Not only was IM Charity Party the best party at SES San Jose, but thanks to amazing sponsors like ACS SEO, We Build Pages, BOTW, SureHits and everyone that attended, we were able to raise $40,000 for charity! We donated $26297.96 to the Children’s Hospital (Jon Kelly matched the original $13,133.98 bringing us to the $26k+ total) and $13732.04 to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Highlights of the night included Marcus Tandler winning a Neil Patel and proceeding to sell him to Frank Watson for a beer and Carolyn Shelby getting every available dollar donated during the raffle.

(pic c/o Laura Lippay)

Since this event was such a success and just outright fun, we are doing it again TWICE!

Next up is SMX East. Jim Boykin and Pat Sexton are giving me a break on this one and throwing the party with 10e20, BOTW, Search Engine Journal and Surehits to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. So if you are at SMX East, go to the Social Bar (795 8th Avenue between 48th and 49th) on Monday night for an open bar extravaganza with your favorite new ninjas from 8-11pm. It’s all you can drink for $50 so come thirsty! For anyone who knows New York, this is a great deal and not to mention a tax write off. For more details and to DONATE IN ADVANCE, please check out IM Charity Party.

If you can’t make it to SMX East, you can still attend the next IM Charity event at Scary SEO. Hosted by David Snyder on October 25th at 8pm there will be a 3 course meal and open bar for only $65 a person. Proceeds will all go the Ronald McDonald House. If you are attending Scary SEO this is a MUST attend event.

Originally Published on Search Engine Journal

For anyone who hasn’t heard via Twitter, Sphinn, or Facebook, the charity event of the year is going be held at SES San Jose on Monday August 18^th.

For a $40 donation to charity, you will get 4 hours of open bar with some of your favorite online marketers like Neil Patel, Michael Gray, Jim Boykin, Chris Winfield, me Lauren Vaccarello and Pat Sexton. The pre-registration for this event has already drawn a lot of attention, but there is still time register. Thanks to Surehits, Webuildpages, BOTW, and ACS SEO all proceeds for the event will go to either the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society or the Children’s Hospital.

Details:

Where: Agenda Lounge – 399 S.1^st street, San Jose, CA USA

When: 8pm-12am PST on Monday August 18,2008

Why: Because the only thing better than drinking on a Monday night, is having it be a tax write-off too

Originally published on SEO Chicks

33 reasons why you should stay up late and go to the IM Charity Party at SES San Jose:

1. Networking happens AFTER the sessions are over. The best place to meet your future client/SEO/agency is at the hotel bar or at one of the conference parties
2. You might meet fookin’ dave naylor and buy him a beer
3. You may be able to witness Greg and Barbara Boser in the midst of a twitter hoax
4. You may find out Jennifer Slegg’s favorite Disney characters.
5. You can wind up Michael Gray like a jack in the box by telling him that Google does no evil, then make peace by discussing how hot the women of Battlestar Gallactica are
6. You could attempt to beat Frank the Tank to paying for the dinner check
7. Drinking for charity is a tax write-off
8. You may witness Stuntdubl spin 90s hip hop
9. You can win some awesome prizes, like a LIFETIME subscription to Shoemoney tools
10. Your boss thinks you are a good person for donating your dinner stipend to charity while off at a conference. How very responsible of you
11. You can smash Neil Patels beer before he has the chance to do it to yours
12. It’s always fun to meet new people over breakfast
13. The internet marketing ninjas will be lurking around and rumor is if you catch one, they have to divulge their secrets or swallow a shot of tequila
14. Avinash will tell you the latest analytics secrets while posing for pictures with a life size Danny Sullivan cut out
15. You can say you were there when Dax breaks into the next piece of musical equipment or gets kicked out of a hotel
16. BOTW always throws a great party
17. Find out what Lawrence Coburn’s favorite widget is
18. 4 hours of open bar for $40 is a lot less money than most of you would have spent at the hotel bar
19. Chris Winfield may drop life changing secrets about either SEO, social media, or how he has such great hair
20. Ask Andy Beal how you can become radically transparent
21. Debate the ethics of white hat SEO in honor of Jill Whalen
22. Ask Jim Boykin what his favorite national park is
23. Have Lee Odden tell you about some of the thousands of lakes in Minnesota
24. You can get tips from Jon Kelly and Lauren Vaccarello about planning a party
25. Ask Laura Lippay how the food at Yahoo compares to Google
26. Try to get quoted in Jessica Bowman’s new book
27. Have Brent Csutoras him tell you the finer points of Reddit while he’s digging on his iphone
28. Have Shoemoney perform a rear naked choke or at the very least kick your butt in thumb wrestling
29. Ask Oilman his favorite uses for duct tape
30. Find out why Captain Kirk is a master of web analytics from Matt Bailey
31. Get the scoop on Search Engine Journal’s Journal from Loren Baker
32. Being at the same party as your SEO idol is a great ice breaker, so start talking
33. Don’t be a douchebag. Why do you hate childen? Come to the party

IM Charity Party Event Details:
$40 donation will get you 4 hours of open bar with some of your favorite SES attendees
When: Monday August 18, 2008 8pm-12am
Where: Agenda Lounge – 399 S 1st street, San Jose ( 1 block from the conference)

Register early at – http://pages.teamintraining.org/sf/nikesf08/imcharityparty by donating at least $40. Make sure to leave your name so we can put you on the list the night of the event or you can pay at the door, but keep in mind that space is limited.

For more details, go to www.imcharityparty.com

Originally Published on Search Engine Journal

There is a misnomer in search marketing and SEO that things change all the time. I think I stopped consuming SEO blogs and news sites on a daily basis about 2 or 3 years ago when I decided enter full time consultancy with no one else’s safety net. There was no extra time for anything accept a low information consumption diet. I had to develop unflinching confidence in the work I was doing to execute on various strategies based on my understanding of how search engines have historically worked, and the assumption that they will continue to function in basically the same manner for some time to come.

This is from a conclusion that there have only been a handful of changes that affected how I conducted my business. I learned from both blackhats and search engineers both to come up with a strategy that fit my ethical code while indulging my competitive nature and hunger for success. I am convinced that the cat/mouse dynamic between blackhats and engineers has helped to form the current state of information retrieval based on strong needs to stay relevant in certain areas that were exploited solely for capitalistic monetary gain.

I’ve found some great posts and articles about search history and how search engines have evolved over time, but not many mentions of how search optimizers have changed their strategies over time. There are a few good resources listed below, but none quite summed up the changes that affected what I like to refer to as the “SEO mentality”. I’m hoping to create a fairly comprehensive document for Market Motive Internet Marketing Training (where I’ll be discussing this shortly with legendary SEO’s Greg Boser and Marshall Simmonds, to help add to the increasingly comprehensive body of SEO training we’ve developed over the past two years (Over 40 Videos now!).

I learned what SEO was in about 2002 – shortly after offpage factors started to strongly determine relevance. I spent several years and thousands of hours on forums reading, learning, an interacting and teaching to figure out how search engines worked. When I made the choice to work for myself at home after another great year of learning and consulting at We Build Pages (with Jim Boykin – one of the sharpest SEO’s I’ve ever known), I decided it was time to start doing. I built sites, and strategies for myself, using consulting money to fund development of website projects, and parlaying to thinks like being able to even afford the insane cost of living in the SF Bay area. It was based on the unwritten understanding of the changes that are mentioned below, and not listening to a lot of the SEO garbage that is spewed all over on the interwebs.

When I started doing – I realized that not much changes with SEO in terms of strategic execution. It is a pretty logical art and science of determining risk to reward ratios, and implementing strategies in a sequential fashion following certain established rules based on intended outcome. I’ve developed a playbook and these SEO rulesets by understanding the HISTORICAL GAMECHANGERS in SEO. Feel free to add some on twitter with #seogamechangers

I’ve been taking a mental inventory of these game changes for a few months, and here is what I have them broke down to:

1. Onpage factors (1995 – 1999)
2. Offpage factors (2000)
3. Florida update (2003)
4. Fresh Crawl/ Everflux (2004)
5. Sandbox effect (2005)
6. Duplicate content filtering (2006)
7. Human editorial (2006)
8. Onebox/ Universal Search (2007)
9. Paid linking handling (2007)
10. No follow (2008)
11. User data validation and segmentation (2009)
12. Brand Mentions (update Vince – 2009)

Some of my dates may be a bit off, but for the most part these are the major factors that affect my actionable SEO Strategies. These are the major changes that contribute to the hurdles, filters, and challenges of ranking a site on a search engine.

I’d love to hear from other folks on the things that you think should be included in the list. There are MANY minor things that full under these categories, but after revisiting most and asking twitter, I think this is pretty comprehensive, as things like local search 10 pack, personalization, geotargetting all fall under one of these other areas (even if the dates aren’t exact). Please let me know if you can think of anything I missed. I’ll try to watch the comments on the post closely for once:) Please post any great resources, or suggestions for adding/updating to the list.

Resources

• Brett Tabke
• Danny Sullivan
• Aaron Wall’s extensive writing on SE history
• Jim Boykin
• James Svoboda
• Rand Fishkin
• Mark Knowles
• Funny from Pat