Brett Borders is an independent web strategy consultant & publisher with an academic background in sociology and interactive marketing. He's been online since 1990 (before the World Wide Web), but worked professionally as a classroom instructor, PR guy and advertising copywriter until he discovered the exciting side of SEO and viral marketing in 2006 via Rand Fishkin's SEOmoz blog. Now Brett does organic SEO, reputation management, link building and content strategy consulting for high-traffic sites and international brands—and he writes about online reputation and social media.

• How To Improve .EDU Link Requests Using Academic Metaphors