More than anytime in history, we are prepared for a zombie attack. We all know the advantage of crossbows and to always aim for the head. Now its time to apply this same vigilance to web marketing.

The dead are out there, lurking in your site, your links and your keywords. Get out there into the woods and hunt the zombies that wander through your SEO.

Dead Links

You've seen them before, deep in your interior pages, gnawing on your SEO and user experience. Its been awhile since you checked, but don't get soft now. Get into Analytics, get into Webmaster Tools and bring the shotgun. Head shot. Reload.

Here are two more zombie link hunting grounds:

• Screaming Frog: shows all your crawlable pages, along with their status code.
• Check My Links: this Chrome extension color codes all the links on the page you're viewing according to status code.

The real trick is to hit the zombie links right as they're crawling out of the grave. When you move a page, create a page or make a link, pay attention. Check your links: are they _blank or _parent? follow or nofollow? Watch yourself of you could have a regular Thriller video of zombie links on your hands.

While you're at it, test all your forms. Just the thought of losing a lead to an undead script or bad address makes me sick.

Target Dead (and dying) Phrase

Those phrases you first targeted don't smell so fresh anymore. Double check to see that your main phrases aren't rotting. Check Google Insights to make sure that search volume isn't decaying, or that your phrase isn't popular in your region.

There's nothing wrong with targeting low-volume, long-tail phrases. Like a hand in a jar of preserving fluid on the shelf in your lab, keep these pages around. But if your top phrases are crawling along like a legless undead torsos, grab the axe.

Careful You're Not Making A Zombie

Sometimes, the zombie is lumbering toward you from your navigation. Like body parts sewn together in Frankensteins monster, your site looks like patchwork. Your menus have grown long into lifeless limbs. PDFs and pop-up windows hang off pages like moldy rags.

Your usability is a reeking, disorganized heap that makes visitors run. Use the torch. Burn it. Redesign.

Stick Together

What's the difference between an elite zombie fighting force and a guy stuck on his roof with a deer rifle and some beef jerky? Organization.

Work with partners in the business, as a team. Stay connected with partner companies and keep an eye on each other. Collaborate on content, quality and zombie control. Once you've cleaned up your own site, check on them. If you see something, say something. Nothing says I got your back like pointing out a dead page or broken form.

SEO zombie safety and awareness is everyone's job. Be willing to do what it takes to keep the undead at bay. Be strong, search marketers. Be strong.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Partake In The Great SEO Zombie Hunt

Now, what is the one thing all of these programs have in common? Commercials! But don't change the channel just yet. The advent of TIVO and the practice of recording television shows to watch later has forced advertisers and agencies to step up their game. The result is commercials that aren't so bad and actually quite often are entertaining.

Today's commercials require creative concepts to grab and hold our attention. This must be accomplished while telling us why we should buy their car insurance, apply for their credit cards or watch their upcoming movies. The result is a new standard of creativity in advertising. Commercials are becoming so entertaining that we often find ourselves intentionally watching them!

We looked back over the year and chose our 5 favorite TV commercials for 2011. See if you agree, then let us know which ones we missed!

#5 Pop Tarts

2011 saw a series of new Pop Tarts ads centered around animated school children Hip Hop dancing. A personal favorite for both creativity and relevance, this series of break dancing characters always makes us pause our TIVO and watch in wonder.

#4 The Most Interesting Man in the World

This series of commercials from Dos Equis has spawned hundreds of knock offs on YouTube. Loved by women the world over, this most interesting man is also the envy of men the world over.

#3 Living Social

LivingSocial offers one fantastic deal every day to their subscribers. Their commercials are among the most inventive ever. We're still trying to figure out how they do it!

#2 Mayhem

The new standard for unforeseen danger, Mayhem appears to be everywhere. Allstate hits a home run by injecting humor into a serious topic.

#1 Cuckoo for Christmas

Maria Bamford is back as Target's demented Black Friday superfan. Although tecnically this ad series began prior to 2011, this year's offerings are just as fresh and funny as the very first one.

So "that's a wrap" for the most interesting television commercials for 2011. What were your favorites?

Related:

• The 20 Most-Shared Ads of 2011
• Ads that entertain: YouTubes top spots of 2011

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Top 5 Commercials in 2011

Here's photographic proof of the "always-on" passion SEP'rs bring to the job.

Lloyd

Even when he's enjoying his favourite passion (fishing), he's still thinking about work, and managing to get a few work hours in.

Caitlin

Yes: we're the kind of company that has its own cheerleader.

Even when Caitlin is busy with cheerleading practice, she's boosting those client results.

Joanne

Joanne … enjoying the view from one of her favourite places (150 feet above the river), but still focused on her clients.

Cara

Cara loves to play, and win, ping pong as much as the next SEP'r (you do know we have a dedicated ping pong room, right?) but even then she keeps track of what the SEP-Google combo does for clients.

Kamila

This is Kamila working hard at the mouth of a volcano crater in Costa Rica. Yes, you read that right. Dedicated, and dangerous. Kamila checks in on her clients at the mouth of a volcano.

Yvette

Honestly, we're not that surprised Yvette is getting some work in on her iPad while doing some Yoga. What puzzles us is that she says that this is a relaxing position…

Ruud

Ruud … there is nothing SEPer Ruud likes more than coffee (with the exception of his wife and kids of course). But even the process of making coffee does not keep Ruud from work.

And of course to get your Zen on while editing blog post you best position yourself several meters above a beach.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

SEPers Are Always on the Job [Photos] #awesome

What is a Googleholic?

Being a true Googleholic is not a job, it’s not a career or even a hobby or something you dabble in here and there.

A Googleholic lives and breathes SEO; they get up in the morning, 6 hours after doing their last ranking check and get straight onto Google, search search search checking the top level keywords to look for the slightest algorithmic change that effects their own and their clients’ websites.

• What an SEO weekend looks like

In my opinion there are 3 different types of SEO’er. There are those who dabble (badly most of the time), those who do it as job and those who are Googleholics. Like me, you probably know where you sit in that category but

I think there are traits and easy to spot techniques that puts an SEO “professional” in each section, for example:

• If you think multiple directory submissions and article distribution is the most important way to go with your SEO then you’re a dabbler or do it as a job, poorly.
• If you use automated software to check your most important rankings, you do SEO as a job.
• If you think buying a hundred links for 100 dollars is going to benefit your SEO campaign, you’re a dabbler or shouldn’t be employed to do SEO professionally.
• If you spend hours in Webmaster forums, check your important rankings manually dozens of times a day to find minute changes in not only your SEO campaigns but everyone else’s and constantly testing new strategy to maximize your knowledge, breadth of SEO, skill level and most importantly your websites strength., congrats! You’re a Googleholic.
• If you DO NOT run your own SEO campaigns as well as clients, make money from practicing what you preach and operate your own websites you are not a Googleholic.
• If you have not intentionally got your websites penalized by Google, you are not a Googleholic.

Obviously there are economies of scale here, if you’re a one man army and have 100 clients then you have not got the time to check all your rankings manually, but a Googleholic wouldn’t have 100 clients as there is not enough time in the day to achieve success and success in rankings is the only bench mark a Googleholic has.

“Hi, I’m Danny, I’m a Googleholic”

Google is not difficult to understand, far from it, it’s largely built on common sense and notions that affect our normal day to day life.

Think of it like being back at school, if people like you, you become more popular, you become class speaker and head of your year; Google is the same.

The school analogy is your off-site SEO; your onsite SEO is comparable to an encyclopedia, clearly defined uniquely labeled sections full of unique content, facts and stuff that people will want to know and read about. Base your SEO on that and you can’t go wrong, the rest is just very granular by-products of doing the above correctly.

Just a quick note: I will use real life examples and opinions based on research and testing.  SEO is about teaching clients what we do and selling them that service. After all we all know how to wash our car but we still go to the car wash!

How Does A Googleholic Get Ahead Of The Game?

A Googleholic does not need to analyze why a competitor has gone above them for a keyword, they know without looking what they are doing daily to compete with SEO, they know what they do how they do it and when.

They understand the competitor’s website at a similar level to their own webmaster; they track the growth and declines constantly and know the good and bad points about each competitor and how to combat it if there is a problem.

Staying ahead of the game depends what situation you’re in. An existing site with top rankings needs to continue to do what they have done to get there. There is not an end point to when SEO should stop; it’s a constant growth — and if you truly are out of ideas and number 1 for every keyword you want to be, then expand!

If you find yourself getting a new client or starting your own project then you are in a great position to build the perfect SEO campaign. You can put your stamp on it from the off and deliver exactly what needs to be delivered without not knowing what’s happened before you took over.

For example in a niche I used to work heavily in I was launching a new website and was targeting number 1 for a 3 letter keyword within 12 months, my competition was essentially a combination of:

• Community based opinion driven websites
• Old companies with old domains but limited SEO both onsite and offsite.
• Very heavily content driven websites with thousands of pages of unique content but with limited offsite SEO.
• Websites that were being controlled by top SEO companies in the UK, quality on and offsite SEO.

I find that most niches have a similar collection of these four types of websites. To combat it is simple, in principle, but time consuming to deliver.

You need to take the good points of each site and deliver a website that beats all of them in one place, and do it naturally of course.

I ended up with essentially 4 SEO plans executed on one website. I bought an old domain with good history in that niche, created an interactive advice giving service that was the first in that tight lipped industry, worked heavily in getting the right story and blogs in the right places so the right people/news/bloggers picked them up, dug deep into the competitions SEO providers and turned up a list of all the websites in my niche that they used for links. Then I put together a plan to combat them at their peak and had industry leading figure heads create my content, instantly gaining credibility and a following.

The result saw my website grow naturally over the space of the 12 months. By month 4 we were number one for the 3 letter term, no doubt thanks to a few UK based newspapers picking up on our industry leading advice on a very controversial product. Who’s to say that we would have got there without the newspapers, but it goes to show that if your fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Our goal was for that to happen, we spent a lot of time and money on building all the foundations behind the SEO plan.

Getting or staying ahead of the game is simple: understand your competition, do what they all do but better and all in one place.

The other important thing to recognize about SEO these days is do not be single minded, do not just rely on being better at one thing than your competition, if Google change the goal posts (which they will) you may see your campaign turned on its head.

I will leave you with this:  it is not about providing an SEO service — it’s about thinking outside the box and delivering a service that will grow the brand online, directly affecting the SEO campaign. SEO could equally be called “Strategic Entrepreneurial Opportunism” in my opinion.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Confessions of a Googleholic – Getting Ahead of the Game

If you're reading this, you probably want some advice. Hey, maybe you're even desperate.

Let me guess. You have a site about something you are sure is fascinating, say, your line-dancing chihuahua, or alien crop circles on Mars, but you're just not getting the traffic you deserve.

Now, of course, you've read all the usual white hat SEO advice, and you applied it just like they said:

• Inserted "Damn, this stuff is good!" in every paragrah
• Used a big Comic Sans font on a Christmas background
• Added a photo of Mr. Page on each page to please him.

Yet, you're still not ranking very well on any of your keywords. Bugger.

Well, that's about to end. Buckle up, I'll teach you real SEO today.

You may have heard about Black Hat SEO before. Don't worry, Harry Potter has nothing to do with it. Maybe you feel like it's not for you, maybe you are Scared of Google's Wrath, or you are just more into purple hats with yellow feathers, but I'm telling you now: Black Hat SEO is the only way to get Really Good Rankings, Real Quick.

As an example, let me tell you about my friend Hassan. He's selling talking carpets, but despite his excellent website, he ranked poorly for his keywords, resulting in visitors looking for either talking buddha heads or meat-eating carpets. Obviously, he needed a fix.

That's when I introduced Hassan to SEM. You're thinking that's for Search Engine Marketing, but that's a smoke curtain. SEM stands for Search Engine Mafia. It's an international organization with local branches everywhere. You can also find them on Mafia+.

As you can imagine, there's no brochure or a guided tour, but believe me: The SEM is very effective. They have deeply infiltrated all major search engines. Remember that time when Google's Larry Page showed up in a hamburger suit? They made him do that.

Anyway, I set up Hassan with one of the SEM consultants, and overnight, his traffic was off the charts. He sold thousands of carpets in a week, and he would have sold out before the end of the month if his server hadn't overheated of all the traffic. That's what the SEM can do for you too.

Dealing with the SEM is not for the weak of heart, though. You can't pay for their services; you owe them, and when they need a favor, they'll come and ask. If you don't return the favor, well, things can go sour.

My friend Hassan, for example, failed to deliver a carpet that could speak Persian to his SEM consultant, and the SEM forced him to train his carpets for use in porn movies. Oh well, no pain, no gain.

So, that's all you need to know to boost your search engine rankings instantly! Contact your local Search Engine Mafia consultant today for great rankings tomorrow.

SEM Consultant Paul Vitti: "I'll give you rankings you can't refuse!"

Or you could, you know, go back and listen to the creepy desert wind, sweeping over your lonely content…

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Black Hat SEO: Forget The Taboo And Boost Your Rankings Today

For a bit of fun, let’s take a look back and see what worked, and probably never should have worked in the first place!

Ok, so it’s time for a bit of nostalgia! The one thing about SEO that many people either love or hate is that the algorithm is constantly changing and updating in an effort to provide users with better search results. This keeps everyone in SEO on their toes as old tactics become redundant. I struggle to think of many other professions that are so fast paced; ten years is a lifetime in SEO! In particular, it’s the slightly dodgy tactics that usually suffer from the updates; but once upon a time they did actually work!

White Text/white Background

If you dare to do this now, you’ll pretty quickly find yourself in the doldrums with a severe slap on the wrist from Google. But yes, it did actually work when the search engines first started operating. It’s hard to believe that cloaking a ton of keywords would actually fool anyone! This was probably one of the first tactics to die out, and I’m sure it caught many an ‘SEO guru’ out!

Duplicate Domains

Another old way to ensure some pretty good rankings was to go out and buy a ton of exact match domains, and then duplicate the site for each one. The issue here is that you can quickly end up with thousands of duplicate pages, all competing for a ranking and in effect you’re wasting a heap of Google’s crawling time. Many of the algorithm updates in the past year or so have focused on duplication issues, so this is definitely a tactic that is now dead in the water.

Rolling Out 10,00 Pages Of Nonsense

Commonly used by websites aiming to earn a quick buck from Adsense revenue, it used to be possible to auto-generate thousands of pages, point a load of crap links at them, and have the content ranking for long tail terms for a good month or so. Nowadays, Google is much faster at detecting this kind of activity and your site is likely to get burned very quickly if you try and do this.

Roasting Exact Match Anchor Text

Over the past few years, Google has become much better at detecting spam signals via anchor text. It is now absolutely crucial to balance out and effectively manage the distribution of anchors. Even slightly overdoing it can see a huge devaluation in link power, but until not that long ago it was possible to rank fairly well by gaining a large volume of exact match anchors. Like all of the tactics listed, this had a certain time limit to its effectiveness, but Google is certainly much quicker at detecting it now.

Tons Of Footer Links

Footer links started losing their effect a while ago, with Google now devaluing links in footers and sidebars. Some people believe that in large volume, these links can still have a positive effect on rankings. However, it used to be quite easy to build up a large volume of very effective links by giving someone a bit of cash for a ton of site-wide footer and blog roll links. Obviously, all with keyword anchor text!

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

5 Old SEO Tactics So Bad it’s Embarrassing They Worked!

1. BMW

The large price tags on their luxury vehicles could not save BMW from Google’s wrath when the company’s German website (BMW.de) was found to be guilty of having hidden text and doorway sites filled with keywords in an effort to drive traffic. Google took little time penalizing BMW, deindexing the website within a day of finding out what the developers were attempting to do.

Imagine their surprise when they woke up to find their high-profile website with a Google PageRank of 0. After BMW corrected the problem, Google was just as quick to reinstate its indexed pages.

2. Newsday.com

In 2008, Newsday.com watched its PageRank slip from 8 to 5 after the search giant accused it of selling links that pass PageRank. Google has made it clear that any websites that “buy or sell links for the purpose of manipulating search engine rankings” will lose credibility in its search engine rankings.

Google suggests that paid links on a site should be disclosed with a rel="nofollow" attribute in the link tag or redirect the link through the robots.txt file. Like the BMW incident, Newsday’s PageRank quickly returned to 8 after the scandal made headlines.

3. JC Penney

What could a department store possibly do to upset Google? Apparently, it can do plenty. JC Penney apparently used notorious “Black Hat” SEO techniques to generate link farms that boosted its product pages to the top of search engine results in several categories.

It was the holiday shopping season of 2010, and JC Penney hired an SEO consultant to boost sales. While its initial intentions may have been pure enough, the method did not amuse Google, which punished JC Penny by dropping its product pages down at least a hundred spots in search engine results into relative obscurity.

4. Overstock

In early 2011, Overstock.com was on cloud nine with amazing search engine rankings. Was it because its products magically improved? Was it because its “O” logo resembled Oprah’s logo? No, it was because the company decided to give discounts to college students who linked to its site from .edu domains.

Overstock claimed it was just a innocent advertising ploy to encourage college students to shop on its site, but Google did not buy it. After all, the company encouraged students to link very specific key words like “bunk beds” and “gift baskets” to Overstock pages. Furthermore, Google’s algorithm specifically trusts .edu domains more than others because of the whole “academic” credential thing. When Overstock’s promotion ended, many of those paid links remained. In response, Google Dropped Overstock to the fifth and sixth pages of search results.

5. Ezinearticles.com

Google’s recent algorithm update, “Panda 2.0”, introduced new standards for content. No longer would sites with loads of low-quality, even nonsensical content be rewarded for junking up the web. Many web users know them as “content farms”, and many freelance writers churn out cheap $10 and $15 articles for them at alarming rates during these tough economic times.

EzineArticles.com is just one of many content farms that are now feeling the effects of Google’s plans to demote them from content supremacy. Simply having a lot of content is no longer enough. Some companies like Demand Studios (publishers of ehow.com and others) have been rather vocal about their efforts to improve content quality and dissociate themselves with the word “content farm”, but that will take a tremendous overall of current content to have any effect.

You are Not Alone

If you have your own website or blog and have been feeling the heat from Google’s strict regulations and PageRank rules, you are not alone. Even large corporations have managed to anger Google. It just takes a little extra research, careful planning, and fair play to get your site back to where you want it.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Learn From Failure: 5 Big Names Penalized By Google

1. GOOG-411

Introduced in April of 2007, Google’s telephone service provided users with free local directory assistance, which was a popular alternative to the often expensive 411 service provided by telecommunication and mobile companies. The product was terminated on November 12, 2010, most likely due to the ever increasing popularity of smart phones.

Billboards like this one were placed across various cities in the United States and Canada to advertise GOOG-411.

2. Google Video

In January of 2005, the search giant threw its hat into the then emerging ring of free online video sharing with Google Video. Fans praised the service for allowing users to remotely embed videos on other websites without running into bandwidth and storage capacity issues. In October of 2006, Google bought former competitor YouTube. By 2009, as YouTube became the clear favorite amongst users, Google Video ended the ability for users to upload videos. Since then, the service has been renamed Google Videos and operates as a video search engine that indexes videos from many popular video hosts.

3. Google Wonder Wheel

Google’s keyword research and discovery tool was well-received by SEOs and PPC campaign mangers when it was first introduced in May of 2009. Unfortunately, the Wonder Wheel took it’s last spin on July 20th of this year. Its removal might be a protective measure to keep webmasters from gaming the search engine’s algorithm.

4. Google Answers

Starting in April of 2003, Google’s question and answer service allowed users to pay researchers to answer questions for them. By November of 2006, the service was closed. All Google Answers’ discussions, however, were publicly archived. Since then, Google has acquired Aardvark as their Q&A service, though much hasn’t been done with it since the acquisition.

5. Google Wave

On May 27, 2009, Google intended to win businesses and individuals over with the announcement of its project management tool that allowed for real-time collaborative editing. However, its very restricted invite-only trialing period prevented users from communicating and collaborating with others. Due to users’ lack of interest in the product, Google announced on August 4, 2010 that Wave would no longer be developed as a standalone product. It has since then been renamed Apache Wave, after the product was taken on by Apache Software Foundation.

6. Google Lively

In July of 2008, Google released their web-based virtual environment to compete with the likes of SecondLife. The project, created by Googler Niniane Wang during her “20 percenttime,” was scrapped on December 31, 2008.

7. Google X

March 15, 2005 serves as a reminder of arguably the most bizarre product launches in the search engine’s history, Google X. Google introduced on its homepage a traditional search bar with what looked to be a dock user interface similar to that of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. Mysteriously, it was pulled the very next day.

8. Google Labs

On July 11, 2011, Google delivered a major blow to the developer community by announcing that they were shutting down Google Labs to focus on more crucial matters. Google first titled “Google Labs,” their website dedicated to demonstrating and testing new projects, in 2006.

9. Google Web Accelerator

On May 4, 2005 Google Web Accelerator was released, it used caching technologies on a user’s computer to speed page load times. The product was made unavailable on January 20, 2008, only a couple of months before its 3rd birthday.

10. Google Toolbar for Firefox

July 7, 2011 marked Google’s announcement that it was also ending Google Toolbar development. Since its inception in December of 2000, Google Toolbar has had its supporters and pundits. There were users that said it streamlined their search and overall web browsing experience, and there were those that claimed that it was a nuisance that invaded their privacy. Regardless of where you stand on the argument, the toolbar had a pretty good 11 year, 7 month run.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

The Google Guillotine: 10 Products That Didn't Make the Final Cut

Nowadays your web address is synonymous with your identity, and for those who don’t have an interesting enough identity of their own, it can seem like a good idea to hijack somebody else’s. By now, most of the web addresses associated with famous individuals and companies have been registered. However, the carelessness of people when typing web addresses into their browsers can be a goldmine for so-called typosquatters, who register a commonly misspelled variant of the true address and let the profit – or in some cases mischief – flow. We've picked ten of the most infamous cases of this kind of cybersquatting.

10. GodHatesFigs.com

Perhaps one of the more amusing cases of typosquatting was GodHatesFigs.com – a parody website of the domain GodHatesFags.com which was the property of the Westboro Baptist Church. Famous for picketing soldiers’ funerals and chanting about God’s hate for the world, the Church can’t have been pleased by the lampooning they were subjected to, with GodHatesFigs.com pointing out all the biblical references to Jesus’ dislike of figs and fig trees. The fig-scorning site is sadly no longer around.

9. Paris Hilton

This one was always going to result in some confusion. When Paris Hilton wanted to start a web presence she registered parishilton.com, as, of course, there is another, rather larger Paris out there, somewhere in France. Unfortunately this untypical modesty didn’t pay off for the socialite as somebody registered Paris.org in 2005 and started filling the website with pictures, not of the beautiful and romantic French capital, but of the bottle-blonde hotel heiress (which might come as something of a surprise following some inexpert typing). Paris has been on a roll since then, filing suit for the domain names Paris-Hilton.com, ParisHiltonPerfume.com and ParisHiltonHeiress.com among others (though none of those sites seem to be publishing Paris Hilton related content today). Meanwhile, those looking for the city of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe at Paris.org are now redirected to the Wikipedia page on Paris, France.

8. Jerry Falwell

Christian Evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell has a lot of devoted followers, but his vehemently anti-gay rhetoric has also upset many people. One such individual, Christopher Lamparello, registered the misspelling Fallwell.com (note the extra “l”) in 1999 and used the gripe site to provide accidental visitors with biblical references and scriptural sources used to argue against the fundamentalist preacher’s views on homosexuality. Falwell filed a complaint over trademark infringement, unfair competition, and cybersquatting, and the National Arbitration Forum and District Court initially decided in the preacher’s favor. However, in 2005 the decision was overturned on appeal as Lamparello’s site was non-commercial, and in 2006, the Supreme Court declined to hear a counter-appeal from Falwell.

7. Microsoft

In what has to be one of the best examples of corporate heavy-handedness, Microsoft took on a Canadian teenager by the name of Mike Rowe because the website for his part-time web design business, MikeRoweSoft.com, sounded too similar to Microsoft.com. "Since my name is Mike Rowe, I thought it would be funny to add 'soft' to the end of it," said Rowe candidly in 2004. The company charitably offered him $10 compensation, but Mike Rowe held out for $10,000. Because of his intent to profit from selling the domain to Microsoft, it was held to be cybersquatting and Rowe was handed a cease and desist order by the WIPO. The site now redirects the user to a Bing search page – currently topped by the Wikipedia article ‘Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft’.

6. Land’s End

In this case, the typosquatters took advantage of Land’s End’s online affiliate program, where website owners could earn money by directing shoppers to the website of the clothing retailer. The typosquatters did so, but rather than just directing customers via the websites they claimed they owned – PoshShops.com and ShoppersEGuide.com – they instead registered tens of mispelled variants of Land’s End’s domain name (think: lnadsend.com, klandsend.com and landsende.com… You get the drift). Mistyping shoppers would thus appear to be going directly to landsend.com but would be profiting the typosquatters and defrauding Land’s End.

5. PETA

PETA is a byword for vegetarianism, anti-fur activism and naked celebrities professing their love of same. In 1995, one Michael Doughney noticed that the domain name PETA.org was up for grabs, promptly registered it, and branded it as the internet home of "People Eating Tasty Animals," a site with links to sites promoting the sale of meats and leather goods. Understandably, perhaps, PETA was not impressed (despite a link at the bottom of the page that pointed lost visitors toward the real PETA website) and sued over alleged trademark infringement, unfair competition and cybersquatting. The district and circuit courts ruled in PETA’s favor and turned the domain name over to them, but denied their application for costs, ruling that Doughney had not acted maliciously. PETA is now based on the .org site, with PETA.com redirecting to the same location.

4. Jennifer Lopez

When fans are looking for the latest updates from singer, actress, clothing line owner and perfume-seller Jennifer Lopez, they check out JenniferLopez.com. If, however, back in 2009, they accidentally substituted a .org or a .net they would instead have been taken to “fan sites” run by Jeremiah Tieman. What's more, not only would they have missed out on the very latest information from J-Lo, but they would have been bombarded with ads and affiliate links trying to part them from their hard-earned cash. The fiery performer promptly filed suit, and in the end it was the money-making additions to the websites that cast them as cases of cybersquatting, with the domains returned to Jennifer Lopez’s Foundation. Only the .com site remains functional today.

3. Career Agents Network

The Career Agents Network was shocked to discover that when you substituted .biz for .com in their web address you ended up at a site that warned visitors to stay far away from the company; the work of a disgruntled customer who had established the site in 2009. Career Agents Network promptly filed suit, claiming cybersquatting. Unfortunately for them, the fact that the website wasn’t intended to make money meant that there was no case to answer, and the .biz site carried on happily dishing the dirt.

2. Alf Temme

When people are trying to check their email, what they really want to be doing is buying an extortionately expensive exercise machine – at least that seems to have been the thought process behind Alf Temme’s typosquatting schemes. Temme registered such typo-domains as ho0tmail.com and hot5mail.com and redirected them to his exercise website. Microsoft sued for $2.4 million, but were prepared to settle for $500,000. Temme views this as “extortion.” Maybe he could offer them some free exercise machines?

1. John Zuccarini

John Zuccarini – arguably the world's most notorious cybersquatter – was fined not once, but twice, for massive reams of registrations for domain names that were typos of child-friendly websites. The worst thing is that he wasn’t just trying to capitalize on advertising revenue for toys or candy – he was redirecting children to porn sites. The first time that he faced the authorities he was ordered to give up nearly $1.9 million in gains, and fled the country for the Bahamas, only to face imprisonment when he was discovered in a Holiday Inn in Florida. The second incident he was implicated in saw him fined $164,000, but given that he likely earned millions of dollars a year in advertising revenues, it is easy to see why he kept up his nefarious activities despite being rumbled.

Bonus Cybersquatter: Madonna.com

As a Madonna fan, it might have seemed sensible to type in Madonna.com when looking for information, interviews or tour dates relating to the Queen of Pop. Unfortunately, however, prior to a ruling by the World Intellectual Property Organization, the fan would have found not music videos (nor even information about the Catholic faith), but porn at the web address. New York resident Dan Parisi had registered the domain name, but WIPO found that he had no rights to, or legitimate interest in the domain name, which it was ruled he had registered in bad faith. Her music videos might be a little naughty, but Madonna felt that a porn website damaged her name and reputation… Which is fair enough.

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10 Most Audacious Typosquatting Cases Ever

You're exhausted from the overtime you've put in this week and if you tried to do any more work, well, you'd just make mistakes. No one wants that.

You're itching to leave but face time counts and you sure don't want to be the leader as you exit the building. So you decide to clear your head a bit while waiting out your boss and co-workers. Time for some fun and games!

I'm not recommending you sit around all day every day and play games when you're supposed to be working. That's the fast lane to the unemployment line. But there are times when you need to escape mentally and can't leave your desk. Those are the times when you should know which games you can play while at work and appear to be toiling away instead of goofing off.

Ground Rules

For a game to be a good work game, the following criteria must be met:

1. No sudden movements. Games like Fruit Ninja or Infinity Blade require intense, fast movements, a sure-fire give away that you're not editing a document or preparing a Power Point presentation.
2. No long term strategic planning required. You have to be able to play the game in short bursts in case you get interrupted by a phone call or your boss appears suddenly in the doorway. Chess or other games where you have to plan three moves ahead do not fit the bill.
3. The game must be playable on a computer or iPad, not just a smartphone. iPads are legitimately used at work. Mobile phones are too, but playing a game on a smartphone could make you appear to be texting, another way of goofing off. The idea is to look like you're working, not goofing off in another manner.
4. No sound needed to play. A game with sound effects isn't a problem because you can always mute the game. But if the game uses sounds as alerts (for example, a noise warning you that enemies are about to attack), save that game for home.
5. You must be able to exit quickly. If a game needs to be saved before closing, those extra few seconds may cost you your job.

Make sure to mute your computer and/or iPad before opening a game. No one will believe you are hard at work if sound effects are coming from your desk.

Let the Games Begin!

With those important ground rules in mind, I suggest the following games:

1. Plants vs. Zombies – while you're in a game-playing mood, why not do some good and save the world from a zombie invasion? Plants vs. Zombies is a fun shooting game that doesn't involve rapid mouse clicks, which could alert nearby co-workers that you are in game mode rather than work mode. The purpose of the game is to protect your house from Zombies by planting proper plants for your defense. The game requires strategy but is easy to close as the boss approaches. You can play online here or get the PopCap app from the iTunes App Store.

2. Clue Secrets & Spies – Clue Secrets & Spies takes you around the world to Paris, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Miami, Moscow and other exotic cities for you to explore for hidden treasures. Escape from your office doldrums by becoming a spy looking for clues in far away places!

Sometimes you need to see the big picture and other times you need to find a needle in a haystack. Clue Secrets & Spies is a needle in a haystack type of hidden object game where you look to find objects hidden in plain sight on a busy screen. You can play online through Pogo here or grab the Electronic Arts iPad app, Clues Secrets & Spies HD, from the iTunes App Store. (Word to the wise: if you don't have the iPad app yet, wait until a holiday weekend when the prices of Electronic Arts game apps typically drop by about 90%).

3. Mahjong – this classic Chinese puzzle game is ideal for work because it's easy to learn but difficult to master. Mahjong is a solitaire game that uses tiles instead of playing cards. The tiles are arranged in various patterns and you try to clear the board by matching tiles along the edges of the board.

Sounds easy, right? Well, not exactly. Many of the tiles are inaccessible because they either aren't on the edge or are hidden by other tiles. Your job is to clear the tiles to access other pairs. What appears to be the easiest move is often the wrong move that will come back to haunt you later when you discover the tiles you need are trapped by other tiles.

You can play for free online or download the feature-filled Shanghai Mahjong app from the iTunes App store for your iPad (also compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch).

4. Bookworm – this puzzle word game is devilishly clever and will keep you fascinated for hours. Bookworm is a PopCap game that isn't your typical word search game. To get your highest score you try to make bonus words and use bonus tiles for extra points. Strategy is key as you form shorter words to move tiles into position so you can make longer words. Just be careful to avoid letting burning tiles and obscure letters (Qu, Z, X, etc.) get to the bottom of the board.

Bookworm is available to play online here. Make extra sure to mute your volume before opening up this site! This game is also available in the iTunes App Store as an iPhone game but plays well when you expand it onto the iPad screen.

5. Farmville – this popular Zynga game on Facebook allows you to escape to the countryside even when you're stuck inside the four walls of your office. I wouldn't suggest scheduling your crops to be ready for harvesting during work hours, but you can visit neighbors' farms, collect gifts, grab collectibles that are posted, send gifts to neighbors and check on your trees and livestock from the comfort of your desk.

6. Sudoku – if you have been working with words all day, consider taking a break with numbers. Sudoku fits the bill by giving you a challenging game you can pick up easily and put down quickly. Sudoku is a combination puzzle and math game where you enter numbers 1-9 in a grid so that no number is repeated in a row, column or region. I like this online Sudoku game because it allows you to choose your level and enter pencil marks. Pencil marks are hints to yourself of possible numbers to enter into a square. These are always handy in Sudoku, but especially useful at work when you could be interrupted at any minute.

7. Scrabble – if you work with numbers all day, an escape to a word game might be just the ticket. You can either play Scrabble online at Pogo's website or play on your iPad with the official Electronic Arts app available at the iTunes App Store.

Another fun way to play Scrabble is with the app Words with Friends. Play against strangers online and take days to craft your response to their move if you wish. Words with Friends is available free at the iTunes App Store

8. Tetris – the original addictive computer puzzle game, Tetris, continues to be popular and is available in many formats. The idea is to drop shapes of four blocks down to the bottom of the screen to make a solid row. One the row is filled in, the blocks in that row disappear. If the blocks pile up to the top of the screen, Game Over. This game is simple to learn but a challenge to master. There are many sites to play online, but I recommend this one Tetris Friends as it provides different game modes so you can play by yourself, online one on one or against a group of players. I also like that the controls utilize the keyboard so you really can look like you're entering data when you're really just playing and having fun!

9. Peggle – this fun game from PopCap is a combination of Pachinko, pinball and skill. You take aim at colored pegs and shoot your ball at them to score points. You try to eliminate all of the orange pegs while also trying to hit the purple pegs for extra points. At higher levels you have the help of the Peggle Masters who give you extra powers to make your quest a bit easier. As the levels increase, you will need their help to overcome the Peggle obstacles because even a perfect bank shot won't work all the time!

There are too many fun aspects of this game to list, but do be sure to play the game at home once in a while as the sound effects are inspirational! You can play Peggle online here or grab the Peggle app from the iTunes App Store.

10. Angry Birds – You may have heard about this über popular game but if you haven't ever played it, you should give it a try. The game is available online or as an app, in many forms. You have your choice of Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio and Angry Bird Seasons. The games differ enough to keep you interested for hours on end. There's a reason that all three versions of the game are consistently in the top 10 in the  iTunes App Store, they're fun! Check out Angry Birds online here and Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Seasons in the iTunes App Store.

 
The only problem with playing Angry Birds at work is the addiction issue. Many people start playing the game innocently only to discover they are hooked. To avoid this happening to you, please watch this important video:

One treatment and your addiction is cured!

Bottom Line

If you need a break, go ahead and take one, just don't get caught. These games will help you find a little distraction from the crazy work world so you can clear your head before returning to the job at hand or unwind before heading home.

Do you play games at work? Do you have any favorites you'd like to suggest? Let us know in the Comments section below!

* Image by Anshu

** Image by Ellen

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Sinful: 10 Games You Can Play During Work