Last week was one of Sphinn's busiest weeks in quite a while, with almost 50 stories being published to the home page, several good discussion/comment threads, and a lot of activity on Twitter and Facebook. A story about [...]

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It may come as no surprise that the news surrounding DecorMyEyes.com and Google's response to the publicity it got dominated the activity on our sister site, Sphinn, last week. Beginning with the New York Times article, the story spread rapidly across the Internet; several stories reached Sphinn's home page, and it was also the topic of our "Discussion of the Week." Articles about Google's Instant Previews and a roundup of LinkedIn case studies for online branding were also popular last week, but none so much as the Google/DecorMyEyes situation. Our "Discussion of the Week" asked, What Shou [...]

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Do you remember the best piece of SEO advice you ever received? Do you think "article spinning" is spam? And are you up on the latest research about how consumers use search engines? Those were some of the hot topics last week on our sister site, Sphinn, where the community interacts by commenting, tweeting, and liking articles. Sphinn's "Discussion of the Week," which asked What's the Best Piece of SEO-related Advice You've Ever Received?, picked up the most comments (12) and tweets (100) over the past week. If you're looking for some good nuggets of SEO wisdom, don't miss the comments the [...]

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There's a lot of variety in the most popular content on Sphinn over the past week, ranging from PubCon coverage to a debate on social media vs. SEO and our regular "Discussion of the Week" feature about Google's dominance of the search industry landscape. That discussion generated the most discussion on the site last week. We asked, When, if ever, will another search engine beat Google?, and the general consensus was that ... there is no consensus. Some argued that it will take years for Google to lose its place at the top of the search engine food chain, while others argued that Google cou [...]

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A news article about Google from The Guardian was popular last week on Sphinn, as was last week's member discussion about the SEO industry's ongoing reputation management problems. The Guardian article, Google is Polluting the Internet, says that "the danger of allowing an advertising company to control the index of human knowledge is too obvious to ignore," and was tweeted 48 times last week -- the most popular Sphinn story among Twitter sharers. It also picked up some comment activity, too. But the most comment activity surrounded last week's "Sphinn Discussion of the Week" about the [...]

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It's interesting to see what kind of content gets picked up on different channels. Over on Sphinn.com, some published stories generate a lot of comments but not a lot of social network sharing; other stories are the opposite -- lots of sharing on Twitter and Facebook, but fewer comments on Sphinn itself. This past week, for example, 10 Ways in which social media writing is different from traditional web writing picked up the most Facebook "likes" of any Sphinn story, but didn't get a lot of tweets or comments. Another article, Curating Information as Content Strategy, was a popular story o [...]

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Sphinn's new "Discussion of the Week" was a big hit last week. We asked, Do you think no-follow links are worth more than Google says?, and that discussion received the most comments (25), tweets (42), and Facebook likes (5) of all the stories published last week on Sphinn. It also produced our favorite comment of the week. Sphinn member Olivier Amar shared an opinion that several others in the conversation also echoed about the potential SEO value of no-followed links: On one hand a followed authority link is always better, but on the other the a link is a link is a link applies. Googl [...]

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We had an interesting variety of stories that were hot last week on our sister site, Sphinn. A discussion that was started by Sphinn member marketingmyinternet asked if Twitter will be the first of the major social networks to die. That question was our most-discussed story over the past week, and included our Comment Of The Week from Sphinn member JMagary of Boomient Consulting: I think there is way too much talk of 'THIS' is going to beat out 'THAT' on the web, as if the web isn't still rapidly expanding, and as if it's going to run out of room to hold a vast array of interesting sites an [...]

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Google dominated the discussion on Sphinn this past week. Stories about Google's "C-" rating from the Better Business Bureau, changes to its keyword research tool, and an open discussion about Google being too big and scary generated the most comments from Sphinn readers over the past seven days. Meanwhile, an article about boorish behavior on social networking sites generated the most tweets. Deborah Ng's article about the line between being ourselves and being professional was a hot topic among Twitter users. Articles about blog marketing tactics, country-based URL shorteners, and new fe [...]

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Selling domain names, black hat SEO vs. white hat SEO, and Sphinn itself were the topics that drew the most comments over the past week on our sister site, Sphinn.com. YouTube embedding, e-mail marketing, and Yelp were among the most popular stories among Twitter users. With a lot more content being published on Sphinn's home page, we're going to try a few new ideas for these weekly recaps. The stories below are broken down by most comments and most tweets so you can see which stories attracted the most reactions from users. The rest of the stories that were published follow those two secti [...]

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SEO continues to have an increased impact on journalists, as news writers and editors are being encouraged to learn SEO tactics and incorporate them into headlines and articles published online. But it's not always a comfortable marriage. That's one of the topics that reached the Sphinn home page a couple times over the past week. Other interesting topics included early reaction to Google Instant and its impact on SEO, how to gain social media insights from Google Analytics, and much, much more. (Emphasized because Sphinn switched from community voting to a purely editorial model during the we [...]

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Launches Advertising Solutions PortalYahoo has launched a new portal dedicated to online advertising. It’s called, you could’ve guessed: Yahoo! Advertising Solutions. Yahoo says the content on its new ad portal is meant to inspire and educate advertisers. It features demos, articles, videos, and a “keynote video” featuring Seth Godin. Yahoo touts the new site as [...] Google New: Find Google’s Latest Releases At One [...]

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Have recent changes at Google devalued the importance of inbound links anchor text, and raised the importance of brand-related signals? One popular story on Sphinn last week suggests so. Is there such a think as "white hat cloaking"? And what about Groupon -- one of the trendiest local services online today. But is it always a Good Thing for local businesses? Those questions and more are answered in this week's recap of hot stories on our sister site, Sphinn. Hot On Sphinn: September 13 to September 19, 2010 White Hat Cloaking ... Vary the Template and User Experience Based On Referring [...]

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A three-part series about linking -- and more specifically, how search marketers may view links differently from other Internet users -- all went hot on Sphinn last week. Along with that, articles more specific to link building were also popular, as was an article on image SEO. But the hottest discussion topic of the week was Sphinn's decision to remove voting on stories. This is the latest in a weekly look at the stories that were "hot" on Sphinn in the past week. We'll post these recaps every week. The stories appear in reverse chronological order -- i.e., the most recent "hot" stories ar [...]

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If you're running a large site that sells a lot of products, you've probably had to come up with a plan to deal with pagination: showing products over several pages of otherwise similar content. That was the topic of an interesting discussion in the Google Webmaster Help forums recently, and it also reached the Sphinn home page. Keeping your Wordpress installation secure also went hot last week on Sphinn, as did an article about the prevalence of search spam and the battle between search engines and spammers. This is the latest in a weekly look at the stories that were "hot" on Sphinn in t [...]

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Where does Facebook Places fit into the local ecosystem? If local search was the game of Risk, David Mihm says Facebook Places is instantly one of the major countries. Does the SEO industry need a (stronger) advocacy group to improve its reputation? Matthew Diehl says such a group could help consumers make better choices when hiring search marketing consultants and avoid the "snake oil"-type companies that sell SEO services. Busy doing link building these days? Paddy Moogan outlined ways to research the best link opportunities, while Larry Kim shared his opinions on five link building m [...]

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Every day, your peers in the search industry are reading and voting on articles that are shared on our sister site, Sphinn. The most popular content goes "hot" -- i.e., it reaches the Sphinn home page -- when it acquires enough community votes or when a Sphinn editor promotes it as an "Editor's Choice." This is the third in a weekly look at the stories that were "hot" on Sphinn in the past week. We'll post these recaps every Monday. The stories appear in reverse chronological order -- i.e., the most recent "hot" stories are at the top. Hot On Sphinn: August 9 to August 15, 2010 My Fa [...]

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Every day, your peers in the search industry are reading and voting on articles that are shared on our sister site, Sphinn. The most popular content goes "hot" -- i.e., it reaches the Sphinn home page -- when it acquires enough community votes or when a Sphinn editor promotes it as an "Editor's Choice." This is the second in a weekly look at the stories that were "hot" on Sphinn in the past week. We'll post these recaps every Monday (apologies for missing yesterday). The stories appear in reverse chronological order -- i.e., the most recent "hot" stories are at the top. Hot On Sphinn: Au [...]

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Every day, your peers in the search industry are reading and voting on articles that are shared on our sister site, Sphinn. The most popular content goes "hot" -- i.e., it reaches the Sphinn home page -- when it acquires enough community votes or when a Sphinn editor promotes it as an "Editor's Choice." This is the first in a weekly look at the stories that were "hot" on Sphinn in the past week. We'll post these recaps every Monday. The stories appear in reverse chronological order -- i.e., the most recent "hot" stories are at the top. Hot On Sphinn: July 26 to August 1, 2010 What is [...]

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