Like many of my peers (whom I am making a renewed effort to get to know since beginning to appreciate the wealth of cool people in the Search industry) my SEO/SEM inception began when I started a retail website. That first foray has long since gone the way of the Dodo, but I remember it fondly - as my resulting interest and education has kept me in cat food for the last 7 years. But how long will this all last? Here are a couple of snippets from my increasingly frequent self Q&As, which are starting to sound more and more like an exchange between Jack Torrance and Lloyd the bartender.

Should I get out of this racket because it’s becoming so flooded?
No - the deluge of half-cocked, irresponsibly guaranteeing, myna bird “SEOs” will actually make it easier for the people who relish it, have talent and stay at the forefront to stand out in a crowd. I might as well write you a <a href=”http://www.startupbusinessschool.com”>free business plan</a> while I’m at it. Use said deluge to your advantage, and as a daily motivating factor.

Has SEO really become ‘easy’ like so many people now claim?
No - There is no free tool that can take the place of experienced keyword and volume research. The creation of engaging original content takes patience and skill. Manual link-building never ceases to be monotonous. Social media is only relevant or applicable to some clients, and even then requires startling creativity in order to make any difference. Link baiting is second only to chaos theory in terms of unpredictability and luck.

I’ve had my doubts about the credibility and longevity of this career path I find myself on. And new questions pop up everyday when I’m doing my daily SEM blog reading. But my mind becomes settled quicker than an algorithm that’s realized it’s being manipulated when I remember where I can go if I don’t like it - back to the cubicle. This industry is undeniably exciting for a reason. It’s the wild, wild west out here, and I’m going to need another scotch.

“I’m the kinda guy… likes to know who’s buying his links, Lloyd.”

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The latest version of the best open source blogging/content for SEO management system in the known universe was introduced less than nine minutes ago - and boy am I excited. A full list of new features can be viewed here, but I’ll quickly rattle off the ones I’m particularly pumped about:

• Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again: The benefits of this are obvious - there is nothing worse than spending an hour writing up the best entry in human history and then having it erased during a publishing error.
• Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post: It’s embarassing that the now-prehistoric Blogger actually had a “one up” on WordPress in this regard for a long time. Well not no more.
• Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking: Again, an overdue and welcome addition.
• You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system: Many people have been predicting the evolution of WordPress into a much more versatile CMS, and this enhancement makes that an easy reality. I can’t wait to find an excuse to build a new site and try this out. I should have a half-cocked idea popping into my head in T-minus five seconds.
• Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly: There were a series of clunky, difficult plugins that accomplished this feature that had me pulling my hair out on more than one occasion. About time it became standard.
• A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled: As the first thing I used to do when kicking off a site with a new WordPress installation was install Akismet (the Queen Mother of SPAM blockers,) this nearly made me do a cartwheel. In a pink thong.

If you’re a webmaster, SEO or small business owner looking for a cost-effective site solution - Head immediately to WordPress.org and do yourself a favor. Download it, install it, cuddle it, feed it and watch it work for you. Learning curves be dammned - this is the way of the future, grasshoppers.

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Like a fine red wine or those funky unpasteurized runny cheeses I used to love when I lived in England - a good domain only gets better with age. Operative word there being “good”. If you’ve been naughty in the past, and your domain has been previously flagged by bots as disingenuous, spammy or black hat - your website could be written in a version of HTML that predates sandskrit and still be 7 pages deep for your MVKs.

So if your “good” site predates that of a competitor - where the level of quality and fundamental SEO considerations between the two are equal - it will have a ranking advantage. Especially if we’re talking about years as opposed to months. Actually, your older site could have less content, sparser keyword density and fewer incoming links and still enjoy a higher ranking, at least for a while. And there doesn’t even have to be a site there at all. Even registering a domain without populating it has been shown to provide an advantage. I am speaking from experience - a website I readily admit kind of sucks ranks highly in Google for very competitive keywords. I credit this not to a ritual goat sacrifice (we live and learn in SEO) but because I registered it in 2001.

While age is only one of the many factors taken into account by search engine algorithms, it’s an important element that indeed makes a positive difference. Google is more likely to give the trustworthy old-timer the benefit of the doubt before listening to the whippersnappers. Always take domain age into consideration if buying or valuing a ‘used’ site. There are dozens of free tools that can do this for you in one click. And be sure to check the number of indexed pages to see if you smell a penalization rat. If you buy an old domain that has a bad bot reputation remember - there’s no lemon law for URLs.

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Dan just tagged me with some silly meme that’s going around like a nasty flu, but I’m a good sport (and complete narcissist) so I’ll play along. I am also in full agreement with Darren Rowse - namely that transparency lends to a better site visitor experience. So with no further ado, Toto - please pull back the curtain for a minute.

5 Things you Didn’t Know About Thirsty Pony (Dave Pye)

1. Dave is Canadian and was born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1973. I will be moving back to Toronto in early 2007 and am anxious to get in contact with any SEO enthusiasts that may exist in the T-Dot.
2. Dave has jumped out of an airplane attached to a tall German. The girl who jumped out of the plane right after me hit the side of a house and nearly died. I take this as a sign that I got off easy and am better suited for land travel.
3. Dave maintains over 35 websites, in varying degrees of incompletion and disarray. The one which makes the most AdSense revenue is a silly dog sweater site he made for his sister 4 years ago and rarely touches.
4. Dave loves movies and maintains several lenses devoted to his favorites, including: SlapShot, Blade Runner, Blazing Saddles, Rocky and Goodfellas. Believe it or not, Squidoo affiliate revenue actually pays my internet bill every month. Ladies, form a line to the left.
5. Dave and his friend Chris maintain a hockey fights blog that has been mentioned in the New York Times and too many related sport blogs to mention. We write regularly, interact with readers at every opportunity and introduced hockey podcasts this year which we try very hard to make funny.

And this is all providing, of course, that you give a rat’s behind. If not, enjoy some Tiny Prints Coupons. I have chosen to tag Jennie Smash as she links to me in her sidebar and I know she’ll come up with some worthy answers.

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