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StomperNet Live9 – March 25-28, 2010

February 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The end of March brings us back again to StomperNet Live, 9th in a continuing series. No matter that I’m not on stage this trip — just as glad to take a break actually — these are without any doubt at all the best InterNetworking events on the planet. I live here, so I’ll be around, and without needing to do a presentation, I’ll have even more time to hang in the bar and talk some real shop.

You should attend. At less than two hundred bucks for three days? Heck, that’s a round-off error — it’s the travel that will cost you! I think it’s worth it.

Disclaimer: Yes Virgina, that image is an affiliate link — believe it or not the Internet is not actually free and is in fact paid for by those of us making a living using it! Thank you so much FTC for being such a big help. Grrrr. 🙂

Filed Under: Web Business

StomperNot

February 4, 2010 by 7 Comments

It’s official … sorta … I am no longer a faculty member of StomperNet … keep reading.

Depending on who you ask, this will result in some combination of congratulations, condolences, condescension, cacophony, cat calls, cussing or other c-words befitting of my long held c-level position with the web’s best known Internet Marketing Education conglomerate (ok, ok, I’ll stop with the c-words already).

But wait … official how you ask? The sales letter of course! Live 9 Lineup. Duh. I’ll admit that I have a mixture of feelings about leaving … but my accountant doesn’t.

So what now? Well, it’s not like I was exactly on vacation all this time. In case you missed the memo, Dan Thies and I have been happily running our own mid-6 figure business since October doing pretty much what we did at StomperNet for the last 3 years — just better, thanks to less help. 😉

So what about Live9? We’ll see. I do live in Atlanta after all. I have spoken at every single Live event — in fact, I am the one in December 2006 that came up with the name, but I digress — so the habit to at least attend might be too strong to resist. And it is at the W Hotel Midtown which is hard enough to resist anyway. Sigh.

But the real treat of the Live events for me (and Dan too I’m pretty sure he’ll agree) has always been mentoring and networking with the literally hundreds of Internet Entrepreneurs it has been our blessing to be involved with in the last three (plus) years.

You know who you are. We know you too. Many of you have joined us in The SEO BrainTrust. Everyone else … please stay in touch.

It has been a weird and wild ride and if there is one thing that sticks out as a recurring impression since November 2006 when I shook hands with Brad and Andy it is this: “The question”. The one everyone asks at some point: “Why in the hell are you doing this?”

Good question. Took me months to form the answer.

There are many easier ways to make money than running a coaching program — you could argue they all are! Ultimately the only reason is people. Yes, it is hard to believe that someone as irascible (look it up) as me might also be gregarious, but that is my curse. The only good reason to coach is because you care about the impact you have on people. In all other respects, affiliate marketing is a better play.

So Dan and I, the first two StomperNet faculty members, continue doing what we were doing before, during and after StomperNet, for the same reasons, with many of the same people, and many more each day. The one constant is who we are.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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StomperNew

September 25, 2009 by 2 Comments

There is a new StomperNet in town, same name, but a very different game.  The first was a company devoted to teaching and community.  The new one is not.

"StomperNew" is really a software tools wholesaler with an attached speaker’s bureau. Some of the tools themselves look really good and it is my intention to use a couple of them extensively.  Others, not so much, but the line-up when taken as a whole should have really wide appeal. And speaking of wide appeal, the speaker’s platform (currently 21 in number) has everything from the world’s youngest Internet Marketer to the founder of MarketingSherpa. You’re bound to be able to find something you like in there … occasionally.

Frankly, StomperNew is an untested model in my experience, so we’ll see what Brad can do with it. I hope it works for him. I have more than a few friends that depend on it working.

But what about me? StomperNew certainly is not going to evolve in the direction that convinced me to move to Atlanta Georgia 2 years ago, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be involved at some level — just not to the level I was.

I’ll speak at the live events if asked to because I really enjoy the people, but the routine development of teaching content within the new structure is at an end. The content that is there now will no doubt remain, but anything new will have to specifically contract and such has not yet been suggested. Instead, I’m back to teaching on my own … sort of.

Back in January of 2007, Dan Thies and I announced our retirement from coaching to go focus on StomperNet.  Since then we have both retired from our retirement.  Or maybe we’re still retired and are just moving into a different old folks home.  One with a way better meal plan.  🙂 Anyway, maybe we’re just arrogant, but something we’ve figured out these last three years is that what we do really well we can do a lot better with a bunch less help!  We also figured out we sorta like each other and complement each other’s style … or lack thereof, we are guys after all … hence, The SEO BrainTrust.

Our "highest and best use" is teaching web business owners how to get more out of their existing businesses. That’s what we were both doing independently before StomperNet, it was what we were originally retained to do for Stompers in November of 2006, and it is what we are continuing to do today in our own structured training program. Emphasis on structured.

We are now just a few days away from being live and open for business so if you are reading this and have not opted-in, uh, why not? 🙂 Do so now and you can take a look at some of our videos and join the discussion of what we plan on offering.

The SEO BrainTrust

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SEO Brain Trust – What’s that You Ask?

September 15, 2009 by 1 Comment

Dan Thies and I are doing a free webinar tomorrow (Sept 16, 2009).  See the talking points here and opt-in to get the login details emailed later today!  Stay put to the end — like how could you leave?!??  🙂 — and we’ll tell you about the BrainTrust.

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“I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it Bob”

September 2, 2009 by 3 Comments

For more than two years now I have been working "full time" – a common euphemism for not sleeping – in StomperNet operations.  Just last week I turned over the last of these  responsibilities to other people.  WooHoo!

Now I am just a faculty member so I get to wax rhapsodic with members and do actual SEO research instead of chasing infrastructure cost reductions.

Of course, I still have a lot I am doing with StomperNet, including some bit parts in the upcoming launch starting on the 9th – you will definitely want to watch that!

My comrade Dan Thies made the same transition of late and beat me to the post – like tell me something new – so be sure to read his post as well.  He’s on my blog roll.

Looking forward, I’m finally working on my own damn software for a change and working on some product plans that have long been on hold.  Stay tuned.

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The Purported Death of PageRank Sculpting

June 12, 2009 by 8 Comments

During the recent SMX-Advanced conference in Seattle – which I was not able to attend (I do occasionally have to work for a living) – there was a confusion of reports of comments attributed to Matt Cutts that resulted in the provocative (outlandish even?) conclusion that nofollow no longer works to sculpt PageRank, but in fact now causes PageRank to "evaporate" instead.

Dan Thies was at the show, witnessed the entire sordid ordeal and has editorialized on the matter in the way that only Dan can in a post he calls Operation BENDOVER (Huh? You’ll just have to watch the video!).

Completely lacking as I am in Dan’s sense of humor, not to mention a suitable picture to trump the one he uses of me, I’ve instead resorted to my old standby — Math. So for the real PageRank computations that show why this reported obit just does not "add up" see The Math of PageRank Sculpting. And if you like that kind of thing, you’ll really dig the included PageRank algorithm written in 25 lines of Perl.

Finally, with humor and math taken care of, be sure to read Andy Beard’s take on the death of PageRank Sculpting, but just remember that the real point of most "news" in SEO is the humor.

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Do People Choose Features or do Features Choose People?

June 4, 2009 by 1 Comment

Classically, we think of product features providing benefits that consumers weigh and contrast relative to competing products in making a buying decision.

What happens when you turn this around? How do your product features act to select the customers you get? Here’s a great case in point.

A couple of good friends and colleagues of mine, Jerry West and David Bullock, are putting on their third seminar in a series they call The SEO Rainmaker. It’s just a couple weeks away and if you can arrange to attend I highly recommend it, but the point of this post is to point out how two features of the event served to pre-select the audience they obtained.

First, the event is on Thursday and Friday, not the weekend. If you guessed that they got push-back on this point … you’d be right! But this also stands to pre-select for people that have already left the J.O.B. and graduated to being the boss. Speaking from that vantage point, I don’t want seminars on the weekend because I already work long enough hours as it is thank you! I view the weekday schedule as a positive, not a negative.

Benefit is just a synonym for "positive feature" and positive is in the eye of the beholder. What is positive for one group may be negative for another and you have decide which group you appealing to.

Second, the day is only scheduled from 10 to 4. Is this positive or negative? For the person that expects to have their butt planted in a chair and their mind fed information then it’s a negative — they want the day scheduled from 9 to 9 to "get their money’s worth". But is that who you want?

At the latest three day StomperNet Live event I had one-on-one meetings with partners and long term StomperNet members booked for so much of the weekend that I missed most of the show. Ask any long-time business person and you will hear the same story — it is the contacts you make and the side conversations you have that make live events pay for the travel.

The value of the instruction you get at these events you could (mostly) get from online delivery. It is the personal interaction you get with the organizers and other attendees can not be had any other way.

By the way, a third friend and colleague, Paul Lemberg is guest speaking for Jerry and David and I may drive up for Friday afternoon just for fun so if you can make it, I’ll see you there, but please don’t "take vacation" to come. 😉

Filed Under: Web Business Tagged With: ,

Extortion SEO – Take 2

May 5, 2009 by 4 Comments

Do a search for cydcor.  This is a company that employs a large face-to-face sales force so it naturally gets a high profile in the public because of contact with potential customers and employees alike so sure enough there are complaints.  But look closely.  They are from 2002 and 2004!

And yet, these old, unverifiable complaints from a site with no discernible editorial policy outranks:

A Cydcor Client Story at Reuters
Cydcor Opportunity Page at Monster
Cydcor Company Overview at Hoover’s
Cydcor’s LinkedIn Profile
Cydcor News at eMediaWire
More Cydcor News at PRWeb
Cydcor Investment Overview at BusinessWeek

How?  A variation of the Google Bomb!  But instead of the company website, it is the search result page itself that gets hijacked.  With just 25,000 results for Cydcor, it takes only a very few negative comments in these large complaint sites to rank right along side the company name for these navigational queries.

Welcome to the tyranny that is lawless democracy.

Filed Under: Web Business Tagged With: , , ,

Extortion SEO

May 5, 2009 by 1 Comment

It was just a matter of time until the so-called "democratic nature of the web" developed precisely the same problems that caused our founding fathers to eliminate democracy as a viable form of government for these United States.  Specifically, the tyranny of majority.

What they knew, and we have forgotten, is that the majority never need protection, even from oppressive government.  It is the minority that law protects.

How does this relate to SEO you may ask?  The "wisdom of the crowds" gone terribly wrong.

Imagine a site where people can complain about companies anonymously in an environment with no editorial review.  Since complainers generally have lots of free time on their hands, such a site will rapidly grow to enormous size and naturally rank for most company names with little or no effort.

Welcome to ripoffreport.  Examples next.

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“…Google will determine…”? Not on my site!

September 24, 2008 by Leave a Comment

In the StomperNet forums today I responded to a member who noticed a Google post here. Reproduced here is my acidic response.

That was the most useless, vague, non-actionable and *irresponsible* post I have EVER seen from Google. It looks like something from webmasterworld or the warrior’s forum. The examples used are just plain stupid and the sweeping generalization they make about Google somehow figuring out URL parameters is dangerously silly.

  1. No one would consider rewriting a (so-called) dynamic url into a "static" one while retaining the session id. I mean DUH! If you are smart enough to even be able to enable mod_rewrite how could you not know to turn off session ids when serving content to bots? Ridiculous example that serves to paint all rewriting as somehow dangerous. Worst still, why would anyone rewrite like the example shown? That’s plain stupid.
  2. " … Google will determine which parameters can be removed …" — You have got to me Sh*t**g me! Is there anyone who can spell S-E-O that would like to just simply trust Google to "determine" what URLs should be the same and which should be different?? Not me thanks. My site. I’ll decide. If they get it wrong, you get flagged with widespread duplicate content and they don’t tell you about it.
  3. They leave completely unanswered the OBVIOUS (just look at SERPs) problems they have today with session ids — not so good at "determining" after all, eh? At every single StomperNet Live event we’ve held, I have reviewed at least one site that had pages indexed at Google showing multiple different session id values. This is a widespread problem for sites that serve session ids to bots and for Google to publicly post about "dynamic" URLs and sweep this under the rug while vaguely claiming to handle it borders on misrepresentation.
  4. They also don’t say a damn thing about parameter order — another place they fail COMPLETELY to "determine". Example: p1=v1&p2=v2 leads to the same content as p2=v2&p1=v1 and this is a REQUIREMENT of the HTTP spec (named parameters are NOT positional so may appear in any order) but Google treats these as different URLs and will ignorantly and incorrectly index both URLs as different pages. This problems appears in several CMSs today, Endeca in particular has it bad.
Filed Under: Web Business Tagged With: ,
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