Networking Event Discussion: Paid Links, Universal & Blended Search, SES San Jose

When we originally envisioned our networking events, we wanted to add a little value with some search industry news & discussion. We have sinced moved our networking events to Paddy’s and they are great, but we can’t really pull off a group discussion in a reasonable or fashion. So, here are a few recent search industry items that we encouraged our attendees to talk about. My hope is that you will use the comment feature to further the discussion.

1. Paid links have been demonized recently as a way to unfairly gain PageRank and violates Google’s quality guidelines. Matt Cutts (Google) even put up a blog post asking people to report paid links to Google and told them how. Controversy has erupted around this subject.
   1. Do you use paid links as a part of your SEO strategy?
   2. Do you think there’s anything wrong with buying links?
   3. What about the fact that Google accepts advertising from text-link brokers?
   4. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Here’s a few links to get you up to speed:
      1. https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/
      2. https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/
      3. https://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3626945
2. Universal & Blended search
   1. Has it had an impact on your search campaigns? For better or worse? (in other words – do you have more content in the rankings? Or has your best stuff been pushed down the page?)
   2. How have you adapted your strategies to contend with universal search results?
   3. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Here’s a few links to get you up to speed:
      1. https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-still.html
      2. https://www.seroundtable.com/archives/014535.html
3. SES San Jose just took place last month
   1. Did you attend? If not, did you read any coverage of follow along online somehow?
   2. What content/topics/stories intrigued you the most?
   3. Would you recommend SES to a colleague?
   4. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Here’s a few links to get you up to speed:
      1. https://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sew/sj07/
      2. https://www.seroundtable.com/archives/014612.html
      3. https://www.seomoz.org/article/ses-san-jose-2007

Ben Lloyd

Ben Lloyd, Principal at Add3 and co-founder of SEMpdx, started his internet marketing experience in 1999 as an offshoot of his music industry background where he had the opportunity to promote lifestyle Web sites to teens. Shortly thereafter, he took that experience back to Portland and began agency life where he honed his search marketing skills. In 2003, Ben moved on to form his own search engine marketing agency, Amplify Interactive, which was acquired by Seattle-based digital marketing agency Add3 in 2013. Ben is now responsible for managing the Portland office for Add3 as well as client strategy and marketing for Add3.

www.add3.com/insights/