This short video shows how easy our new free Add-In works to make live links in Microsoft Excel 2007 / 2010. If you have to frequently spotcheck URLs in a spread sheet, I think you’ll love how much time it can save you.

Are you feeling guilty because you have improved your rankings unfairly? Have you bought links? Exchanged goods or services for reviews?

Have you commented on blog posts, or maybe participated in forums when you didn’t even feel all that strongly, but you did it in an attempt to manipulate the search results through gaining backlinks?

Two weeks ago, House Bill 2463 passed the Oregon House unanimously – 60 to zero to legally require computer workers to report any discovered child porn. Failure to do so can include a penalty of $6,250, up to a year in jail, or both.

There is something wrong the widget behavior when I log into a few sites, but ONLY with my own login credentials, and the drag and drop features don’t seem to work.

Not only is drag and drop disabled, but there is a completely different interface for each and every widget, forcing me to manually choose the location of the widget I want to edit, and it happens no matter what browser or computer I log in from.

I got a phone call today, that began “I’m with Google…” and of course I was highly skeptical. I take marketing calls for several clients, and this is the standard opening line for multiple unscrupulous SEO companies.

After just a minute, I realized it was the real thing, and he said he was part of the “Feet” team and he was conducting the newly laiunched phase 2 of their outreach program known as Google HotPot, which launched here in Portland in December.

I just got confirmation that I will be speaking at PubCon South, in Austin Texas, on March 8 & 9, 2011.  I still haven’t been given my session topics, but I’m really looking forward to attending this conference.

This morning I got an e-mail regarding a domain from Google Webmaster Tools, pointing out that “…some of your pages were using techniques that are outside our quality guidelines”.

Wow! What the…?

It went on to say that “pages from yourdomain.com are scheduled to be removed temporarily from our search results for at least 30 days”.

I’m on the events planning committee for SEMpdx, and for the January 2011 meeting, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be one of the three presenters. If this seems a little self-serving, then I apologize, but I promise it will be a good one.

Have you ever gotten a spam message that looks like it came from your own e-mail address? Or, have you ever replied to a spam e-mail, assuming that it will go back to the person that actually sent it, only to have them tell you that they never did send it?

I just tried to leave a review at Google, while I was logged in, and instead of being given the old review screen, I was asked to set up a new profile. Here, it’s easier to show you…

(*update four months later the name “Hotpot has finally been dumped. What a dumb idea that was anyway, huh?

Last night someone I ran into from my PCC internet marketing class told me about an article in the New York Times this Sunday, concerning a merchant who had seen an increase in his business since he started treating his customers poorly.

The eight page story that came out over the weekend is definitely worth a read, and quite thought provoking.

Matt Cutts is the head of Google’s Webspam team, and each year in the past, he’s been a participant in the “search engine smackdown” at Pubcon.

This year he had the stage all to himself, and I was in the second row for the session as he talked about the current state of Google, and about where they are going in the future,  and then I just sat idly by while he took some Q&A from the audience.