We ventured out to Arlington this weekend to exhibit at The National Franchise & Business Opportunities Show. Even though the attendance was “pedestrian” at best, I feel good about what we got out of the experience.

For starters, it was local. Anytime you don’t have to justify huge travel & lodging expenses you’re ahead of the game. On top of that, the show itself was relatively inexpensive. We gave away the usual shwag…bought a few lunches for our team…but that’s about the extent of the financial damage.

More importantly, though, we will get a few accounts out of it. The attendance wasn’t great, but the folks we did talk to were quality. I think our biggest opportunity will come from the other exhibitors…but we’ll see.

But MOST importantly, this was a phenomenal opportunity for our new guys to apply what they’ve been learning for the past few months. There is no substitution for face-to-face interaction with clients (or prospective clients) and I was very proud of the way everyone handled themselves. I’m a lot less involved with the training of our new employees these days so I was happy to see that they’re coming along nicely. Talking about our services over and over again really seemed to build some confidence in them.

Way to go, dudes & dudettes! Who’s ready for San Jose, NYC, & Las Vegas???

Being a company that ‘loves links’, I thought having the nofollow tag on our comments just didn’t make much sense. I removed the nofollow some time ago and found people kept trying to abuse it, so I took that plugin out.

Thanks to Megadawg for referring me to Lucias Linky Love dofollow plugin. It basically allows you to apply a minimum post count on our readers who comment. Once you hit that number, the nofollow attribute is removed and we’re happy to pass along some link love to our contributors. In other words, it weeds out the good posters from the fake posters.

We’ll be watching and making any necessary tweaks. If you have any suggestions or notice something weird, give us a reply here.

Here’s an interesting hypothetical:

You have a business that both Google and Yahoo are interested in buying. Both have given you offers, but each offer has a unique situation (obviously, this is a hypothetical!):

• Google offers you $100 million dollars cash. If you accept the offer, you also have to agree to spend the next 2 years working on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean. You will not receive a single dollar until 2 years have passed while sitting on a chunk of metal out in the empty ocean.
  
  or
• Yahoo offers you $1 billon dollars cash. If you accept the offer, you have to live the next 10 years in a 3rd world country where there is no electricity or running water. You basically live off the land and struggle to survive. Once you have completed 10 years, you get your $1 billion dollars and the option to move back to society.

Last night, Ron and I took all of the available LinkWorthers out to celebrate another record sales month. (Actually, we headed out around 3pm because our terrible ISP failed us yet again…but that’s an entirely different story.) We made the not-so-long trek across the street to Main Event for an evening of drinks, games, and general camaraderie.

It was tons of fun and we really enjoyed our time out of the office hanging out together. It’s nice to get away from links, SEO, & everything else for awhile; especially when the reason is rewarding our employees for their great performance and production. And since we have so many new faces around here, it was the first time we’ve had a chance to get know each other on a more personal level.

Main Event is great because there’s so much to do. Not everyone here drinks (shocking, I know) so it’s nice to have outings that don’t revolve solely around boozing it up. Some of us were bowling while others hung out in the lounge or played air hockey or pool or video games. We pretty much did it all and had a blast.

After we’d been there for a few hours, the competitive spirit in us boiled over into a game of laser-tag. There were six of us that wanted to play but Ron and I decided that the two of us would take on the other four. What better way to reward your team than by letting them shoot you, right? Sadly, it didn’t work out that way for them. Ron and I dealt out an ass-whipping of the highest order. It was a slaughter at the very least. I’m sure this post will fuel denials and angry comments from the recipients of the blood-bath, so I’m prepared.

I present to you: Exhibit A. The scorecard.

Blue Team (Ron & Matt) - 18,390 points
Red Team (Matt B., Jeffro, Vanessa, Christine) - 9,930 points

Ummm…that’s a massacre, folks.

I’m already hearing that we won because we had more targets to shoot at and other lame excuses but the bottom line is this: we dominated. I received a call from the Pentagon this morning…something about maximizing my abilities in the Special Forces blah, blah, blah. Ron sent me an instant message earlier informing me that he has to leave early today to attend a meeting with the CIA…although he couldn’t tell me what it was about. Word travels fast, I guess.

Anyway, I don’t want to beat a dead horse with this. I’m actually tired of “beatings” and “death” because we inflicted so much of both last night. I’m over it…

Thanks to all of the LinkWorthers for doing such a great job! We’ll have a rematch once we hit our next milestone. We love you guys!

We can all agree that the past year of link building, well SEO in general, has been quite the hot topic. Damn near ‘everyone’ participated in link building in some form or fashion. If you read someone that says they have never participated in link building, you can bet most of your money that they’re not telling you the whole truth. It was just part of the landscape and you had to do it to compete. A good analogy is like trying to compete in a marathon but not working out, you can still participate but you probably won’t finish.

All this rambling leads me to my point. Since the ’so called’ hammer was thrown down, a lot of people have either turned their heads towards link building or have continued on as under the table as possible. Those that have turned their heads have found it impossible to compete, once again. Why? It’s because linking is still alive and well. The truth of the matter is it will always be alive and well unless the engines change the way they rank websites, a point that I’ve said over and over. Sure, they can try and slap people’s wrists, but if you knock 10 down, there’s 10 more waiting to take their place.

A great example of how well the text linking business still works, I bring to you exhibit A. If you look at the page source, you’ll find that it is nothing more than a frameset page with absolutely zero content. Only a title and meta description. It is currently ranked #1 for the term “Text Link Ads“, which is pretty competitive. I first thought our pals over at TLA were back on track but then realized it was just an affiliate page. Either way, I was thrilled to see what I was looking at. That gives even more proof that you can rank a page with nothing but a pure linking campaign. All you have to do is look at the back links listed and you’ll find their text links. It’s a beautiful thing.

If you have become a non-believer, what more proof do you need that we can help!

Do you have any good hypotheticals that you would like to have included in our rotation? If so, please send them to admin [at] linkworth {dot} com. If we use your submission, we’ll reference who sent it and a link to your website, if you would like us to.

If sending a hypothetical, mention the word ‘hypothetical’ in the subject. In the email body, after your hypothetical, give the name you’d like to be published and the website address you want published. If you are unsure how to make a hypothetical, it is real simple, present a situation and give two solutions. The idea is to make both solutions gratifying but with some sort of consequence.

Ok, back to the hypothetical at hand: Hitchhiking or UFO Riding.

You are in dire need to get on the other side of the world for a serious family matter. You have just a few days to get there but only have 2 options of transportation. Both will get you there, but what happens while in transportation is unknown. Which would you choose:

• You can reach to your destination by hitchhiking in cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats or any other land/water based vehicles. Flying is not an option. You will arrive in time, but the people you will come across will be some of the shadiest characters you’ve ever met in your life.
  
  or
• You can reach to your destination being abducted by a UFO. No one knows what or who is in the UFO..violent, happy, peaceful, hungry, a complete mystery. You will be pulled into the spacecraft and leave the planet, maybe even the galaxy. You could be gone a million years, but they know how to time travel and will get you to your destination in time.

Which risk sounds more appetizing?

And don’t forget to send in your hypothetical if you want to participate!

We haven’t mentioned much about our travel plans for this year, other than our trip to SXSW Interactive. I know we said we didn’t plan on attending the usual conferences this year, however, we are going to be exhibiting at a few. One being the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose, August 18-21.

This is one of the premier SES shows due to it’s location, right down the road from Googleplex. Google has their Google Dance which is always a blast. Kind of a time when everyone puts down their guns and all hang out together for fun, food and beverages. If you haven’t been, I’d highly recommend this one. Matter of fact, we can get you 20% off of a Conference Passport (aka Platinum Passport) or a 1 day pass. If you just want to go to the expo, this coupon gets you in for free.

SES San Jose 2008 Coupon

Future conferences we’ll be attending:

1. Dallas/Ft. Worth Franchise & Business Expo - May 16-18
2. SES San Jose 2008 - August 18-21
3. SMX East New York City - October 6-8
4. Pubcon Las Vegas - November 11-14

Look for discounts to the other shows as we get them.

Partners, are you tired of waiting around to be chosen for LinkPost deals?

Advertisers, does sorting through our ever-growing inventory to find suitable LinkPost Partner blogs take too much of your valuable time?

Now there’s an easier way! (Will go live tomorrow 4.29.08)

Allow me to introduce LW Jobs - a new way to buy & sell paid blog posts here at LinkWorth.

In the “old days”, Advertisers had to create an outline, search for Partner blogs individually, make a buy request, wait for approval, then wait for the post be written. On the flip side, Partners had to wait patiently for work to come their way.

Now there is a MUCH more efficient way for both Partners and Advertisers. LW Jobs allow Advertisers to simply create a Job listing using a LinkPost outline and let the bloggers find them.

How does it work?
Advertisers select a LinkPost outline to use, determine a set of minimum requirements that Partner blogs must meet, deposit funds, and then the Job is posted for all of our blog Partners to see and accept the Jobs that best suit them!

Partners
As a blog Partner, viewing the available Jobs is a piece of cake. Simply log in to your control center and view your Alerts to see what Jobs are currently on deck!

You can also access the available Jobs by clicking the “my products” tab >> linkpost >> search linkpost jobs.

At a glance you can see what Jobs you’re eligible to accept. If your blog meets the requirements and there are still available funds, the Job listing will appear green…GO FOR IT!! If your blog does not meet the requirements, the Job listing will be red and you won’t be able to accept it.

Advertisers
Log in to your control center and click the “my products” tab >> linkpost >> create Job (you must first have a LinkPost outline created before a LW Job can be created). Fill in a few fields, set your pricing, and sit back while the buzz about you begins! Check out the screenshot below to see how easy it is.

For those of you that follow the search engines and their cockiness that flies first class wherever they go, you should be very familiar with Google and their ‘unbeatable search algorithm’. The Google algo has probably been one of the most talked about, targeted, studied, tested, learned and contested of any other search algo in the history of search engines. Here are a few points that would put them in this position:

1. They own between 60%-70% of the search market/queries, so why not target the big dawg?
2. They proclaim to have the most detailed and steel proof equations of any out there.
3. They claim to know of all webspam and can stop most of it with their algorithms.
4. They have attracted some of the smartest people in the world to work for them.

With this knowledge at hand, how would you feel to know the ’smartest algorithm’ in the world has had to resort to human editing to better their search engine results?

Well it is happening and the once untainted results will now be at the mercy of a Wikipedia type editor, which is paid by the hour and will undoubtedly be in bed with the market they govern, somehow. If not when they sign up, definitely once they have the power. Google is offering to pay $25/hr and that is great money, but who wouldn’t take side payments for doing whatever? “Hey Joe Blow, I’ll give you $50k to make site A vital and site’s B, C, D, E, F and so on non-relevant.” Would you take the bribe? I think most people that will be doing this would.

Here is the posting on Craigslist found recently:

Search engine results rating:

We need individuals who can work from home to perform search engine results ratings. The work is straight-forward; you log into a Website and then look at predetermined web pages or other similar material and rank them based on how relevant they appear for a given search query. The workload could be anywhere from a few hours a month to a few hours a week. You will need to have a PayPal account as that is how you will be paid.

When you perform this testing you must have the ability to sit down at a computer uninterrupted for 1 hour periods. Also, we will check the data. If the data is inconsistent or done with little regard for quality, you will lose your opportunity to do this in the future.

If you’re interested, here are a few more details:
-You must be willing to be interviewed for approximately 15 minutes on the phone.
-You must be totally and completely fluent in English.
-Please have a college degree, or an AA degree at a minimum.
-Please send your resume along with a brief paragraph about yourself, and also tell us how long you have been using the Internet, how many hours a day/week you use the Internet, and what you typically do on the Internet.

The pay is approximately $25 per hour.

It may take us up to a week to get back to you so please be patient.

Thanks!

And here are the guidelines handed out.

Maybe the business of the future will be to load up a building full of employees, who all apply for the ‘human search project’, and then they become the online service who can apply spam, Non Relevant or Off-Topic tags on the competition listings and then tag the customer sites with the vital mark. Google will basically pay for your entire workforce salaries, maybe you make money off of the newer employees, then give the veterans the full $25/hr plus a little compensation from sales you earn for the service provided to individual companies, seo agencies and other search related marketing firms. The great part is getting off the ground would require very minimal costs, since salaries are usually the biggest cost.

The underlying point here is after all that we’ve heard from Google about having the smartest search algorithms out there, no matter what they do, people will always be smarter than machines. However, once you start inserting humans into the mix, the chances of corruption goes through the roof, as my example company above illustrates.

Google, don’t become Mahalo! They suck for a reason.

PS. (If someone takes my business model idea, at least give me a thank you!)

Here’s a good survival hypothetical. I’m a huge fan of Survivorman and Man vs. Wild, which made me think of this one.

Would you rather be stranded in the middle of the hot Amazonian forest for a minimum of one month, but you are stranded without any food or water? You would have to live off of the land around you, which is full of food and water.

or
Would you rather be stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean where you are not rescued until a month into it? You would have enough water and food to get you through the entire ordeal, but you will have to ration yourself to ensure it will last the full month.