I have a question about back links. How do you get relavent back links without getting on link farms? I have been using twitter for a while and just started facebook. I was told to get a tinyurl and add a small fishing report on twitter and it would count as a backlink? I have written 5 articles on ezine but find that time consuming and did not help much....

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I can't seem to get a straight answer when it comes to how a site is coded/built and the affects that this has on SEO. After having taken a few web courses (design to SEO related courses) it seems to me that the "best practice" with regard to building a site that is search engine "friendly" is with CSS, utilizing as few tables as possible. I've been told by numerous instructors that tables can adversely...

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I've been using Movable Type almost as long as you have, Dave, and just noticed that the way you name your blog entry archives is pretty different to how Movable Type 4 does it by default. I'm setting up a new blog for my sister and would like to see if I can mirror your archive filename format. My question is: how do you change the template file naming scheme in MT4?...

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What can I do to improve the placement of my photographs and graphics in Google Image Search?...

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I am talking to a search engine marketing company that guarantees I will be placed in the top 3 sponsored positions on search engines. This sounds like a pretty good deal -- should I go for it?...

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Hi Dave. I'm working on some publicity for my little company and have just learned about the importance of search engine optimization. My Mom tells me, however, that visibility comes through press releases, but I have a sense she's hopelessly old school. What's your take on this?...

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I've been learning about how to write Web pages with HTML and recently had a friend ask me if I was paying attention to sculpting pagerank once my site went online. I have no idea what that means. Help!...

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I have been diligently applying all the search engine optimization techniques you talk about, Dave, but I'm still unclear on one key technique: how do I have more people link to me?...

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I've been talking to various people about improving my Web site and they keep talking about SEO. I've figured out that SEO = Search Engine Optimization, but I don't really understand what it means to improve my site on a search engine?...

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Hi Dave. I've been trying to build an online business for almost a year now and still don't seem to earn more than pocket change each month. I've tried various approaches, from a drop-shipping e-commerce store to an information-based site with advertising to a course on search engine optimization. None of 'em have worked. So, tell me honestly, how do I really make money online?...

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Dave, I have a client who is considering using Kontera to insert keyword ad links. Our recommendation to them was to create internal linking, not keyword ads in the text. I remember you discussing removing the keyword ads. Was there a reason for this in regards to SERPs, or was that purely due to expert credibility?...

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I keep thinking that Google would hide this, but is there any way to figure out the last time that the Google search engine spider (Googlebot) visited a specific Web page? That'd be particularly useful for competitive research......

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This is a rather geeky SEO question, but I have heard that Google considers internal site links as relevant as external links and that it's smart to "nofollow" links that go to pages you don't want or need ranked in the search engine. Is that true? More importantly, is it safe?...

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I have rebuilt my website using the advice in your great book Growing Your Business with Google. I hope that I understood everything correctly! And, of course, I have a question for you: I understand that there are companies that will add you to a site with a higher PageRank for a fee. Do you recommend doing this, if the site is related to your line of work? If so, are there any sites that...

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A few pals have told me that they've "friended" me on the bookmarking site Digg, but I have no idea what they're talking about. Since they've listed me as a friend, I figure I should list them as my friends too, but I don't know how to do it. Dave? Can you help me out?...

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I recently noticed that a few of the sites I visit seem to be cloaking or hiding their links when they point out to another site. I've heard of this cloaking to hide affiliate links, but am wondering whether it's a good idea and why you, for example, don't mask your own links?...

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MySpace is really starting to suck. The latest problem I'm finding is that people are leaving me comments that are just weird, and seem like some sort of stupid advert for their own businesses, but they don't make sense. Do these people really think they're going to get customers from someone reading the comments on my profile?...

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Hi Dave. I work at a small, new company and I've been hounding the CEO to start a corporate blog. He mainly interested in increasing Pagerank and I've explained that a corp-blog will help with Pagerank, page views, branding, et al. (That is correct, isn't it?) Well, he's warming up to the idea and I want to give a roll out plan, but my tech knowledge only goes so far. Ideally I'd like propose something...

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I was recently interviewed by a magazine about search engine marketing and search engine optimization, specifically whether big companies are missing the boat and whether smaller companies are paying too much attention to SEO or not. Their questions and my answers follow....

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I noticed that my local newspaper's Web site now has the lead paragraph of stories magically pop up when I put my cursor over the headline link on their site. Nice! How can I do something similar on my own pages?...

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