iAcquire was cited as the agency behind Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corporation’s link buy request emails. For more on that see our story named What Can We Learn From The Latest Brand To Be Called Out For Paid Links?

A site command search for [site:www.iacquire.com] returns no results. Here is a screen shot:

iAcquire’s robots.txt file and source code has no signs of them manually requesting to be deindexed from Google. So this seems to either be a weird bug or an intentional penalty delivered to the agency by Google.

It also appears that the parties discovered in this investigation are all delisted from Google.

We reached out to Google for a comment but at the time of publishing this story, we have not heard back. If and when Google does reply, we will update the story.

Mike King, the Director of Inbound Marketing at iAcquire, responded to a tweet I sent him asking if Google delisted iAcquire. He said, iAcquire “sure was” delisted by Google. He then went on to explain that there was “no network” for Google to ban so they had a “hissy fit” and decided to ban the agency.

Here is his tweet:

@rustybrick sure was. There’s no network for them to kill so that’s them throwing their hissy fit.

— MyCool King (@iPullRank) May 25, 2012

I am not aware of another agency that was banned by Google for this practice. There were link networks and link brokers that have been banned but I don’t believe there was ever an agency that was banned for this practice.

We will update the story when we learn more.

Postscript From Danny Sullivan (May 25, 4:15pm ET)

As noted in the comments below, this is probably not the first time an agency has been banned because Google believes that it has bought or sold links — if that’s why iAcquire was indeed banned. We still don’t have an official word from Google on this, but it seems the most likely explanation.

However, it’s also likely the iAcquire was banned not for buying links but because Google believes it actually does control a paid link network or operates at least in significant part as a paid link company, despite iAcquire’s denials.

From my story yesterday, iAcquire said:

To be clear, we are not a link network. Every link we build is based on the very same principles touted throughout the industry. Our links are contextual and relevant through outreach performed by 40 actual in-house people that sit in our Arizona office and everything is pushed through strenuous quality assurance….

We are not a paid link company.

This leads to an important graphic from Josh Davis that connects iAcquire with companies that apparently are buying links (click to enlarge it):

The graphic, from Davis’s article here, explains why Davis believes the link request he originally received from a company called InternetReach.org is either owned by, controlled by or works in close association with iAcquire.

The companies in the graphic are mostly the same as the companies that DBBC listed in a letter it sent out yesterday to Google and DBBC’s SEO agencies, in hopes of getting the paid links removed.

InternetReach.org (where the original link request is said to have come from), MediaFinders.net and iOutReach.org all have the same San Francisco address listed on their contact pages, as does LinkBuilding.net (it’s LinkBuilder.net in the chart above, but that’s clearly a typo — Davis uses LinkBuilding.net in his story). MediaFinders.net and iOutReach both use virtually the same site template.

LinkBuilding.net has a Better Business Bureau logo on its site leading to a BBB listing for iAcquire, for its office in Arizona. That’s the connection between all four of the companies above to iAcquire. Certainly anyone might have added a BBB listing to iAcquire as some type of set-up, but this seems more farfetched than the idea that iAcquire has some assocition with LinkBuilding.net.

The story from Davis outlines other connections, such as things he was told when he called the number in the link request, that further seem to tie these companies back to iAcquire. By the way, InternetReach.org, LinkBuilding.net and DigitalPros.org all appear to have also been banned by Google.

In addition, there’s evidence that iAcquire acquired the paid link operations of Conductor, when it sold that operation last year, including three iAcquire employees having gone directly from Conductor to iAcquire, according to their LinkedIn profiles (see here, here and here).

I asked Joe Griffin, cofounder and partner with iAcquire, if the companies involved were part of iAcquire, subsidiaries or contractors and if iAcquire had purchased Conductor’s paid link service. I was told, similar to yesterday, that because of confidentiality reasons, iAcquire couldn’t comment on any of this.

As for an official comment on apparently being banned, Griffin emailed me:

iAcquire doesn’t take the position that Google is throwing a hissy fit. Mike mentioned that on Twitter to Barry, and perhaps he is right, but that’s not our position on the matter. Google has a job to do. This was a harsh lesson, but our position is to grow from this, make the required changes, get back in Google, and continue to offer world class WHITE hat services to our customers (financial compensation will not be considered in the outreach process).

We’ve also received an email from someone who said they were an iAcquire client and asked the company about the current situation. This is the email they say iAcquire sent back:

Thank you for the email.  Rest assured that we have always followed best practice and as we don’t have a network and our publishers and clients won’t be impacted.

Going forward we will be ending the ability to compensate for new links. That said, our non-compensated link services are VERY good. This is a good opportunity for us all to evolve our practices and a powerful lesson for our agency, your agency, our clients, your clients.

Our outreach technology continues to be the best in our industry and we have been working on all white-hat options aggressively for the past year. While I understand your concern we have been evolving and have been performing incredible work.

Let’s use this opportunity to serve the greater goals we all have. We know how to deliver amazing white hat off-page SEO solutions – this pushes us all to focus on the right things.  Feel free to contact me anytime if you have any questions.

I’m set to talk with Griffin further on Tuesday, after the long holiday weekend here in the US, and I expect he’ll have more to share on the situation then.

Sam Applegate put together a hysterical parody video of Matt Cutts talking about how to achieve number one ranking in Google. The video takes dozens of the videos Matt put together from the YouTube channel and mashes them into a video I think you all will appreciate.

Here is the video:

Rounding out the top five were Dentsu’s 360i, WPP Group’s Group M Search, Aegis Group’s iProspect, and Performics, a Publicis Groupe company.

Several standalone agencies did make the rankings. The Search Agency, based in Los Angeles, came in 7th, with $32 million in search revenue in 2011. New York-based Acronym Media was 9th in the listings, with $31 million in search revenue last year. Covario, based in San Diego, brought in $21 million from search last year, earning it a number 15 spot in the rankings.

Most of the agencies increased their search revenue from 2010 to 2011. Covario was the fastest-growing, raising its search revenues by 76% year-over-year. Other agencies showing strong growth include Merkle’s Impaqt (46%) and BKV (43%), of Overland Park, Kansas.

Some companies’ search revenues did slip, however. Neo@Ogilvy was down 6% year-over year. Rapp, an Omnicom agency, showed a 5% drop; and Atrinsic Interactive was down 4%.

Foundry Group put in $15 million and Ignition Partners put in $3 million.

Co-founder and CEO of SEOmoz, Rand Fishkin detailed the financials, growth, future plans and management changes of SEOmoz. One big change for the SEO industry is that Rand’s mother and co-founder Gillian Muessig is stepping down from the board of directors and resigning her title of President.

Here is the slide deck they shared:

For more details see Rand’s blog post at SEOmoz.

Image credit to ShutterStock.

The stats are from an infographic produced by Onward Search, an online recruitment company. Last December, created one about SEO salaries and job locations. This time, paid search gets the focus:

Want the infographic guide for yourself? You’ll find it here: PPC Jobs Salary Guide.

In February they featured an SEO named Lindsay in one of the videos. National Car Rental informed me today on Twitter that the commercial is available in high quality. Here it is:

The narrator is Patrick Stewart and here is the transcription:

[Patrick Stewart]
You are a Business Pro. Monarch of Marketing Analysis. With the ability to improve ROI through SEO all by COB. And you rent from National. Because only National lets you choose any car in the aisle and go. You can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price.

[Lindsay]
I’m going B-I-G.

[Patrick Stewart]
Good Choice Business Pro. Good Choice. Go National! Go Like a Pro!

Related Stories:

• Dexter Dings SEO: Why Do Hollywood Writers Keep Giving Search Engine Optimization A Bad Name?
• SEO Gets Dissed by CBS TV Series “The Good Wife”
• Why SEO Needs Its Own Reputation Management
• Google Leads In Search Engines’ Efforts To Woo TV Viewers
• Google + Thanksgiving Day TV Commercial

Google scored a 3.9 overall by their employees while Facebook scored a 3.7. In 2011 Facebook scored a 4.2 and Google scored a 4.1. Although Facebook employees earn about $3,000 more on average than Google employees and although the interview process is harder at Google than Facebook, Googlers in 2012 are more happy with their company than Facebook.

Googlers seem to complain less about long hours and work/life balance issues than Facebook. I guess that comes with Facebook still being in a pre-IPO phase. While Googlers complain more about salary and compensation. Also, more Googlers approve of their CEO when compared to Facebook employees.

Here is the Infographic sent out by Glassdoor on the survey results:

Related Stories:

• Facebook Ranked #3, Google #5 For Best Places To Work
• Report: Google Still Top Desired Place To Work
• Study: Google, The “Most Attractive Employer”
• Google To Hire 6,000 Plus, While Yahoo Cuts Additional 1%
• Yahoo Search Engineers, Google Wants To Hire You
• Amongst Google Layoffs, Google Continues To Hire
• Google Changes Hiring Process To Meet Job Opening Needs
• Google’s Hiring Again
• More Yahoo Layoffs Coming Soon
• Updated: Yahoo Layoffs Happening Now
• Search Biz: AOL Spin Off, Yahoo Layoffs, Google Losses, IAC Spoons …
• Yahoo Layoffs Happening Live Online
• Yahoo Laying Off About 600 Employees
• Yahoo Cuts Positions, Shifting Search Emphasis

The last time SEOmoz ran this survey was two years ago, you can see the results of that survey over here.

The survey has 54 questions and should take you about 20 minutes to complete. The question topics include:

• Your Work in the Industry
• Questions for Consultants, Freelancers, and Agencies
• Learning and Improving Internet Marketing Skills
• Internet and Inbound Marketing Scope and Process
• Inbound Marketing Tools and Tactics
• SEO Tools and Tactics
• Social Media Tools and Tactics
• Predictions/Opinions for Internet/Inbound Marketing 

SEOmoz is offering prizes to take the survey including the Grand Prize Winner will get a 16GB Wifi iPad 3. Three First Prize Winners will each get a $75 ThinkGeek gift certificate. Ten Second Prize Winners will each get a $25 gift certificate to the SEOmoz Zazzle Store. Here are the rules to win.

Please take the survey over here.

SEMPO announced their 2012 State of Search Marketing Survey a few weeks ago. Make sure to take that survey as well.

Related Stories:

• The State Of Search Engine Marketing 2010
• The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006
• The State Of Search Engine Marketing 2007
• SEMPO: Google Dominates But Social Now Widely Used For PPC
• Infographic: NYC & LA Tops For SEO Jobs & Salaries By Specialty
• View Of A Thriving Industry: The SEOmoz Industry Survey 2010
• SEMPO Releases Survey Data Revealing State Of SEM

Image credit to ShutterStock.

This morning Slingshot SEO is releasing a fascinating report (registration required) that also argues marketers are placing too much emphasis not only on the “last click” but also the “first click.” It shows how the value and potential priority of various digital marketing channels change if one uses a “multi-touch attribution model.”

Year-Long Study Analyzed 23 Million Conversions

The year-long 2011 study “analyzed over 23 million multiple-interaction conversions across 30 domains, which include large retailers and service providers.” It assigned equal value for each visit or step in the conversion path.

Slingshot SEO explains this “flat multi-touch attribution model”:

For example, in the following series of interactions leading to a conversion, each of the five interactions is credited with an equal portion of the conversion value: Organic Search ($20) > Referral ($20) > Social Network ($20) > Email ($20) > Direct ($20) = $100 conversion. In this case, each channel receives the conversion value divided by the number of interactions in the chain.

Direct Visits Getting Too Much Credit

The company reported that for these 30 clients, “‘direct visits’ were getting more credit for conversions under a last-touch model, as they were often the last interaction before a conversion. As a result, other channels like ‘organic search,’ ‘paid advertising,’ and ‘referrals’ were typically undervalued.” Slingshot SEO said that consumers on average “took 2.79 interactions before converting” and that the final touch or step before the conversion “was typically a direct visit to the site or a branded keyword search.”

The chart above shows the channels that were overvalued and undervalued by Slingshot SEO clients. The negative (orange) cells reflect how much the channel was overvalued; the green or positive cells indicate the percent by which the channel was undervalued.

Organic Search Worth 77 to 81 Percent More than Thought

Organic search was the most consistently undervalued channel. Slingshot SEO’s attribution model argues that “‘organic search’ should have been worth as much as 77.25% more than previously thought, and ‘non-branded organic’ should have been worth as much as 81.59% more.”

It should be mentioned that organic SEO is part of what Slingshot SEO does for a living and so the conclusions and implied recommendations of the report do serve its interests. In addition, the equal weighting of each “touch” is hypothetical and doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual value of each channel in the conversion process. However this is the identical methodology that Microsoft/Atlas was advocating.

Having said all that, the multi-touch attribution model does start to expand the aperture and get marketers to think more holistically about consumer behavior, as well as the fact that multiple influences do play in every purchase decision. As we’ve known for a number of years, consumer search behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is typically stimulated by some event, ad or other influence — often from traditional media or interactions in the “real world.”

The Dilbert cartoon above doesn’t speak well of the search engine optimization position. The cartoon ties people who do SEO as weasels and those that hire SEOs as an accomplice, someone who actively participates in the commission of a crime. It goes on to say the SEO will go ahead and “game the system” and “corrupt the integrity” of the industry.

This clearly does not speak well of our industry and the SEO job profession. But then again, it is just a cartoon?

The cartoon reads:

I hired a pantless weasel to do our search engine optimization.

He’ll help us game the system and corrupt the integrity of all the internet search results for our industry.

Your new job title is “accomplice.”

This is not the first Dilbert cartoon related to the industry, here are the others we covered:

• New Dilbert Comic Mocks Google Employee 20% Time
• Dilbert Cartoon Says “No” To Black Hat SEO
• Dilbert Cartoon: Caught For Paid Links On Google
• Dilbert’s Scott Adams: Will Google Replace Your Doctor?

Hat tip to inbound.org for spotting this.