Marketing Pilgrim

As reported last week, China told Google that they didn’t want their pornography. Google filters for pornography on their Chinese site weren’t living up to the standard of the China’s main watchdog, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center, so they were asked to make improvements. In one of the few (maybe the only?) places where Google does not dominate the search landscape it was wondered if they would move quickly to meet the demands or just continue to “work on it.”

They worked on it and apparently have removed at least some of the issues that were of concern to the Chinese Internet overseer. According to PC Advisor

I’ve been lucky enough to make some good industry friends over the years. Ben Wills is certainly high on that list and I’ve worked with him at two previous companies–including making him my VP of Operations at my last search marketing company.

Ben’s search engine optimization experience is second-to-none and he’s always had an (you could say “unhealthy”) interest in link building–being the guy that insisted we include link-building in our services, back when link-building wasn’t popular. Today, Ben’s the founder of his own company, Ontolo, and provides link-building services with a high-degree of scientific analysis.

I wanted to introduce you to Ben’s company, but didn’t want to just serve-up a recommendation on a plate. Instead, I made Ben spill the beans on his tactics for link building. Here’s the Q&A:

It only took Yahoo 8 months to react to Google’s AdWords display ad builder thingymajig.

AdAge reports that Yahoo decided not to build its own ad builder technology, instead partnering with Seattle-based start-up AdReady. With Yahoo’s My Display Ads…

…Advertisers can pick creative off the shelf from more than 800 display ad templates — including dancing cellphones, ads proclaiming "Amazing Values" or countdown clocks — or bring their own…Ads can be purchased on a cost-per-thousand impression basis or as part of a cost-per-click auction. The ad inventory fed into the system includes both Yahoo-owned and network properties through Yahoo’s Right Media exchange.

In the Google, Facebook and Twitter swirl of news and rumors that we all tend to concentrate there is that other guy, MySpace, that is still lurking about. Unfortunately, as news is coming out that there are layoffs and office closings on the international front, it may be appropriate to say that MySpace is limping about.

MySpace has already trimmed its domestic operations so this move comes as little surprise. TechCrunch UK is reporting this update and has the internal e-mail that was sent to employees regarding the move. (Note to self, nothing – repeat nothing – is private for a company anymore) Here are some highlights.

From: Owen Van Natta
Subject: IMPORTANT: PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL RESTRUCTURE
Importance: High

Everyone,

I’m going to say what most people will think when they read the news that former Ask.com CEO Jim Safka is back in the saddle again.

Did he really leave Ask.com for the stated reason that his brother had died?

Don’t get me wrong–losing a family member is crushing–but at the time, I couldn’t help but wonder if Ask.com was covering up Safka’s real reason for leaving.

It turns out that I don’t have to feel too guilty about my theory. In an interview–that appears to focus more on Ask.com than his new company Chegg–Safka reveals that his brother’s death was not indeed the only reason he left the company.

To help all procrastinators, we’ve decided to extend the deadline for our $10,000 SEM Scholarship contest until 6pm ET Wednesday.

You now have an additional two days to submit your 400+ word article on the topic of SEO, PPC, or social media.

Please help spread the word by clicking the blue Twitter icon (or any of the social media icons) below this post.

Thanks!