feed hat blog

It’s been a crazy week. I moved desks and now I have a great view out the window. We had a BBQ feast for lunch today. And Christopher and Shannon have been in town, hanging out at SEOToolSet training. Don’t you just love family reunions?

We’ve made it to Friday and it’s time to let off a little steam. So you know the drill on Fridays: news of the (search) world and news of the weird. Away we go!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/strollers/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

I tweeted about this on Monday (hat tip to Susan) and a few peeps liked it so I’m compelled to use it as my opener. I present to you CRABZILLA! I’m told on good authority that Mega Shark is Crabzilla’s only plausible nemesis. I wouldn’t want to take part in that battle. Well, until it’s over, at which point I’ll be there with my fork, butter and maybe a slice of lemon for garnish self-defense.

Are you ready for Google Caffeine? It’s up for debate whether or not the infrastructure update that the search engine said would begin rolling out in the new year has been fully implemented. Still, it’s good to have some guidelines in mind when optimizing a Caffeine-ready site.

A few weeks back the makers of the quintessential doll Barbie asked fans what Barbie’s next job should be. The result is a sign of the techie times we live in. Barbie is a computer engineer! A little in-depth analysis by the BBC suggests some flaws with the way IT Barbie came together, but I’m a fan of the technically minded and feminine woman Barbie’s representing. [Me too. It's IT Barbie-style. —Susan]

Location updates have always posed a danger, and one site highlighting this fact was circulating the Web this week. Please Rob Me aggregates Foursquare updates with a dose of humor, keying in on the fact that people find it trendy to update the world about their empty homes.

Yes, there’s much to be cautious of on the social Web, which is why the demand for online reputation management has rocketed upwards. If you’re looking for innovative ways to defeat unflattering content on the Web, Bury Negative Publicity With New Pages on the Same Domain is a must-read, including tips for sites like Digg, Wikipedia, blogs, and even police blotters.

Photoshop celebrates its 20th anniversary today! What would we ever do without that fabulous photo editing suite? Gotta love the interactive timeline Adobe’s put together. Li’l guy’s come a long way!

A massive botnet, called the Kneber botnet, was uncovered by security analysts. The infected network included more than 74,000 personal, corporate and government computers, yet the botnet was recognized by less than 10 percent of antivirus software. It’s being attributed to two criminal gangs that have been cooperating with each other.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkadog/ CC BY 2.0

What’s a girl to do when even a wholesome place like the Internet is corrupted by criminal gangs? Play with a virtual kaleidoscope, of course! That toy right there is hours of fun, and it’s shared with love, care of Mrs. Esparza! [Hi, Mom! —Susan]

Of course, the Internet has facilitated sharing across the world, and social media is a big part of that. But which social network is really driving shared content? According to data from widgets company Gigya, Facebook is responsible for 44 percent of content shared via social networks. Twitter’s next with 29 percent, followed by Yahoo! at 18 percent. As a whole, social media sites account for 75 percent of all content shared online.

Susan got giddy when she shared this story in the Skype chat this week. It looks like in a couple years, one terabyte solid state hard drives the size of a postage stamp will be a reality. I believe her comment was along the lines of: “Imagine having a terabyte flash drive. You could carry your whole life around. Perhaps on a fashionable necklace.” Now that’s a girl who’s thinking of the possibilities! [It's no more geeky than the hashtag necklace I got this week. —Susan]

On a related note, it was interesting to learn that we’re facing a worldwide shortage of flash memory chips thanks to the iPhone and other Apple devices. Apparently the iPhone consumes 30 percent of the world’s supply of NAND flash chips.

If you had to describe the average player of Farmville or Mafia Wars or another game on a social networking site, what would you say? Are you picturing a 43-year-old woman, by any chance? If so, you’d be right! According to a survey in the U.S. and U.K., most social gamers are females between 30 and 59 who work full time. [This research is supported by anecdote. I have seven aunts and they all play Farmville like it's their job. —Susan]

And finally, as soon as I read a tweet from instantly popular @sh*tmydadsays account on Twitter, I was a follower. So it is with great joy and anticipation that I spread the rumor that William Shatner will play dad on the TV series pilot based on the Twitter account. This could just be the best show of the 21st century. No pressure.

Friday Recap: The Week in a Jiff Edition was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO services company.

Read the rest here: 
Friday Recap: The Week in a Jiff Edition

Welcome back, Friday! We missed you so! Lots happened while you were gone. Lemme tell you all about it.

Facebook celebrated its sixth birthday by getting a facelift. It hasn’t been rolled out to me yet, though I’m sure Facebook users everywhere are so excited about yet. another. redesign. Yawn…

Now this one’s a little peppier — it made me laugh anyway. You know how geek is the new black? Well the real geeks aren’t so keen on having their culture kidnapped by the mainstream, as explained in 10 “Geeky” Things That Are Not Geeky, So Quit Acting Like They’re Geeky. Sorry guys, but everyone hearts geeks now. You’re popular. Deal with it. [Hipsters need to step off our turf is all we're saying. —Susan]

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) is conducting its sixth annual State-of-the-Market Survey, and everyone should totally participate. The info gleaned is good for the whole industry — and participation is good for you, too. If you fill out the survey you’ll get the final report free, saving yourself $249! The survey is open until Monday, February 22.

As you may know, February is Black History Month and in the spirit of remembrance (and entertainment) a series of motivational posters pays tribute to the occasion. Here’s the one I’m ordering for the office:

The annual Doodle 4 Google contest is back and this year’s theme is “If I Could Do Anything, I Would…” Young’uns grades K through 12 can enter the competition for a chance to have their artwork on the Google home page. Registration ends March 17!

It looks like Mexico might be jumping on the Twitter censorship bandwagon. The reason? To reduce crime, of course. You know, because the drug traffickers are using Twitter to communicate quickly. And rather than get hip to the technology, the police want to ban the social networks. Because well-connected, well-funded underground organizations aren’t going to figure out a way around that…

Much more impressive is AT&T’s attitude toward social media:

[2/3/2010 2:00:37 PM] BCI-Paula Allen: AT&T is using Facebook to engage and doing it right — case study

Over on social news site Digg this week, an astute eye might have detected a hack had taken place. But on closer inspection, it looks like the spooky face in the page source code was really a clever advertisement for a soon-to-be-released video game. What will they think of next?

That was just the question I asked myself when I discovered that my cousins to the north have a slightly different way of doing things:

[2/4/2010 3:46:22 PM] BCI-Virginia Nussey: fun fact about canada
[2/4/2010 3:47:19 PM] BCI-Susan Esparza: I knew that about Canada. Also their Mountain Dew doesn’t have caffeine. Why on earth would anyone want to drink noncaffeinated Mountain Dew?

Pshaw! Good question, Susan. Here’s another good question. Who in their right mind doesn’t retrieve these strange, unclaimed airline baggage items! A 300-year-old violin? A Space Shuttle camera? A 40 carat emerald? If you don’t want them, I’ll take them!

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• Jon Stewart took the blogosphere to task for overhyped headlines. Giggle fit commences.
• China thinks pajamas are totally ruining its image.
• I take proper grammar and punctuation very seriously. It can actually be a matter of life and death.
• Twitpics. In space!

Alright, that’s it for me today. Friday, I’m all yours!

Friday Recap: Freakishly Out of Proportion Headline Edition was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO services company.

Here is the original post: 
Friday Recap: Freakishly Out of Proportion Headline Edition

‘Twas the day before Christmas and white hat SEOs
Were excited for presents with ribbons and bows!
They had been nice, and Santa knew well
They were deserving of gifts and jingling bells!

To the Bruce Clay, Inc. holiday party they came,
Bringing good kin along for the games!
And who but ol’ Santa Clay did appear
With a bag full of fun and love for the New Year!

I just wanted to add one final dash of holiday cheer to the blog before leaving for the long holiday weekend. Here’s a quick handful of fun holiday finds:

• The Bruce Clay, Inc. holiday party was an atomic blast! Check out the picture gallery on Flickr. A special thanks to our in-house event photographer, Tom!
• On the Bruce Clay Australasia blog you’ll find an SEO’s Christmas wish list, and there’s a little something in there for everyone.
• Bloggers with a sense of humor will get a chuckle out of the three wise bloggers.
• If you missed it before, view the Bruce Clay, Inc. office all decked out with lights, garlands and snowflakes!
• Not holiday related but certainly end of the year related, next week the annual Bruce Clay, Inc. Best of Search Conferences will be posted on the blog. See last year’s agenda for an idea of what’s to come.

Happy Kwanzaa! Merry Christmas! To all our friends, happy holidays!

Happy Holidays 2009 was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO services company.

Go here to read the rest: 
Happy Holidays 2009

Happy, er, Wednesday? With Christmas just around the corner it’s a short week for most, so you get your mini recap early.

This morning Bruce Clay, Inc. came together for some jolly making around the tree. Hot cocoa, apple cider and eggnog were all close at hand, though it was an otherwise dry gathering. Nowadays “dry” doesn’t necessarily mean alcohol-free. With the help of a newly developed technique, vodka and other liquors can now be distributed in pill form. Can you say “trouble”? [To clarify, there was no drinking going on at the party. --Susan] Please! I had a belly full of cocoa!

We also held a Secret Santa gift exchange this year, and I had no idea the secret was supposed to stay a secret! I want to thank my Santa for their thoughtful gift! (If you’re reading this, I love my gift! Whoever you are, you have excellent taste!) If you’re stumped for gift ideas, consider making a donation in someone’s name to one of these worthy charities.

There’s the Red Cross:

[12/22/09 2:34:44 PM] BCI-Paula Allen: I had no idea the Red Cross can be called out with the fire dept

There’s also the Modest Needs Foundation [I'm planning on donating to this in the upcoming year. --Susan]:

[12/22/2009 11:12:27 AM] BCI-Susan Esparza: Aw, heartwarming.

Deena and daughter Jayna at the BCI holiday party!

Helping us to be responsible consumers, Ann Smarty informs us of the “greenness” of online shopping. Spoiler alert: while online shopping can be greener in certain circumstances, there’s really no cut and dry answer. Shop smart!

Today’s holiday party was a reminder of the power of community to spirit to bring joy and togetherness. Last week we were reminded that community spirit should be a part of your online efforts in Does Your Website Have Community Spirit? because a sense of belonging goes a long way.

An old Christmas classic was given a clever search twist in Twas the Night Before Caffeine. Who knew search engine infrastructure could be so festive?!

Here’s another Christmas tradition gone mod:

[12/18/2009 8:57:46 AM] BCI-Susan Esparza: I think there is a limit to the level of bacon related products that you can have before they become tiresome. These are still on the awesome side of the line.

This next one’s on the infuriating side of the line. It appears that Verizon has made it so that Storm 2 BlackBerry devices on the network are restricted to search only Microsoft Bing from the browser’s search box. I can understand setting the default search engine, but making it impossible to set the search box to anything but Bing is going too far.

The Google Blogoscoped blog also scooped a new Google tool:

[12/22/09 3:02:07 PM] BCI-Susan Esparza: neat little tool

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has launched a forum to discuss public access to federally funded research. The forum is set to run through January 7 and will move on to the next stage from there. Let your voice be heard.

While that sounds really smart, here’s something a little less intellectual:

[12/18/2009 3:55:10 PM] BCI-Paula Allen: Note to self: Register howtoturnoffcapslock.com; make millions.

We’re reaching the end of a year, nay, a decade! As is tradition, the end of something means lots of reflective lists. For a laugh, enjoy the top 10 stories on Digg, and in a more serious vein, check out the top 50 SEO posts of 2009.

Kristy Bolsinger’s list was more forward looking than those above, in All I Want For Christmas — A Social Media Wish List — great tips for any social media marketer.

And just for fun, I’m going to close on a totally unrelated note — Susan’s favorite Gawker picks this week (all commentary is by Susan, copy-pasted from our Skype convo):

• Facebook doesn’t care about Fort Hood (and other inflammatory deductions).
• Submitted without commentary.
• You know you’d do the same thing.

Happy holidays, everyone! (And be sure to come back tomorrow for a rare glimpse of Santa Clay!)

Friday Recap: Midweek Minicap Edition was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO services company.

See the rest here: 
Friday Recap: Midweek Minicap Edition

What a week it’s been since the last time we danced the Friday Recap waltz! Google’s been spitting out new features left and right. SES Chicago liveblog coverage kept Susan at a level of busy that I’m pretty sure has been linked to alien hand syndrome. [No joke, I lost feeling in my fingers there for a bit and my hands still hurt. --Susan] And the holiday season kicked into high gear. The end.

Okay, in all seriousness the world didn’t stand still because the writers were swamped by Google and SES. Today we finally got caught up on our feeds and faves, just in time to share!

Paula started us off by spilling secrets…

[8:42:54 AM] BCI-Paula Allen: My secret: I’ve switched to Bing since Tuesday.

What was the catalyst for such a change, you ask? Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s awesome assertion that only criminals and perverts could ever possibly want privacy.

Then Susan figured out why I always feel so smug after doing laundry!

[9:03:06 AM] BCI-Susan Esparza: This is so true. Also, I totally have clean towels.

As 2009 comes to a close it’s time for everyone to publish their “blank” of the year.

[9:05:39 AM] BCI-Susan Esparza: Every year this blog does “the year in names” and this year is apparently the year of the overhyped: Second runner up – Falcon (Balloon boy). First runner up: Taylor (Swift and Lautner) and the winner?

Drum roll please…

Renesmee.

You know, the name of that demon mutt baby from the Twilight series. A real classic!

I always like to see Time Magazine’s annual top ten lists of everything, which they publish at the end of every year. Susan took issue with one particular list:

[10:45:05 AM] BCI-Susan Esparza: Time picked their Top 10 Best TV ads. I’m not sure if they were deliberately arranging them from most annoying to least or what. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1944054,00.html

The Eat Local movement has been gaining momentum this year. Do you ever wonder where your food came from? How about what her name was?

[11:56:31 AM] BCI-Paula Allen: Cows with names make more milk, of course http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/?th&emc=th#natural_science-1

I recently took the Myers-Breggs personality test (take it for free here) and so I’ve been reading up about my fellow INFJs and me. Leave it to Susan to elevate it to a place where no man has gone before.

[9:41:45 AM] BCI-Susan Esparza: Star Trek Myers-Briggs personality types! http://www.wischik.com/damon/Texts/myersbriggstrek.html
[9:41:50 AM] BCI-Susan Esparza: I’m a Worf/Picard

And just in case you’re short on gift ideas this season, I’ve got just one word for you: Snuggie! Think about it. The perfect gift is something that everyone wants but which no one would actually buy for themselves. And they’re reasonably priced, only come in one size, and are unisex! I’m a sucker for evil genius marketing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/ CC BY 2.0

Things I learned from @FakeAPStylebook this week:

(Disclaimer: I didn’t actually learn these things because they’re not actually true…)

• Italicize words to give your story that gangsta lean.
• The word “totally” is redundant except when describing how rad something is.
• “Hacker” simply means “a person who is skilled with computers.” To describe a computer criminal, use “Linux user.”
• “Teh” is a common misspelling of “the.” Add it to your rival’s spell-check dictionary. [Awesome advice. --Susan]
• Gelt/Guilt – Gelt is an awful-tasting chocolate candy coin. Guilt is a Jewish mother’s super power.

Happy Hanukkah, friends!

Friday Recap: Festival of Funderful Edition was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO services company.

More here:
Friday Recap: Festival of Funderful Edition

Happy Thanksgiving! The whole office just came together for a serious cornucopia of a potluck lunch. If by the end of this post my eyes aren’t rolling to the back of my head as I succumb to a food coma, I’ll consider this an incredibly successful day. (Though my tummy already knows it is!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/voght/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

So it’s recap time! With a short week comes a recap in a smaller serving size than usual. You should be saving room for that feast tomorrow, anyway, right?

Some people can’t seem to participate in social media very long before doing something that bites them in the behind — something that raises red flags with a boss or rocks the boat of a romantic relationship. But here’s a first. A member of one quasi-celeb’s entourage was arrested after not using Twitter.

When a crowd of teenage fans got too rowdy at the mall while waiting for singer Justin Bieber, police asked Bieber to calm them down with a tweet. Apparently he didn’t tweet soon enough, and police arrested the VP of Bieber’s record label. Don’t ask me — I’m just the messenger.

Marketers using Twitter may be interested to know that corporate accounts are set for release by the end of the year, according to co-founder Biz Stone. Paid accounts would come with extra layers of feedback and analytics. I hear they make for good insulation in the winter months.

Here’s another head scratcher. AOL is rebranding itself as Aol. That period there wasn’t just to end the sentence — it’s part of the name. PaidContent reports that what “the lowercase lettering suggests is a complete break with the notion of AOL as acronym and the period at the end is just that.” Deep. [In the rest of the world, we call those full stops. As in AOL needs serious therapy. Full Stop. --Susan]

TechCrunch outed a major media network for soliciting reciprocal links, making sure to pass the link request to Matt Cutts along the way. I’m all for sharing the link love, but be safe, kids.

You know Google Analytics, that little service that tracks the behavior of visitors coming to and navigating through your site? Well, it looks like Germany may ban Google Analytics because it violates national data protection laws. What? No one uses it anyway, right?

One speedy marketer caught a screen shot of user interface testing by Google featuring tabs with related search terms. Google’s always testing new results, but it’s somewhat rare to see them out in the wild. And after the initial find, the interface was never to be seen again!

Google Image Search has been a target of critics after flip-flopping over an offensive image of the First Lady. A few weeks ago someone reported that the first result of an image search for “Michelle Obama” was a photoshopped monkey. Then Google removed the image, citing webmaster guideline violations by the site. Now Google has returned the image to the results but has included a sponsored listing pointing to more information on their response to offensive search results. Don’t mind me — just feeling a bit dizzy over here.

But that’s nothing compared to the level of dizzy caused by Black Friday. When the zoo of humanity takes over the shopping malls like a swarm of locusts, you know I’m not around. Instead, I’ll be sitting at home finding all the deals online. Search Engine Journal has rounded up Black Friday ad sites worth your while. And Search Engine Land has tips on how sites can put on their Black Friday finest.

P.S. Earlier this week I shared some ideas for last minute, quick and easy Black Friday marketing pushes. It’s never too late for next year!

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• In honor of the 10th anniversary of The Matrix a frame-accurate stop-motion animation scene with LEGOs pulls out all the stops.
• It’s possible to marry a digital image, even if you can’t snuggle with it.
• If Jack Sparrow was ever stranded in the Antarctic, he’ll find some mighty fine scotch waiting for him.
• The Large Hadron Collider finally got a hit! So…? [Now the plot of 2012 happens, right? --Susan]

Originally posted here:
Friday Recap: Gravy-Flavored Edition

Happy (day before) Halloween! It’s the annual Bruce Clay, Inc. Halloween party today, and as you might know we take this holiday very seriously.

Bruce Clay, Inc. Halloween 2009

Bruce has been out of the country for the last week — out in Milan for SEO ToolSetTraining. We thought we’d give him a proper welcome back to the office. What do you think of our thoughtful decorations?

Turns out I blended right in with a look I like to call mummy turned TP monster.

All that’s to say our cauldron was overflowing with fun! Everybody looked amazing and got into the spirit. You can check out all the costumes as well as some of our luncheon fun on our Halloween 2009 Flickr album.

It’s time for me to go unravel some trouble like only the undead can do. So until we meet again…

Happy Friday, happy weekend and happy Halloween!

Mwahahaha!!

Original post: 
SEO Spooksters!

Happy Friday, friends! Hungry for a recap?

The week’s big news was that social search entered the mainstream. Bing, and subsequently Google, announced social search integration into their respective search engines. Bing partnered with Twitter and Facebook to serve status updates and tweets in search results, and the social search service is now up and running. Quick aside: Bing’s parent Microsoft also released the Windows 7 operating system this week.

Meanwhile Google, in a move that smacks of thunder theft, has said that its social search will launch in Labs in a few weeks. (Not content to just slap Microsoft, Google co-founder Sergey Brin managed to smack Yahoo! this week as well.)

For more on the social search features and how they may affect SEO, check out Marc Elison’s exploration of the subject on the Bruce Clay Australasia blog. [Hallo down under! --Paula]

Ice cream = Happiness

The social networks themselves also celebrated accomplishments this week as Twitter reached its five-billionth tweet and Facebook data was used to create a Gross National Happiness Index based on the sentiment expressed in users’ status updates.

In other social news, Facebook elaborated on its leaked and as-of-yet-unreleased home page design, and Twitter use is being blacklisted by some segments of Hollywood.

Now, living in L.A. you see lots of weird things. But have you ever seen a group of people break into song in the middle of a grocery story? Improve Everywhere, the infamous group of improv artists that spreads smiles in the New York City area, pulled off this very feat, with all the gape-mouthed glory you’d expect if life turned musical before your eyes.

Rumors that Google is entering the music game were all but confirmed by leaked screenshots of a new service where Google allows users to stream music through the search engine and purchase songs through iTunes and Amazon.

However, the search engine did announce new features for Google Analytics and an API for Website Optimizer. The company’s newly approved patent for “trustrank” also piqued interest in the search community.

Communities are really the lifeblood of the online world, and posted comments are like a vital sign. Outspoken Media has posted seven illnesses of a comment-less blog, and more importantly, their cures. If you should be taking advice on building blog engagement from anyone, it’s clearly The Lisa. I know I do.

Study of e-mail user demographics by RapLeaf

The findings of a RapLeaf study of 120,000 e-mail users will be revealed in a multi-part series on the consumer data company’s blog. The first part, available now, breaks down the users of AOL, Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! e-mails by age and gender. The study shows that there are more male than female users of Hotmail, more female than male users of Gmail, and email users age 46 and up prefer AOL.

E-mailing and text messaging, according to a study by The Participatory Marketing Network and the Lubin School of Business’ Interactive and Direct Marketing Lab at Pace University, are the last activities that Gen Y would be willing to part with. Gen Y, those babes of the Baby Boomers, would give up the phone, TV, social networks and basically the whole rest of the Web before letting anyone pry e-mails and texts out of their hipster hands.

SEO vlogger Neal Rodriguez published his interviews with Bruce and me from SMX East earlier this month. Bruce talks about the coming new-and-improved SEOToolSet suite of diagnostic tools for Internet marketers. Neal and I talk about BCI’s liveblog coverage and my favorite learning moments at SMX East 2009. And just in case it’s not clear, the name’s Nussey, Virginia Nussey. (Cue secret agent theme music.)

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• The Blue Brain computer is a project aimed at reverse engineering the human brain.
• Chili peppers can keep you warm if you tuck them in your sock or glove.
• In David vs. Goliath match-ups, eagles hunt reindeer.
• Nokia is suing Apple for stealing its iPhone technology.
• Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile? It’s all in your mind…

Read the original here:
Friday Recap - Social Chokehold Edition

Our fearless leader, Captain of Chaos, and father of our fabulous SEO company celebrates his birthday today! On behalf of the Bruce Clay, Inc. crew, happy birthday, Bruce!

Your guidance, wisdom and support made this company a family. Your foresight, pioneering spirit and pursuit of knowledge inspired an industry.

Because of this, we in the BCI team aren’t alone in our well wishes. Gotta love how the Internet provides the ability to bring communities together and spread the love! Thanks to our friends in the Twittersphere for their happy birthday greetings to Bruce. Ya’ll are the coolest!

Special thanks from Bruce to these tweeters for their kind birthday wishes!

Steve Plunkett, @steveplunkett
Anthony Verre, @milwaukeeseo
Robert Frost, @rperro
Janet Driscoll Miller, @janetdmiller
Monica Wright, @monicawright
Cathie McGinn, @acatinatree
K.S. Katz, @creditgoddess

Here’s to another great year filled with SEO, PPC, ROI, and L-O-V-E!

Read the original post:
Happy Birthday, Bruce!