I read recently that the maximum # of outbound links on a homepage is set at 120, unless you have had your domain for longer than 2 years. But, after a ton of research on Google, and in respected SEO services, I couldn’t find any other mention of this claim. Did this “rule” get pulled out of thin air?
How many times does someone need to profess that they are an SEO expert before the public starts to fall for it?
Does using inflammatory words, like Hell, Hate, Porn, and Whore help your site get found in the search engines, or do they just make your site look creepy?
If a self-proclaimed SEO expert fell in the woods, and no one was there to hear it, wood Google notice?
Today I am going to be your SEO expert. My business blog gets some traffic and has a page rank, with about 60% of my readers finding me through the search engines. It is time for me to start sharing instead of keeping all my secrets to myself.
Here is the deal. Google is not an algorithm in a computer somewhere. Google is an actual living being and should be treated with the utmost care. If you dis Google in a curse will be put upon your blog and it will forever stay in the kitty litter box.
Google is not that hard to please. Jonathan Dalton likes to sacrifice dead goats to Google. Personally I don’t like to do anything quite that messy. Maybe I am just too much of a lady to actually kill something. . although there are days when the thought does cross my mind.
Here are some of my tips:
Throwing salt over my shoulder before I write a blog post has been very effective. I make sure that I never wear a black hat while I write a post because Google might see that as black hat SEO, and I will be struck dead at my keyboard, which could create some problems for my husband, AKA “Boomer”. . . and I am sure it would take him months to clean up the mess without my supervision.
Duplicate content is very bad. People who publish duplicate content can be thrown into Google hell, which is just like it sounds. It is a room filled with fire where 1’s and 0’s dance around and throw sparks at the bad blogger. . . even if the blogger does it once, and sometimes even if the blogger just thinks about duplicate content.
Ticking Google off on a regular basis can have major penalties. The blogger and the blog can be cursed for all time and I have heard it said that the curse may land on the first born of all future generations for all time.
You think I am making this up? Yup I am. Yet you believe other posts you see on the subject without question. . Google is about people on keyboards searching for information. If their searches match the content of your blog, they may just land on your blog.
One of the very best ways to get traffic is to write a post every day. The more posts, the more likely someone will find your blog. They don’t have to be long but should be focused. A focused post for a local blog is one that is about real estate or a local market area. Not about what you had for lunch or what your buddy five blogs over wrote about last week. Writing can be a challenge, worrying about SEO is easier than writing posts. That is how and why the SEO witch doctors are able to frighten bloggers into hiring them.
For people who would rather obsess over SEO than write posts there is help: Goggle has a blog. Use Google to find information about Google, type: “how does Google work” and read. Don’t forget the other major search engines. As hard as it is to imagine even the best real estate blogger may not be an SEO expert. Look for information from the pro’s. You probably think the computer geek should call you when they want to buy a home, they most likely think that their blogs are a better source of advice on SEO than ours are.
My apologies to Mr. Dalton for divulging the SEO secrets behind his most excellent blog on such a public forum. Check his blog he can write so well he could probably just stop with the goats and finish washing my car.
Note: it is absolutly OK to write off topic posts. I do that every Friday and they work well for me. I just don’t do it everyday.
Sarah Cooper
March 5, 2008 at 7:16 am
I had no idea about the goats.
I am really bad about SEO. I don’t even think about it until someone says something. Then I realize I’m doing it all wrong. But as I seem to like doing it all wrong, I think I’ll just keep on.
Might try the salt bit, though. Not the goats.
Rob Aubrey
March 5, 2008 at 7:19 am
well said T, relevancy is one google’s value propositions and so it should be for a business blogger.
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 7:27 am
Sarah – try the salt, not as messy as the goat. Just use your “dust buster” and clean it up.
Rob – after 1000 posts on my business blog I am finding that what I wrote a couple of years ago is still being picked up. IMHO nothing beats focused content.
Jay Thompson
March 5, 2008 at 8:07 am
Lambs work better than goats. Smaller, less mess. People do seem to be more sensitive about Lambs though. What with Mary and her little one and all.
(here come the calls from PETA)
This post may be my new T favorite (though I disagree a teensy bit about focus. I think an off-topic post every now and them is perfectly fine and can help readers understand who you are and what makes you tick — I see nothing wrong with that).
Recently (as in moments ago) I learned another new “rule” from an SEO “expert”. You should only use keywords that result in 1000 searches. I don’t know if that’s 1K searches in a day, a week or a lifetime, but it’s sounds like some important rule that I’m certain I’ve broken as I’ve never researched the search frequency of a keyword.
This latest exchange was born in the revamped Inman site. A self-professed newbie blogger asked what was the best SEO advice. I basically said not to worry about it, the SEO expert (that sells SEO services — undisclosed in her comment BTW) of course disagreed. But they did enlighten us with the latest rule.
Here’s the thread
Tony - vidlisting.com
March 5, 2008 at 8:16 am
All this time I thought we had to throw goats over our shoulder…my back hasnt been the same since I started blogging.
Tony
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 8:18 am
Jay – I do off topic posts and you know it. Friday fun is never on topic. I never say never on any of this, as a rule most of my posts are focused. Lamb? Hmmmm we need to tell Jonathan.
Dan Green
March 5, 2008 at 8:22 am
I’ve found that mentioning Chuck Norris in your posts can help, too. Every blog entry that has ever mentioned Chuck Norris shares a #1 ranking. Google won’t dare tell Chuck Norris he’s #2 to anybody — even himself.
Jay Thompson
March 5, 2008 at 8:28 am
Shhhhhhh. Don’t say anything about the lamb. Be very quiet…….
I love your Friday Fun T. I zeroed in on “They don’t have to be long but should be focused”. I have that discussion a lot with Voodoo SEO people, so I’m a little sensitive to it.
Now I have to go write a post about Chuck Norris’ flock. Wonder if “Chuck Norris Sheep” gets more than 1K searches?
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 8:32 am
Wondering how much a goat or lamb weighs and if I could throw one over my shoulder?
Jay I am sensitive to the accusation that my blog is too local and focused. i write on so many topics: Real estate, places, architecture, hard numbers, humor and even socks, batteries and and calm shell packaging.
Jacksonville Real Estate
March 5, 2008 at 8:43 am
I’m not sure if this is pertinent to the conversation or not at this point but Google does actually suggest under their Design & Content Guidelines, “Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).”
https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769&query=number+of+links+on+page&topic=&type=
But I get your point. Having post & content is more important than focusing on SEO.
Jay Thompson
March 5, 2008 at 8:48 am
T I’m sorry, didn’t meant to offend. I understand the sensitivities. I’m kind of the opposite, sensitive to accusations that my blog lacks focus. (though I bet if you did a post count between our blogs the ratio of On to Off topic would probably be remarkably similar. People’s different perceptions is interesting)
Kris Berg
March 5, 2008 at 9:08 am
I was just doing a search for Dead Goats Sacrifice, and I stumbled on this post. Great article!!
Can you help me buy an insanely expensive home in St. Paul?
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 9:14 am
Kris – think you are looking for a place where the insane can live. . . I should just invite you over to my place.
Jonathan Dalton
March 5, 2008 at 9:40 am
Let’s see … Jay sacrifices lambs and is on page 1. I sacrifice goats and I ping-pong between pages one and three for no apparent reason.
But lambs are just so damn fluffy …
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 9:50 am
Jonathan – I am number one on page one and I think it is because of the salt. Salt is not fluffy so it is OK to throw it around.
Kris Berg
March 5, 2008 at 9:59 am
For San Diego Real Estate, I am number 4 on page 4, which makes me the Suxor. How DO I feed myself?
There must be more than one way to skin a cat.
Technorati Tags: Skin a cat, skin a cat, skin a cat, dead goats, San Diego Real Estate
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 10:25 am
Kris – Please try the salt.
Missy Caulk
March 5, 2008 at 10:41 am
I know I need to write more than I do, was thinking about it this morning on a way to a meeting. I might need to start doing a list and just stick to it. Thanks
Tony - vidlisting.com
March 5, 2008 at 11:14 am
“Technorati Tags: Skin a cat, skin a cat, skin a cat, dead goats, San Diego Real Estate”
Thats a classic..thanks for the chuckle.
Tony
Mike Farmer
March 5, 2008 at 11:23 am
Is duplicate content really that bad. I heard it was okay. I’m so confused sometimes.
It’s like chocolate is bad for you, no now it’s good for you, no, now it’s…
Sarah Cooper
March 5, 2008 at 11:25 am
Mike, duplicate chocolate.
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 11:38 am
Duplicate content – I have done it and yet I live. Not a good idea to have duplicate posts on multiple sites frequently but you will not be struck dead if you duplicate a post. I sometimes just change the first sentance or two and recycle the same post on a different blog. I also duplicate my own content on my own blog. It shocks the re-bloggoshpere . . I like to be shocking.
Christopher Zabka
March 5, 2008 at 12:22 pm
This is a great post, Teresa. And thanks to everyone for all the tongue-in-cheek comments — a great laugh today!
Kris Berg
March 5, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Well, that didn’t take long.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sacrifice+dead+goats+blog
Mike Farmer
March 5, 2008 at 12:27 pm
duplicate chocolate is okay, right?
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Unique content indexes and is found quickly. Not many write about goats and blogs, now for the important question, how many will search on those terms and why and if they do are they looking for this post or are they doing research on the blogging habits of goats? If they do find this post will they become regular readers? Will they find my blog and buy real estate? Does it matter? I wish I knew
Mount Tremblant
March 5, 2008 at 2:18 pm
“Throwing salt over my shoulder before I write a blog post has been very effective. I make sure that I never wear a black hat while I write a post”
“Technorati Tags: Skin a cat, skin a cat, skin a cat, dead goats, San Diego Real Estate”
“I’ve found that mentioning Chuck Norris in your posts can help, too. Every blog entry that has ever mentioned Chuck Norris shares a #1 ranking. Google won’t dare tell Chuck Norris he’s #2 to anybody — even himself.”
You guys are great, really don’t know what to say to top that, thank you for the good laugh.
Btw, Search Engine Land says that SEO isn’t Voodoo… i’m confused now 😉
https://searchengineland.com/071001-135215.php
David G
March 5, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Great post T – the most important SEO strategy is to write regularly about stuff your target audience is interested in.
FYI; the 120 links thing is real. Matt Cuts from Google discussed it at the SMX conference last week. I wasn’t there but apparently his advice was to limit pages to 100 outbound links where possible – 120 is fine – but 200 starts to look like a link-farm. Interesting but nowhere near as important as fresh content, RSS, keywords etc.
Daniel Rothamel, The Real Estate Zebra
March 5, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’m not sure which is better, the post or the comments.
What if a wear my referee shirt when I write, it is black AND white? (but I guess since it isn’t a hat, it doesn’t really matter)
JeffX
March 5, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Here here Teresa! Your writing is clever and engaging. No SEO Voodoo trumps your skills 🙂
Dave Smith
March 5, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Jonathan,
I think the real issue here is the relevance of the sacrifice. You can’t sacrifice a DEAD goat. If the goat is dead it isn’t a sacrifice.
But no need to be knit picking at this point I suppose.
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 4:34 pm
You guys are all too funny. Yes I know that if there are a ton of links on the front page of a site it may look like a link farm. That is why I throw so much salt over my shoulder.
Daniel – my post is at least as good as some of these comments.
Can’t we go back to talking about chocolate?
Mariana
March 5, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Teresa – Did I mention that I needed to hire you as an SEO consultant? I pay 2 goats, 2 lambs and a pinch of salt per hour. And when I say “per hour” I mean per blogging hour, which is actually 3 real hours because of random Twitter/GoogleFeedReader/throwing a goat over your shoulder interuptions. Just have your cabana boy call me and we can schedule something.
Mariana
March 5, 2008 at 4:40 pm
(and I will pay via chocolate for overtime.)
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Mairana – I will only except chocolate as payment. I prefer the chocolate with more coco and less sugar. I only stop for super pokes so I can do it all fairly quickly. I have had so many sheep thrown at me over the months that I simply don’t have room for any more live stock. In fact I have been selling them to Jonathan Dalton so that he can sacrifice them to google.
Mariana
March 5, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Teresa – I am going to replace my current bio on Active Rain with your last comment.
Jonathan Dalton
March 5, 2008 at 5:03 pm
You an pick a nit if it’s come off a goat about to be sacrificed, Dave. And this isn’t Major League. I’m not ordering a bucket of KFC in lieu of a sacrifice of a live chicken. You have to be committed to SEO to make this work, my friend.
Maybe I should just salt the goat …
Mike Farmer
March 5, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Just remember the old saying: THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN A GOOD FRIEND, EXCEPT A GOOD FRIEND WITH CHOCOLATE.
Jonathan Dalton
March 5, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Sheep don’t work, Mrs. B. I tried them. Too fluffy. Gums up the works. Google Master said to save the silly sheep for AOL users who won’t know any better.
Back to cleaning out your rain gutters …
Kris Berg
March 5, 2008 at 5:11 pm
>You can’t sacrifice a DEAD goat. If the goat is dead it isn’t a sacrifice.
Dave – I was SO thinking that around comment #12 or so, but realized that Teresa is right – She is always right. I, myself, know little about sacrificing animals, dead or otherwise, but I know a whole lot about not questioning Teresa.
Anyway, I just thought she meant that Jonathan was hitting into a forced out at first, thereby advancing the dead goat safely to second. This, of course, assumes the dead goat wasn’t able to get a significant lead-off and move all the way to third on the play.
Mariana
March 5, 2008 at 5:13 pm
https://activerain.com/goatslambsandsalt
Jay Thompson
March 5, 2008 at 5:24 pm
*sigh*. I try to teach you people.
Not SHEEP, LAMBS. Yeah, I know, a lamb is just a baby sheep. But that’s what makes it work folks. You’re going to have to trust me on this one.
Chuck Norris loves lambshops too. Do you see how this works now? It’s all tied together, It’s a system.
Does it matter which shoulder the salt goes over? I’m right handed, so am inclined to toss over my left shoulder. WWLD? (What Would a Lefty Do?)
I’m not real sure how cabana boys fit in the plan though…….
Jay Thompson
March 5, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Lambshops? What the hell?
LambChops. Like the kind you eat, not like the puppet.
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Honestly I don’t understand animal sacrifice, I thought the point was to kill it and that is the sacrifice silly me. I guess Jonathan should explain how it works, maybe Google kills them? or do they just live?
Jonathan – thanks! great job on the gutters . . now I am hungrey
Mike – it is clear to me that you know more about both friendship, and SEO than any of the other commenters. Thanks for trying to get us back on track and talking about the chocolate. 🙂
Kris Berg
March 5, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Jay, And kids are baby goats, which is why I am not letting Jonathan anywhere near my children (unless they are playing baseball).
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Why is it that we have stopped talking about chocolate?
Mike Farmer
March 5, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I know, everyone’s into violence and here I am offering chocolate with no takers. So sad.
Matthew Rathbun
March 5, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I’ve always wondered where the sheep throwing thing in facebook came from. I’ve been throwing garlic over my should…. guess that explains that…
Mike Farmer
March 5, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Teresa, we may have to start a separate post about chocolate.
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Mike – you are right, these people don’t seem to get the value of chocolate. maybe if we dipped some sheep in it before we threw them at everyone they would get it. Time to write a post about chocolate. I am thinking the weenie would be the best place. That blog is about food.
Mike Farmer
March 5, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Good, I’ll comment several times on the post about how timely important it is.
Jonathan Dalton
March 5, 2008 at 5:44 pm
> Not SHEEP, LAMBS.
Why don’t you just take out a couple of baby harp seals, you heartless bastard! Page 1 is not worth that kind of cruelty!
> And kids are baby goats, which is why I am not letting Jonathan anywhere near my children (unless they are playing baseball).
Your offspring frighten me as much as you do, Ms. Berg.
Teresa Boardman
March 5, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Jonathan – please go have some chocolate, you need to chill. I am betting that Ms. Berg’s children are as lovely as she is . . . they just need to learn how to clean up cat vomit.
Naked Paris Hilton
March 5, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Just stopped by to see why you aren’t mentioning my name? I do like the attention and you know it might not be targeted traffic, but I am a target aren’t I?
Kelley Koehler
March 5, 2008 at 11:13 pm
is that a flower outline in the pupil of the eye in the post photo? is T going all subliminal message with her flowers now? Is that the hidden SEO tip?
Kris Berg
March 5, 2008 at 11:17 pm
NPH – I don’t know for sure, but if you can give T something to work with (say, goats or lambs or spices), she could probably work you in.
Teresa Boardman
March 6, 2008 at 5:33 am
I don’t understand why this post keeps getting hijacked. I throw salt over my shoulder for SEO and would rather talk about chocolate than lambs, goats, sheep or kids. Who is Paris Hilton?
Naked Paris Hilton
March 6, 2008 at 5:37 am
You called?
I see you are just like me. No one takes me seriously either. Oh well. At least we both have great beauty at our disposal.
BTW what does SEO stand for? Is it a shopping thing?
Teresa Boardman
March 6, 2008 at 7:30 am
Naked – yes I see that we have much in common. I live in a cold northern climate and have to keep my cloths on but I do have a blog on the undressed network http://www.stpaulundressed.com
SEO is kind of like shopping. People who have something to sell have web sites. They use SEO, which is search engine optimization so that when people go to search engines like google they can find stuff to buy by typing in a few search words, like “red shoes”, you do like shoes don’t you? I mostly shop for chocolate, and even have a pair of chocolate colored shoes. Thanks for stopping by.
Mike Farmer
March 6, 2008 at 8:49 am
Teresa,
Have you written your chocolate post yet?
Teresa Boardman
March 6, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Mike – I have been out on appointments all morning. I’ll whip something up soon.
Denver, CO Mortgage Broker
March 6, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Many people disagree about the duplicate content thing. Google “Duplicate Content Myth,” and you’ll get some information from people who dissent. They argue that duplicate content is natural in the web. Articles get reproduced. Articles and blog posts get ripped off. I have found my content on other blogs (although they did give me the credit and the hyperlink), but still, they republished my stuff on their site without asking. Google cannot penalize me for that. What Google does utilize are “filters” which are quite different from “penalties.” My understanding is that to incur a penalty you really have to do something ornery in Google’s eyes, an intentional move to deceive, not just have your content ripped off or produced more than once on the web. It is important to realize that if you do a blog post on Active Rain and then copy and paste it to your myblog.com, Google will choose between the two. That is my understanding of how the duplicate content “filter” works.
Teresa indicates that sites with 120 or more outgoing links on a page suffer in the Google algorithm. I have heard 100. Too many outgoing links makes you look like a link farm where people are paying you for links. I have read this from some top notch SEO folks, so I would go with it unless you have a good reason to use scads of outgoing links (such as are often found on blogs). Perhaps Google treats blogs and websites differently? Lots of outgoing links are natural on a blog, but on a web site? Not so much. I really don’t know for sure, but I would try not to look like a link farm if at all possible.
Mike Farmer
March 6, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I hope your appointments went well. I’ve put out little fires all morning.
Teresa Boardman
March 6, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Denver, Co – I have 130 outgoing links on my front page. The sites is more the two years old. I’ll just wait and see what happens. Don’t have the heart to kick my buddies off of my blogroll. If there is a penalty I don’t think it will have much of an impact on my traffic. My content is unique and it is still going to come up in the search engines. Maybe my page rank would be higher without so many links but I can’t find a correlation between page rank and how much business I get from the blog so I am not sure that I care.
Mike – I think I’ll have to do chocolate for Friday on St. Paul re. I just can’t get this post back to chocolate, or even salt and livestock.
Denver, CO Mortgage Broker
March 6, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Teresa — Check out https://www.rsspieces.com/does-your-blogroll-suck
It’s an article by the people at RSS Pieces. You may be familiar with them because they specialize in real estate blog development. The article is entitled, “Does Your Blogroll Suck?” These people are very anti-blogroll. For what it’s worth, you might read it. I believe they have other articles on the same topic. I would also consider the possibility that Google could stiffen the outgoing link penalty in the future. Once penalized, you may not be able to pop out of the penalty box just by deleting your blogroll. It’s definitely something to consider. But if you can live with the potential downside, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Denver, CO Mortgage Broker
March 6, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Teresa — One more thing that came to mind is whether or not the blogroll could be detrimental to sites seeking to rank for competitive search terms versus having a lesser or perhaps no effect on sites ranking for a less competitive search term. That’s the way those Google guys think, but I do not know if my theory has any legs. Your home page title is “St Paul Real Estate” which gets roughly 2,000+ searches per year compared to “Minneapolis Real Estate” which gets around 34,000+ searches and again compared to “Minnesota Real Estate” which gets around 278,000 searches (all according to Keyword Discovery). Perhaps a long blogroll won’t hurt your site, but it could possibly have an effect on someone else’s site if they are trying to rank for a highly competitive term. It’s just a thought. I will also point out that blogrolls are important, and I definitely see a place for them. The blogging community works because everyone supports each other. If it were me, however, I would at least consider trimming my blogroll.
Mike Farmer
March 6, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Sometimes these posts just take on a life of their own. If I can think of something creative to do with chocolate, I’ll post it on Bonzai. You can’t have enough blogs about chocolate.
Mary Pope-Handy
March 6, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I think the throwing a goat over one’s shoulders is an outgrowth of the Facebook sheep throwing (just never knew there was SEO value in that). What a hoot.
T, I think you are right on about SEO and keywords. Yeah, they matter – but not just for blogs. I know agents who have 200 page static websites – and although the words and paragraphs etc. are changeable, the agents look at it as “done” so they never touch a thing. I go in and rewrite sections (keeping keywords in mind, but only as a natural part of a sentence) and my site zooms ahead in the rankings. It’s not voodoo, it’s just unique content.
I have done freestanding blogs and blogs where someone else does a lot of the tech work, and I think there is a lot to be said for passing on the technical stuff to someone who knows how to do that and likes to do it. I have my haunted blog on wordpress and I host it and it could be a TON better. Since it’s just for fun, I don’t really care. But I wouldn’t want my real estate presence to go to that low level….I am horrible at wordpress and I hate it, so I’m not gonna be limited service on my most important sites. So I think there’s a place for “just writing” and letting someone else manage the darned thing. And there’s a place for doing it yourself.
Everything you’re doing works so I’m also going to see what Teresa Boardman has to say. Thanks for a great post. Hope to see you at Inman this summer in SF.
Mary
Dave Smith
March 6, 2008 at 10:46 pm
#68 Denver,
You are quoting and refering RSS Pieces to T.
I better go get a live goat and a pound of salt.
Bob
March 6, 2008 at 10:53 pm
>LambChops. Like the kind you eat, not like the puppet.
Jay, the puppet works. I do all my SEO while wearing a LampChops sock puppet and my rankings are pretty good.
Teresa Boardman
March 7, 2008 at 5:01 am
Mike Farmer – the chocolate is up, thanks for you patience https://www.stpaulrealestateblog.com/st_paul_real_estate/2008/03/post.html
Dave – no worries, I am on my meds again.
Boomer Jack Boardman
March 7, 2008 at 5:08 am
I just checked, my blog is 100% Voodoo SEO free! Ummm…what IS SEO? What are “LINKS?” What do sheep, lambs, salt and Google have to do with blogging? Should I even be writing a blog? I’m SO confused!
Ruthmarie Hicks
March 8, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I’ve been going low on the sodium, no salt around. One of my white Siberian Huskies is currently shedding her undercoat…what if I save the hair for blogging and throw that over my shoulder? It’s lighter than throwing a goat. Might work – it’s still white – and there is PLENTY of it to last a long time. I admit its a bit on the fluffy side – but when a husky is shedding, I am vacuuming every day anyway.
Teresa Boardman
March 9, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Ruthmarie – that is a bit risky. We all know that throwing salt over the shoulder or sacrificing a goat works. If you do decide to try the dog fur please share your findings with the rest of us. That is what I like the most about agent Genius is that I have a front row seat for these ground breaking moments.
Sue
April 1, 2008 at 7:51 pm
This is very clever and funny. Thanks for making me laugh after a hard day of running around in the rain. I’m glad to hear and will choose to believe that blogs don’t have to be really long. Heck, I didn’t know what SEO stood for 6 months ago. I can easily throw the salt over my shoulder, as it cannot hurt and will be sure to wear my Google hat and T shirt while blogging.
Teresa Boardman
April 9, 2008 at 6:22 am
Sue – you have a google hat? wow I want one.
Sue
April 9, 2008 at 9:27 am
Teresa, you can have one made or designate your favorite “lucky” one as such. Its the same hat I wear when I run. I think that since its on my head, close to the brain where the info originates it helps to channel it down to my fingers. 😉
Sue
April 25, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I need a little vodoo now…one of my site pages seems to have disappeared.
Robin Sing
May 21, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Wow…this was a surprise. I think though Matt Cutts might be worth listening to..No?
Robin
May 21, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Teresa..thanks for the information. I am learning about SEo right now and trying to build traffic for my blog.
I commented earlier but someone deleted my comment..
Jennifer in Louisville
July 1, 2008 at 5:11 am
I agree with you in that good new & original content will do more for you than just about anything to drive traffic to your blog. Get it syndicated to somewhere popular (digg, sphinn, puurple, etc) and if its truly a good piece, you’ll get enough traffic (and links) to your site that most servers will be begging for mercy.
Sue
July 10, 2008 at 11:05 am
Also, check out Greg Swann’s post regarding good content for your site or blog…
https://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=3342
Proxy
July 26, 2008 at 11:33 pm
It does state in the Google guidelines that links should be kept to fewer than 100 per page (not just the homepage) but this is old information which Matt Cutts recently stated was due to the search engine spider limitations more than anything else.
I have always found that unique content is key, provide that and the visitors will come.
Chuck Norris Video
August 27, 2008 at 9:13 am
Unique content IS key… so is mentioning Chuck Norris somewhere in the post too… of course!
Suzanne Gantner
September 10, 2008 at 11:58 am
Interesting twist of events from salt to black hats to goats. I find mixing all this up and trying to be all is really difficult. I think it is a great idea to learn from AG and all the knowledge this site has – has helped me extremely to focus on what I need to do and then getting it done. It has been very good for my business. Thanks and keep up the great posts.
John Hurbon
September 27, 2008 at 1:33 am
You make me chuckle. Blogging is a new concept to me over the last year and I enjoy bloggers like youself who elevate the consciousness and put their heads into the Lion’s mouth. I heard Peter Pawlus from Google speak at a convention and he held up a box of wires and electronics he was selling to major firms for about $35,000 a pop. He mentioned “search engine, keywords and I just thought “If I can’t drive it for that price, he can keep that Google Box”. I was young and dumb.
Colorado Real Estate by Kathy Torline
September 29, 2008 at 5:52 am
What a great post! Made me smile on this Monday morning.
seogoat
October 24, 2008 at 8:04 am
Don’t talk of my buddies getting killed.