Cameron Olthuis

Goog referrals…

I love it when charts look like this. Been working with this client, who is also a good buddy, on SEO since Jan 1st.

Two great linkbait pieces that really caught my attention today. I love this kind of thing.

This one is seriously one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. Who would’ve known that Neil and I would make such cute kids.

What if SEOs mated?

The other one, from my good friend Rhea, is also very well done. I’m honored to be selected to the first ever SEO Dream Team. Watch out for us in the ‘10 Internet Olympics. To all you other teams – “You’re going down like a sweet muffin!”

SEO Dream Team.

Both are great examples of targeted linkbait. While they’ll probably only spread through our little SEO industry, I know they’ll pick up a bunch of super targeted authority links.

Did that get your attention? No, I’m not going to write another SEO is dead or all SEOs are scumbags post. Actually just the opposite.

There’s been a lot of hate towards SEOs and the industry lately. Most of which has been led by Jesus Calacanis. Just for the record I happen to think Jason is a brilliant guy and I respect him a lot. I don’t agree with half the shit that comes out of his mouth, but then again I’m not so sure he does either. I think he’s just an attention whore and attention he gets.

For the most part I’ve been watching the battle from the sidelines. Listening to both sides of the story but refraining from jumping in with another me-too rebuttal. I decided this morning that I want to add my two-cents.

As the CEO if an Internet company (or any company for that matter) — if you don’t want traffic from Google you should be fired. Simple as that. If by now, you don’t understand the value of Google rankings then you’re an idiot.

I’m not talking about spamming and ranking for obscure crap that is irrelevant to your business. But if you’re not fighting for a top 3 spot for relevant terms then you have no business running a company. It’s common sense really.

And that’s really all I have to say about that.

Not five minutes after I post about picking a brand over keyword domains comes news that Business.com is on the block for 400-500 million. Business.com was bought back in ‘99 for what then was the largest domain purchase ever at 7.5 million. Turns out that it was a huge win for them.

My question is — how much did the domain factor in toward their success? They don’t even rank number one for business. It obviously had something to do with it though as that’s a domain that would get a lot of type in traffic.

It’s pretty interesting to watch what’s been happening with domains lately. Seniors.com just sold for 1.8 million tonight. While there are a lot of smart plays you could arguably make with it, I tend to think 1.8 mil is overboard for that specific domain. Not to mention SEO.com selling for 5mil earlier in the week.

Now, I don’t claim to be a domain expert but I really can’t see that much value in a domain that, in my opinion, wouldn’t get THAT much type in traffic. And while many think this could be a good real estate investment, I disagree. I do agree though; that there are a lot of domains that are hot buys right now, even at the astronomical prices. This just isn’t one of them. But again, I’m not a domain expert so I could be off.

I’d rather buy something brandable and use the 1.8mil to start building toward a billion dollar audience. Afterall, the biggest and most valuable properties on the web aren’t Search.com, Portal.com, Encyclopedia.com and Social.com.

In most verticals I would choose brand over keyword specific domain any day. I understand most of these purchases probably aren’t for the sake of developing an iconic brand, rather having real estate that hopefully continues to increase in value. I wonder who typically makes more — a real estate developer or someone that buys and holds?

I guess my whole point is that some of these domain purchases seem like they are out of control.

My hat’s off to Danny Sullivan and the entire Third Door Media team for putting on a fantastic conference. In my opinion, SMX was easily one of the better, if not the best, conferences in our industry. It was the little things that made the difference too. For example; warm buffet style lunches instead of box lunches, snacks and drinks at all times, and the open parties to name a few.

My only complaint for the entire conference was from the last session called “Give it Up”. This session was the one where presenters were supposed to give up their favorite SEO secrets or tips. Unfortunately only half of the presenters had anything useful to say. A couple of them had no real tips or advice or gave the most basic SEO advice I could imagine. The ones that did give good tips though were awesome, so I guess that makes up for it.

Here are some pictures from the “Better Ways” panel which was a blast.

Last year I wrote how Delicious was quickly becoming my search engine of choice. It looks like Rand is starting to feel the same way about it as he compares several Delicious search queries to Google.

The problem with social search is that it’s not yet ready to replace traditional search. While Delicious is great for finding certain things it’s nearly impossible to find good results for others. Case in point, long tail search queries.

Although it has significantly improved since I wrote the post last year, there is still a long ways to go before it can gain any sort of market share in the search industry. There just isn’t enough people bookmarking content yet, and I’m not sure that there ever will be.

What do you think? Do you like using Delicious as a search engine and is it better than Google?