April 14, 2008

UK Govt. Want To Flog Floggers

The UK will roll out a new set of advertising and marketing regulations May 28th. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 include some interesting laws that will impact web marketing as Judith Lewis of London-based SEO Chicks reports.

The big law many SEO marketers may have to be careful about is the use of flogs - fake blogs or reviews by employees or other profit motivated people. Without disclosing that these reviews etc are being posted by motivated writers can end up being legally dangerous.

Apart from the fines involved there is also the possibility of jail time. How that would work for a US based company that happens to find themselves in UK search results is yet to be determined. What about companies that are global marketers, will they need to filter what content is sent to UK traffic?

This could be a major impact on web marketing and how things play out should be watched closely by all global marketers.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:44 PM | Permalink

July 2, 2007

Matt Cutts Offers Corporate Blogging Advice

Joining the damage control of the Google Health Blog vs. Sicko incident on Sunday, Google blogger extraordinaire Matt Cutts outlined some guidelines for company blogging 101 as an explanation for Turner's actions, and guidance for avoiding future incidents.

He advises:

  1. The easiest time to make a blogging gaffe is when you’re starting out.
  2. Don’t criticize other companies or people.
  3. Don’t post when you’re angry.
  4. Learn which stories matter and which ones don’t.
  5. If you make a mistake, don’t clam up.
  6. Include a datestamp on all your posts.

Excellent advice from a seasoned corporate blogger.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:28 AM | Permalink

February 7, 2007

Rand Fishkin, the SUPER Man

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz comes clean with a super secret... he was "that guy" who wanted to propose to his girlfriend during a SuperBowl commercial. Yes folks, the blogger behind MySuperProposal.com was in fact Rand Fishkin, and with a lot of help from Joseph Morin, CEO & Founder of Storybids.com, they almost pulled off the best play of Superbowl XLI. And it probably would have had the most talked/blogged about Superbowl commercial of 2007.

When the inital plans to raise money for a commerical slot or find an advertiser to sponsor the proposal fell through, CBS almost stepped up to the plate to air the 15 second proposal for FREE, based on the viral buzz the MySuperProposal blog had created. By the halftime show, (hello, who would have preferred to see this over Prince?) Rand knew it wasn't going to happen during the big game. So Plan B followed: air this simple spot locally during his long time girlfriend's favorite TV show, Veronica Mars, and drop the clip on iFilm.com, followed by a torturous wait for Geraldine's response.

Watch Rand's Video Proposal Now:

So that's not the end of the story, of course - here's the video of Geraldine's exciting reaction, which was also posted on iFilm.com, two hours after the proposal clip:

Danny Sullivan & I also discussed the impending proposal, earlier in the day on the Daily Searchcast, where you may catch me *nearly* letting some of the secret slip!

In addition to the details on MySuperProposal, SeattlePI.comhas much of the local scoop and backstory on how the project evolved, and I'm sure the SEO blogosphere is going to buzzing about this, but let me (and the team at SEW) be the first to say: Congratulations, Geraldine & Rand!

Posted by at 1:49 AM | Permalink

December 21, 2006

Bloggers must disclose sponsored posts

Anick Jesdanun, an AP Internet writer, reports that PayPerPost, a company that connects advertisers with bloggers willing to write about their products for pay, will now require disclosures "amid criticism and a regulatory threat."

Under the new policy, bloggers must disclose that they are accepting payment, either in the write-up or in a general disclosure policy on the blogger's site.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:50 AM | Permalink

December 1, 2006

Blog Coverage During SES Chicago 2006

I'm happy to announce that two of our long-time Search Engine Watch forum moderators, Chris Boggs and Frank Watson (aka AussieWebmaster) are stepping up to provide headline and conference coverage on the Search Engine Watch blog during SES Chicago next week. In addition to being SEW forum moderators, both are regular speakers at SES events.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at 5:24 PM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

Tracking All The Official Google Blogs

It can seem like Google adds a new official blog every week, which is a pain if you want to keep up with the official statements. Who wants to manually subscribe to each one? Well, you don't have to. Google tells me there's a feed they generate out of Google Reader that you can try here. An OPML file that shows all the blogs that are part of that combined feed can be found here. Unfortunately, you still can't go to a single page from Google itself and read all the latest posts from the various Google blogs. That may come, the company told me, but for now the feed and OPML files are all that's made available. Don't get me wrong, though -- I love having them!

Postscript: Google tells me there is a single page with all the posts you can read here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:07 PM | Permalink

September 12, 2006

The Search Diggs

I love the idea of trying to combine something like Digg with search news and have been wanted to do this myself for ages. Maybe I still will, but others have gotten there first. John Battelle is the latest with SearchMob having just launched today. Head over there, and you can submit and vote on stories related to search. Search N Sniff is a similar site that launched last week, and The Search Engine Press is the oldest, launched in February.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:57 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2006

Rand & I Rank The Best Search Blogs

Rand at SEOMoz posted his Ranking 50 Top Blogs in the Search Space, which encouraged me to finally post my list of the Search Blogs Am I Most Likely To Read In More Detail at my personal blog. Rand ranks this blog as number one on his list and then ranks my blog, the Search Engine Roundtable as number two on his list. I also ranked this blog as number one of my most 'click-through blog' on my list, followed by Google Blogoscoped, which I often cite here. These two lists, I believe make up a great portion of the most important search blogs you should read. Of course, it is possible Rand and I missed some - who knows, maybe Danny will come out with his ranked list?

Since I do not like to often express controversial or personal opinion on these blogs, I posted how I would change Rand's ranking order over here. When ranking my own list, I did not reference Rand's list, instead, I referenced my list of 76 search blogs I subscribe to. In addition, you can find a nice blogroll of search related blogs that Danny compiled, on the left hand side of this site, after clicking here.

So in short, you can find some excellent blogs in rank order at: (1) SEOMoz (2) Cartoon Barry

And a nice listing of blogs that Danny complied but did not rank on the left hand side of this blog's home page, here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 4:58 PM | Permalink

June 21, 2006

Don't Vote For Us As Best Search Marketing Blog At MarketingSherpa!

That's right. We don't want your vote in the "Blogs On Search Marketing" or "Best Podcast" categories of MarketingSherpa's awards, happening right now. We couldn't take them if we wanted to, since we didn't make the short list. Then again, neither did John Battelle's blog, nor Threadwatch, nor Matt Cutts, nor many of the others we list in our blog roll. I guess either:

  1. Not one of the 1,028 readers who nominated blogs thought we were worthy (sniff, we'll try better, I suppose)
  2. Those readers who failed to nominate us and other good search marketing blogs need to better educate themselves (c'mon over -- we're fine reading)
  3. MarketingSherpa doesn't like us (sniff)

Barry's Search Engine Roundtable blog won last year and is nominated again, so give Barry your vote. Or give it to Brian's ComparisonEngines.com! Or Aaron's SEO Book blog, or Search Engine Lowdown or one of the others that are listed.

Postscript: And see? Our "don't vote for us" request would already ensure that someone like Heather Hamilton at Microsoft would vote for us -- if she could vote for us, you know, if we were on the list :) Sadly

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:24 AM | Permalink

April 10, 2006

Yahoo! Publisher Network Launches YPNBlog.com

The Yahoo! Publisher Network has jumped on the blogging bandwagon and launched their own blog at YPNBlog.com. They plan to keep the publisher community up-to-date with news, tips and advice, publisher profiles and interviews, a weekly Publisher Spotlight, as well as guest columnists writing on issues important to YPN publishers.

There is a full rundown on the new blog at JenSense or you can visit the blog here.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 10:24 AM | Permalink

April 5, 2006

FM's All-In-One Tech Blogs Page & New Marketing Roundup Page

John Battelle of "The Search" fame has been busy assembling his Federated Media content empire. Last month, he put up a new great page consolidating posts from the various tech blogs that are part of FM. It's well worth checking out here, plus you can subscribe to an RSS feed and get all this tech goodness in one place. Wait you say, you've got time for yet more reading? OK, then check out Interweb Marketing. It takes in about 70 feeds and categorizes them into categories such as search engines, PPC advertising, local search and more.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:35 PM | Permalink

April 3, 2006

Greg Sterling Leaves Kelsey, Starts New Blog

If you read stories on local search, you've heard the name Greg Sterling, a long time Kelsey Group analyst on the subject. Greg's now headed off on his own to consult and research on local, search, small business advertisers and their move from traditional to online. He's also got a new blog here, and news of his new site will be posted there in the near future.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:36 PM | Permalink

February 3, 2006

New Gossip Rag On Google Execs Dating

New gossip rag ValleyWag discloses that Google cofounder Larry Page and Google vice president of search products Marissa Mayer apparently used to date, backed up by an anonymous comment on a blog. Hey, that's not the only evidence! Apparently it's an open secret in Silicon Valley. Publications haven't reported this out of fear the Big G might get upset with them, ValleyWag helpfully explains.

Yep, these same publications had no problem slamming Google right and left when it had the gall to stop talking to News.com after a privacy article involving Google CEO Eric Schmidt. But reporting the alleged love lives of Googlers? That would clearly be a step too far.

Meanwhile, expect Gray Hat News to step up and kick some ValleyWag butt shortly. Gurtie and Chris have been all over the Marissa scene from her birthday to her clothes as well as hard hitting interviews about user needs. ValleyWag isn't going to be able to walk into their territory without taking a blow. Gurtie's tough -- plus she's a Brit like ValleyWag's publisher Nick Denton. She can take 'em (FYI, for Nick's love life, you'll have to read Jossip here. I don't think he ever dated Larry, but I'm sure either Jossip or ValleyWag will let us know, if so).

Anyway, I've got it down now. Before asking about things like Chinese Censorship or AutoLink issues or whether partnering with AOL might impact Google's editorial quality, gotta ensure all interviews now cover past, current and future dating partners.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:03 AM | Permalink

January 26, 2006

Watch SEOs Battle Live & New SEO Humor Site

Matt Cutts highlighted this funny site, SEO Generations, where you can pit various people in the SEO world against each other to say who you think would get a site ranked better in a face-to-face battle.

Right now, Matt's at the top of the winner list (but would he be for a battle on Yahoo when pitted against Tim Mayer?), followed by Dave Naylor, Aaron Wall, Jill Whalen and some Canadian guy (just joking, Todd!).

Loooosers are, um, Aaron and Jill at the top of the list? But they were winners? Guess it shows you win some, you lose some.

Meanwhile, Dave Naylor bares all -- heck, he's bareback and baring all -- on a new SEO humor site he's launched, SE Ops. Think of it as Gray Hat Search Engine News or In Search Of Stuff (yesterday's story, Yahoo To Secure Buzz Aldrin As New Spokesman had me rolling) with caricatures.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:31 AM | Permalink

January 11, 2006

Google Trademarking The Word Beta

No, not really. But one of our SEW Forum threads points over to In Search Of Stuff, where 2006 isos Search Predictions suggests humorously that this will be the year that Google decides to trademark the word "beta." Others I liked:

  • Search will be integrated with everything from mobile phones to microwaves, but people will continue to use their browser to search, their mobile phones to make calls and their microwave to reheat 4 day old pizza that is “still good”.  
  • The Hilton in Paris will continue to pay well over the odds for PPC traffic, and leave many punters bitterly disappointed when they arrive at their site.  
  • Google release rel=”this_link_is_not_paid_I_promise” link attribute.

A good chuckle. Thanks Scottie and Mike. My prediction is that Gray Hat Search Engine News will either challenge ISOS for a duel over who can have the funniest satire site about search or that the two will merge.

Speaking of betas, Stop Press! Google Product Leaves BETA covers how Gray Hat is in disbelief that a Google product has left beta.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:18 PM | Permalink

December 27, 2005

Winners Of The 2005 Search Blog Awards Announced

The results of Search Engine Journal's 2005 Search Blog Awards are in. We're thrilled to be winners in one category (and thank you all for making it happen with your votes!) along with a number of other great sites in other categories. A rundown is below. And as I said before, be sure to check out all the nominated blogs, because they're all excellent to put on your reading list.

I think the only category not yet announced is Most Likely Search Engine Blogger To Flame You For Spamming, Matt or Jeremy? Watch Search Engine Journal for that, and I'll update when it comes in.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:25 PM | Permalink

December 18, 2005

A New Blog from WWW Founder Tim Berners-Lee and a Bit of WWW History

This isn't search but if were not for the work of Sir Tim Berner-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, we wouldn't have web search to talk about in the first place. Now, Dr. Berners-Lee blogging on timbl's blog. His first post is titled, "So I have a blog" is available here.

He writes: Strangely enough, the web took off very much as a publishing medium, in which people edited offline. Bizarely, they were prepared to edit the funny angle brackets of HTML source, and didn't demand a what you see is what you get editor. WWW was soon full of lots of interesting stuff, but not a space for communal design, for discource through communal authorship.

Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space. In the mean time, I have had the luxury of having a web site which I have write access, and I've used tools like Amaya and Nvu which allow direct editing of web pages.

Thanks to Google Blogoscoped and Searchblog for the news tip.

Two quick points: First, I've been using NVU to edit and create web pages for most of 2005 and I love it. One of my favorite new client web tools of the year. It's free!

Second, long before blogs and wikis there were and still are such things as newsgroups, bulletin boards, etc. For the web historians out there, this newsgroup post from August 9, 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee is the first (or one of the first) widely distrubted public announcements about TBL's WWW project. Berners-Lee writes: The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system.

The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:42 PM | Permalink

December 14, 2005

Vote For Your Favorite Search Blog

Loren Baker over at Search Engine Journal is asking people to vote for their favorite search blogs. Hey, if you like us, we'd love your vote. Use the form reached from here. But more important, I love the way Loren's done this. Rather than have one single category, he's broken different blogs into different categories, such as:

  • Best Search Engine News Blog
  • Best SEO Blog
  • Best Search Engine Corporate Blog (Ask, Google, MSN & Yahoo)
  • Most Likely Search Engine Blogger To Flame You For Spamming, Matt or Jeremy?
  • Best Search Marketing & Contextual Blog
  • Best News/Blog Search Engine Blog
  • Best Community Search Blog

The only thing I wish is that for blogs I didn't know, there was a N/A option. The form won't go through unless you vote on each or every blog, rate it from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). If I didn't know, I went with the lowest score.

Overall, I can't wait to see the results. You'll have a much more diverse set of winners to choose from, and certainly all the nominees will be much more focused around search than something like News.com's Blog 100, where only two of 13 picks for the "Search/Media" category -- 15 percent -- are actually about search.

Don't just focus on the winners. The entire nominee list is full of good blogs for anyone to check out. Good luck to everyone!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:21 AM | Permalink

December 1, 2005

Simultaneously Search and Browse All of Google's Many Blogs; RSS Feed Also Available

Philipp over at Google Blogoscoped is one of my favorite people in the blogosphere. I just mentioned yesterday what a great job he does. Today, Philipp created and Danny posted about what can be best be described as, "so many Google Blogs, so little time." Philipp's service creates a single feed for all of Google's many blogs.

Now, not having the coding skills that PL has, I experimented and tried another service and within minutes created a single SEARCHABLE source with Google's many blog feeds (did I miss any?) using Blogdigger's "Group" feature.

My Google Blog collection is available here. It even has its own feed. You can search all blogs by date or relevance and/or view/search one blog at a time via the "Group Roll" located on the right side of the page. I've noticed a few small problems and have contacted Blogdigger's Greg Gershman to help find and fix. More about Blogdigger Groups here.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:59 PM | Permalink

November 30, 2005

Threadwatch Changes Ownership

Just over a year ago, Nick Wilson created Threadwatch, which grew into a great search blog. Today in Farewell Threadwatch, he moves on. Nick's been working on a new project, Performancing, a blog and advice site for bloggers. That's now growing so much that he had to choose, and he's going with the new site. Good luck, Nick! Threadwatchers needn't panic that the site is going away, however. Aaron Wall of SEO Book has taken it over -- and good luck with the new endeavor, Aaron!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:24 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2005

Google Blogorama: Two New Official Blogs from Mountain View

Two new "official blogs" from Mountain View!

First, as Google Desktop 2 leaves beta (now with more sidebar panels), Google Blogoscoped reports that the Google Desktop now has its own official blog that's titled, "Inside Google Desktop" (not to be confused with Nathan Weinberg's "Inside Google.") Here's our original overview post about Google Desktop 2.

Second, GB also reports that Google now has an official Video Blog that "celebrates" material contributed to the Google Upload Program.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:52 PM | Permalink

October 7, 2005

News.com Gets Top 100 Blog List

News.com has a new Blog 100 list, including a search and media blogs category. There's no page for that category I can point you at, but Threadwatch made the list, and you can see the write-up here (congrats, Nick!). From there, you can see other search blogs. Well, you can see the only other search blog on the list, John Battelle's Searchblog (congrats, John!), written up here.

Despite News.com often citing our Search Engine Watch Blog, we suck and don't make the list. In reaction, we're going all Googly and not speaking to News.com until June 2006 unless added to the list. Just joking! (and the two are talking again, anyway).

Think we ought to be on the list? Hey, help us out and drop a polite word to News.com here. Pretty please, with sugar on top? If not for me, how about Gary? He works so hard, and he always gets down if we don't make lists like this.

You might also mention adding Barry's Search Engine Roundtable or Google Blogoscoped, among others. Other search blogs? Surely there can't be more! Absolutely, and a good starting place is our blog roll of search blogs. We even list News.com :)

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:37 AM | Permalink

October 6, 2005

Hitwise Blogs Search Stats

Hitwise is a great source of data about what people search for, and Bill Tancer over there who heads global research has started up a new blog here already filled with some nice gems.

Search Term Pairs looks at spikes for searches on engagement rings versus wedding dresses. Notes from Vegas: Search Terms and the Competitive Substitute looks at how searches for online poker go up as sports betting drop, making him wonder if the same people are doing both but can't afford to do both at the same time.

Batman is in, Elmo is out tells me the Thunderbirds costumes I got for the kids for Halloween aren't making the top ten list of terms containing costumes. Guess I should be dressing them up like pirates, the top term, or Batman, the second. Pirate was a top term last year. Elmo, it turns out, is not.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:07 PM | Permalink

October 3, 2005

Threadwatch Turns One: Congrats!

Happy First Birthday, Threadwatch! If WebmasterWorld has been the SEM industry's Slashdot, and Gray Hat News fills the role of The Onion (and happy birthday Gurtie!), Threadwatch to me has often been our tabloid newspaper. Like the The National Enquirer or The Sun, it can have that simultaneous feeling of reading a scandal sheet and thinking you shouldn't! But it's far from all scandal and sensation. Nick's built a great community and resource that I turn to regularly. You can drop your own greetings at the site's thread, Threadwatch: 1yr Old Today.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:08 AM | Permalink

Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz Proposes Via Ask Jeeves Search Results

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable is getting married. He proposed to his girlfriend by getting her to type her name into Ask Jeeves, where the Ask Jeeves team kindly helped long-time Ask Jeeves-watcher Barry by rigging up a custom answer. Hmm -- perhaps something that could even be a future product offering? Barry tells you more here: First Ever Wedding Proposal via Search Engine. Congrats, Barry and Yisha -- and Happy New Year, as well! Want to send your congrats? Drop them a note at in the thread at our SEW Forums, Wedding Bells For Rustybrick, As He Proposes Via Ask Jeeves!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:50 AM | Permalink

September 23, 2005

Recapping Official Search Engine Blogs

Search Engine Blogs as Public Relations Tools from Loren Baker over at Search Engine Journal is a nice overview of how the various major search engines are turning more and more to blogs as a communication tool, with continuing unofficial help from employee blogs such as those from Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny and Google's Matt Cutts (hey, Google, get his blog listed in your Blogs By Googlers section on the Google Blog already!).

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:10 AM | Permalink

September 19, 2005

Traffic Power Suit Against SEO Book Moves To US Federal Court

Traffic Power Lawsuit Update from Aaron Wall notes that the suit filed against him by Traffic Power over allegedly revealing trade secrets has been moved from Nevada state court to US federal state court, through his efforts. The federal case number is CV-S-05-1109-RLH-LRL. For more background on the case, see Traffic Power Suit Could Be Quashed Through Anti-Slapp Motion and SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets".

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:50 PM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Traffic Power Suit Could Be Quashed Through Anti-Slapp Motion

Legal Showdown in Search Fracas from Adam Penenberg at Wired looks at the lawsuit by Traffic Power against SEO Book's Aaron Wall, alleging that he revealed trade secrets. Lawyers Penenberg talks with find the suit seems more about quashing negative opinions Wall had about Traffic Power than trade secrets. One from the EFF says the suit might be subject to an "anti-Slapp" motion, a statute to prevent lawsuits being brought with no merit and intended to silence critics.

The idea that trade secrets are involved gets shot down by citing my past examination of the case, as well as including observations from long-time search marketer Greg Boser, who says there are no secrets to protect because the code is published on a publicly-accessible web server. For more background, see my previous SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets" article.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2005

Andy Beal Back Blogging At Marketing Pilgrim

I wrote earlier of Andy Beal departing his former company WebSourced and the Search Engine Lowdown blog he created. News from him now that he's back blogging about search news and new media at Marketing Pilgrim. He's got an intro letter here. Welcome back, Andy :)

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:36 PM | Permalink

September 1, 2005

Aaron Wall To Fight Traffic Power Suit; Calls For Donations

Aaron Wall of SEO Book, who is being sued by Traffic Power over allegedly helping reveal "trade secrets" has decided to fight the lawsuit. In Legal Donations Accepted, he explains that despite getting settlement agreement papers, he's decided the issue goes beyond his blog and needs to be fought:

This suit is not about Traffic Power. This suit is not about this blog. This suit is more about free speech, which is the very fabric that holds the web and democracy together. An issue far more important than I could ever pretend to be.

If I do not face this suit, then it is easier for the next person to get trampled. After all the support people have offered I do not think it is the right decision to tuck tail and run, especially since I am still unaware of what specifically is wrong - and never once has there been an attempt to tell me.

Further in his post, he calls for donations and pledges that if donations exceed legal costs, any excess will go to groups such as the EFF.

For more background on the case, see our previous SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets" article. Wall's fight was also picked up by the Wall Street Journal in its Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers article and also at Slashdot.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit the Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:14 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2005

SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets"

Back in June, I heard from Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog. He'd been served with a cease-and-desist letter from SEO company Traffic-Power.com that seemed impossible to comply with. At issue was a claim that Wall had published "proprietary and confidential information." However, the claim didn't list any specific infringing material that Wall was supposed to remove. Now things have progressed to an actual lawsuit over the matter, one that I can't help thinking will get dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

The Cease-And-Desist Letter

Let's start with the actual letter. The Max D Spilka & Traffic Power Cease and Desist Letter post at Wall's blog at the end of July reprints the letter he was sent. It's not long, but I'll highlight the key parts in bullet point format:

  • It has come to our attention that on a website you control, namely www.SEO Book..com, proprietary and confidential information related to Traffic Power's business has been published.  
  • The published information violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. Sections 2510-2521, and is subject to certain contracts between Traffic-Power and its former and/or current employees.  
  • The published information has been pirated from Traffic Power and you have obtained the information illegally, all of which you knew or should have known.  
  • You are to cease and desist immediately from the same or any similar activity. In the event you fail to do so, Traffic Power is prepared to initiate litigation to obtain an injunction to enforce its rights.  
  • Finally, consistant with recent court rulings you may now be obligated to disclose the source(s) of your information. Accordingly, within ten (10) days of this letter, you are to do the following:  
    • 1. Provide a list of the sources of your information complete with name, address, and telephone number; and,  
    • 2. Remove from www.SEO Book.com website all information relating to Traffic-Power.

Lack Of Specifics

As said, I found this letter almost impossible to comply with. What's the confidential information? Where was it published? Which sources are alleged to be involved?

I contacted Traffic Power to learn more about what Wall was supposed to do in response to the letter. Below are questions I sent, along with the emailed responses from Traffic Power's public relations firm AMR Partners that I received at the end of June. I've made light edits to clean up some spellings and grammatical errors in both the questions sent and answers received, produced by the informal nature of email:

Question: The letter never actually says what it is he supposedly pirated or published. What exactly is it that's in contention here?

Traffic Power tells me that in threads regarding Traffic-Power portions of private and confidential emails have been presented as well as links to proprietary company information as well as false claims against the company regard non-existing lawsuits and other potentially libelous claims.

"I just thought anyone should know, This is an interesting link to a law firm that is getting ready to file a class action against Traffic-Power.com http://www.girardgibbs.com/traffic-power.html"

Many of these links are no longer available and Mr. Wall's site - Blocked Wayback Machine with "Robots.txt Query Exclusion" (See robots.txt file at http://www.seobook.com/robots.txt) http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml

Question: Isn't a violation of the act [cited in the cease and desist] a criminal violation?

That would be a better question for Traffic Power's attorney, Mr. Spilka.

Question: The letter suggests Traffic-Power might be entitled to damages under the act. Isn't it really that he'd be fined by the federal government?

I believe the letter is suggesting that Traffic Power will pursue all legal remedies both criminal and civil to resolve this matter.

Question: Can you be more specific of what exactly he's done to violate the act, which seems to be mostly related to federal wiretapping provisions?

Again I feel that would be a better question for Traffic Powers Attorney, Mr. Spilka.

Question: How is he supposed to comply with a demand for source disclosure when you haven't cited what was allegedly published or pirated? Are you expecting a list of every person he's ever talked with?

I have no idea what the legal team might expect in terms of disclosure of sources, but I have been told that any evidence will not be presented until it has been decided whether or not they need to file a lawsuit.

Question: Are you suggesting everything on the SEO Book web site that might mention Traffic-Power is somehow pirated material? Doing a quick search, I see http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml, where he talks about being called by Traffic-Power. Is this the pirated communication? And if so, was he informed of this before the phone call began?

I do not think the intent of the letter is to imply that everything on the site is pirated or in response to the two links you've posted, but rather to suggest that pirated material as well as material that could be considered libelous are present and that there are several issues on Mr. Wall's sites that are potentially actionable.

In conclusion, Traffic Power has assured me that they would much prefer a civil dialog with their critics instead of any legal action and that they at least, would be open to discussion.

I'm afraid the responses left me not much clearer about the situation. The cease-and-desist letter talked about Wall allegedly publishing confidential information, yet the follow-up answers went broader to suggest there was potentially libelous information at issue, as well.

Certainly Wall didn't know what he should do. As he wrote on his blog:

The only way I could have complied with it is if I shut my site down and gave them contact information of everyone I have ever contacted. Since it was impossible to comply without destroying my business model and potentially getting my friends and customers spammed or cold called I asked a friend about the situation.

The Cold Call Post

It seems the key trigger in all of this was Wall's Traffic Power & Cold Call SEO post of May 6, 2004. That's the http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml URL mentioned in the follow-up response I received (though not in the actual letter sent to Wall). That's Wall's best guess as well, as he's emailed me and as he speculates in a timeline-of-sorts in this post on August 26 about being sued.

In the post, he talks about being cold called by someone from Traffic-Power and coming away unimpressed. I didn't see anything proprietary when I looked at the post. Libelous? That wasn't an issue in the letter he was sent. Trade secrets? Again, nothing I see any the post anything remotely approaching what I'd view as trade secrets.

There's more than the post, of course. There are comments below it. Some in our forum thread on the lawsuit wonder if perhaps some of the things people have posted might have been deemed trade secrets, such as:

  • Alleged use of doorway pages
  • Apparently hosting keyword-targeted pages on other web sites, maintaining ultimate control of the traffic
  • Alleged use of JavaScript cloaking

If these are trade secrets, none of them would be considered proprietary or unique to Traffic-Power, to my knowledge. Moreover, if these are things that have been discussed with clients and potential clients -- without requiring the use of non-disclosure statements -- then they hardly seem secrets worthy of legal protection.

By the way, how about that law mentioned as part of the letter? The EFF gives a layman's view here and FindLaw has info on various sections here. I came away thinking it was made certain wiretapping like activities a criminal action that the US government could pursue, not something to be tried in civil court.

The Lawsuit Against SEO Book

As said, I started looking into this back in June. My understanding was that the issue had gone away. Wall posted the letter he received on his blog, and that seemed to be the end of it.

Obviously, it is not. Notice! You Have Been Sued is a follow-up post on Wall's blog that contains the lawsuit. You can read through it there. It reasserts that Wall has somehow helped reveal trade secrets while not explaining where, when or how. It further alleges that Wall's published "false and defamatory" information about Traffic-Power, though again not naming or explaining what this is. Perhaps there were exhibits as part of the filing, but if so, these aren't referenced as is typical in a complaint.

Wall says that he's been told verbally that if he drops all content about Traffic Power on his web site -- regardless of whether it is legitimate -- the suit would be dropped. He's now seeking a written confirmation of this, while weighing up the pros of fighting the case versus the cons, all of which are itemized on the site. Ultimately, he says he's leaning toward pulling the material.

A Chilling Effect -- But Not For Everyone

If so, I find it unfortunate. In fact, I find the entire lawsuit unfortunate. Whatever reputation improvement Traffic-Power thought it might be gaining through such an action has just gotten worse. Small sites may react to the chilling effect of being sued. Larger publishers won't -- and many more of them just learned about Traffic-Power and the many allegations levied against them over the past year, as a result of the action.

One big publisher, by the way, is Google. As Marcia over in our forum thread on the lawsuit pointed out, there's a Google Answers question that talks about Traffic-Power "doorway pages," describes hidden links as "cloaking" and has a conclusion that "questionable SEO tactics are being employed on your website." If anything, that response on a web site hosted by Google, from a freelance question answerer paid through Google, is far more damaging than what I've seen referenced on the SEO Book blog.

In fact, maybe even other smaller sites will stick with it. Wall points over to the Traffic Power Sucks site, a protest site against the firm that talks about how to gain refunds, a possible class action lawsuit and advice from the site's perspective of things to watch out for. It sounds like the site received a letter similar to what Wall got:

I received a little letter from the same lawyer threatening me with a lawsuit if I didn't take "proprietary and confidential information related to Traffic Power's business" off of my website. I called the lawyer and asked him exactly what information he was referring to. He had no idea what I was talking about. This was the guy who signed the letter, and he was clueless. If anyone can find anything at all on this website that could possibly be considered Traffic Power's "proprietary and confidential information", drop me an email at webmaster@trafficpowersucks.com.

I take it Traffic Power Sucks has no plans to remove material and if ultimately sued, I suspect it will press onward since it seems to be organizing its own lawsuit against the firm.

Want to discuss? Visit the Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Postscript from Gary: I did a bit of searching and on August 11th, the same day a lawsuit was filed against Aaron Wall/SEO Book, another suit was filed in a Neveda District Court listing TrafficPowerSucks.com (and those who run the site) as defendents.

Postscript 2: The Wall Street Journal now has a story with some legal comments: Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:22 PM | Permalink

August 23, 2005

ClickZ Blog Launched

Just a quick note that our sister site ClickZ has launched a blog. Executive Editor Rebecca Lieb explains more in ClickZ Is Blogging. If you're not familiar with ClickZ, it's a long-standing online marketing web site with coverage that ranges from search through to rich media.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:26 AM | Permalink

June 23, 2005

Tips On Finding New Sites

Out of site, out of mind from the Guardian made me smile when it mentioned some of the ways Jack Schofield used to keep up with new web sites, reminding me of sources I used to depend on like Net Happenings. Then I smiled again when we got the nod along with other resources to consider if you want to keep up on search happenings. If we're not enough, check out some of the sites listed on the blog roll on our home page. Still not enough? See our Giant Lists Of Search Blogs post.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:24 AM | Permalink

June 15, 2005

Searchblog's Battelle Launching Blog Ad Network

Wired Co-Founder Nears Launch of Blog Ad Network look at how John Battelle, author of Searchblog and the upcoming book The Search, is branching out into running a blog ad network. The idea is to have a small selection of high-quality blogs that will take ads through his new FM Publishing company (but ads from others are also allowed). John talks more about this directly on the FMPublishing blog.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:50 PM | Permalink

June 14, 2005

Search Engine Roundtable Named Best Search Blog

Barry Schwartz's Search Engine Roundtable blog has always been one of the best places to keep track of what's happening on various search forums if you're too busy to read through all the material on the forums themselves. Now it's been named the best search marketing blog for 2005 in the recent MarketingSherpa awards that were announced. Congrats, Barry!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:56 AM | Permalink

May 19, 2005

Google AdWords & Other Feeds Offered

Spotted via Jensense, there's a new Inside AdWords blog from Google. And from Dirson, an entire list of current Google feeds, such as from Blogger and Picasa. Not listed are the Google News feeds I wrote about earlier -- but you can currently only get them within Gmail. Google Orkut Media also offers feeds.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:49 AM | Permalink

May 16, 2005

Giant Lists Of Search Blogs

Need more search blogs? Here are two resources that aim to point you to all the search blogs out there!

The first comes from fantomNews, a still relatively new blog that takes the same name of fantomaster's former email newsletter. Fantomaster is headed by Ralph Tegtmeier, a long-time search engine optimizer who specializes in cloaking and IP detection software.

Aside from offering a lot of interesting tips and observations on its own blog, fantommaster's assembled a list of nearly 200 search marketing blogs. It keeps growing, and you'll find it here: SEO / SEM Blogs.

Meanwhile, the Search Visibility Report has its own list of search blogs here. It also offers two interesting feeds:

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:21 PM | Permalink

May 6, 2005

SEO Inc Tries To Silence Google Blogoscoped Over Rankings

Last month, SEO Inc apparently fell out of the top rankings for the term "search engine optimization" at Google. I felt it was a non-story then. That's changed now that the company issued a cease-and-desist notice against Google Blogoscoped, implying that Philipp Lenssen there may have trade libeled them. More details and a copy of the letter from Philipp here: SEO Inc Sent Me a Cease & Desist.

Wow. What did he say? John Battelle has a reprint over here, but here's the key passage is this:

It’s kind of ironic that SEOInc.com, a search engine optimization company which for a while was on the Google number 1 spot for the highly competitive query "search engine optimization", is now nowhere to be found in the Google results. This is likely due to the recent PageRank update and even more algorithm tweaks implemented by Google. Enter “SEOinc” into Google.com, and SEOInc.com is nowhere in the top 10; and the SEOInc.com PageRank has dropped to “none”. Only by entering “site:seoinc.com” into Google will you see the site is still indexed in some way.

And while a low or non-existent Google ranking is bad enough for sites outside the SEO industry, it hits everyone in the SEO business twice as hard: not only are SEOInc not being found with search engines anymore, they’ve also lost their biggest proof their services are worth paying for.

Of course, the fact this site has seen the Google death penalty hints that they’ve overoptimized using “black hat” search engine optimization (such as linkfarms, for example).

Who is Philipp to say that SEO Inc lost the biggest proof that their services were worthwhile? Actually, SEO Inc. made this suggestion. Until recently, it had these claims on its web site, which Philipp's article lead off with:

“Search Engine Optimization Inc. uses our proven Search Engine Placement techniques to rank more sites in more top positions than anyone in the business. Our cutting-edge strategies are currently used by companies including AT&T Broadband, IGN, Sierra Trading Post, and Microsoft. (...)

The title of Certified Advanced Search Engine Marketing Strategist from the Academy of Web Specialists is your assurance that SEO Inc Search Engine Optimization incorporates highly effective, ethical and proven methods of gaining you top positioning.”

Those are now gone, though in a new development, the company appears to have recently become a member of the W3C. From its home page:

Search Engine Optimization Inc is the FIRST and Only search engine marketing firm to become a member of the (W3C) World Wide Web Consortium. Read Article here.

As said, I thought the company's drop in placement for "search engine optimization" was a non-issue when I heard about it a few weeks ago. I wouldn't have reported them as being "good" for having any type of placement, since placement for a term doesn't necessary mean good conversions.

In addition, top rankings can be meaningless. Was the term competitive or not? IE, does anyone actually search on it? And if you were top ranked, how long for? On which search engines? Ones people actually use? These are the types of reasons why I simply ignore any claims based on rankings.

Want to discuss or learn more? Check out these forum discussions:

That last thread we actually pulled from our forums back in mid-April. No, not because of a cease-and-desist letter or any message. Instead, our forums have a policy about public spam reporting. We don't allow it, unless a site is incredibly well-known or the issue has become discussed in a variety of public forums. Ironically, with the many blog comments now about the cease-and-desist, the thread that previously was pulled now qualifies for restoration.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:58 PM | Permalink

January 13, 2005

Shopping Search, Contextual Ads & General Search Blogs Offered

I met up with Sean O'Rourke at our SES Chicago show who's heavily into shopping search and threatened to launch a blog on the topic. Now he's done it. The Organized Shopping Blog looks promising, so if you're a retailer interested in the important area of shopping search, you may want to tune in.

I've also been meaning to mention JenSense. That's a blog launched several weeks ago by Jennifer Slegg, more commonly known to many as Jenstar, moderator of WebmasterWorld's Google AdSense forum. Aside from being one of the nicest people you could meet, those I know into generating money from AdSense tell me she's one of the sharpest people you can talk to.

We don't cover much about contextual here, because as I've written before, it's not search. But it IS important to online advertisers and publishers, so check out Jen's blog.

To close things out, search marketing firm Reprise Media's just started its new blog SearchViews that's taking a look at search as a whole.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBack