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The question that always arises when SEO is mentioned are the ethics that are involved. As many know there are all varieties of SEO Black White even Blue. Some extremists believe that anything goes, others believe anything that displaces their website is wrong. As to where the line should be drawn in the sand, I am yet unsure, but with all the different shades, I ask you:

Which color of SEO does Google prefer?

Got it? Keep that hold of that thought and keep reading.

First off you would answer WhiteHat SEO, because its provides real valuable content to the end user. This is Google’s goal isn’t it? To offer the best service to their users.

Now take a step back:

Lets take a look at some of the higher PageRank and TrustRank pages:
ShoeMoney, TechCrunch, GreyWolf’s Blog, CopyBlogger, and Pronet Advertising.

How many Google Adsense ads do you see?

Very Few.

Now let me ask you? What is Google’s biggest cashcow?

Adsense/Adwords.

With Google’s revenue totaling $10.604 Billion in 2006. It is obvious they are making money, but how if the big traffic sites arn’t pushing their Adwords/Adsense?

A typical BlackHat can toss up a 20,000 page niche site and get it indexed in a matter of hours/days. With many BlackHats using Adsense as part of their game plan it seems they are not the only one benefiting from this relationship. I’m sure Google doesn’t mind the few pennies generated each day from every page a good BlackHat puts up.

Now we have reached the ethical dilemma: How to provide the best SERPS without hurting revenue.

Most BlackHat Spam sites last in Google’s SERPS for about 3 weeks to several months - Some get banned earlier, Some later. Once they are banned these sites often still receive traffic from Yahoo! and MSN. Though these other Search Engines do not drive near the amount of traffic Google can, this slow trickle still generates big momma G revenue.

So next time you think Google only likes WhiteHat SEO’s, you may want to rethink this. I would suggest Google doesn’t care what shade of SEO you are, as long as you are making them money. Take that for food for thought.

Recently, Markus and I launched a Valentines campaign on Facebook targeting students in the Central Florida area.

The offer was a typical cell phone dating offer,
which could potentially be very appealing to many desperate college students. Our budget was small but, our flier ran 10,000 times at the University of Central Florida, 2,500 times at Rollins College, 2,500 times at Valencia Community College, and 2,500 times at FullSail. As I had expected our click through ratio was surprisingly low. With a total of 17,500 impressions we received a slim 20 clicks which lead to zero conversions.

This is by no means conclusive evidence, obviously, in order to understand the full potential of Facebook as a targeted marketing medium testing will need to be done on a much larger scale.

Recently Rae also launched a similar Facebook campaign with 25,000 impressions. I look forward to seeing her results to see if maybe we can see a trend starting to form. Hopefully she will post them sometime soon

If time and money were not a factor I would love to run a 100,000/day impression campaign at each of these schools over a several week period. With this type of analytical data we should start to see a trend starting to form.

I see Facebook as being a great place to brand your company but don’t try advertising there if you are looking for conversions.

Recently, Rae from Sugarrae posted about the rise of Facebook as a targeted marketing medium. As a college student myself I know all to well about Facebook. As an incoming freshman Facebook was just beginning to catch on. I remember spending 2-3 hours a day browsing everything from who were in my classes to who the cute girl that lived down the hall was. Within the past year Facebook opened the flood gates. A medium of expression that was once exclusive to college students was opened to every high school across the United States. People were awestruck when this happened. I vividly remember standing near the free speech lawn as students proposed a boycott of Facebook. I though to myself are they serious?

Shortly after opening Facebook to high school students it was opened to the masses. Many users though it could be the MySpace killer, having never used MySpace because of the annoyances associated with it, I agreed with many of my fellow students.

Another major change of Facebook caught many college students by surprise was the change to the Facebook “Home” Page. I remember having a debate in my Digital Media class as to whether or not this new page was an invasion of privacy. Facebook had begun using RSS feeds to let fellow students know “up to the minute” what was going on in their friend lives. Once again students on the free speech lawn were proposing a facebook boycott. This time I joined in.

Since Facebook has beefed up their privacy settings I have become a regular user again, checking it 3-5 times a week. By no means am I a Facebook Addict. But Rae’s post made me ask myself what if I was?

Today while I was on campus and around the fraternity house I asked several of my friends whom I know are addicted to Facebook if they ever clicked or paid any attention to the ads on the side column of Facebook. After asking 25 total people this same question 23 people said they never pay any attention to them. To tell you the truth I was downright astonished.

I would love to get my hands on some real information regarding the click threw rates of Facebook Fliers.

This said I think I may do some testing with the valentines promotion and see how my results are. If college students are that apathetic about advertisements then maybe the advertisers that can afford to publish more than just “Fliers” are really just wasting their money.