The First Philippine Search Engine Marketing Conference

It's finally happening in the Philippines! The First Philippine Search Engine Marketing Conference. The venue will be at the Hotel Intercontinental, Makati in #1 Ayala Avenue, Makati City , Philippines. There will special packages waiting for the early bird and those who have special qualifications such as students and government employees. The conference will last for two days and will feature some of the biggest names in the Search Engine Marketing business here in the Philippines and in the United States.

SEMCON List of Speakers

Below are the following list of great and talented speakers of the SEMCON Philippines. Since this will be the first ever here in the Philippines, it is expected that this effort will be a success, making the reservations end even earlier than the actual date of the conference at September 15 while the event is on October 9, 2007.

Aaron Wall of SEO Book - Made popular with his teachings in the SEO Book, Aaron wall is a popular blogger and search engine marketing specialist and has been part and parcel of many ezines today by virtue of his works and reputation in the SEO world.
Prashant Mehta - Yahoo Vice President for Monetization and Sales on Emerging Markets.
Jonathan Casuncad - Currently the Search Engine Marketing Manager of Netbooster Asia, a French-based company targeting the Asian region with office here in the Philippines. Jonathan is also one of the best in the Philippines and a pioneer in the Search Engine Marketing arena since 2000 and has worked for several companies in the Philippines, helping them earn the top positions and convert visits into sales with their business sites.
Benj Arriola - The world renowned champion of the past world SEO contest on "global warming" awareness. Benj is a chemist at heart and loves computers where his SEM career started to boom back in the year 1997.
Giovanna Villanueva-Wall - CEO at KitchenCabinetMart.com
Jayvee Fernandez - Channel Editor for Technology at B5 Media Inc.
Elymar Apao - Professional Search Engine Marketer at Jozzua.com. He used to be Marketing Manger of Amphil Tech Inc.
Rhiza Sanchez - The artist guitar chic who loves to shoot with her new Nikon D40 for her free time. Rhiza is SEO project Manager at MBS Tek Inc. and a graduate of University of the Philippines (U.P.) in Diliman, Quezon City on BA Communications Research.
Michael Turner - CEO at Harvest SEO, a search engine and internet services company based in Cagayan De Oro, Philippines.
Todd Malicoat - Internet Marketing Consultant at Stuntdubl.com and in to pay per click management and campaign.
Derek Callow - Regional Marketing Manager of Google in the Southeast Asia Region.
Joel Sangria - Online Sales and Operations Manager of Google Southeast Asia.
Hans Koch - Known for his Click Fraud report in the BBC and his Clciking Who in Wired magazine, Hans is also co-founder and search architect of Syndeo Media.
Marc Macalua - Founder of SEO Philippines.
Andrian Lee - The Marketing Director of Philippines & Emerging Market at AsiaPay Philippines.
Jay Estaris - IT Director and CIO at Century Properties, Inc.
Faith Ponte - Marketing and Web Services Head at Bigfoot Global Solutions Inc.
Dustin Andaya - IslandRose.Net Marketing Director, the largest distributor, retailer and whole sailer of roses in the Philippines.
Abe Olandres - Popular with his common name which his friends and web partners as Yuga, Abe is a Problogger at Yugatech.com and a well respected professional of the blogging community.
Regnard Raquedan - Reg is a local Ambassador for the User Experience Network (UXnet) and User Group Manager of Adobe User Group in the Philippines and has enormous background in web design and development.
Jose Carlo Medina - JC is the Director of New Media, Level Up! Games, the leading game publisher in the Philippines.

If you want to avail of discounts and other packages, you can visit the actual website of SEMCON and see the details.

Web Free Hosting is Offering Free Web Hosting Services

We are currently offering free web hosting. For those who are interested in getting a slot on our list, please visit Web Free Hosting and you will find out about the details of the free web hosting offer. Or you can try and see some of the amenities below.

We offer absolutely free, professional web hosting services with the following features;

• 50MB Disk space
• 1GB Monthly bandwidth
• Free CPanel with Fantastico
• Unlimited email addresses (example@example.com)
• Unlimited subdomains
• Popular scripts included in Fantastico
  • WordPress 2.2.1
  • phpBB2
  • Coppermine Photo Gallery
• Many more!

When you sign up for your free web hosting account, you would also be receiving free SEO analysis and recommendation for you website along with free manual directory submission to over 2,000 free web directories.

Hurry!!! sign up now your domains for a different experience.

Sam Casuncad on Search Engine Spamming

How do you really define "spamming"? Is there a context to this "one vague word"? Is there really such a thing as spamming or is this just used to judge people and label them as one. Getting back in the early days, where the race to the top of the search engines is by way of spamming them and gaining the top of the charts would you really still rely on doing so? These are just few of the questions that i would like to clarify for the benefit of clearing things out, specially the cobwebs in my mind these past few days. If in the early days, spamming is a way by which you could gain the prestige of your website/s being on top of the SERPs, today, spamming has become the culprit to many negative labels to many webmasters and i guess it included me this time. Yes!!! I (Sam Casuncad)have spammed just to gain positive results and i do not in any circumstance deny and regret doing so, specially if it has taught me the biggest lesson in my SEO career. And now my question is if there is a single SEO here or anywhere in the world who hasn't spammed at all. I bet most would deny because of its reputation as a word these days. Luckily, i started to believe a saying from a friend and a brother that "You don't become an SEO until you have spammed". This might sound wrong to most and maybe many would even criticize this post someday

Sam Casuncad - Spamming for a Newbie in SEO

Although not only newbie SEO like me would sometimes resort to spamming the search engines, spamming is still spamming for me but there is a big difference between the ways to spam using black hat high tech tactics and the ways to spam using honest promotion. Nevertheless they both fall on the same case which is "SPAMMING". The only difference between them is that, spamming way of a newbie is much more appearing an honest spamming and deserves at least a second look before being judged. Although of course it is still a way not to be followed by any as I would suggest upon learning that there are people who would seem to love bringing others down rather than teach them how to do it better so as not to spam. There is of course another difference between teaching a lesson to spammers and putting them down. If you put down an aspiring newbie SEO like me (Sam Casuncad) and if you teach me a lesson the hard way by giving my name a label you see fits me, I do not blame you. I just got carried away and got over excited about my ways to getting on top the next day and did not really intend to spam as much as other professional spammer would. But is it enough to destroy an aspiring newbie SEO knowing that he did use an honest way to do so unlike those black hat spammers we have encountered almost every single second in our blogging life?

This is just my way to explain myself on the latest case of spamming i (Sam Casuncad) have been involved lately and no more. I am really sorry for it but I do not regret doing so because it has taught me the biggest and most important lesson in my SEO search for answers to questions. Unluckily, I have been put down by some people and I do not blame them because of the nature of my mistake. A mistake is a mistake and however I try to explain myself would i guess do no justice to what I have done. No sorry would take things back also for me. This is just to clear things out with how I feel for some people in the SEO community who would prefer taking down others rather than teaching them a lesson the better way to avoid spamming. If my (Sam Casuncad) mistake made me unprofessional as an SEO, my question is how will you consider labelling yourself then by saying these words below?

• Isn't that amazing - it must have been delayed a little to coincide with the release of Vista ;)

  The stupid thing is there are so many ways for a professional SEO to build up their links just blogging with useful professional advise, they shouldn't need to spam links to ruin their reputation.

  ("The problem is now that anyone who looks up the guys name in Google will most likely find this post in the first page of results."

  Maybe I should also tag it slightly more so I have a few more potential landing pages.)
  

"Now, does the word in bold letters make you the more of a professional SEO and the better one?" Just a question though...Who ever you are, i do not intend to make others see that you are at fault here, "NO YOU ARE NOT AT FAULT". I am the one who made the mistake and i should suffer for it but I only wish my mistake would have been not enough to destroy my (Sam Casuncad) reputation as a newbie in SEO and coming from a professional such as you. You yourself have been on my shoes and I believe you also started as a newbie and you must know how it feels for me having been labeled as UNPROFESSIONAL SEO. I admit, I am no professional and i don't know how to use professional ways to spam. Nevertheless, I would like to thank you for teaching me a lesson. This post has no relation to the feeling of getting even with what you did to my name permanently and if you seem to enjoy doing it, then I have no right to question you about it. This is all about how I feel and I know I deserve this one as a little respect from other professionals in the SEO community and from myself. For now, I’ll take this as a challenge.

Today, I learned that if you get to work in Dubai, you will receive your salary for the month without any tax deduction. This means that if you have a work contract that indicates you will get paid at a certain amount, then that same certain amount is what you will get in full without any deduction from taxes by the Dubai government.

No wonder I have a friend who had been working in Dubai for about 5 years now and all he does is to work and not worry about his salary. I learned from him that there is no tax value for all salaries of any worker in Dubai as it is prohibited by their labor law.

This is something big for the overseas workers. Despite the fact that the world in suffering from economic crisis, there is a place in the world where compensation from work does not get deducted of tax at all. This is really something different for a job.

Latent semantic indexing, a term rarely discussed, a topic never opened. Although most of the SEO personalities today, doesn't know much about the latent semantic indexing and its effects in SEO and keyword optimization (also known as the semantic analysis in terms of SEO technique use) many have wondered and tried to see if this theory analysis is actually being used by Google in their indexing standards.

Today, Google as per observations that i noticed, is constantly changing their algorithms in their engine. To what reason, no one really knows and that is the reason why i am talking about it as a theory that Google is possibly using this method of indexing (latent semantic indexing) for providing the search results that they are displaying in their SERPs. Another thing i noticed while observing the algorithms that Google is displaying is that the leading engine is actually making it hard for link building efforts and SEO, therefore turning everything into the hard life for most webmasters this year. Before, i used to use my blogs with building up links to clients vying for my link building services through having them on my home page's blogroll and it only took about 2-3 days for the engines to crawl the links and have then put on their engine results for their "link:domain" query. But while doing it this time, i noticed that Google is making it even harder for link building efforts to hail on building up links using the old and new blogger accounts and wordpress accounts that i have. It is now under countdown for 4 consecutive days and still no result for the links that i have put on my blogroll even up to this time. Question is, could this be the time for the major search engines to turn the tide for spam link building and irrelevant link building and conserve on the thrash links being systematically achieved through link building by many SEO and SEO personalities? Could be possible and who knows...

As of this very moment, I still haven't seen any change to the links that i built up for 4 sites that i am taking care of for the clients i have in link building. I'll just play wait and see for the moment and see if something comes up with this new latent semantic indexing experiment.

Since i don't know anything about dead links or broken links in any SEO terms, allow me to simply explain this thought and knowledge just as brief and short as i can. Broken links or dead links are actually links in your webpage that leads one way or another to nothing. It means that you are linking to a virtually non existing webpage or website. This broken links to most may not have a devastating effect to your online business but the fact is that these broken links or dead links are a great hindrance to search engine bots in terms of crawling and indexing a webpage or website in a continuous manner without interruptions and factors that could cause the bots to stop the indexing and crawling process.

How Dead Links Can Harm Your SEO Efforts:

Link management is a very important and a very essential part of maintaining any website or online business today. Since links are the most important factor of a website or webpage, therefore, it should also be regarded as the holy grail of SEO and of website maintenance and management. These links are very crucial in almost all aspects of a website's continued building up of complete trust from search engines and should always be taken care of to maximum handling sensitivity. PR (page rank) for one is a common knowledge that the search engines base their trust rate on every website or webpage existing today in the search engine index in terms of numerical value basis. The total accumulation of links is the best factor where these search engines base their trust rank and page rank. If in any case these links wont favor the standards of any search engines, these could cause either change of the algorhytm implemented therein by the SEs. It could either go your way or could go against your way on the other hand.

In terms of visitors, for example, if you have important links leading to other webpages and a visitor came across with your website links. After sorting out those links that your page have and eventually getting at that special information he deems he needs and ending up into a dead link or a broken link, then for sure, that visitor, upon seeing nothing at all would surely decide to go away and exit from your site and possibly never return anymore for the information that he needs. Believing that your pages does not genuinely offer good contents and valid links to important informations, other visitors upon finding the same fate on your links would also do the same thing which could badly hurt your traffic stats. This could cause your website to loose the traffic that any website needs to survive that battle of traffic generation to business. If you won't have any remedies to this problem at the shortest quickest possible time, i would predict then that you will go nowhere in terms of SEO and traffic.

Dead Links:

Dead links are links that lead to non existing website/s or webpage/s. It may either be a non-existing data or a non-existing page in the internet caused by so many factors. These factors vary depending on the case of the non-availability of the webpage. Some of them i can only mention were caused by expired domains, dns server problems, xml problems, mistyped url, 404 error, unacceptable 301 redirects, apache problems, too big a file or linking to sites that uses big images that takes too long to load in browsers and many more. All these factors you should keep in mind could cause you to loose the search engine bots from completely indexing your whole webpage. These broken links can stop search engine bots dead in its tracks, effectively preventing it from completely indexing a website.

How Do You Find Dead Links or Broken Links:

There are actually two choices you have in finding that culprit broken link. One is by manually looking for them and the other is by the use of a sitemap generation tool abundant in the internet these days. Since broken links or dead links are very hard to find as you have to manually go through all the pages in your website, then i would suggest that to simply find them out at such a short period of time, you ought to use the Google sitemap generator tool. This could save you a lot in terms of time and effort which you could instead use for other fruitful ways for your website maintenance. The data you can get and gather out of the sitemap will be used to pinpoint the exact location of the dead link and you could find the remedy of replacing it or fixing it at once which could work to your advantage. The Google sitemap generation tool data where the location of the url that the broken link is located can be downloaded at a short cost of $5.00 only as fee that can be paid through paypal.

Link Building Terms and Definitions:

Delay Filter - In aspects and matters of link building, delay filter is that theory where the site or any site that has just been uploaded in the web with an age as young as six months up to 9 months does not get the importance and trust that it needs to get to be able to make it to the link archives of the serps and avoid delay of getting indexed by search engines without any delay. The "Delay Filter Theory" states that if either properly optimized pages or unoptimized pages are made available to the search engines for crawl and indexing, the said site may either be on the top pages of the serps at its first month but after a few more weeks or so they say will eventually drop down from its original listing and eventually disappear because of what webmasters call as "aging delay" of "delay filter". This delay filter or aging delay that Google is implementing in some if not all sites is for the purpose of avoiding and minimizing excessive spamming. Originally, this delay filter or aging delay is used to block spams and is intended at blocking unwanted e- mail spams , phishing and viruses, according to byteplant.com, a website dedicated to providing anti-spam softwares and removing spams on your e-mails.

Do remember that the aging delay or delay filter is a natural algorhytm that is part of the Google dance where all you need to do is to be patient at the things that are happening to your websites because if you do anything drastic in hopes to remove your suspected dropping out of the serps by Google and other search engines, then you might as well suffer more on your rankings instead of gaining the respect from engines that you are ailing to get. The only thing and in fact the best thing to do is to just continue to do more of your regular link building measures and in no time you will surely go back to the top of the rankings. Link building is the core solution to everything in the web therefore it should be the first, the last and the only thing a webmaster should do at all times and without hesitation. It has been proven through ages that this will work, has worked and will never fail to work as long as you avoid the automated link building softwares that are out there. Take note: Avoid automated link building softwares as much as possible, instead go for manual submission.

Sandbox Effect - Oftentimes just called as the sandbox, this theory has dominated the many forums and forum threads that i have been able to visit a hundred times or even more . The sandbox effect or the sandbox theory is a webmaster's most favorite dumping trash can for the things that happen to their business or personal sites such as disappearing from or getting lost in the serps after ranking high on certain target keywords. The most common belief by SEO personalities and webmasters is that by obtaining too many or too much links at such a short period of time websites could get results that might cause it from getting banned or penalized by search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN for spamming.

Although this has never been proven as an theory or exact science, many have actually experienced this sandbox effect and have given so many headaches to most webmasters who are over eager at building links for obtaining higher rankings in the serps. The most important point of the discussion here is that in building the inks needed for a website to rank on certain target keywords, you must also be patient and keep at phase. Keeping at phase means that you should try and balance out the link building tactics that you have to apply for your sites. There are actually many ways to implement this and one is to have as many collections of sites for your link building spree like blogs, forums, article submissions, directory submissions, feeds, RSS, social book markings, e-mail marketing, viral marketing and many more.

The Difference Between Delay Filter and Sandbox Theory:

These two are very simple terms and yet many times have been mistaken as one identity. The Sandbox Theory is about getting penalized or disappearing from the search results pages (serps) because of obtaining too much links at such a short period of time while the Delay Filter is about a new site that does not appear in the search results or has been struggling to get the rankings that it needs to be able to make it to the serp top pages. This period is said to last sometimes up to 9 months from as early as 6 months of not appearing in the search engine results pages. Basically it simply works like this, the sandbox is some sort of a penalty for spamming while the delay filter is some sort of a preventive measure being implemented by search engines, specifically Google. Prevention and sanction are two very different words both in terms of meaning and in terms of essence in SEO and in the web.

What to Do to Avoid Sandbox and Get out of Delay Filter Implementation:

To avoid sandbox, simply avoid spamming the search engines and this can only be done by avoiding building up too much or too many links to your websites. For short, avoid as much as possible, using automated link building softwares, link farms, bad link neighborhood ( adult sites, gambling sites, pornographic sites, etc ) and not following the rules of submissions to directories or any other link building sites that you feel might help you out on your quest for pure balanced and quality optimized links.

While sandbox can be avoided, the delay filter or aging delay is not much to be feared nor avoided because this happens by natural causes and this thought does not necessarily mean as a correlation to bad link building habits unlike sandbox penalty so be patient at this. The most basic tip that i can give to you to avoid this is just to continue building a balanced link or have a balanced link building system to follow your step by step target of getting to the top of the serps. Try to list down those collection of websites that you plan to use for link building. This way
you could at least see what choices you have and what waypoints to go to. The most important thing is knowing where you want to go in terms of link building.

Since we all know as a regular knowledge that article writing is one if not the best way to achieve search engine popularity and importance in terms of SEO and link building. Article writing can put emphasis and at the same time boost your link popularity schemes which is needed to increase the return of investment for you business site.

Designing your articles on its best form and to get the best rankings and satisfy the traffic that arrives at your sites or site businesses. "Remember that the aim is always to provide your readers the relevant article content that points to your web sites. " Also this i s i believe one of the best ways to get your business sites listed on the best search engines there is in the web. This enlistment through article writing is in fact one of the factors that can cause you the traffic that you need and one-way link needed to gain search engine trust. One good example of a good article from a home improvement site can be seen here. All of these is the essence of internet marketing. Below are only some of th tips that i can share in this post.

Article Submission Tips:

• KEYWORD: Keywords are the most important considerations in an article and in article writing. Since this is a major aspect in article writing, first thing you should consider is the keyword density or the number of times that you have to mention whatever top keywords related to the site that you are promoting has to be placed in the article that you are to write. Not only the density is the consideration that you have to take note of but also the placement of those keywords within the inside content of your to be released article. For example, if you have a 500 worded article, how many time do you at least have to mention about the minor top keyword you are targeting to relate to your article writing? If you have at least 5% of those contents devoted to your target keywords, then i believe that this could be more effective than just writing on and on and on without the proper direction. You can also customize and test the effectiveness of your optimized writing by experimentation. This is done by releasing one time, say you have 3 articles at the same time for the same site with different varying contents and keyword density. If you get my point of explanation here, then this could be the start of your article writing career.

• CONTENT: Since in an article, your only hope to get the traffic that you get and make them stay and like your writing, then the first consideration is to have a good and quality content. Getting quality contents can vary from facts and figures like "10 Effective Tips To Write Articles" or "Articles According To Press Release Sites". these are only some of the good examples since figures are very factual and reliable in nature and since news and press release sites are some also of the most reliable sources in the web, then that makes them a reliable adjective to your topic and content at the same time. Of course the last consideration is providing the readers the relevant content that leads to the business site that you are promoting in order to make your visitors stay as long as possible.

• RESOURCE BOX: Nobody seems to notice this very much although this in fact is the most relevant and important consideration that an article writer should take in to consideration and keep in mind. The resource box is what makes your article become complete as an Ad or a total Ad because this is where you give the necessary information that the visitors or the article reader who got interested in your article can view the source of the beautiful article that you wrote. Keep in mind that this resource box is considered and tagged as a permanent listing in the classifieds. As much as possible, try to optimize or make your resource details as relevant as possible to the business website that you are promoting because this is how your traffic will be directed to you from the articles that you wrote.

Start getting the quality traffic share that you need to grow your online business, go for the quality articles written by article writing professionals and go release them in the web.

So this is the month that starts the signal of many fire prevention schemes both from cause oriented groups and the government. This is also the start of feeling the summer heat beating the skin to the max. I hope this time of the year we can lessen out the statistics of fire occurrence in our country. To avoid this, please read some of the tips that i have gathered from other sources in the web and i have them all listed below for that purpose.

Since we all know that in order for fire to start, there should be the presence of heat, fuel and oxygen altogether. without any of the three present as factor, fire cannot start at all. Therefore, in order to prevent fire and lessen its occurrence, we should avoid getting the three factors to be present altogether. Since one of the most fire prone part of your house is the kitchen where you can find all three materials needed to ignite fire is present which is fuel, combustible materials, and heat. This becomes one of the most common places where fires can possibly start mostly. This is a good place to start our fire prevention tips therefore.

Tips For Fire Prevention:

1. Keep matches and combustible materials out of reach of small children.
2. Gas tank controls should have extra protection to be out of reach and access of children.
   
3. Check and be sure to turn off gas tank regulators after cooking process and covering it with a rag also helps lessen the risks of gas leaks to quickly spread out.
4. Since most houses have circuit breakers located on kitchens, be sure to have a regular monthly preventive maintenance by a qualified service electrician to avoid loose connections on the terminal logs of your circuit breakers and avoid sparks from electrical wirings to cause fire.
5. Always ready out some water filled container bin near your kitchen for swift and active response to possible sparks of fire.
6. Check out gas leaks on your gas tank hose. To do this, use soap bubbles and spread them in possible suspected areas of leaks in the hose and regulator areas and if you feel that the texture were no longer advisable for use, immediately replace it.
7. Avoid leaving high wattage consumption electrical appliances from over usage and always be alert when you use them. They emit high levels of heat and might easily cause fire.
8. Never leave the kitchen when you are cooking because this is one of the high stats of cause of fire.
9. Never put candles, oiled or gas lamps near curtains and place them in a secure area where the possibility of knocking them down is smallest. Be sure to put them down before goiung to bed.
10. Eliminate fire hazzards by regularly disposing paper waste and flammable materials and maintaining good housekeeping.
11. Never keep inside the house premises any flammable liquids like paint, alcohol, gasoline, kerosene and other painting materials.
12. Avoid putting additional electrical loads like lamps, and other electrical appliances that could cause overloads without first consulting a qualified service electrician.
13. Never leave lighted cigarettes anywhere else except in a safe and secured place only like a glass ash tray or thick metal ash trays and avoid putting them near fans that could cause it to fall on flammable materials.
14. Keep a first aid kit handy
    
15. The most important tip of all is to keep a record of the fire department telephone number near the telephone where you can make a quick call anytime.
    

And now, the end is near for the second SEOPhilippines SEO contest. Tonight, the winners will be announced at the Metro Phi Resto Bar in Ortigas, Meralco Avenue. I was hoping that MSN would try and consider lifting the sandboxing of the site of a good friend. Sure, MSN did their part in the sandboxing of some entry sites for the Ituloy AngSulong contest proper but is it not enough that they have just implemented it right on time for the awards night where we were hoping for the win.

The site that i am talking about is the http://www.palconit.com that used to rank in MSN's engine even days before the contest is bound to end. Just right in time for the last minute of the contest. I would like to thank Lakeside Technologies also for giving a chance those SEO struggling to be some of the best in the SEO umbrella to join and experience joining and taking part on the many link building tactics used and implemented in the contest. It's a pleasure to be one part of it all.

I have also learned so much about it although i did not really join in because that time i was busy with my own life trying to take part in the success of many clients handed over to me
by a prestigious SEM company here in the Philippines. Also that i am busy working out and learning AdSense and html at the same time.