SEO Mentor

I know you have heard of the Google Sandbox and have probably even had an experience of having one of your sites in it. But some have been asking what it is and why it exists. Ann Smarty of SeoSmarty.com recently wrote an article about this subject of the Google Sandbox at SearchEngineJournal.com. Ann is one of my favorite bloggers when it comes to basic and simple SEO, when she writes something you know it is top notch. So what does Ann have to say about the Google Sandbox:

“Well, let’s first start with the theories behind the term “Google Sandbox”. It appears webmasters understand it as two a bit different phenomena:

1. “Google Sandbox” is supposed to mean a period of time before a newly launched website is properly indexed and ranked. They say, Google deliberately holds back indexing new sites before they “earn its trust”.
2. “Google Sandbox” can also mean a sudden drop of SERPs that happens about 3 months after a site was launched.”

Here are some other great articles about the subject:

Will Mass Directory Submission Get Your Website Into Google Sandbox?

There is an SEO theory which suggests that mass directory submission will get your website into Google sandbox. The basic idea is if your new website has too many links all of a sudden, usually due to mass submission in a short time, …

What is the Google Sandbox?

The Google Sandbox is an unconfirmed theory about how the top search engine indexes web sites which were recently created. If it truly exists, the Sandbox puts new web site operators at a disadvantage in Google search results. …

How to Avoid the Google Sandbox

There is still a lot of discussion going on wether the Google Sandbox exists or not. Some say it exists some say it doesn’t. Just pretend it does exist, how is it possible that some SEO’s don’t get hit by the sandbox filter? …

If you are not using FriendFeed you are missing out on a great tool that helps you add disparate accounts across blogs and social networking services such as Twitter, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and many more. Friendfeed aggregates them so friends can follow what you’re doing in one place, think of it as a one stop shop for all your social networking updates and news items. The company was founded by ex-Googlers, and using it is easy.

Here is what Crunchbase.com is saying about what FriendFeed is:

“FriendFeed is a service which, instead of layering a meta-network on top of all your other social networks, will create a news feed incorporating them all much like the facebook news feed. It’s an idea that isn’t too difficult or bothersome for social network users to adopt.

Users tell the feed which networks they belong to (Facebook, Digg, Last.fm etc) and FriendFeed personalizes your data feed with info from each of the sites.

Other companies, such as Spokeo, ProfileLinker, MyLifeBrand and the more recent Fuser, are trying to help you organize your online social identity as well, all in different ways.”

So I joined FriendFeed a while back and have found that it is another great tool that helps me keep up on what all my social friends are doing online one of those being Dave Harry of Huomah.com. Not only do I love to follow everything that Dave is talking about online (because it is usually entertaining and intellectual) but what I really wanted to let everyone know about was the public rooms he has created on FriendFeed:

• the SEM Room
• the Learn SEO Room
• the SphinnZone Room

Here are some other people that I follow on FriendFeed and really I try and follow them everywhere:

Ann Smarty
David Wallace
Kristen Munson - Social Media Mom
Danny Sullivan
Shana Albert - theNanny
Jason Calacanis
SpostareDuro - Kimberly Bock
Bill Slawski

So it is official we have a winner of the SEO Baby Contest! Before I announce I just want to thank everyone for participating and having fun with my family and I. If you have not watched the video that my wife made of our new baby Gracie’s birth then go to An SEO Baby Is Born!.

Drum roll please…. The winner of the SEO Baby Contest is……

Stephanie Sharp

Here was her guess:

Birth Weight: 7 lbs 6 oz
Gender: Female
Birth Date: May 23, 2008

Here were the correct answers:

Birth Weight: 7 lbs 1 oz
Gender: Female
Birth Date: May 21, 2008

Here is what Stephanie wins:

• Free iPod Nano (value: $149)
• Dave Harry’s “The SEO Handbook” (value: priceless)
• Free membership to LearnSEOLive.com (value: $37)
• One month banner ad at Kimberly Bock’s LearningSEOBasics.com (value: priceless)
• One month banner ad at YourSEOMentor.com (value: $50)
• Bill Slawski of SEObytheSea.com is giving away two books: Don’t Make Me Think, from Steve Krug, and Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, from Avinash Kaushik

My wife and I are so blessed and happy to have little Grace in our lives and soon begins the SEO training for this little one! lol

So I have had a lot of people wondering where I have been for the past week and wondering if the SEO Baby was born or not. Well I am finally truly back in the saddle and wanted to let everyone know that Grace (Gracie) Pierson was born on May 21, 2008 at 7lbs 1oz and 20 inches long. Your SEO Mentor is now a proud daddy.

We are so happy and blessed to have little Gracie in our lives. Just to let you all know how it all went here is what happened:

On Tuesday night at 9:30 PM we went in to the hospital and at about 10:30 PM they started Lindsey on Pitocin to get her started. Family was there until about 12:30 AM and all went home to sleep and we tried but failed to sleep. At 6:30 AM that next morning the doctor broke Lindsey’s water and at 7:30 AM she received a Epidural for the pain. Family then started coming around 8:30-9:oo AM.

We then continued to wait, wait, and then wait some more. Then at about 2:30 PM the nurses had Lindsey start pushing and then 10 minutes later the doctor was there and Grace was born at 2:55 PM.

The next day at about 11:00 AM Grace’s pediatrician called and said that she had high CRP and Band Cell levels (whatever the heck that is) and was worried that she had an infection. At 12:00 PM the nurses took Grace to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). We then proceeded to go to the NICU and feed Grace every three hours for the next 3.5 days. Her levels continued to drop down to where they needed to be and we were able to bring her home at 11:00 Am on Sunday May 25, 2008.

Here is a little video of her birth that my wife put together, ENJOY:

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The winner of the “SEO Baby Contest” has been announced and is Stephanie Sharp. Thanks to everyone that participated.

So I am back an am a new daddy but I will get to that in my next post tomorrow. While I was gone I was reading up on my favorite blogs and came across a great article by Bill Slawski of SEObytheSea.com. Bill always has very intense and intellectual SEO Articles and his How Search Engines Can Learn From Looking at Sequences of Search Queries article was no exception.

Bill writes,

“Whenever someone searches at a search engine, they not only get information in response to their search, but they also provide information to the search engine about the things they are searching for - information which the search engine might find useful in helping other searchers.

If that searcher performs another search related to their first search, then the search engine might create an association between the two search phrases that the searcher used, if the two phrases appear to be related. If they perform a series, or sequence, of searches on a concept, then the search engine might take advantage of that information.”

If you are not following Bill at SEObytheSea.com then you are crazy! So I am going to make it easy for you, go to http://www.seobythesea.com/?feed=rss2 now and subscribe to his RSS Feed.

If you are an SEO Newbie then you need to know that Dan Thies Releases 2008 Edition of SEO Fast Start. If you don’t have this then you need to get over to http://www.seofaststart.com/download now and download it NOW. Here is what Dan says about the 2008 Edition of SEO Fast Start:

As I told someone the other day, the only thing that seems to never change in SEO is the persistent myth that the search engines “change the rules” all the time.

There are minor rewrites on Keyword Strategy, some more detailed advice for Site Structure, a little bit in Link Building, and a few other notes of newness here and there.