Brand new search engine optimisation contest - Helpful Advice

SEO (search engine optimization) contests take nonsense phrases such as (most famously) nigritude ultramarine and loquine glupe. At the time the contest begins, the nonsense phrase (which may consist of “real” words) generates no results when entered as a query into Google. After the contest ends, of course, this is no longer true. For example, nigritude ultramarine currently gets about 116,000 results in Google.

The contest ends after a specified amount of time, and the Webmaster whose site is ranked first in Google’s search results for the contest phrase wins.

How does a site get to the top of the results for one of these bizarre phrases? Almost anything goes, but the key points are getting inbound links, arranging for an ODP listing (or even two) and keyword stuffing. For an example of rather hilarious keyword stuffing, check out the winner of the loquine glupe contest.

Why am I talking of SEO contests now? Well, quite simply this blog is now taking part in the Seraphim Proudleduck contest. Seraphim Proudleduck was made famous five years ago when no prize was awarded due to a sponsor pullout.

Like all contests, there are some rules. Taken from the Seraphim Proudleduck blog here they are:

1) Backlink. I don’t want you to link to this site. Please link to a charity of your choice. If you need inspiration, I personally would choose this one - http://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/ - but you MUST link to one registered uk charity on the domain you wish to use for entry, and it should be done so proudly. Try to choose wisely, something that means something to you, even if you don’t live in the UK. Bowel Cancer Uk for example, may help to fund research that is shared with the world. Not only treating but reducing the occurences of bowel cancer. If you truly wish to sponsor your own charity, which isn’t UK based - please email me first (soconnor@salmonbones.co.uk) - I will rarely refuse, I promise. For the same reasons I say a UK based charity will benefit the world, so would for instance, a Canadian based charity……..

2) Be ethical. I have grown to hate spam. I don’t see spam as merely the mail you see in your inbox which you haven’t asked for, I see it as anything that ‘dirties’ the web with something on mass which you don’t wish to be exposed to. This includes search engine results which are not relevant. If I put “Sheffield web hosting company” into Google, I don’t wish to find a landing page to a company which has nothing to do with hosting, or indeed Sheffield. That to me that result is spam. Don’t do anything that will put your website in the search engine results for which it shouldn’t be found. If you do that, you’re a bad person! I can’t police this, and won’t. I will, as many others will also, report your site. In the past I have had this done to me, and I now agree with why this was done.

3) Their are current SERPS for Seraphim Proudleduck. Tough - deal with it, that is life, and would be the same if you were trying to compete for any other keywords. I re-chose Seraphim Proudleduck for this reason, it still means nothing, and won’t put anyone out of business if they fail to be ranked for this term.

4) Backlinks to this domain, this post etc are not required. You may copy, reproduce, do whatever you wish with this information, and don’t need to attribute anything to salmonbones.co.uk - I don’t earn a great deal in the job I do, and probably can’t afford to pay for the costs associated with a popular SEO contest, so why would I ask for backlinks that would make me doing this even more costly to myself! To me, this is about putting right something which I messed up on along time ago.

5) To enter, you must do one thing. Post the URL of your entry here. You can enter one domain, ten domains, one hundred domans. I don’t care, I just want to know a rough number of people interested in this.

6) That’s it. no catches, no nothing. No ulterior motives here. Seraphim Proudleduck was one of the worst decisions of my life, I’d like a chance to restore some pride from that portion of my life. By reading this you have helped me to make a start on doing just that.

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