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Thank you for visiting SEO-Factor.com. Your privacy is important to us. To better protect your privacy, we provide this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used at this site.

The Information We Collect

At this site, you can order services, or otherwise express an opinion, subscribe to one of our services such as our online newsletters, or participate in one of our online forums or communities. The types of personally identifiable information that may be collected at these pages include: name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number, credit card information, and information about your interests in and use of various products, programs, and services. At certain parts of some of our sites, only persons who provide us with the requested personally identifiable information will be able to order products, programs, and services or otherwise participate in the site’s activities and offerings. We also may collect certain non-personally identifiable information when you visit many of our web pages such as the type of browser you are using (e.g., Netscape, Internet Explorer), the type of operating system you are using, (e.g., Windows ’95 or Mac OS) and the domain name of your Internet service provider (e.g., America Online, Earthlink).
How We Use the Information We may use the information you provide about yourself to fulfill your requests for our products, programs, and services, to respond to your inquiries about our offerings. We sometimes use this information to communicate with you, such as to notify you when we make changes to our subscriber agreements, to fulfill a request by you for an online newsletter, or to contact you about your account with us. We use the information that you provide about others to enable us to send them offers of our products, programs, or services to them. We may disclose personally identifiable information in response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena. We also may disclose such information in response to a law enforcement agency’s request, or where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our terms of use, or as otherwise required by law. In addition, we may transfer information about you if we are acquired by or merged with another company. Agents and contractors of SEO Factor who have access to personally identifiable information are required to protect this information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Notice by, for example, not using the information for any purpose other than to carry out the services they are performing for SEO Factor. Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personally identifiable information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Notice.
Cookies To enhance your experience with our sites, many of our web pages use “cookies.” Cookies are text files we place in your computer’s browser to store your preferences. Cookies, by themselves, do not tell us your e-mail address or other personally identifiable information unless you choose to provide this information to us by, for example, registering at one of our sites. However, once you choose to furnish the site with personally identifiable information, this information may be linked to the data stored in the cookie. We use cookies to understand site usage and to improve the content and offerings on our sites. For example, we may use cookies to personalize your experience at our web pages (e.g., to recognize you by name when you return to our site), save your password in password-protected areas, and enable you to use shopping carts on our sites. We also may use cookies to offer you products, programs, or services.
Collection of Information by Third-Party Sites, Ad Servers, and Sponsors vel ipsum auctor pulvinar. Vestibulum iaculis lacinia est. Proin dictum elementum velit. Some of our sites contain links to other sites whose information practices may be different than ours. Visitors should consult the other sites’ privacy notices as we have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.
Our Commitment to Security We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online.
How You can Access or Correct Information For instructions on how you can access the personally identifiable information that this SEO Factor site has collected about you online, or how to correct factual errors in such information, please email info@seo-factor.com. To protect your privacy and security, we will take reasonable steps to help verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.
How to Contact Us If you have any questions or concerns about the SEO Factor online policy for this site or its implementation you may contact us at info@seo-factor.com.
Updates & Effective Date From time to time, we may update this privacy notice. We will notify you about material changes in the way we treat personally identifiable information by placing a notice on our site. We encourage you to periodically check back and review this policy so that you always will know what information we collect, how we use it, and to whom we disclose it. The Privacy Notice posted on this site was updated on or about September 12, 2006.
info@seo-factor.com

January 12, 2007
SEO-Factor: Search Engine Optimization & Website Marketing, Promotion FAQ’s, and help

Protect Yourself A good optimization service is very important for any online business. However, all services are not created equal. Check out some of these questions that you should ask a firm before commiting to a service.
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January 12, 2007
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starting at $1999 and $49 a month
With this service we will guarantee that your site will rank within the first 10 results (page 1) of at least 2 of the major search engines. The search engines included are: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com, AOL, and Lycos. We will analyze your site, and provide you with a list of appropriate target terms. Once you agree on the terms, your effective date will begin. We will guarantee that within 180 days, your site will be on page 1 of at least 2 of the listed major search engines, or you will get 50% of your initial payment, and all of your monthly payments back. The following steps are needed in order to take part in this service:
- Fill out the order inquiry form with your website name and contact information.
- Provide a list of about 10 desired search terms
- We will analyze your site and respond with our proposal on a list of site-specific search terms
Once a list of terms has been agreed upon, the initial payment will be due, which will also mark the beginning of the 6 month period in which SEO Factor has to provide your site with a page one ranking in the major search engines listed above.
- We will optimize your site and it’s content to increase it’s ranking
- Continual submissions to all the major search engines
- Submission to the Dmoz directory
- an ongoing link-building campaign so as to increase qualified inbound links, and thus traffic and ranking in Google
If we fail, you get 50% of your initial fee and monthly payments returned. No questions asked, and no hassle to you.
Starting at $299
Let us optimize your homeage to increase it’s search engine crawler friendliness and potential for ranking. The homepage optimiization serice includes:
- Up to 300 words of industry or product relevant text provided and placed on the homepage
- Optimization of text on the homepage
- Optimization of the meta tags
- Optimization of the image alt tags
- Submissions to major search engines including Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, as well as the Dmoz Directoy.
- A minimum of 15 quality inbound links from relevant websites and directories, helping to build link popularity for rankings in Google
October 21, 2006
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We will write an article on your site, and release it through a large number of distributors, that will in turn release it further to the online community. These articles will be optimized to match the subject and desired terms on your site, and will also provide links to your site for link popularity. Some website designers would like to have content on their site, so they use the content from press releases. This enables them to get quality content on a subject, and the links to your site and business information are still included, giving you the credit and traffic. There are also a great number of web surfers that sift through press releases looking for news or new services/products. This will allow for your site to prevail in the traffic from people that are reading your press release.

Our Press Release Service: $300
- An article on writtin on your site with up to 700 words
- Optimization of the text of the article to include and target the desired search terms
- Information on your business, and links leading to your site
- Submission of your article to 25 major article distributors
Newly created and optimized sites need to be submitted to the search engines in order to increase it’s visibility. Directories are a great way to get more traffic and link popularity for your site, thus helping to increase the ranking in search engines like Google.

Submit Lite: $50
- Submissions to Major search engines including Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com, and many more.
- Submissions to 50-60 quality general directories
- Submissions to at least 5 industry specific directories
Submit Pro: $75
- Submissions to Major search engines including Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com, and many more.
- Submissions to 75-100 quality general directories
- Submissions to at least 5 industry specific directories
October 21, 2006
SEO Factor Blog
October 9, 2006 There are a number of big names in the SEO and online marketing industry. A lot of times I throw them around as answers to “people I would like to meet” or “what source do you have for this information?” More often than not, though, there are a handful of names that continue to come into play. After about 2 years of all of your funny looks, I thought it was time I let you just a little further into my world. So, here are a few introduction. Oh, and a lot of “SEO Experts” claim to know these people on a personal level so as to boost their credibility in hopes of making a sale. This is certainly not the case most often, and especially in mine.

Danny Sullivan
- Creator of Search Engine Watch, Journalist, and Internet Consultant.
Danny Sullivan became involved in SEO, unbeknownst to him, in 1995, when he had a client that was complaining that his website was nowhere to be found in the search engines. At this time, SEO was little more than a thought. There were no handy-dandy tools, no SEO forums, and no guides to help in the matter of exposure online. So what did Danny do? He decided to research what it takes for a search engine to decide to rank sites higher. He modified, tracked, and re modified his sites so as to determine what changes had what effects. After a long period of time, and a large amount of answers, Danny posted his information online, and it soon became the very first “A Webmaster’s Guide To Search Engines.” There had been nothing of this information beforehand, and this may have indeed jump started this whole industry. While checking out the pictures from this year’s Google Dance, his appeared and my daughter asked “Daddy, who is that guy.” To which I answered, “he is the guy that made Daddy’s job possible.” With so much acclaim and even more e-mail incentive from grateful website designers, Danny maintained the information online for the world to partake. As time passed, he dug deeper to find what it takes to index sites, increase ranking, increase traffic, and how the search engines work overall.

In 1997, Danny launched what is now arguably the most important SEO information site online, Search Engine Watch. It contained his “A Webmaster’s Guide To Search Engines,” and so much more. SEW has changed ownership (as many great things in business do) but is still maintained and edited by Danny Sullivan himself. Years later, this site is one of the very first that I visit every single, and throughout my day. There are very few times that I can stumble onto a question that is not answered here.

Matt Cutts
- Google Software Engineer, Superior Blogger, Nice Guy, CIA Operative.
Matt Cutts began his employment with Google in 2000, where he worked as a software engineer, and ended up creating Google’s SafeSearch (Google’s family filter). He deals primarily with issues of quality (as in spammers) and webmaster concerns (like the algorithm concerning ranking and penalization). Matt names wasn’t nearly as famous (or infamous depending on your perspective) until he started his blog. Using his blog, Matt talks SEO, Google’s products, life at Google, and a lot of overall nerdy stuff. When his pic came up on my computer, and my daughter asked of him, I replied, “that’s the son of B**** that makes Daddy’s job really hard.” With respect of course.

*Little more is known of Matt because he works for the NSA under the guise of a Google employee, so he can read and distribute all of your emails to the government.* *I am totally kidding. Being in the spotlight carries a lot of responsibilities and burdens, one of which is dealing with petty rumors and crass people. There is a site (that I am not going to justify with naming here) that claims my joke, sorta, in a very sorry attempt to degrade Google’s integrity. Matt did indeed work for the Department of Defense while going to school for his M. S. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. That plus the B. S. degrees from the University of Kentucky in both mathematics and computer science, means he’s a really smart guy. He worked for the DoD as an elective, providing a few months of study, and then a few in the work environment. Think about it though, even if the rumors are true, and the government used Matt to get your Gmails and read through them, do you really think that’s the worst thing our government has done? Probably not. Matt is widely noted as an extremely nice and approachable guy. Many Google employees will openly admit that they hate waling the floors of seminars and conventions with a Google badge on, as they soon become the target for angry webmasters. Matt easily gets the most of this activity, and returns it with a smile.

I will likely be doing an on-going posting on some other big names in marketing and the Internet industry. I believe that it is a very good idea to know the people you work with, even if not directly.

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October 21, 2006
SEO Factor Blog

October 9, 2006 As with all things in the website world, the idea, practice, and importance of link popularity is always changing. The rule used to simply be, “get as many links as you can from anywhere at all.” This is no longer so. After that rule, it became, “make sure the site linking to you is relevant in some way.” While this still holds true, the term “relevant” has undergone some modifications. It has never been to difficult to find sites that are remotely related to another with a little bit of time and initiative. So it was easy to make this rule work in the favor of the SEO Specialist. Very soon after that rule, it became the next to most recent one, “make sure it’s a relevant site, that has a higher PR (read more inbound links) than your site.” This made it just a little bit more tedious and tricky. Hence the price for a “real” link popularity service. But it was still easy to manipulate in your favor. But you know what’s not easy to manipulate? Someone else’s page all together.

Enter the new definition of “relevant” in the website world. What Google is leaning toward is not only link popularity, but that the relevant site should make use of internal linking within their content, using the desired search terms for the linked site. Confused? Let’s digress.

I have a pet store site. I have a good ranking for all my “dog” terms. (dog food, leashes, whatever). But the terms for all my “cat” products result in nothing. So I will need to modify my link-building campaign a little to gear toward the feline-loving community. During my search I get a link on some other pet store in a different state. They agree to make the anchor tag reflect my desire. This helps, but more importantly they make use of internal linking with key terms such as “cat leashes” or “cat nip” or “cat shaving device.” (I couldn’t help it) The fact that this site makes use of these terms in internal linking give it a lot more relevance in relation to my inbound link.

So, as this goes further, be ever more vigilant when approaching another site in reference to link exchanging/requesting. I know this post was a bit tricky, so as always, please feel free to e-mail me.

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October 21, 2006
SEO Factor Blog

October 10, 2006 Google goes through yet another growth spurt with it’s recent acquisition of YouTube. Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google, justifies the $1.65 billion payment with “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.” This is nothing new for Google. They have a history of buying products, software and even industries to so to integrate them and make it their own. You may remember when Google purchased SketchUp, a CAD software, not only using it to enhance Google Earth, but providing the software for free to the public. That’s pretty neat if you ask me. But what will this mean for YouTube? Google suggests that the company will remain independent of Google, keeping it’s brand recognition and retaining it’s employees. My vote is that Google will use YouTube to further enhance and market Google Video, while making use of the advertising real estate that YouTube can provide. This may actually be the last of acquisitions for a while though, as Sergey Brin, Co-Founder & President, stated that they are going to back off the mergers and acquisitions for a while to concentrate more of their efforts to the search engine itself. This is incredible news to me, as we are seeing a lot of pitfalls and downward spirals with Google’s searching capabilities as of late, and I for one would like to see a resolution.

We shall see.

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October 21, 2006
SEO Factor Blog

October 9, 2006 It seems that Yahoo!’s organic listings include not only “relevant” results (and I use quotes for a reason), but they also show a Pay-Per-Click service.

Through Search Submit Express you can submit your listings for consideration to appear in algorithmic search results powered by the Yahoo! search engine. –Yahoo! in reference to the Search Submit Express Service

You can read the full details here.

This means that being relevant is not good enough for Yahoo!, because not only does someone who pays money have the option of a sponsored result, but if you would like to pay a little less, but more than nothing, you can also get results from the area that should be reserved for the organic listings.

No bidding. Listings generated automatically based on the relevance of your page content to search terms. –Yahoo! in reference to the Search Submit Express Service

If this were the case (relevancy matters) then why should I have to pay anything at all?

So how is this fair? It’s not. Actually, according to the FTC, there is a chance that this practice is illegal. You see, if there is a section for organic listings, and it is laced with paid inclusion results, and there is nothing in that area stating that the listings may be of a paid inclusion sort, that goes against FTC Guidelines in the matter.

Complement your sponsored search campaign and extend your reach by capturing leads from algorithmic search results. –Yahoo! in reference to the Search Submit Express Service

So I will indeed get more leads from this service? But how will I get more leads if I don’t get any higher rankings? According to these guidelines, and the Yahoo! search submit express page, paying for this service does not result in better rankings. I’ll tell you about my proof, but first consider this: if it does not provide higher results, then there is absolutely no benefit to pay at all. Why would you have to pay per click in an area that is reserved for the regular listings anyway? There would be no benefit for the person paying, or the search engine. The search engine would not make money as a site that was not listing in the first place would do no better. And the person paying (and there is an initial fee) would not get any clicks because they were not listing highly anyway. Unless this is not the case. I am working now, and have worked on sites, a great number of times with this service. The unfortunate truth is that once included, the results are indeed much better. As soon as we stop those listings, the rankings drop as well. We opt the customer back in, they get rankings again. Odd.

But, it is difficult to really complain as this is indeed the game that we play, and the search engines make all the rules. I do feel that this is a little misleading and unfair to those that have very relevant and important sites that may not get ranked because they aren’t giving Yahoo! money. Hopefully this will help you understand a bit more about Yahoo!, and some of the reasons that your rankings are the way they are.

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October 21, 2006
SEO Factor Blog

October 9, 2006 Google filed for a patent recently that would allow for algorithmic ranking, along with the efforts of human editing. This would mean that the build of the work in determining ranking and results would rest with a computer, but would be helped with the integration of editorial opinion. You can read the patent details here. So, what does this mean? This means that there is a chance that a human will make a piece of the decision on how relevant or beneficial a site would be in reference to it’s visibility online. So it would be a good idea to make sure that your sites are indeed built for the human. This shouldn’t be anything new, but will help to re enforce what is considered acceptable SEO practice. Sites shouldn’t really be built for the search engines, but for the end user/visitor/buyer. Even as a consultant, I often tell my clients that we will not be optimizing a site for the search engines as my title implies, but optimizing a site to show the search engines what the site is all about. When you concentrate on the search engines, you neglect what is really important, and what the site was created for in the first place, the customer. This patent will force that along because there will be a person looking at your site and giving an opinion on how important the site is to the online community, how relevant it is to it’s desired search terms, and whether or not it will be considered an authoritative source of information or services. So if you’re creating a site for the algorithmic machine, then you’re probably going to be disappointed when someone at Google looks at your site with destain and sends it to the bottom of the list.

However. Just because a search engine submits for a patent, it doesn’t mean that they will implement any of the changes. These are public records, and could very well be a ‘Art of War’ kind of situation. Smoke and Mirrors. Illusions of the mind. Either way, the same rule holds true. Make a nice site, for your customers. Not some stupid robot.

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October 21, 2006
SEO Factor Blog

October 9, 2006 A lot of times people ask me where I get my information or where they should start reading to learn more about SEO. I usually reply with a half cocky/half joking “read my blog, it has all you need to know.”

Obviously this is not the truth, as no one person can know all there is to know about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). And even if there were, that person would not likely also know everything there is to know about Search Engine Marketing (SEM). So, giving credit to Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz, the following link is to his list of the blogs he reads. Mine is not quite as extensive due to particular tastes and such, but this is a great way to go through a lot of the bigger names, and make a list of your own.

Ranking 50 Top Blogs in the Search Space

WebproWorld also has a great post by incredible help on ‘SEO, Where Do I Begin?’

I do want to point something out about resources though. I can honestly and humbly say that the list and most of the mods at WebproWorld know more of SEO, have more experience, and could likely out rank me any day. But in this field, learning what it is, and knowing what it is are 2 different things. I could claim all day long that the information I give is correct, that I have ranked many sites well, and have a 100% success rate (I really don’t). But in this whole blog have I ever once mentioned a single URL in my hands? Nope, not once. So why believe me? Those I work with and reading this do because they have seen it. But if you are visiting from outside of our little circle, you shouldn’t. I try very hard to make sure I am conveying information correctly, but it is always best to try these things out yourself before holding it as gospel. There is a saying in physics (yes Billy, it’s a saying in mathematics too…jerk) that until something has been measured, and assigned a number, it does not exist. Or something like that, it’s been a while since I was in school. All I’m saying is that all the book knowledge that can possibly be attained, is no match for real-world experience. So just because someone tells you it’s true, doesn’t mean it is until you have tried it yourself.

I hope these resources help. There is a plethora of great information out there. You just have to reach out and grab it.

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October 21, 2006