SEO Competition

[MrLeN]

Who wants an SEO competition?

I think it would be really fun!

What we do is this:

We choose [decide upon] a keyphrase to go for. Then we have to build a 5 page stand alone site from scratch. Everything has to be made my the SEO.

We just have to get someone who has good popularity to sponser us and host the sites. What we can do is allow say 3 days for anyone who wants to enter ..to post here!

Then, we get the sites ready and upload them to someones site (that already has a good popularity status) ..or it would be kinda beside the point. I would offer my site but I only started building it 3 days ago lol ..so can't be much good with popularity.

So, who wants to have a go? ..and who wants to host us?

The prize is WORLD fame and an award saying "WebProWorld SEO champion!"

Anyone?

Let's see all the SEO's have a battle!

MrLeN

[flood6]

That sounds cool! Why would we need a host with popularity, for the sake of making the SE's notice us quicker? Some of the chosen keywords/phrases could be made up so that we would only be competing with each other, and some actual where we compete with the general internet population.
Like:

1. snublle frudders

2. clipboard

3. smoom hufter

Then designate some guidelines like is cloaking permitted. Human useability standards. Which engines we will use to judge by. Can we use inbound links, etc.

Keep the ideas coming.

[Dolphin]

Hi!

Did you do this competition yet?
Who won?
I hope this was fun!
Curious minds want to know.....

[MrLeN]

nope.. looks like no one's interested.

MrLeN

[Black Knight]

Many SEOs have already been competing for years. Just choose one of the obvious phrases like "web marketing" or "search engine optimization" and away you go. ;)

[MrLeN]

That sounds all knowledgeable and stuff ..but really, I stated my way for a reason. To make a competition.

That's like saying: "people have been racing cars for years .." just get in your car and go around the racetrack yourself on a weekend when no one is there :)


MrLeN

[Black Knight]

I disagree with your analogy.

It seems to me that the real competition has been running for years, where people actually stake their business on it.

<advocate type="devil's">
Isn't your way rather like holding a boxing competition to find the best boxer in the world without actually including the professionals? Wouldn't the simplest way be to simply join the association/league that already exists and challenge the current champions? Especially since you mention a title.

A top, professional chef is unlikely to compete in a local bake-off. Its not that its beneath his dignity, its just that he has absolutely nothing to gain from it. His career is proof enough. These games are for amatuers and wannabes aren't they? The chef does this day in, day out and is hardly going to take time off his paid work to do the same thing for nothing, with nothing to gain from it. He already proves himself daily where it really counts, why waste valuable time to do it again where it doesn't?
</advocate>

In short, far from suggesting racing around an empty track, I'm saying that if you want to know who is the best formula1 driver, you need to race in the F1 grand prix, not around the local parking lot.

[MrLeN]

ok..

..are there any amateurs and wannabe's that don't make money online that would like to have an SEO competition.

**Professional SEO'ers ..do not apply!**

This is for real idiots that would like to fumble for a title that's not worth having.

(lol) sound better? :)

Not trying to be nasty ..just thought that maybe not everyone here is "professional" ..but would enjoy (and possibly learn from) some friendly competition.

Imagine if the schools didn't have school sports, or if there was no special olympics. Imagine if there was no egg and spoon races or local tennis courts for people that couldn't hit a tennis ball with the wing of a jumbo jet ..because those that would organise such events for those that aren't so .."great"(?) have better things to do.

MrLeN

[flood6]

Hi, my name is Damian, and I am an amateur web designer and a wannabe SEO expert.

If my websites were pies, I would be an amateur baker. If my SEO attempts were cars, they'd be Pintos with bald tires and a brown door; I would be more than happy to race it around the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. If there is a Mario Andretti of web design, I have yet to see him on the WebProWorld forums.

A small, limited competition would be interesting because of its limited competition. Like mine, many of the sites you find on this forum are "amateurish", many of the self styled professionals here are new to the game. Again, I include myself in both of these groups. I have no delusions that I can make a site that Time-Warner or Microsoft would look at and say, "Wow, somebody get this guy on the phone so he can redo our websites!".

I have started to get to know certain personalities on this site, this familiarity is pretty much the intention of forums as a "web-based community". Such competition fosters the sense of community. Instead of competing with 100 people I will never talk to, I could have MrLen talking some good hearted trash about my latest SEO attempt, right next to me reading Janeth's latest site review.

I'm not trying to dispute any points BlackKnight made, they are certainly valid. I just can't imagine a more appropriate place to spawn an "amateur and wannabe" SEO competition.

[janeth]

Hi flood6 and everyone else,

Not sure why I was brought into this and rather you where being nice or mean to me but since my name was brought into I will give my two cents.

I think a competition would be great.

I also see Black Knight's comments and would have to say that when you take a new website and put it up against a five year old website it will take time to compete for those key words.

I'm not sure how old Black Knight's website is and I'm sure that it ranks good but I would bet it is a lot older then mine.

My site is about 8 months old and I did not work on it the first two months.

Then I worked on it for a couple months and had to stop because we got more work then we could do.

I'm ranked for about 50 something key words in the top 20 on Google alone and hold the same pr as Black Knight.


I only learned English about a year ago and I'm sure there are a lot of little tricks and things that Black Knight knows that I do not.

But my point is this if in six months I have gotten ranked for over 40 different key word phrases and have got the same pr5 as Black Knight I wonder where I will be in another 6 months.

Because your ahead on this word or that word does not necessary make you better it just means you have been doing it longer.

When you want to compete for a key word like "web marketing" that just happens to be in your url you already have a very big unfair advantage.


To try and make people feel bad for wanting to have a competition I think is just.... mean.


My point about my site compared to yours is this. You never know where everyone is going to be in another year or who you may need.


So just because your baker does not want to be in the bake fest does not mean he should be mean to the other cooks.

His boss may eat some of the other food and hire the old cook a new boss.


My English is not as good as yours and I may have trouble bringing my point across but that's life.
There is my two cents.

[flood6]

Originally Posted by Janeth

Hi flood6 and everyone else,

Not sure why I was brought into this and rather you where being nice or mean to me.

To side step the major point here: I was not trying to be mean. It just seems that you (and Rocky1 for that matter) seem to have reviewed nearly every website that is submitted to the review forum. Since I was hitting on the "community" point, it just seemed to be good illistration.

I hope Black Knight doesn't think I was taking a stab at him, either. I agree with his point. I just seem to think a competition would be fun and entertaining.

[Black Knight]

Great points all round. :)

My only contention was with 2 specific things in the original post:

The prize is WORLD fame and an award saying "WebProWorld SEO champion!"

and

Let's see all the SEO's have a battle!

I just wanted to make it clear that not all the SEOs, even at WebPro World, were likely to take part.

As a bit of fun, it is certainly a good idea, but you have to be careful not to blow it out of proportion.

Janeth, SEO is actually very easy, and if the site you're using for comparison is the first one in my sig file, then that's cool. But there's a trick to that site... Not one penny has ever been spent on it.

It is just a hobby site where I store some of my articles, and was designed as a test site. I update it very rarely, offer no commercial services through it, and yet it still rivals and exceeds many commercial sites that people have spent a lot of time and cash on.

It was all built around an idea from one of the first parts ever built on it:
Do you need big budgets for web promotions?

The site exists purely to be living proof that you don't need to spend a single penny on web promotion, even in the most competitive markets, provided you have the skills to make up for it. I even give away those skills freely here, on that site, and in other forums, but it will take years to master them.

It doesn't hurt my business to give away the 'secrets' because, quite honestly, no-one who has the patience to spend the three years and more to truly master all of those things was ever a potential customer anyway. :)

[janeth]

Hi Black Knight,
actually I went to your site and spent a lot of time reading what you have to say. There is a lot of information on your site and for different reasons I have also never spent the first Penney on my site other then hosting and domain name. As I learn things I try and write and add the information in my site. I can be wrong from time to time but since there are no set of rules on how everything works given out in any detail from Goolge that is just part of the job.
But yes you have a very nice site and I have no time for a competition as I'm having to work 20 hours a day trying to keep up but I did not see the harm in it.
I think that the reason it is hard to compete for key words for the biggest part is because of the amount of links most of those sites have coming into them.
Thanks,
Janeth

[simonm]

Web Management is a particular aspect that is dear to my heart, it encompasses both SEO, page rank, web site stats and monitoring, communicating with the customer. I don't actually sell it outside the companies I support however I would like to broadcast a bit more about it.

So I think my own personal challenge is going to be to get on the 1st 20 results on Google within say 3 months for the term 'web management'

NB I've also chosen this term because I can't see any of the web sites of regular contributors to webproworld listed on Google high up against it.

As to a competition between webproworld members. No I'm not for that as we would have to set very strict rules which would be too easy to break. SE positioning relies too much on so many aspects. To an extent, the winner is the person whose backward links include the highest page rank - not necessarily the best page optimisation.

[JayDrake]

Personally I think a competition for fun and learning experience is a great idea. I like the idea of using meaningless or unreal search terms so as not to disrupt anyone who is really searching for a given term.

As for looking at the professionals who compete for terms like 'search engine optimization' and jumping into that to join the real contest, I think the logic behind the statement is flawed. It assumes first off that those who would enter the contest are SEO professionals or have some other reason to want to be listed well for those phrases. It also makes for a poor competition because you are not starting on even ground. If you -can- topple the #1 spot, you have done something spectacular.

On the other hand, to start a competition that lasts from date x through date y gives people who wish to do SEO for their own purposes, not necessarily as their prime profession and start on even ground. If SEO professionals also were in the competition that would only spice things up a little as the new guy on the block gets a chance to see how their work rates in comparison.

In the interest of keeping the battleground level, resources might need be considered. I would think that someone who has several sites with reasonably high PR could link to their contest page and obliterate the other opponents. I suppose it would be like sending 30 more players onto the field on your side in a football game.

For better or worse, I'm interested in playing. :)