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.

I was first going to give an extremely confusing title that parodies the common generic linkbait titles you see everywhere, but then decided to make it super generic. I think I’ve read this particular title, or some variation of it hundreds, if not thousands of times. Matter of fact, ‘Beat Your Competition’ is found over one hundred thousand times!

Here is where I stray from the generic title, but give some key suggestions that might help. I’m not saying it will do the job, but they’re just obvious observations I’ve made the past few years. They are more mentoring tips that I would give to anyone, so before you think to yourself, “He’s giving away his secrets”, think again.

• Keep Your Secrets to Yourself! - I realize that sharing your knowledge and proving your ability by speaking your mind helps potential customers see what you’re made of, but there is a fine line to not cross. I think bloggers thrive to appear like wizards in their particular field but all they’re doing is giving away their secrets to competition or even creating new competition.
• Don’t Be So Social! - This one makes my head ’sphinn’. People try so hard to be involved in every single social app that pops up, but the problem is, just one social app is time consuming. Save that time for helping your customers or bettering your product or service. Also, most social apps allow others to see who all of your contacts are, a sort of window into your soul that your competition has easy access to.
• Take off that Target shirt! - throwing your weight around about how popular you are or who you work with has it’s pluses but it also has it’s minuses. If I came on here and stated we were an approved G00GLE vendor (which I will neither confirm nor deny), sure it could bring business our way, but it also puts a huge target on our back. If you steer your ship down the right path, you’ll be successful and there will be no need to make such a big splash. Take a step back and let your competition wear the target.
• Don’t be so damn picky! - We’ve all witnessed it, businesses would rather hand pick their customers, aka deep pockets, and leave out the little guy/girl. You NEVER know what the future holds. Turning down someone that only has $100 to spend today might be the same thing as turning down someone that has $100,000 to spend in a year. And another downfall to large accounts, if you have 10 accounts that gross your business $25k each, then your competitor has 100 accounts that gross $2500 each, while it seems to be even, all it takes is one lost account and you’re down a big chunk. I remember a college instructor that told us one day, “God made more poor people than he did rich people.” In other words, it’s a lot easier to get a million people to give you $1 than it is having 10 people give you a $100,000.
• Don’t Become Complacent! - Think about how lions hunt their meals. They feed on the weak, or the one’s that appear to be weak. Same thing goes for the business world. No matter how nice you think your competition is or how friendly they are to you, the minute they have the opportunity, they’ll crush you. Stay ahead of the curve and don’t be content with where you are. Think of ways to make what you do even better, or maybe come up with a completely different way of doing it. Don’t be scared to take chances because that’s where success happens. You may fail several times, but eventually the odds will be on your side and everyone will be following your lead.

Ok, I feel like a motivational speaker now and it’s making my stomach upset. Again, these 5 tips have nothing to do with our industry specifically, it applies to any company or market. If you were hoping to learn how to crush your competition with relation to what LinkWorth offers, I would recommend calling 866.LNK.WRTH and one of our Account Managers can lead you down that path.

We’ve been on more of a bi-weekly hypothetical Wednesday’s lately, so my apologies if you’ve missed them.

Today’s hypothetical revolves around something that goes on here at the office. I realized that when it comes to being healthy (eating and exercise), there are those that are good at it and those that are not. Which one are you? Which one would you want to be?

The hypothetical:

Would you rather be extremely healthy, in shape, basically in the best health possible and have a clean living, however, you have the unhappiness of never being able to eat all of the things you absolutely love to eat? You could only eat mulch from the mower, few fruits, shaved wood and dry baked potatoes, as an example. You’re just never happy with what you’re eating and find it difficult to deal with most of the time, but the important thing is, you are as healthy as you can be.

or
Would you rather be out of shape, eating anything you want, whenever you want, unclean living, however, you have the unhappiness of always wanting to be an extremely healthy person? You would not be to a point of life or death, more like 20-25 pounds overweight, maybe a bad habit, but the important thing is you eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

Pick your unhappiness

While thinking of the clever April Fool’s post, I realized that everyone has already beaten this whole bit up before it even turned midnight in our part of the world. So instead of throwing any curve balls here, I figured I would list the jokes I’ve already come across.

• One great thing about being in Australia is you get everything before the rest of the world thanks to the International Date line. Darren Rowse over at Problogger.net announced their launch of PayPerTweet, a service that pays Twitter users for tweeting about products and services. He then issues a further explanation of the joke which is pretty interesting.
• Over at Techcrunch.com, I learned of a new phenomenon called RickRolling. Basically, you click a link you think is interesting, but it actually takes you to a youtube video of Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up“. Horrible song, but I think I liked it back in the day. Anyhow, Youtube is RickRolling everyone who clicks the Featured Videos from their home page.
• Of course, the reason I was at Techcrunch is because I noticed Arrington had a ridiculous claim of suing Facebook, so I had to read. He claims users were using his picture to advertise products and services through Facebook and he was suing them for $25 million. I guess knowing the whole April 1st bit I knew it was a joke with the headline, but when I started reading how he was claiming to be so important, it was tough to read. Like reading a joke of why the chicken crossed the road or a knock knock joke, too predictable.
• Google Australia announced the release of a new service that searches ‘tomorrow’s web, today’. It’s called gDay™ and the core technology that powers it is MATE™ (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation).

**Updated List after day is over**

• BBC definitely has my vote for the most creative of the day. They released this video:
  
• CNET announced that Techcrunch acquired Tigerbeat and will rename it to CrunchKids.
• Google and Virgin partnered to create “Virgle”. This is called the ‘interplanetary Noah’s Ark’ where it will create a Mars expedition and eventual colonization of Mars.

Here are a list of sites that breakdown all of the internet pranks:

• Lifehacker Top 10 Harmless Geek Pranks
• SearchEngineLand has a recap of April Fool’s Day
• CNET Fool’s Day Lineup

***UPDATE ENDS***

This is just a few. I’ll post more tomorrow as April Fool’s hits this side of the world. Plus I think we might have our own fun to show.