It’s been a quiet week on Sphinn due to several conferences taking place, here’s what people were talking about outside of the conference scene.

18th August – Why No One Links to Your Best Posts (And What to Do About It) (ViperChill)
Copyblogger looks at how the best articles aren’t always the most popular and how to make sure that your voice is heard. It’s an unfortunate fact that in most cases – no matter how good your articles are, only a loyal and connected readership can really help them to explode. Hopefully Sphinn can act as a catalyst to this, with previously unknown bloggers being found through the site.
Direct Link: copyblogger

18th August – Link Building for Business-to-business companies (Wiep)
B2B marketing can require a slightly different approach to SEO than a B2C campaign, although shouldn’t be considered any harder to manage. In fact as Erik-Jan points out in his article, there are many ways that companies can exploit their B2B position, such as using both suppliers and existing clients as potential link sources. Erik offers some great tips for people working in this area of marketing or working with a client in such a position.
Direct Link: Yoast

20th August – BBC Starts Linking From News Articles (Badly) (ciaran)
BBC is the British mecca of links, a PR8 authority super-hub that draws envy and desire from webmasters. The fact that the corporation is ad-free and extremely wary of remaining neutral makes a link that much harder to get. Former employees of BBC have stated that some of their online news editors have simply Googled the story subject and picked the top organic listing to link to in the past. Ciaran Norris also notes that they’re now attempting in-line linking within stories rather than their usual sidebar links, although have online again failed to get it right.
Direct Link: altogether digital

20th August – Examining Backlink Profiles in Domain & Ranking Evaluation (Guillaume)
Buying established websites and building their value is big business, although how much is the website really worth? Guillaume looks at how a website with a seemingly impressive backlink profile can actually be a worthless web or third-party controlled links. Building micro-sites for the purpose of supplying links to your main site can be a very effective technique for affiliates, although will those links continue after the site is sold? What if the links are owned by the site’s former SEO company? This post offers some sound advice for domainers and website resellers .
Direct Link: NVI Solutions

23rd August – SEOmoz Expert Seminar 2008 Recap (PixelBella)
Brian Carter gives the first review of the primordial SEOmoz Expert Seminar in Seattle. Apparently those sneaky kids at the mozplex have asked the not-a-conference seminar attendees not to blog the content, I’m not sure if it’s a permanent or time limited media blackout though. Brian gives a good overview of the event though, and it sounds like the seminar was a tremendous success. Maybe something to stick in your diaries for next year!
Direct Link: Brian Carter

11th August – Get Better Returns on Your Conference Investment (NickWilsdon)
There has been a lot of discussion lately about the value of Internet Marketing conferences, large and small. With economic slow-down effecting some people, they’re now thinking harder about the value which comes with attending conferences. Lee Odden tackles the subject of getting ROI out of events with the help of conference organisers and long-time attendees.
Direct Link: iMedia Connection

11th August – An End To Ranking Reports Is An End to Analysis (ViperChill)
A few people have commented on Sphinn that they do not monitor search engine rankings and that both SEOs and clients shouldn’t. This standpoint has perplexed me, as I prefer to see as much data as possible in order to judge how well a site is performing. In competitive industries, dropping from 1st to 3rd position on Google for a single search term can lose a company tens of thousands of dollars a day. Without knowing when the drop happened and on which datacentres, how are you supposed to analyse why it happened? Stoney deGeyter looks at the arguments for and against ranking analysis.
Direct Link: Search Engine Guide

12th August – How Much Might Your Website Be Worth? (ViperChill)
As an SEO I often think only about the long-term profitability of a website, although it’s not the only way to make good money online. A whole industry has evolved around the buying and selling of websites, adding value to a site with good content or traffic. If you’re like me, you’ve probably got websites stashed all over the place, only remembering that you own them when your domain renewal notice lands in your Inbox. So how much are your hobby sites, information portals and one-page-wonders worth? Ann Smarty offers a simple guide to how you can estimate a website’s value.
Direct Link: Search Engine Journal

13th August – How to Deal with the Problem Child in Your Adwords Campaign (ciaran)
A post on YOUmoz discusses a problem that many people face with the PPC campaigns. We’re talking about the Goliath keyword which generates massive traffic with a great CTR, although sometimes it just doesn’t meet your CPA targets. HannahS runs through how she optimises the big keywords in her accounts, through Ad Group isolation and increasing target relevance.
Direct Link: YOUmoz

14th August – Does PDF metadata have any significant effect on ranking in Google search results? (infatex)
Benj Arriola conducts research into PDF optimisation and how Google uses file Meta Data and embedded information in order to establish relevance, references and possibly rank. It’s great to see people still doing this much research into ranking factors and studying how search engines evolve in their ability to process and understand information outside of the basic web page. Well worth a read.
Direct Link: BusinessOnLine

4th August – Reddit & Digg Launch Mobile Versions (BrentCsutoras)
Both Reddit and Digg now have mobile versions of their site, in-line with the vastly increasing demand for mobile internet. Although both sites would work well on your brand spanking new iPhone 3G, the problem I see is that the Digg and Reddit model relies on users clicking out of the sites to view the 3rd party content. With the majority of other sites not providing a mobile alternative and some embedding functionality such as Flash, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to read the linked content properly. I’m sure that regular social media fans are enjoying their new found freedom away from the bedroom computer, although content owners and publishers such as BBC and CNN still have the edge when it comes to mobile information.
Direct Link: Brent Csutoras

4th August – The Huge Collection of Google Analytics Tips (kevgibbo)
Ann Smarty provides some helpful tips for getting the most out of Google Analytics. A lot of Urchin’s functionality seems to have been lost post-Google acquisition, although a lot of cool data recording and analysis techniques can still be achieved with some insider knowledge. To dig even deeper into GA, I highly recommend Brian Clifton’s book “Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics”.
Direct Link: SearchEngineJournal

4th August – How to use URL Search to get thousands of visitors (tomcritchlow)
You’d be surprised how many people type domain names and URLs into search engines, often because the search engine is their homepage or they’re not sure if they’ve spelt it correctly. Patrick shares how his blog managed to generate traffic by ranking for the URL of a popular UK Government car tax registration/renewal page. If the real page is down or if your search listing appears more genuine, easy traffic could be gained.
Direct Link: BlogStorm

5th August – Examining a Search Ranking Fluctuation (vangogh)
XMCP list a number of factors that Google most likely considers when ranking a page/site or detecting spam.
Direct Link: SlightlyShadySEO

6th August – Find Customers and Backlinks by Adding Your Site to Coupon Directories (philbutler)
Coupon Directories are a great way to draw in new customers who scour the web for bargain and special offers. Ann mentions that the coupon listings can also help fill your brand name search results with positive reviews and also help towards link development. The post also gives a list of popular coupon directories.
Direct Link: SearchEngineJournal

6th August – Google Insights for Search Launches (MattMcGee)
Barry blogs about the launch of Google Insights, yet another data analysis tool launched by Google last week. Google Insights allows users to compare and filter regional and seasonal trends, helping advertisers plan their campaigns around past and new data. Check out the SEL post for an example of Insights in action.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand

7th August – What 36,389,567 Searches Can Tell You About Google (TCSM)
Post of the week award (well, not really an award) goes to Pete, who explains how he estimates the clickthrough rate of each position in a search results page. The data comes from our old friend, the leaked AOL data, that everyone got excited about many years ago during SES San Jose.
Direct Link: TCSM

8th August – Top Website Usability Mistakes – 10 Costly Assumptions (DaveDavis)
Website owners and internet marketers often find it hard to take a step back from their site and look at it as a first time visitor might. Unfortunately in list format, the advice is simplistic although this shouldn’t neglect from the fact that the factors covered are often overlooked.
Direct Link: PalmerWebMarketing

26th July – Microsoft tries to one-up Google PageRank (soulfood)
Cnet covered news on a research study carried out in Asia, highlighting Microsoft’s BrowseRank method of ranking the most important and popular websites for a search term. BrowseRank assigns web pages priority based on traffic and how long visitors stay on the site. Search Marketers are already testing the effect of clickthrough rates on organic search results in Google, to see what effect the popularity of a site has on its rankings. Although studies may find BrowseRank to be a worth competitor to the well-known PageRank method, a real would study would most likely show a completely different picture. If you don’t like the idea of buying links, imagine a world where buying access to thousands of compromised PCs in order to increase BrowseRank became common place.
Direct Link: Cnet

29th July – New Search Engine Cuil Launches But Something is Amiss (gyutae)
Another “Google Killer” was launched under the name of Cuil – who said that all the good domains were taken? The biggest reasons why this new start-up has been given so much attention is that the company was started by former Googlers and their claimed index size is larger than their former employer’s. With reports of slow loading times and large inaccuracies in the result sets, Cuil has suffered a number of teething difficulties. The biggest test is yet to come though, and I’d be impressed if they reached anywhere near 1% market penetration (that’s my “the internet will never work” statement ).
Direct Link: SearchRank

29th July – The Mother of All SMX Local/Mobile Recaps (MattMcGee)
David Mihm offers a round-up of July’s SMX Local & Mobile conference in San Francisco, for those like myself who were unable to attend. The post summarises some highlights from the many sessions, including data on local search patterns and how to geo-target in organic search results. Lots of juicy info from this growing conference and segment of our industry.
Direct Link: David Mihm

30th July – Comprehensive Look at Digg’s Recommendation Engine (UtahSEOpro)
In a very comprehensive article on SearchEngineLand, Muhammad Saleem gives insight into how Digg’s new Recommendation Engine works. Including video clips from Digg’s founder, the article clears up misconceptions and interprets what the impletentation means to the internet marketing industry.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand

30th July – Why Reputation Management Matters for Small Businesses (MattMcGee)
Sphinn moderator Matt McGee explores how Reputation Management is important even to SMEs, including an interview with industry old-timer Andy Beal. As customer reviews are becoming more wide-spread on the net, it’s important that even family owned restaurants and small product manufacturers keep an eye on what people are saying about their brand and react accordingly.
Direct Link: Small Business SEM

31st July – Sell your #12 Google Ranking to Dragons Den for £255,000! (kevgibbo)
People outside of the UK may not be familiar with the TV series Dragons Den, although the story is interesting on its own merits. In the show, millionaire investors listen to business pitches and decide which products they’d like to invest in. In last week’s show, a failing pitch from a diamond website was seemingly turned around by the mention of the site’s Google rankings. It was interesting to see how traditional entrepreneurs recognised the value in strong organic search rankings for competitive terms. The discussion on Sphinn was joined by the diamond website’s owner, who gave further insight into how the show was edited and his previous issues with incompetant SEO agencies.
Direct Link: SEOptimise

31st July – How To Get New Web Sites To Rank Quickly (kevgibbo)
Aaron Wall’s guest post at SEL looks at different approaches to gaining relevant traffic without necessarily hitting the biggest target terms. Targeting less popular terms can result in faster revenue generation and creating information based sites can attract natural links much more easily.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand