MediaWhiz Blog: Archive

I was flying this week and enjoying Dumb and Dumber and couldn’t help but to think back on Matt McGee’s 21 Signs You Need a Break from SEO when I did a triple take on Harry Dunne’s van promoting "Mutt Cutts".  Somebody help!

Well I hate to make two posts sucking up to the same guy in one day… but I have long admired Graywolf for continuously bringing up issues about Google’s massive amounts of data, and their (sometimes) mismanaging of it. My personal opinion is that Google doesn’t do enough to protect their data on users — they don’t anonymize it, and they keep it virtually forever; this is just begging for abuse

But today I want to touch a bit on the data they have on us webmasters. If you’re an affiliate or have been in the SEO game for a while, chances are good that you have a dozen or more sites. If you do, please know that Google is trying to build an SEO rap sheet on you.

Graywolf posts a sort of open letter to Matt Cutts in this post:

…ask the question thatâs on everybodyâs mind regarding the site review session,
can Google see behind a private registration, and what are some
general-ish guidelines about owning multiple domains people should keep
in mind.

That’s been weighing on my mind too, a bit. I fall into the "not-entirely-tinfoil-hat-but-not-entirely-naive-either" camp, so I’ve taken some precautions, but probably need to be a bit more cautious than I am.

Why is this an issue? The AU Interactive blog has a short recap:

At Pubcon
last week during one of the sessions, Matt Cutts was reviewing an
attendeeâs website and using his laptop (which was tunneled into
Googleâs brain I assume), looked up all the domains this person owned
and called him out on it, suggesting that a number of other websites he owned looked spammy.

Google has proven that they don’t mind collateral damage if overall relevancy is improved. In this case, that means that if you have a lot of spammy sites, that’s going to help them predict whether or not a new site you launch is also spammy. Let’s skip past the whole "is this fair?" discussion and talk about how to hide your network from Big Brother.

6 Tips to Keep Your Large Network of Sites Where You Want Them — Behind Smoke and Mirrors, and Unassociated

• Use private registration. This is a best practice for competitive webmastering anyway.
• Register at multiple registrars. This is one of those arbitrary things — anything you can arbitrarily differ, differ.
• Andy H. vs. A. Hagans vs. Andy Hagans Link Building LLC. Since Google is a registrar now, they can see right through private registrations (I think). If you have multiple LLCs or partners you can put them in different companies’ or partners’ names, as well. Note that I’m not suggesting you use fake names / addresses in WHOIS — you can lose your domain this way due to ICANN rules.
• Use different hosts. Another one of those arbitrary things — anything you can arbitrarily differ, differ. And again a best practice for competitive webmastering anyway.
• Don’t use the same link profile twice. Yet again a normal best practice. While you’re at it, avoid design, coding, or outbound link footprints.
• if you’re REALLY paranoid, you may also want to only visit your own sites when: a) logged out of Google, and b) on a proxy.

Most of these tips overlap with "how to hide your site portfolio from other SEOs", too. No-brainers.

*hat tip to John Andrews for coming up with the term "competitive webmastering" — it’s a better phrase than "strategic SEO cum business" and I think it’s going to stick.

*update, tip #7: how did I forget this one? Don’t claim all of your sites with Google Sitemaps in a single Google account.

There aren’t too many really, really good link builders out there — and of those who are, most are overbooked with clients, or spend most of their time on their own sites.

The best way to retain the likes of Caveman, Aaron or Todd is to get in early, before they’ve been overwhelmed with thousands of service enquiries.

Which is why you should run, not walk, over to Graywolf’s consulting page. (Maybe this has been around a while, but I only found it just now.) Besides SEO phone consulting and site reviews, he’s offering a link baiting service which covers several areas of SMO, and is geared towards a strategy encompassing multiple baiting efforts over a period of time.

If you’re having a hard time beating the ‘box, or if you’re losing the SERPs battle to uber-trusted authority sites, I suggest you whip out the checkbook and send Graywolf a retainer, before a dozen other people do

Readers, we are constantly improving the TLA system and we are excited to announce MANY new features to make it easier and more efficient to use TLA.  Please let me know what you think of the new features and of any new ideas you would like to see implemented.  Thanks! Patrick

RSS/Email Inventory Alert System. You now have the ability to sign up to receive alerts of new inventory added to TLA directly into your rss reader or your email inbox.  You can set up to receive inventory alerts based on your top keywords or top categories of interest.  The "Inventory Watchlist" can be accessed by logging in to this page.

Advanced Sorting.  On all category pages you can also sort by: Highest Link Popularity, Highest
Price, Lowest Price, Lowest # of Pages, Highest # of pages, and Zero Ads Sold. This is a great way to find the inventory you are looking for by many new criteria.

Previously Purchased Inventory Marking.  When you log in to your account and browse the marketplace, all inventory that you have already purchased is marked in red so you know not to purchase duplicates that are already live in your account.

Guys, I have put up all the pics from PubCon on my MySpace profile: Myspace.com/reviewmeroy. Check them out!

Also please FRIEND ME as I am feeling lonely at the moment!

Well the launch went better than we ever could have expected, and in fact the initial $25,000 in ReviewMe review orders was claimed within 48 hours!

We liked the feedback and buzz we got so much, we’ve extended the offer until we’ve paid out $100,000 in reviews. So if you still haven’t applied to be in ReviewMe, sign up now!

Check out the top searches and tags right now on Technorati, ReviewMe is red hot, thanks everyone!

I’d like to think I’m a pretty slick link baiter, but I know when I’m overmatched, and I am vs. Neil Patel. Luckily he’s agreed to sit on the hot seat and give us some tips.

(more…)

In the last post, I forgot to add one other frequently asked question (here are some variations we’ve been asked):

• Who is ReviewMe Roy?
• Is ReviewMe Roy a joke, or is he a real person?
• Is ReviewMe Roy single?
• Can I have ReviewMe Roy’s email address?
• Can I meet/interview/hug ReviewMe Roy?

The answers, respectively:

• He’s our CEO.
• I’m not going to dignify that with an answer, of course he’s real.
• Yes.
• roy@reviewme.com.
• You can do all three in Las Vegas next week, at the WMW Pubcon conference. Stop by the ReviewMe booth!