Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 |
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
How well does Akismet stop comment spam? The Big Oak SEO Blog has been running since October 2006 and as of today, November 28, 2007 it has protected this blog site from 10,608 spam comments
Nicely done, Akismet. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Of course it does say a lot about the pervasiveness of comment spam today and how active it still remains, sadly. But it is also a confidence builder for using the DoFollow WordPress plugin without the fear of comment spam overrunning your site. Akismet can protect you from comment spam 99% of the time even with 10,000 spam attacks.
Posted in Blogging, Out on a Limb, SEO Tools | 2 Comments »
Thursday, October 18th, 2007 |
As any SEO company will tell you, link building is the backbone of a successful SEO campaign so many of my posts revolve around methods of building links without actively searching out links. If you can create buzz and get links naturally just by having creative and helpful content you will increase your chances of higher rankings.
One of our clients, F. Curtis Barry & Company, a warehouse consulting firm, has done an incredible job writing on their multichannel company blog. They have done so well that their blog actually has a higher PR value than their company blog. The blog acquires links more naturally and therefore has the opportunity to drive traffic to their company site, so having the blog rank well is good thing; it is a online sales tool that is at work 24 hours a day.
In our experience with writing and managing blogs for our clients we have discovered that writing about other blog posts can sometimes have a side affect of a link pointing back to the post from the outside blog post. For F. Curtis Barry this backlink came from the Wall Street Journal. The post on the F. Curtis Barry Blog commented on an article (and linked to it) by the Wall Street Journal and a few days later traffic was coming from an automated link back on the WSJ artilce. It is good thing to get traffic and links from WSJ.com…and we didn’t even have to ask.
Be careful though, writing about other comments and posts is a good strategy but only when done with sincerity. It can show that you are only writing about other articles for pure marketing results if you aren’t careful. Have a valid and well-thought out opinion if you do try this. Also realize that you may not receive a link back or that the link may have a no follow attribute negating any link juice (We DoFollow links). So be sure your post is valid on its own merits.
Comments and linking to blog posts on this site are always welcome. We check out links to our content all the time and will comment on other posts about us frequently. Have anything to add? Please add a comment or post on your own blog.
Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Blogging, Link Building | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 |
I saw that DMOZ launched their blog yesterday (9/26/07). I actually had to snicker to myself. Now they launch a blog? What about 2 or 3 years ago when it would have been helpful. So many people, SEO people, have been put off by the lack of response from DMOZ that I’m not sure they can ever recover. If not for the “support” of Google I’m sure this directory would have been finished long ago.
I found it particularly humorous they have a comments turned on. We’ll see if they actually accept any. I’m sure most of the comments will be of the unhelpful nature. Although I am purely speculating because at this time there were two comments and one of them was mine: “Welcome to the blogsphere. I hope this will be the first steps in mending the relationship between DMOZ and the Internet public.”. (9/25/07).
I did click the FAQ for the blog and it directed me to the DMOZ.org FAQ page, so there wasn’t much to learn from that.
DMOZ does explain the purpose of the blog:
We intend to use this blog to:
- Provide authentic messages about DMOZ and the efforts of our volunteer community.
- Highlight enhancements, both current and future.
- Allow editors to showcase their categories and describe, in their own words, why DMOZ is so important.
- Recruit new editors. If you have access to the Web and are passionate about a category, find out how to apply.
Additionally we want to hear from you.
I’ll hold my judgment based on the number of posts as well as the number of comments, both critical and supportive. It would be nice if DMOZ would start living up to the lofty goals it subscribed to many years ago and became a directory someone actually cares about again.
Posted in Blogging, Out on a Limb | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 12th, 2007 |
If you feel this blog has given you good advice about SEO, helpful examples for search engine marketing and/or been an interesting read, please think about giving us a vote for Best Marketing Blog. In a world where we say thank you so little, this is an opportunity to say thanks to Big Oak and it’s blog authors. Sorry to interrupt with a shameless solicitation. 
But, if you would like to do us a favor and massage our egos, you can vote for us here: http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/22014#
You will have to sign up for an account to vote (bummer), but you can also nominate and vote for other favorite blogs or even your own blog.
Posted in Blogging, Choosing SEO Company, Out on a Limb | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 |
I’m trying something new on my blog. While I certainly don’t have a blog with hundreds of posts (this will be my 70th posting) I feel like the blog is getting a bit harder to navigate for newer visitors.
So with that in mind I have added a new plugin that will automate placing my “most popular posts” on a page. The plugin decides your most popular posts by calculating most visits or most comments. I have opted to use most visits. So, my viewing public, you will decide what makes the cut on my most popular posts page. Power to the people! You can find my top posts page from the link in the top navigation or follow this link to Big Oak’s Popular Posts.
As of 5/9/07 I am showing the up to five of the most popular posts in each category. I can change it to show the top posts without a category filter, which means the most popular posts in total. Which way is best?
Any thoughts on the importance of unimportance of this usability test? Comments welcomed, as always.
Posted in Blogging, Out on a Limb | 5 Comments »
Thursday, February 15th, 2007 |
Update – June17, 2008 – We no longer “dofollow” all comments. We have some criteria that will be kept secret. Suffice to say, if you are a honest & consistent commenter your comments will be followed. This is being done to curb the overwhelming number of spam comments. We’ll try to reward those who make useful comments while sweeping the spam under the blog. I’m sure we’ll make some mistakes so don’t take it personally. And, please keep commenting! I have also installed a new plugin to replace the DoFollow plugin and I recommend it highly: Lucia’s Linky Love. It will allow you much more control over following links in comments.
- Shell Harris, President, Big Oak
I have decided to turn off the NoFollow attribute to comment posts on my SEO blog. I believe there are enough safe guards to protect this site from spammed comments such as Akismet.
In fact, Akismet it has caught every spam comment so far. And there have been 656 thousands of spam comments in the two many months since this blog was moved to its current location. Obviously, the NoFollow tag was having little or no effect on preventing spam.So, rather than penalize the people who actually write a comment worth reading, I have decided to reward any would-be commenters with a little link juice from a trusted site, providing they comment with some thought, that is.
So bring on your comments and enjoy the revolution, let links breathe free and carry weight for all!
If you wish to join the DoFollow revolution, you can download the DoFollow WordPress plugin that will turn off the NoFollow link attribute. Thanks, Kimmo!
Posted in Blogging, Out on a Limb | 44 Comments »
Friday, January 5th, 2007 |
Blogs can be helpful if correctly used. But, blogs will not guarantee high rankings.Blogs provide an easy way to add new and hopefully unique content. Search engines love new content and they love original content even more. Blogs are a great way of adding new information to your site because if search engines know a site is adding new articles or posts on a continual and frequent basis, they will come around more often to index the site. You can add a blog internally to your site directly (http://www.sitename.com/blog) or as an external site (http://sitename.blogspot.com).
Think of your blog as a way to reach potential clients on a more informal basis. Your blog will also allow you to tap into “lower hanging fruit” keyphrases that you use in your posts. You will be surprised at the keyphrases typed in the search engines that will bring users to your blog. It may even inspire a new Internet marketing initiative.
I recommend WordPress as the blogging tool of choice. Easy to set up, very powerful with the ability to add plungins and it has a great support network.
Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Blogging, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Strategies | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 |
Post from TMCNET.com. Read the full article.
A coworker noticed that his Google Alerts now contained a new “Google Blogs Alert” within his email this morning. Sure enough, you can see the new Google Blogs Alert. My guess is they’re using their Google Blog Search, which already finds new blog posts and then sends the alerts.
Now the only question is “will Google add blogs to the main Google News”? And would you be for it or against it? After all, there are a lot of poorly written blogs out there and right now the Google News is a useful resource. Perhaps Google can take the Top 10000 blogs out there based on a combination of Google PageRank, Technorati Ranking, etc.
Google Alerts beta page now lists blogs, webs, groups, and comprehensive in the drop-down box.
Posted in Blogging, Google, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Research, SEO Tools | Comments Off
Want to know what Shell is doing?