I’ve been advising others about their search presence since 2002, and this is the first time I recall ever telling someone to do something that could ultimately hurt them. Please consider this a “retraction” to my prior advice, and read it carefully.

In a stunning move, even as the dust settles from their deindexing of some blog networks last week, Google is announcing a brand new ranking algorithm designed to level the playing field for domains in competitive industries.

Each year, Google changes its search algorithm 400 to 600 times. While most of these changes are minor, every few months there’s a major update that significantly affect the search results, and this is one of those times.

This coming Thursday March 29th, I’m giving an advanced internet marketing presentation to a Meetup Group at the Portland Convention Center Red lion Inn.  The program starts at 5:30 and goes until 7:30, and preregistration is required here.

The tile of the presentation is “The Truth About Backlinks”, and with all that’s happened at Google in the last couple of weeks, I’ve now added even more slides over the weekend.

At SearchFest, one of the speakers (Rand Fishkin) said this in his morning session “…it’s not a paid link. It’s just a link that you get when you pay money.”

I’m paraphrasing here, but it drew a laugh from the crowd because it’s completely true. We all know that Google does not like “paid links”, but they do draw a definite distinction and just because money changes hands does not necessarily make it “bad”.

Last night I did a search on Google because my wife had her car window smashed by some Portlandia hooligans  while she was watching the Central Catholic High School play.

The first result for “emergency auto glass repair” was Glass Doctor, and it was a combined local listing, so I picked up the phone and called them.

I was asked to fill in at the off-site SEO session of SearchFest last week, and I worked for days on my slides, intending to give the best presentation that anyone had ever seen.

I tried to pack nearly 90 slides into a 25 minute presentation, and after the first half of the slides, I was already running out of time. I think I failed miserably at getting many of my points across, and for that I apologize profusely to all those in attendance.

Doing a little bit if research, I noticed what I thought was odd behavior in Google local, taking me to directories instead of to a business, so I immediately jumped to a conclusion (imagine that!) and Twittered about it, pinging @davidmihm and @chiropractic

Michael looked into it…

My next internet marketing session is geared towards local businesses, (sign up  here) and is specifically focused on beginners who don’t have technical skills. Web designers who are not SEO’s are also welcome.

I’m happy to announce that I’m running my own Meetup groups for 2012, and my first event has now been scheduled for January 19th, at the Convention Center Red Lion Inn.

Why? 

Over the past few years, I’ve spoken on more panels and given more presentations than I can count. I’ve presented to multiple private groups and businesses, as well as at various search marketing conferences. Some have been national, some local, and I’ve instructed some weekend college classes for PCC.

One of the things I like most about the WordPress SEO plugin from Yoast is that once you have the settings tweaked the way you want them, you can export, then import them elsewhere.

At Pubcon last month, I gave my presentation on exactly how I like to use that plugin,  and why I make the choices I do. As I explained, not every site is the same, and there are choices to be made.

The oldest, largest, and arguably best internet marketing conference will take place in Las Vegas on November 8th, 9th and 10th, 2011, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The session grid is huge, with 9 sessions running concurrently at most times, and this year I’m proud to have been selected to appear in three sessions, more than ever before.

You MUST know that Google can instantly tell whether a certain Google user who just left a review is a “real” user or not, right?

Google has access to everything a user does from their web browsing history to their Gmail habits, and they have for years. They even know where you live, so creating a completely fake / new user to leave a single review is stupid.