“If you win, I can post about the fact that SEO is really an over-rated science and actually have proof to back it up. If I win, you post that SEO is awesome, and again with the proof to back it up.”

Calacanis did accept the invitation to the challenge and told Patel to prove his point. In an interview with Webpronews at the SES conference, Patel talked to us about the whole ordeal. It has been over two months since the outbreak of the challenge and, so far, the traffic on Calacanis.com has increased 25 percent. The results are not entirely accurate, since Calacanis wrote about the Oscars the day before the challenge was scheduled to begin. If he had not written about the Oscars, the traffic increase would have been up some 40 percent. Based upon the percentages, Patel has won the challenge. However, Jason Calacanis has yet to come clean and post his end of the bargain.

The changes that Patel implemented are what some would consider small changes, but they, obviously, had a big impact on Calacanis.com. Patel changed the meta tags and title tags. He also made the meta description unique. Not only do these developments bring about more search results, they also bring more efficient results. If Calacanis wants to continue with the revisions, Patel suggests he work on title attributes next.

Calacanis argued that SEO manipulates natural results, making it unethical. On the flip side, SEO supporters believe it makes websites better and provides them with better rankings. SEO is a business. According to Patel, if a business continues to bring in more revenue, it will essentially become a better company.

Patel:
“It’s not bad, it could have been quite a bit more, and I think it will be quite a bit more. Once a lot of the changes get done and stuff like that I think you’ll see a much drastic or much larger of an increase. So right now, the weblogs inc team is doing it on their spare time which is why its taking awhile.”

Calacanis welcomed Patel’s challenge weeks ago, when he was busy criticizing the SEO industry. Patel still doesn’t know what Calacanis has against SEO, but he speculates:

Patel:
“I’m not sure why Jason doesn’t like it, I think it could be a personal vendetta against a couple people or something”.

Patel isn’t expecting a minimum 10 to 20 percent increase as he was at the beginning of the challenge. He’s upped the ante, saying, “When everything is done, I estimate a 50% or so increase in search traffic”. Now, it looks like Neil Patel and the weblogs inc team who is working with him, might have the last laugh.

Blogger Kathy Sierra has canceled her appearance at the e-Tech conference in San Diego due to death threats. Graphic violent images and threats started appearing on her blog and another one run by people she said have been critical of her and other prominent bloggers like Robert Scoble. Sierra said, “I do not want to be part of a culture where this is done not by some random person, but by some of the most respected people in the tech blogging world.” Police are investigating.

If you need a job, you need an identity on the Web. ComputerWorld cited a pair of surveys where many recruiters and hiring managers use search engines to find out more about job candidates. Some also use social networking sites to screen people too. Marketing pro Andy Beal suggested people should buy their domain name, know what’s on Google about their names, and own their personal brands as much as possible.

Topix CEO Rich Skrenta said that although “Our entire industry is scared witless by Google’s dominance in search and advertising,” it is possible to compete with them in search as a sub-segment of the Internet market. Skrenta emphasized simplicity and said anyone battling with Google for search should “forget about asking users to do anything besides typing two words into a box.”

Traditional SEO techniques are becoming commonplace; most webmasters understand what internal steps to take in order to maximize a site’s ability to be crawled in order to receive an optimum ranking. So what then gives one site an advantage over another? Links play an important role, but even the process of link-building/link-baiting has undergone its share of scrutiny, especially concerning paid and reciprocal link programs. So how can SEOs use these techniques to achieve a maximum flow of site traffic while maintaining the integrity of the content?

Uniqueness and contextual relevancy are becoming primary factors in building quality links and driving traffic to a site. The question of ‘good links’ vs. ‘bad links’ grows all the more important as advertisers and SEOs alike lean toward this concept of contextual relevancy when it comes to search engine optimization and marketing. The quality of incoming links is starting to outweigh the desire for sheer volume when it comes to getting others to link to your particular site, and SEOs are going to have to use available tools to closely examine the quality of content not only on their own site, but also on the sites linking to them.