Be aware of Reviewme.com Scam

During recent years the SEO world suffers from a fierce arms race: every time Google sends some disasters like its Penguins or Pandas, webmasters invent something to fight back. Guest blogging was born as a source of relevant contextual links as a substitute for less efficient ‘traditional’ link exchange schemes.

As it happens with any SEO tactic – it proves inefficient if done manually. Thus, there emerged services that would act as match makers for bloggers and those willing to get guest posts or reviews in the blogs. Reviewme.com offers this kind of service. In the pursuit for “quality” links I signed up for Reviewme.com but instead I got nothing but the headache. Reviewme is a scam, eager to learn why – continue reading. Continue reading

Christmas Gifts from Google: Raven Tools Alternative Wanted

Raven Tools
Raven SEO Tools got a harsh Christmas present from Google. On December 7, 2012 they announced [http://raventools.com/blog/scraped-data-serp-tracker/] via their corporate blog that Raven is not going to support rank checking functionality and SEM Rush data any more.

According to Patrick Keeble, Raven failed to pass the annual audit carried out by the Adwords team. For those of you who are unaware what this mess is all about, here is the brief story: Continue reading

Checking Competition Using Proxy

Some people may refer to me as a competitive character. Sometimes it’s not always the best quality and not a pretty picture; just think of me as Monica from Friends. However, one thing I learned in life is that you should always make the best out of any situation and quality. I decided to find ways to checkout competitors in the business and blogging field. This time I’ll tell you a bit about how it can be done with the use of proxy. I’m aware of different tools there are these days, and I use them as well. However, manually checking rankings is very legitimate and works every time. Continue reading

Advanced Filters in SEO SpyGlass: Backlink Analysis Made Easy

We all know how time- and effort-consuming it is to do a complete backlink audit of a site. This is particularly true of websites that have old and/or extensive link profiles.

Before the termination of Yahoo! Site Explorer, one could use Yahoo’s celebrated backlink checker to analyze a competitor or to double-check their own links (since Google Webmaster Tools do not always let you see the full picture).

Now that YSE is gone, I mostly use SEO SpyGlass, a backlink checker from the SEO PowerSuite pack, to audit backlinks. And, what I’ve recently discovered about SEO SpyGlass is that the tool has advanced filters that let one organize backlinks to specific criteria, which really speeds up analysis and makes data easier to read.
So, this post if about how you can use SEO SpyGlass’s advanced filters to perform an inventory of a site’s backlinks with minimum effort. Continue reading

Things Fortune Cookies and Quick Recipes for Success Have in Common

Fortune Cookies

I don’t think there is a single person on Earth who can resist the temptation of cracking open a fortune cookie once it’s brought along with the bill. Yes, fortune cookies give me that tantalizing feeling, too.

There are many words that can be used to describe fortune cookies: ‘insightful’, ‘funny’, ‘useless’, ‘inspiring’, etc. But what I’d like to share with you is my opinion on how the get-rich-quick recipes for online success generously shared by many Internet marketing ‘gurus’ are just like fortune cookies – enticing, yet pretty much useless. Continue reading