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I don't know what the old URL was (or even if it was different) but it now takes me to:
http://my.ezinearticles.com/

The old one was http://members.ezinearticles.com

Local SEO and Searches 5th January 2012 3:26 PM
Well what ever Google might be up too, but what i have witnessed is that in order to get a website ranked up with in a local search engine, you website should be hosted with in the same region of the local search engine. Other wise preforming SEO could be very difficult.....

I would have to strongly disagree, it may help a little, but it is not a contributing factor.

Local SEO is what I like to do, but local seo is more Google Places now.

I currently have a site that is top 5 in organic listings, and I dont really care that much about its organic rankings because its 1st on Google Places and its at the top. I get all the traffic I need and want to it.

This would probably apply to most people here, if you have an office or home that is in your area that you wish to rank for, then Google Places (if done right) is better than normal seo.
So a few months in, hows it going? Or you still at the planning stage?

Well I have the site up, but put it on the back burner for now. I personally think it has the potential but I dont have the time or the budget to get it rolling as of yet. So for now its just gaining some age

But what I can say is great about it is, for Google Places. I can have my own citations for any business I want in or around the area.

But for now, for now I would need to work on my sales skills so that I can go out and sell it, then later on may be get a sales team from the profits.

Doing other more interesting things at the moment :P
Tbh i never thought that there was much point to having a mobile site, but I am starting to see in one of my websites, that 10-20% is from mobiles. This does make sense that mobiles would use it as its an emergency or if you need it quick. Plus it is first on google places so makes sense.
Why can't SEO's be performance based? 23rd December 2011 1:26 AM
Firstly I kinda guessed that it was large companies. I personally would love to see nothing more than my company grow big and be an industry leader, but realistically I know that if it does happen I would need to employ people and that I wouldn't be able to have a hand on things as I do now. I personally don't like to give out my clients work as proof, I do how ever own my own site that I am currently in the mists of leasing out, I got this for proof.

Hmmm apart from purchasing the domain name and having the website built a few years ago, I've never spent spent a penny on it as far as seo goes, where as my other site I have spent thousands on over the last 6 years or so. And even now if I rang up an seo company to take a look at the site, I guarantee the first thing they would say is...... "You need links" my ears just shut down at this point. I've said it before 10 different seo guru's = 10 different opinions. I think the worse seo company I got involved with was based in Scotland I got sucked into paying them nearly
Why can't SEO's be performance based? 21st December 2011 2:05 AM
Several actually, the problem is like all things you learn all the time about the scams on the internet. Many will have a nice glossy well presented website, with lots of technical waffle which they've obviously taken say from the likes of Matt Cutts, often refer to him and reconstruct what he has written. Some will name big blue chip companies as clients, when in fact their sole client is a local guy who delivers turf. But it is all industries that are involved in scamming. I personally wont use any business that hide behind the banner of a virtual office, because when things go wrong the virtual office will be of no help whatsoever because they protect the scammer.... We have scammer targeting the plumbing industry at the moment, head office is in the very plush Bond St area of London, promising lots of work to plumbers with a guaranteed 400 jobs a year, they want
Why can't SEO's be performance based? 19th December 2011 5:11 AM
BBC - Watchdog: Rogue Traders: Express Plumbing Ltd

It happens everywhere.. Thats the point I was trying to make..

The reason your industry is so heavily regulated is because it involves more of health and saftey of other people.

I assume you have been burnt by an SEO company then?
SEO - how not to do it! 19th December 2011 5:06 AM
Thanks for clarification, James. I did random check as per report, I had 700 links added in October and 100 recently, how long do I have to wait before they are indexed by the search engines or other tools?

My site is registered on Dmoz but not Yahoo. Yahoo charges $299 pa.

Well it depends really on how often search engines and tools visit the site to determine when it will index thus making it hard to say.

Now because some of these are directories I am thinking most of the links that you got are from directories and some tools just dont list these in a blacklink reports... Don't ask my why they just don't. I have submitted sites to over 2000 directories and it only shows up a few in my tools. Now if these were better links then I would expect them to show up but because they are not I wouldn't be too worried.

Thats great that your on dmoz, and yeah yahoo does charge which why it adds more value because not everyone is going to pay for that.

Let me just say something because people on here can seem to come across as very scared of even a hint of spammy/blackhat type links. It is unlikely that it will hurt you (especially you with only 800 links) google is not going to throw you out of its search engine because of that. now if you got thousands upon thousands in a short space of time then yeah then it will raise a flag.

I just don't want you to lose sleep over it (in your case). Think about it, if I was your competitor and I knew all I had to do was get a few spammy links to your site then google will through you out.. then (depending on the morals of the competitor) I could easily just take you out. Instead google just doesnt value the links. Thats all.
SEO - how not to do it! 17th December 2011 7:39 PM
Firstly do some random checks from the reports to see if your links are actually there, do just a few to make sure.

A reason for your links not showing up in some places is because your link has not been indexed by Google or various other tools and search engines yet. This basically mean they don't know about the link yet because they haven't visited the site since its been added.

I personally don't user Alexa rank, I go and see where my site is ranked in the search engines to see my progress

Well to make it as simple as possible, every link that points to your site carries some kind of value or weight to your site. All of these links then adds up and thats how google determines where to rank you (among other factors as well) So if you can get a link from lets say a really high authority site e.g. bbc to your website, that will carry a huge amount of value to your site and google will love and praise your site.

Where as directories (most of them not all) are seen as low quality sites and a link from a directory just won't budge your site enough to make a difference. Don't get me wrong i use directories, after all its links, it adds diversity to your link building strategy.

The few big directories that are definitely worth it, is yahoo directory and dmoz.
SEO - how not to do it! 16th December 2011 10:42 PM
I had seo done on my site, I ordered whitehat seo, but how do I know that the links I get are whitehat not blackhat or spammy links?

Well you can always ask for a report of what they have done. If they refuse its may be dodgy but their are valid reason why they might not want to share where they got their links from.

If they don't want to give you a report, then there are various tools out there that find all the links pointing to your site and then sends out a report. But this might not be that practical as the best tools cost money and its normally a cost that SEO'ers or SEO companies pay for.

Can I ask what where the terms of your order? You can pm me if you want.

Edit: Just had a quick look using one of my tools: you got 146 links to your site (thats including from your own site as well e.g. internal links) Most of them are directories. So either they did these links very recently and it hasnt updated on my tool or you paid for directories (which isnt really spammy but it isnt worth anything really)