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Starting the ridiculous round of investment in such a terrible idea. Continue doing this, and the end will definitely be near. This is so bad I will even give them a link (though I’ve decided it should contain the anchor text “squidoo crackbaby”). Seriously - if you guys are GIVING away money to shit like this, I’ve got an awesome bridge in Brooklyn that we can put google ads on. Scraped content commented on by people who are too lazy to get a real job? I’m sure the quality control level should stay very high, and there will be no incentive for payoffs on terms like “mortgage” (because that never happend on dmoz). Why not listen to some folks that know about search, and social media for investment advice and ideas in the space, instead of a guy with a giant ego that knows how to job jump? This cute little hawaiian phrase is gonna be the pets.com sock puppet of this era. Maybe high risk is good, but putting the money into this project is just the first sign that NO ONE with the money has much of a clue what is really going on, and that they’re only going to learn the economics of search the really hard way. Please stop the madness. I generally try to only write positively - but this was just too much to take without ranting, after all the BS we’ve seen spewed from this man just to get a reaction.
Search engine optimization is misunderstood and despised by those who have had consistently failed at using it, or have been repeatedly beaten by those who were successful with it. These failures often stem from not understanding the dynamics of the behind the scenes battles that go on for search positioning. It is also a shame to see bright new folks not understanding the field in which they work. It is one thing to be ambitious and competitive - it is quite another to be outright delusional about what you can accomplish. Success is often created by knowing where to start, and how to scale, and which battles will be lost before they are ever fought. A smart general (or SEO) never fights a battle unless they KNOW they can win. This post is intended to be a guide to understanding the fight that takes place for every single search result, and how to know which battles have acceptable odds based on the competition.
If you earned your Google Adwords certification close to when the program was launched, it’s about time to re-take your test, and prove you’re still qualified. If you’re like, me, and don’t do a whole lot of PPC, this could be tough. (I mainly do basic audits as a value add to SEO consulting). I retook the test late last week, and thought I’d put together a quick post on some resources for learning adwords more effectively, and help for taking the test. Many folks will likely be retaking the test soon, since it’s 2 years after the program launched, and it is a requirement to retake the test to maintain your status.
Lawrence Coburn, of 
