More April Fools: Everything From Tools To Make Your Video Viral To Free Nexus Phones

Yesterday, our editor in chief Matt McGee found a number of Google April Fools jokes already in play, including a Google Maps Pokemon challenge and Google+ David Hasselhoff photobombs. Not wanting Google to be the only one having all the April Fools fun, a number of other companies have released their own April 1st shenanigans. […]

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april-fools-dayYesterday, our editor in chief Matt McGee found a number of Google April Fools jokes already in play, including a Google Maps Pokemon challenge and Google+ David Hasselhoff photobombs.

Not wanting Google to be the only one having all the April Fools fun, a number of other companies have released their own April 1st shenanigans.

Here’s what we have found so far:

Bing Sells Link Juice

Promising 100 total links, Bing claims its new bottled Link Juice is “loaded with all the nutrients and goodness you need to successfully grow.”

Shipped in discreet plain brown paper packaging, the snake oil offer comes in an “anonymous” package so that users can hide linking activities.

You can also join a Link Juice of the Month Club, and double your total link count.”That’s 200 new links every month all year long,” says Bing in bold font.

For a monthly fee of only $6999.33, your guaranteed spam free, non-adult links from actual websites related to your topic:

Imagine how successful your website will be! You’ll amaze your friends, you’ll impress your family and you’ll frighten your enemies! You’ll be the hit of the party, at the top of the must-invite A-List for all the best events and even your in-laws will love you.

And just like any good snake oil salesperson, Bing is throwing in a “handy Keyword Density Scanner” with your Link Juice when you buy today.

Moz Introduces Viral Video Generator “MozWorthy”

Moz says it has launched a new tool that will help add pizzazz to your video marketing content, increasing its odds of going viral.

Just upload the link to your video file, and MozWorthy will give it a new “more viral” title, enhance the content and “instantaneously” improve its social shares.

Moz April Fool joke

“Counts Twice” Tag Offers New Link Building Strategy

While Google was busy having fun at its own expense, others pulled their own April Fools jokes aimed directly at the search giant.

First announced on Link Risk’s blog, with a follow-up on State of Digital’s blog, the two SEO firms claim Google will announce a new linking building strategy to make up for its recent measures against guest blogging tactics:

With sites like e-consultancy now going to ‘no-follow’ on guest posts, it shows the industry is somewhat panicking. But now Google is coming to the rescue so it seems. It announces a new “SEO friendly way of linking’: rel= “counts-twice”.

State of Digital’s blog went as far as including a tweet from Matt Cutts to confirm the announcement:

April Fools new linking cutts tweet

Search Commander Recruiting SEOs for Lawsuit Against Google

Other April Fools pranks directed at Google’s penalty practices were a bit more personal, with Search Commander blog owner Scott Hendison claiming he was filing a lawsuit against Google, and was on the hunt for other SEOs to join him.

According to Hendison, the basis of his lawsuit stems from Google, “Conspiring to intentionally provide site owners with false, incomplete, and misleading data through their ‘tools’, thereby prolonging the time it takes to get a reinclusion request approved.”

He goes on to layout a pretty strong case against the search engine.

Mike Blumenthal Claims Matt Cutts To Penalize Google+ Team

Staying out of the court system, Mike Blumenthal got a dig in against Google, specifically calling out Google’s head of web spam Matt Cutts.

Blumenthal claimed he was forwarded an email Cutts sent to his web spam team and posted an excerpt from the alleged internal email on his blog:

Forks or no forks, we believe that the Plus team has overdone their link building. Starting at 9 am tomorrow we have manually applied a penalty to the subdomain. This problem first came to light when an engineer working the PR Toolbar noticed that the Plus sub domain had achieved a page rank of 11. We decided we either had to act or change the algorithm. Neither choice was appealing but the manual penalty seemed the more appropriate path.

The “Forks or no forks” reference is a riff on a comment from Cutts earlier this year when he claimed, “So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done.

The New (Free) Google Nexus Phone

Not to be left out of the fun, Google Operating System blog claimed Google is going to launch a new free smartphone, the NS5:

It’s a free 8GB version of Nexus 5 (“Nexus Special 5”) that will only be available in the US. You’ll still have to pay $50, but you’ll get $50 Google Play credit, so the phone is actually free.

It looks sleek enough, but the inability to disable location services or Google+ Auto Backup and “relevant audio ads” that play when you call a company are just a few strikes against it.

April Fools new Google phone


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Amy Gesenhues
Contributor
Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

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