A new SEO contest started yesterday, day before, all depends on your time zone. I created a v7ndotcom elursrebmem page out of idle curiosity and a v7ndotcom elursrebmem contestants directory for people to get extra, themed, links to their sites.
There’s been stacks of activity with domains being bought and onsold, ebay auctions, charity contestants (go Alek) and, of course, spam.
I just checked my Google Analytics page for the directory just to see who the competitors are. Now it is an international affair, but look at the countries. Pretty much only western, first world countries.
So, is SEO and the little games associated with it, just for the bored middle classes?
It’s been a while since I checked back at the sitemaps pages to see how my sites were doing, they’d all been pinging happily and Google had been checking frequently so I’d been happy to leave them be.
I visited today and found that Google have added a verification process whereby you upload an empty html document onto your site, Google find it, accept that you are authorised to have access to the site and then feed you extra info from their databanks.
I can get this overview of whether Google has problems with the pages and how they are ranked - proving that Google still buy that PR matters.
Another page shows the queries where my site has been returned as an option (top 10?) and where my site has been selected by the user. This gives me good clues about optimisation and page building - and about the topics that people actually want to read about!
On a whim I decided to purchase the domain Top 100 vBulletin and put a wsnlinks directory on the site to rank vBulletin forums.
The only requirement is that External Data is turned on giving me access to external.php.
I’m then ranking the forums based on
- Number of threads
- Ratings by visitors to the directory
- Google’s PR
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So say the lights at Alek’s house.
Alek is one of the genuinely nice characters on the web. Our paths don’t cross often but when they do you pay attention. His trademarks are a big blow up “Hulk” and two smiling cherubic boys.
A couple of years ago he launched a system of controlling the Xmas lights that adorn his house via the internet. It was a hoax back then, but is it now? Take a look and decide for yourself!
But why does he do it? Well the cherubs have Celiac disease and, I gather, we’ll be hearing more about it as the years go by. It’s one of the big problems of a western diet that over-consumes breads and pastas.
So Alek is using the high profile of his Christmas Lights to sell advertising - with the ad fees being paid directly to University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research (UMBF). If you can help please do so, and read a bit more about celiac disease, I’ve a feeling we’ll be hearing more about it.
There are plenty who are quick to insult DMOZ and the people who work to make it work. I won’t go into that here, it will acheive nothing.
However, over at DigitalPoint a member (wrmineo) started a DMOZ Scavenger Hunt to find categories that had not been edited in years.
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We don’t get out of town terribly often due to sports and family commitments. When we do we often just catch up with friends at the Pauanui holiday home.
However this weekend we’re headed up north and needed to find somewhere to stay. Friends had talked enthusiastically about a site called “What If” so I thought I’d take a look. Hunts around on Google failed to turn the site up! (more…)
Using the list of sites from my property investment directory as a base I’ve set up a copy of phpDig over on my hobby site as an experiment.
I’m not sure how to manage the submit a site yet, but if you want to take a look and comment here it is…
Experimental Property Investment search engine
