makes it easier for Google to dance with itself.

As far as Google AdWords Goes there are three main book or reports on the subject that I know of. I recently wrote my SEO Book and am starting to advertise it on Google AdWords.

I have already read Andrew Goodman's Google AdWords: 21 Pay-Per-Click Campaign Secrets Your Competition Doesn't Know twice, and think it is one of the best search engine reports on the market. ($69)

The other two main reports reports out there are the one created by Perry Marshall and Chris Carpender's Google Cash. I looked at the Google Cash one and saw that they are adding the Perry Marshall report in as an added bonus and are selling the Google Cash package cheaper than his report alone. Google Cash is directed toward affiliate sales. Generally I do not like affiliate sales as they do not build value, but I figure I should be able to learn some more great information between the Perry Marshall's Google AdWords report and the Google Cash report. It cost $49 if you want to give Google Cash a shot.

I will report a review of Google Cash and Perry Marshall's Google AdWords reports later this month or early next month. Either way the package comes with a 90 day money back guarantee.

"On Wednesday, the search company will open its advertising service, called AdWords, in two dialects of Chinese: simplified and traditional." "Sohu.com, the top portal in China, reported last week advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of US$9.5 million, a 120 percent rise from the same period in 2002. The company derives ad revenue partly from sponsored search listings that are Google's specialty. Sohu said that its improving sales were thanks to recognition among advertisers that the Internet is "a mainstream media and entertainment platform in China," Sohu CEO Charles Zhang said. The company also reported net income of US$11.6 million."

"Overture Services, Google's chief rival in the United States, does not offer ad support in China yet."
(from News.com)

Google again beats Overture to the punch.

Queryster is a new Friendster rip off design for a meta search which allows you to search any one of about a dozen top search engines at any time. They include a graphic overlay which makes it simple to easily view the search results from one search engine to the next.
(found on SearchEngineLowdown)

Search engine toolbars such as Groowe and UltraBar both make this same function easy without cluttering the page element itself. Of course this is a neat tool if you do not want to download anything.

How do I do it? Well there are a few free ways and a paid tool.

Alexa gives the rough ranking of a website's popularity. A couple downfalls are that Alexa is open to manipulation, it has limited distribution, and only appeals to certain web head type users. Alexa obtains this web traffic information free by tracking users of its toolbar and traffic in a few other locations.

Metrics Market has a free web traffic tool which is discussed in JimWorld forum post. I am uncertain where this data comes from, but many JimWorld members have stated that

• It was extremely accurate.

• If it was off, the ratio carried over within that industry.

Hitwise is a paid web traffic monitoring service which tracks over 25,000,000 web surfer's habits on over 450,000 websites. Hitwise obtains most of this web traffic data free by trading its organization as a product for access to the traffic of many ISPs.

Meceoo is a meta search engine which searches AltaVista, AllTheWeb and Inktomi.

"Its originality comes from the avaibility for users to create their own "exclusion list" in order to exclude from the result pages specific web sites estimated less relevant. Search results might be therefore entirely different from one visitor to another, according to everyone’s wishes.

Meceoo also allows its users to define preselected list of sites in order to launch a search only in their contents. It is, in this way, possible to generate requests on a given "batch" of web sites, for example inside a community of interest."
(from SearchGuild)

SeekScan is a new meta search engine which shows results from many different engines in their own groupings. They have additional tabs that many search engines do not (such as weblogs). Cool as Meceoo but in a different way.
(from ResearchBuzz)

Is Google using a filter on some of its results? Many people say no, but why does 5 htp.cc list at #1 for hyrdoxytryptophan, but is nowhere for 5 hydroxtryptophan?

Why does bicycleattorney.com rank #1 for bicycle attorney, but is nowhere to be found for Oregon bicycle attorney?

Wether you call it a filter or a bell curve, I believe Google is somehow delisting some overly optimized web pages which are not integrated in the associated local community link structure.

Breaking News: Janet Jackson showed her boob at the Super Bowl. Was it a more defining cultural event than what happened September 11, 2001?

She broke the single day traffic records from that tragedy in what appears to be a sad state of society. Here is my rant about the event and what it means to search engine marketing.

A recent article in the Washington Post titled Online Search Engines Help Lift Cover of Privacy

The article offers alarming information such as "Search strings including "xls," or "cc," or "ssn" often brings up spread sheets, credit card numbers, and Social Security numbers linked to a customer list. Adding the word "total" in searches often pulls up financial spreadsheets totaling dollar figures. A hacker with enough time and experience recognizing sensitive content can find an alarming amount of supposedly private information."

Search engines can not be blamed for the ignorance of corporate America. Perhaps many large companies should learn about the internet before spending millions of dollars building it incorrectly.

This is a list of Major Web Directories and reviewed web guides. Web Directories
Business.com charges a $299 annual listing fee. Business.com is a purchase more for direct traffic than link popularity.
DMOZ - also known as the Open Directory Project - provides free listings, but it may take a while to get your site listed.
Gimpsy verb based directory which charges a one time $40 fee or also list your site free if you are willing to wait 21 days.
GoGuides one time $40 fee or provides free listings for editors.
JoeANT one time $40 fee or provides free listings for editors (it is quick and easy to become an editor.)
Lycos Directory European based directory.
Skaffe one time $40 fee or provides free listings to editors. Originally Built from GoGuides core data.
Uncover the Net - Newer directory which has more link popularity than all but a couple directories on this list. My friend Shawn has done a fantastic job promoting Uncover the Net. $39 fee. Highly recommended
Web Beacon one time $40 fee or provides free listings to editors. Originally Built from GoGuides core data.
Wow Directory - Bruce Stone's directory. Offers free inclusion, paid inclusion, and sponsorship opportunities. Highly recommended
Yahoo $299 annual fee or free for non commercial websites.

Reviewed Web Guides

About
BBC Webguide
Lirarians' Index of the Internet
WWW Virtual Library

More Directory Information

the directory archives is my ongoing project which is to be a directory of directories. I also like a number of smaller directories like Rubber Stamped, and recently wrote a more up to date post on directories.

This is a list of the major world wide search engines. Major World Wide Search Engines

(Personal rankings) appear next to each search engine.
AllTheWeb - powers Lycos. Database created from Yahoo! Slurp spider. (4)
AltaVista - on its last leg. Database created from Yahoo! Slurp spider. (5)
InfoSpace - meta search engine which also powers many other meta search engines (6)
Google - powers AOL, Google...(1)
Teoma - powers Ask Jeeves (3)
Yahoo! - powers Yahoo! (2)

This is a somewhat comprehensive list of SEO forums. If you know of any SEO forums that are missing from this list, feel free to add them in the comments and I may eventually get around to adding them to the list.

Update:
Due to popular demand and numerous customer requests we added an exclusive private SEO community forum to our online SEO training program.

Forum Meta Information:
There are a ton of SEO forums and it is hard to keep up with all of the information that is put out in all of them. Fortunately there are a bunch of bloggers like me who try to point out some of the good stuff in them. ThreadWatch is a bit of a hybrid, sorta like a blog and a forum. It is ran by DaveN, many other friends, and I.

ThreadWatch also sports a good number of gossip column type entries that makes each visit enjoyable. ThreadWatch was created to help the mid to high level SEO professional. ... on with the list of forums.

Top Rated SEO Forums:

• SearchGuild - Chris Ridings SEO Forums. Very open and layback...good community feel to it, though activity has been a bit slow over the summer...I moderate at SearchGuild.

• V7N Web Dev Community - John Scott's SEO forum...John is known to challenge some of the "norms" and put out info that sometimes goes against the grain. I moderate at V7N.
• Search Engine Watch Forums - newer SEO forums where many long time / old school SEOs hang out. Lots of breaking news breaks at SEW forums.
• Digital Point - a newcomer on the forum scene, Digital Point has quickly grown to be the most active forum by combining a fairly hands off social policy with innovative forum features and cool SEO tools.
• SEO Guy Forums - newer SEO forum which has taken off well. SEO Guy is a longtime member of SEO Chat. When he made his own forums many of SEO Chat's best members went with him. I moderate at the SEO Guy SEO forums.

What I consider to be a top rated SEO forum is one where:

• it is ok to express various opinions (if you find an SEO technique effective it is ok to discuss it even if search engines do not particularly like that technique); &

• there is a high signal to noise ratio.

Largest SEO Forums:

• Digital Point - a newcomer on the forum scene, Digital Point has quickly grown to be the most active forum by combining a fairly hands off social policy with innovative forum features and cool SEO tools.

• Jimworld - Webmaster Forums. The late Jim Wilson created what I think was the first popular SEO / webmaster forum. From what I know the forum seems well past its brighter days.
• SitePoint Forums - webmaster coding forums. Many of the other forums have been primarily driven by the marketing angle. SitePoint places more focus on coding and site development than most of the other large forums.
• SEO Chat - It was originally started by Darrin Ward around the same time as SearchGuild. Darrin sold SEO Chat to the owner of the DevShed network. SEO Chat has a ton of ads on it and is advertised heavily on networks like O'Reilly.

  The link rentals mean their posts come up well in search results and also that they parse a good amount of link popularity out in post sig links. The heavy on site advertising (some pages have huge ads and even have sponsored text links for buying prescription drugs on them) coupled with the large # of "me too" type posts that their link popularity has makes SEO Chat appear unappealing to many experienced SEOs.

• Webmaster World - Webmaster Forums. Currently this is perhaps the largest SEO / Webmaster forum (although Digital Point might be getting more daily posts). It was created by Bret Tabke and a few other webmasters with the goal of beating out Jimworld. They appear successful in that goal, but now Webmaster World has strict posting guidelines and over time lost many of its best members. Many of the best old timers from Webmaster World now post at the Search Engine Watch Forums.

The volume of information in large SEO forums is immense...hence the fact I classify them as large ;-)

Large SEO forums tend to eventually lose some of their community feel. They are hard to scale without losing that community feel, and when that community feel goes away the forums become too hard to moderate as the signal to noise ratio makes them too hard to keep up with. Digital Point has done an amazing job of scaling out a forum that still has a good sense of community to it.

The Big SEO Forum List:

• Abakus Forums - SEO forums - smaller, but they have a larger German version too. Webby moderates at a good number of various SEO forums. Swell chap :)

• Anthony Parsons SEO Forum - Ran by ... Anthony Parsons. It is still rather quiet as I do not think he has promoted his forum much, but Anthony makes many thoughtful posts at many other SEO forums.
• AOSEP - newer smallish SEO forum started by some Searchguild moderators.
• Band of Gonzo's Webmasters Forums - A few of the lead posters at WebProWorld created their own SEO forums. Dodger tends to dig up a good number of interesting news pieces.
• Buscador Espa�ol - Small Spanish SEO forums.
• Cre8asite Forums - usability / design / webmaster forums - mid sized. Guys Like Peter D, Black Knight, and bragadocchio post many enlightening posts with lots of experience in business and marketing.
• Digital Point Forums - Shawn Hogan's mid sized SEO forum. Shawn is a programmer by trade and has created some of the coolest free SEO tools available. His forums tend to be rather liberal and many people who are kicked out of other SEO forums learn now to behave before they get kicked out of his (I do not think I have ever seen him ban anyone). He seems like a rather swell chap.
• Dirson Google Foro - Spanish forums about Google.
• Foro Buscadores - Spanish seo forums.
• Forums Abondance - French webmaster forums.
• Geeks on Steroids - Newer SEO & webmaster discussion forums.
• Highrankings SEO Forums - Jill Whalen's mid sized SEO forums. Jill is branded as "the SEO copywriter." Her forum is geared primarily at people new to SEO, but there are also a variety of more experienced SEOs there too. Her forum tends to be rather conservative or "white hat."
• HTML.it - Italian webmaster forums.
• IhelpYou Forums - Doug Heil's mid sized SEO forums. Doug is a self appointed crusader against search engine spam. He is quick to judge and his opinion is strongly reflected in his forums. Above when I wrote about the gossip column posts at ThreadWatch the one about Doug Heil's SPAM comes to mind.
• Jimworld - large webmaster forums. A bit past its prime in my opinion. A larger and older forum on the forum scene which I rarely visit.
• LilEngine Forums - smaller SEO forums. There is not much activity at LilEngine. When I first started moderating there many people did tons of link drops, but I have been trying to delete them out as best I can.
• Ozzu - mid sized webmaster forums. I do not post at their forum frequently enough to adequately review it, except to say that it has a decent signal to noise ratio and a cool looking design :)
• Resource Zone - Webmaster forums for public interfacing with the DMOZ (Open Directory Project) editors. Lots of major webmaster conflicts occur there. Some of the editors are great, but some are also judgemental and mean. Often frustrated webmasters directly accessing these editors means you get to see the best and worst the editors have to offer.
• Search Engine Watch Forums - newer SEO forums where many long time SEOs hang out. One of my favorite SEO forums.
• SEO Blackhat Forums - paid forum discussing aggressive SEO techniques.
• SEO Chat large SEO forums. The signal there is kinda drowned out by tons link drops and some of the top SEOs are driven away by the massive amounts of advertising on that forum.
• SEO-Forums.com - James Mann's small new SEO forums. I have not visited it enough to give it any sort of review...I can only state that it is kinda small and somewhat new.
• SEO Guy Forums - newer SEO forum which has taken off well. SEO Guy is a longtime member of SEO Chat. When he made his own forums many of SEO Chat's best members went with him.
• SEO Debat - Danish SEO forums.
• SEO Place - Derek Chew's newer SEO forum. Derek also runs Organic Rankings.
• SEO Project - newer small SEO forum.
• SEO Refugee - independent SEO forum which sprung up after SEO Chat imploded.
• SEO Town - Darrin Ward's new small SEO forum. After his 1 year non competing clause with SEO Chat lapsed he made the site, but it has not really picked up much steam.
• SEO Talk - Newer small SEO forum from the people of Webmaster Talk.
• SEO Zip - Nandini Maheshwari's newer SEO forums. I help her moderate there.
• SearchGuild - Chris Riding's mid sized SEO Forums. One of my favorite forums. Great signal to noise ratio and great sense of community.
• Search This Forums - small webmaster forums.
• SitePoint Forums - large webmaster coding forums. Site is primarily focused on coding and web development instead of marketing.
• Spider Food Forums - J.K. Bowman's SEO forums.
  Suchmaschinen Community - German SEO forums.

• Syndk8 - black hat SEO forums.
• Top25Web - Anthony Ettinger's small SEO forums. He is a programmer by trade, and I believe the Top25Web forums are primarily geared toward those new to SEO.
• V7N Web Dev Community - mid sized webmaster forums - John Scott's SEO forums. John has a tendancy to be blunt, but he means well. I post there frequently. :)

• Web Inspect Forums - smaller, newer forums
• Webmaster World - large webmaster forums. Strict posting policies. Search Engine Watch forums has recently cut into their userbase.
• Web Pro World - mid sized webmaster forums. An SEO forum aimed at people new to the SEO scene.
• Webmaster Homepage - German webmaster forums.
• Webmaster Talk - webmaster forums focused around coding, creating, hosting, and promoting sites.
• Xeoweb SEO Foro - Spanish SEO forums.

Newsgroups:
Google Groups: Google Support
Google Groups: Search Engines

While the Newsgroups do have good stuff in them, they also lack moderation and that can lead to lots of misinformation. A newer Newsgroup powered by Google Groups 2 and moderated by Andrew Goodman is located here.

Andrew writes for Traffick.com, is consider as one of the leading gurus on Google AdWords, and he was the moderator of the I-Search list before the I-lists went away. His newsgroup has many higger level posts from sophisticated and experienced marketers.

LED Digest, one of the original email only discussion lists, also discusses SEO and other internet marketing and webmaster related issues.

Old SEO Forums Article
Here is a review of SEO forums I did near the end of 2003. Please note that some of its info may be slightly outdated, as things have changed and I have learned a good bit more in the past year. The information on this page is WAY MORE up to date than the info in that article.

Disclaimer: I hate AOL and am not a fan of George Bush

Many people have Google Bombed the President Bush biography page by linking to it with miserable failure in the anchor text (like so: miserable failure.)

AOL recently blocked George Bush's miserable failure rankings, which he has earned in the eyes of many. They still leave the ones for Michael Moore and Hillary Clinton. AOL Search: miserable failure While not covered in DMNews, AOL also seemed to have blocked the Google bombing of President Bush's biography page for the term "unelectable."
People Google Bombed his biography page using "unelectable" as the anchor text (like so: unelectable.)

In a previous life I installed AOL on my computer. I could not get rid of it. It was one of the worst viruses I have ever had. They are one of the few major internet players who use popups. I will be glad when the new MSN software blocks one of the main AOL revenue streams.

Did I mention I think AOL is a miserable failure? Their stock price has plunged over the past 5 years.

John Battle has a great search engine blog. Covers lots of cool stuff over there, such as search and social networking (from Boing Boing), his upcomming book, and an interview with Joh Klienberg, an associate professor at Cornell. Klienberg is responsible for much of the work that went into the Hubs and Authorities ranking system which Teoma uses.

Name That Tune

FindSounds is a newer sound search engine which was covered in SearchDay today.

If you search for Ozzy it will give no results, but here are some of the examples that do work.

When there is not much news you must cover the fun toys.

Spider Hacks teaches you how to create your own spider...which I eventually will.

MTGoogleRank shows how many pages link to any page and where any site ranks for a keyword...am going to try this out real quick

Also MTMacros is really cool looking stuff, which I will need to be play with soon.

Contagious I joined Orkut today :)

Spreading Google opening Swiss research lab

Super Critical Explosion Google Brand of the Year 2 Years in a Row (sidebar: I was a nuclear reactor operator on fast attack submarines. me think that job no fun!)

New Patent ...they must be doing something right, they should put a patent on it!

Everyone's favorite underdog, Gigablast recently released GigaBits, which is essentially a "see also" search refinement.

This has absolutely nothing to do with search engines...feel free to shoot me next time you see me. I will be at SES New York in about a month...bring a gun!!!

I am one of the finalists for Seth Godin's next eBook "Bull Market 2004."

If you like any of my sites and would like to be one of my GLOWING feedbacks, feel free to leave kind words of praise below.

Here is the goal of the Bull Market 2004 eBook "If you are one of the 500 that are picked, I'll include you for free in my new eBook, coming out this May. I expect it will reach about a million people. This is going to be the one and only sourcebook for finding the catalyst an organization needs to create truly great stuff. "

If you hate me that would also be good information as it will help keep me in balance.

If you are a cool creative person then enter your site...don't forget to say I sent you :)

These are a few of the testimonials people have left for the SEO Book.

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"Thanks Aaron. I always learn so much from you and your website."

"I read your book! AMAZING! I found it to be very informative and
a pleasure to read! You suggested that it might be boring...Hell, NO! Terrific."

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"Excellent! You've done some homework. A ton of good info and it was refreshing to see that your info relates to the entire search engine industry and is not heavily weighted toward Google. Everyone should take a look at this. Newbies should definitely look at this. I'll revisit this several times I'm sure."

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CLICK HERE If you would like to learn more about the SEO Book.