Posted by randfish As I was stumbling around the web today, building some slides out for my Pubcon sessions next week, I came across some search results I couldn't help but blog about. Have a peek: Check out that fourth result from hugthecook.com. It's currently down, and has been that way since at least October 20th (when Google's cache shows the "invalid website" page). The last date I can confirm it was up and available is January of 2008 , when Archive.

It seems that social media is growing in popularity while SEO is shrinking. But can you do both simultaneously? Can you SEO your site with social media? One thing is for sure: You can build a certain number of inbound links with social media. This won't make your site great, but it will help. You build a profile at several social media sites and the links in your profile count as inbound links.

What is SEM Rush? A new competitive research tool by the name SEMRush is being beta tested, backed by the same programmers who created SEO Digger . SEM Rush can be seen as a deeper extension of the SEO Digger project (adding PPC data and tracking AdWords keywords), and a competitor to services like SpyFu (which recently launched SpyFu Kombat ) and Compete.com . SEM Rush vs Compete.com The big value add that SEM Rush has over a tool like Compete.

In high school gyms , small-town churches , and McDonald's drive-throughs across America, over 130 million Americans voted in this week's presidential election. Thousands of citizens documented their experiences on camera and shared them with the world here on YouTube to commemorate this historic event. Marking the end of an epic and exhilarating election season, the videos on the homepage today include clips that chronicle the excitement of the big day ,

Here are some of the search engine news stories we found interesting this week: New Face Recognition Search Engine Luxand A unique facial-mapping engine that enables a website to find people by faces (Alt Search Engines Nov 7 2008) The Post Google, Post Microsoft Yahoo Get new hitters. Simple enough. And a new technology management.

One of the determinants of your Google AdWords Quality Score is how well your ad campaigns perform over time. This is particularly true of CTR, click through rate. A very interesting read on Account Quality can be found right here . Essentially, CTR determines, to some degree, your quality score. But why? And how? Well, why is simple. Google wants to be sure that searchers meet with quality advertising and not spammy, harmful ads.

A caller wanted to know how he could push down a Ripoff Report listing in the search engine rankings for his company name. I don't know if he knew that report also ranked for his personal name. He never mentioned it. In fact, Google his personal name and all you'd see is the Ripoff Report review of his employee management skills. "Can I have that pushed down in the rankings?" he asked. The answer also Yes, of course.

Every so often I get an email like this: Dear Webmaster, I have browsed your site and I'm interested in purchasing advertising space in it. I am mainly interested in placing a new page on your site with content and links that I will supply. Please let me know if you would like to discuss this further or if you have other ideas. Kind Regards, Rob Normally I just delete junk like this, but I decided to reply.