Welcome! Thanks for visiting!
Subscribe to the full feed
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will be rolling out new generic top-level domains (TLD) in 2010. Will this have a major impact on SEO? Don’t count on it.
You will be able to register any TLD, like “.yournamehere” by submitting it to ICANN’s approval process, along with about $185,000. With your new TLD, you’re now competing against one of the most powerful brands in the world: dot-com.

Dot-com is by now deeply embedded in our minds. The dot-com world is reinforced every time you see television commercials pointing you to a Web site or billboards hawking Internet addresses on your morning commute, and of course, every time you type facebook.com (Don’t act like you haven’t visited… already today).
As some of you may or may not know, I'm new here with the SEP team, having just started last week. So by this time I'm definitely overdue for sending out my first post!
There's a lot to digest when you move to a new position, and sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming to absorb a new culture, get to know new people, and figure out where your desk is and how to find the washroom. So it's no wonder that sometimes the finer details of moving to a new job can sometimes be lost in the craziness of figuring everything else out.
I reached a milestone this past weekend. June 21st marked 10 years that I've been blogging. When I began posting articles in June of 1999, the term was in its infancy, and I had no idea what a blogger was. I still wouldn't consider myself officially a blogger, I'm more an amalgamation of 1990s Web 1.0 Webmaster/Entrepreneur, continually finding a way to present my message, in our ever changing online world.
In a decade of creating fresh content daily, I've made some personal gains in becoming more productive and efficient, continuously discovering new ways to get the message out. I can't say that I'll be blogging for another decade, as I currently find myself leaning towards photography, but we can revisit the idea in 2019.
Think about it…when you dive in to your network of colleagues, customers, family, friends, business associates, etc…you will find that many of the people you interact with are members of Associations. Some are members of more than one and some often pay a yearly fee to be part of their Association.
I believe that people value their Association Networks, especially if they are paying a monthly or yearly membership to be part of them. Someone told me a long time ago that what one really values is something they pay for.
Search engines love blogs like high school girls love jocks. Luckily, there are some things that geeks can do to draw the attention of the girls away from the jocks, but that's a lesson for another day. If your old, static website doesn't have its own search-loving blog, don't worry. You can buff up that static site with its own RSS feed, and attract the search engines the same way a blog would.
Brian Carter is one of those people who grows on you until one evening you sit typing the intro to an interview and you realize you can't even pinpoint the moment you got to know him; he's just always been there.
Brian's sense of humor is quirky, funny. If you pick the wrong set of tweets by one of his many @ handles you'd be excused walking away from them with a dismissive shrug of the shoulder and a heartfelt "weirdo!"
Brian Carter is Director of SEO, PPC, and Social Media at Fuel Interactive, a full-service interactive agency in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
I'm so excited about my new diagram

YOU: "Beautiful, Brian. Looks complicated. What is it?"
ME: It shows the stages of internet marketing, including SEO, PPC, Email, and social media.
YOU: So why'd you call it the 6 spheres of SOCIAL media?
ME: This diagram integrates social media with all the other internet marketing. That's the new thing.
YOU: Oh, cool.
[Download a PDF of all the diagrams in this post.]
In the early 1800`s, a man by the name of Noah Webster ‘Americanized’ the spelling of many words. There are now a number of differences between how Canadians and Americans spell certain words.
It is important to keep these differences in mind when blogging. If you're blogging primarily for Canadians, then use the Canadian spelling. If blogging for Americans, use the U.S. spelling. If you're blogging for both, then keep in mind that the U.S. population is roughly 10 times that of Canada.
The following is a list of common spelling differences between Canadian and American words:
| Canada | United States |
|---|---|
| abridgement | abridgment |
| acknowledgement | acknowledgment |
| amoeba | ameba |
| analyse | analyze |
| anaesthesia | anesthesia |
| arbour | arbor |
| axe | ax |
| barrelled | barreled |
| behaviour | behavior |
| belabour | belabor |
| brunette | brunet |
| calibre | caliber |
| catalogue | catalog |
| cancelled | canceled |
| candour | candor |
| centre | center |
| centimetre | centimeter |
| cheque | check |
| colour | color |
| clamour | clamor |
| crystalline | crystaline |
| crueller | cruelest |
| crystallize | crystalize |
| defence | defense |
| dialogue | dialog |
| aeon | eon |
| favour | favor |
| favourite | favorite |
| fervour | fervor |
| fibre | fiber |
| flavour | flavor |
| fuelled | fueled |
| fulfil | fulfill |
| funnelled | funneled |
| gauge | gage |
| goitre | goiter |
| grey | gray |
| gruelling | grueling |
| harbour | harbor |
| honour | honor |
| humour | humor |
| jeweller | jeweler |
| instalment | installment |
| imperilled | imperiled |
| kilometre | kilometer |
| labour | labor |
| labelled | labeled |
| labour | labor |
| levelled | leveled |
| licence | license |
| litre | liter |
| louvre | louver |
| lustre | luster |
| macabre | macaber |
| manoeuvre | maneuver |
| marvellous | marvelous |
| matte | matt |
| medallist | medalist |
| meagre | meager |
| metre | meter |
| millimetre | millimeter |
| mitre | miter |
| modelled | modeled |
| mould | mold |
| moult | molt |
| moustache | mustache |
| neighbour | neighbor |
| paean | pean |
| paleolothic | palaeolothic |
| panelled/panelling | paneled/paneling |
| parlour | parlor |
| practice (n) practise(v) | practice (n/v) |
| pummelled | pummeled |
| pyjamas | pajamas |
| odour | odor |
| rancour | rancor |
| raquet | racket |
| reconnoitre | reconnoiter |
| saleable | salable |
| savour | savor |
| sceptre | scepter |
| smoulder | smolder |
| sombre | somber |
| sulphate | sulfate |
| sulphur | sulfur |
| tonne | ton |
| totalled | totaled |
| tranquillize | tranquilize |
| tumour | tumor |
| traveller | traveler |
| tunnelled | tunneled |
| theatre | theater |
| vice | vise |
| valour | valor |
| vapour | vapor |
| vigour | vigor |
| wilful | willful |
| worshipped | worshiped |
| queueing | queuing |
Never before has it been so easy to ‘transmit’ your messages and get brand exposure online – and never before has it been so difficult to reach and keep your intended audience happy. Why does this paradox exist in new media?
First of all new media is in fact not that ‘new’ but it is surprising how many people and businesses still considers it to be ‘new’ – and therefore out of fear or an inherent desire to stay in their comfort zones, relies on “business as usual” and only reluctantly enter into new media.
There is quite a lot of confusion over information retrieval sometimes, usually due to the fact that some concepts are used and investigated without their basis being known in the first place.
It's a little tricky to get acquainted with all of the various dimensions of IR, but a few simple things need to be clarified.
I have seen the following misconceptions among SEOs and also computer science students. It's not unusual and it's easily fixed