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Tropical SEO

Livin' the dream

Back from the DeadNovember 3 2008

>rent a car bulgaria, I’ve been a bit busy lately in the past few months. Tropical SEO got hacked (again), and a few months later, I finally got around to fixing it
Google is still showing the site as ‘dangerous’, though Firefox doesn’t display a warning page anymore. Please comment if you’re still seeing a warning in your browser.

Must-Read Monday LinksMarch 10 2008

Normally I try not to do posts like this but I think every competitive webmaster needs to read the following two posts:

компютри втора употребаландшафт Guilty Until Proven Innocent by Jay Weintraub Excerpts from Google Reviewer at SEO Blackhat (and good for you if you have a membership to read the whole thing!)

Back to the first link by Jay Weintraub — whether or not you agree with his entire post, I have heard dozens of people all agree on one thing about Google: they have the worst customer service in the history of the world. Yes, worse than Best Buy, worse than Comcast, and far worse than Micro$oft or Yahoo!.

My Predictions for 2008March 5 2008

On the heels of some other guy’s, I give you my own…

• Linkbaiting will not jump the shark. It’s here to stay. Online and Off-. Forever. Naysayers, please fast forward to 2026 — will Cosmopolitan publish “Collected Thoughts from a Writer on How to Have Sex Better” or “33 Ways to Drive Him Wild and Make Your Bedroom Sizzle?” Now, linkbaiting may get a bit more refined–no more publishing “The Geek’s Guide to Losing Weight” on your spammy dental plans affiliate site (*ahem*)–but good, baity content is the foundation of successful publishing, and that ain’t gonna change in 100 years.
• Premium content will gain more momentum. OK, I already made this prediction six months ago, but I’m sticking with it. Aaron Wall’s switch to a premium model seems to be going well, SEOmoz’s “PRO” is gaining steam, and, outside our little SEO-sphere, I’m still addicted to the paid content at Browns.Scout.com.
• Tropical SEO will post a total of 9 times. Hey, I’m just being honest. Besides, my not posting is really my way of sending you the message tha

Digg’s “Florida Update”: Digg Anti-Spam 1, Linkbaiters 0January 24 2008

If you’re a n00b in the SEO world, you may not know about the Florida Update–basically, it was the single day in history when Google rolled out a new algo and thousands of SEOs said to each other, “Dammit, Google finally got smart.”

Well, as the latest Digg update rolled out, thousands of SMOs/linkbaiters reacted by saying–angrily, long-windedly, and periphrastically–”Dammit, Digg finally got smart.” (See a concise summary of the new changes at SEL.)

The good news is, we SMOs & linkbaiters still have dozens of other social media traffic sources, which, as long as they stay “medium size”, won’t roll out anything like Digg’s Florida Update. Meanwhile, a lot of the heavy users leaving Digg will juice the membership at alternatives like Mixx and Tweako. No need to cry or get angry. Come up with a Plan B, move on, evolve. Digg had peaked anyway.

Rand Fishkin & Tropical Give Advice to Startup CEO’sJanuary 22 2008

From Rand’s advice to CEO’s:

I’ve also found that personally, it’s easy to spot someone who’s just in the business for the money vs. those who really care and want something great for the industry. It might be the optimism speaking, but I feel that the latter group usually produces the brightest innovations (and eventually, profit, too).

The urge to make a snarky reply is unbearable… Tropical… must… resist… impulse to… scratch itch… hippy jokes… overloading…

Not every CEO needs this, but I’ve found that in a web-based market, having watched dozens of people navigate (or try to navigate) websites has given me an extra edge in empathizing with the user and trying to understand what they need.

No disagreement here. Increasing usability is often the easiest/fastest/bestest way to quickly juice a site’s revenue.

I’m great at telling people when they’ve done a good job, but awful at criticizing any effort. In order to overcome, I’ve started hiring only those folks who have a deep, internal need for perfectionism. If you are your own harshest critic, it helps me to work around this pervasive flaw.

My nickname around the office is “H8er”. I call it “my critical eye”. Rand, w