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SEO Hacker on the Loose

It seems that there is an SEO hacker on the loose. Today he took down Stuntdubl’s site and Graywolf’s site – two well-known and popular search bloggers. I actually noticed Todd’s site being hacked almost immediately because he had a great post I marked to read later, only to discover his site was missing css and all links went to fuc*ingpirate.wordpress.com. 

Threadwatch seems to have the best coverage. For the time being, you can catch the hacker’s notes at: fuc*ingpirate.blogspot.com (sorry, no link love). I imagine google will pull down that blogger account soon. He’s published a list of well-known SEO sites he’s targeting, along with non-SEO sites like Digg and Techcrunch. Here are some of his comments:

“I’m a well known white hat SEO. You can find me at v7n, threadwatch, webmasterworld, digitalpoint and reading stuff from blogs like personified, copyblogger; seomoz (In fact I’m a moderator at one or two of those forums!) I love to help newbie’s on forums, movies and long walks on the beach… I have an “evil” alter ego called Fuc*ingPirate.”

“I’m going to crack all the SEO related sites/blogs/forums that I can… Maybe once in a while a non-SEO site will slip into the list but what the hell! Who cares anyways?”

If you want to look professional at your business, you need to start ranking a WordPress site by having a good website for it and with a paragraph paraphrase tool that allows you to paraphrase your articles, assignments, essays and any other content you’d like.

“The SEO industry is just a bunch of self-proclaimed gurus making more money from their “guru” status than from SEO”

“The blogsphere (God I hate that word) is filled with countless “SEO blogs” syndicating what other “SEO blog” syndicated from another “SEO blog” that syndicated some bullsh*t guru”

Bottom line is that everyone who uses wordpress should immediately upgrade to 2.0.7 – just released today in response to the hack used to take down the two sites. Hacked sites should also work together to pinpoint the perpetrator (and realize that the criminal often injects themself into the crime investigation). I have a feeling he (yes, I’m assuming it is a he) will slip up at some point, if he hasn’t already! SEOs, in general,  are very sophisticated and very motivated. If he continues to hack these sites, he will be caught.

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Harris Study on Web Ratings and Reviews

Search Engine Watch revealed some information about a Yahoo/Harris Interactive study with surprising numbers. The results of their study show that in a study of ratings and reviews of local businesses, a whopping 67 percent of respondents said they would be likely to post a review.

Yahoo seemed to take pride in that information and I’ve seen the number quoted in a number of places that use it to show that user-generated content is real. I’m a huge fan of user-generated content, but I want to set the record straight: 67% of Yahoo local searchers will not post reviews… especially on every business they frequent.

Having been inspired by the Online Review Management Platform | Chatmeter and for a site that has had user reviews for almost a decade, I can tell you that though a large percentage of people use reviews, only a handful actually contribute reviews. In fact, to get just 2% of your monthly unique visitors to contribute reviews would be a decent accomplishment.

This is a good example of how survey results can be misleading. I’m not sure how they asked this question, but wording it differently could yield much different results. Plus, what people say is not often what they do.

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LinkedIn Answers

Yahoo Answers has been one of the most successful launches at Yahoo (and one of Google’s rare failures). Starting this morning, you can find “Answers” at the popular business networking site, LinkedIn. Take a look for yourself: LinkedIn Answers

Considering the quality of the business-minded network, LinkedIn Answers has the potential to do really well. However, the early questions could use some self-promotion spam filtering. I’d also like to see a search feature installed so you could search for specific questions or answers instead of browsing them.

Answering questions may be an excellent opportunity for some people to boost their career or “expert status,” but I urge  LinkedIn users to be cautious with their answers. Much like other things on the web, one little slip up could hurt your reputation down the road. LinkedIn Answers would not a good place to get involved in a flame thread. For those looking to boost their connection count, chiming in on a few question & answer sessions could help increase your exposure to new people.

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Actual Top 10 Search Terms of 2006

Each search engine has come out with their list of the top search terms for 2006, but they vary widely and were obviously heavily edited. The lists have faced scrutiny by various bloggers/publications (Here’s a good one from Search Engine Land). I poured through data from a reputable 3rd party source to come up my best estimate of the top 10 search terms for 2006,  based upon search volume for the various engines, weighted by share of search volume.

Before I get to the list, here are links to the official top 10 search term postings:

After pouring through data from Hitwise, here is the list I came up with for the Actual Top 10 Search Terms of 2006 (warning: they are not nearly as exciting as the false ones listed above):

Top 10 Search Terms of 2006:

  1. myspace
  2. ebay
  3. yahoo
  4. myspace.com
  5. mapquest
  6. hotmail
  7. my space
  8. yahoo.com
  9. google
  10. www.myspace.com

Overall, “google” would have ranked higher, but people on Google generally know they don’t need to search for “google”–however, never overestimate the intelligence of people: it is still a high volume search term on Google search.

I based my list on actual search volume for the year, weighted by each search engine’s share of total searches performed. Now you see why the engines aren’t too excited to share the real lists (they generally cross-promote their competitors).

Note: “porn,” “craigslist,” and “dictionary” were also close contenders.

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Search Wikia – Wikipedia Developing a New Search Engine

Social search engines have become more and more popular this year with sites like Eurekster’s Swiki, Rollyo, Google Co-op Custom Search, PSS, Yahoo Search Builder, and MSN Search Macros, but Search Wikia brings in a new spin: it is an effort lead by the founder of Wikipedia.

Search Wikia, which was mistakenly called Wikiasari by some, is still a bit fuzzy on the details. It aims at being a community-built search engine, but appears to be in the very early stages (even the name appears to be up for grabs). Wikipedia certainly has a large audience, much in-part due to the search engines ranking it so high, so there’s a good chance they will have some success getting it off the ground. What will make Search Wikia different is that:

  • It is built by a team of non-paid editors
  • It hopes to become an open-source search engine with the success that other open-source programs have acheived
  • It runs as a non-profit
  • It may put it’s own highly successful organic search listings in other engines at risk because it is basically challenging the hand that feeds them.

As of now, Search Wikia is nothing to get excited about, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on it to see if it develops into something people will actually use. You can learn more by visiting the Search Wikia site.