SEO contest


A SEO contest is a prize-awarding activity which challenges search engine optimization (SEO) practitioners to achieve high ranking under major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN using certain keyword(s). This type of contest is controversial because it often leads to massive amounts of link spamming as participants try to boost the rankings of their pages by any means available. The organizing body of a SEO competition may hold the activity without promotion of a product or service in mind; or they may organize a contest in order to market something on the Internet. Participants can showcase their skills and potentially discover and share new techniques for promoting websites.

History

Early 00s Contests

The first recorded SEO Contest was Schnitzelmitkartoffelsalat by German webmasters, started on November 15, 2002, in the German-language usenet group de.comm.infosystems.www.authoring.misc.[1] In the English-language world, the nigritude ultramarine competition created by DarkBlue.com[2] and run by SearchGuild is widely acclaimed as the mother of all SEO contests.[3] It was started on May 7, 2004, and was won two months later by Anil Dash. On September 1 of the same year, webmasters were challenged to rank number 1 on Google in three months' time for the search phrase seraphim proudleduck.[4]

In the first quarter of 2005, people were competing for the term loquine glupe, spawning web sites ranging from shampoo advertising to holiday resorts. The page that won in the end looked rather boring, and used many questionable techniques like "keyword stuffing" and "domain age".

Internationally, in 2005, two major contests took place in Europe. In Germany the Hommingberger Gepardenforelle (German pronunciation: [ˈhɔmɪŋˌbɛʁgɐ̯ ɡeˈpaʁdn̩foˌʁɛlə], literally Cheetah Trout of Hommingberg, but neither the fish nor the place actually exist) by the computer magazine c't spawned almost 4 million results; its goal was to find out how search engines rank sites. In Poland almost at same time the Polish SEO community organized the msnbetter thangoogle contest. It topped the 4 million but failed to reach its goal to promote SEO in Poland and to get search engines companies' attention for the Polish market. Some current and pending contests are listed below.

A competition ran from January 1, 2006, to March 1, 2006, and carried the term redscowl bluesingsky, another set of made-up words. It was sponsored by SEOLogs. Shoemoney won this contest, and since he contributed the winner's money, he donated it to the runnerup.

Since then, SEO contests have become a part of some academic classes. In 2008 Luis von Ahn at Carnegie Mellon University created a contest for his students. In 2010 Adam Wierman picked it up at Caltech.

2010s: Corporate SEO Contests

Recently, web development companies such as Wix have run SEO competitions. The most recent of these ended in December 2019 with two SEO agencies trying to rank for the term "Wix SEO". One agency was using a Wix site,[5][6] and the other using a site of their choice. The contest resulted in Marie Haynes Consulting Inc, an SEO agency from Ottawa Canada, winning the $25,000 prize.[7][8]

Tactics

Some webmasters resort to spam, while others use white-hat optimization techniques, like providing good content covering the competition, or optimizing page titles.[9] Most SEO contests expect people to optimize a single web page for a non-existent phrase of two silly words. This is to keep existing web sites from getting a head start and to make sure that regular internet searchers will not be shown contest pages when searching the web for other information.

Rules and limitations can make it harder to benefit from the ranking algorithm of the targeted search engine. The January 2006 Redscowl Bluesingsky contest issued by seologs.com was open for domains created after the start of the competition only. This meant that the contestants could not benefit from the ranking advantage old web sites have over new ones. Also, it was expected that the Redscowl Bluesingsky game would be won by a domain made up entirely of the search words, such as "redscowl-bluesingsky.com", which would attract natural links and be likely to benefit from the simplicity of the URL.

Another special rule that fits well with the "purpose" of SEO contests today is the obligation to "link back" to the organizing body, often a search engine optimization site. Since a web document's ranking on major search engines like Yahoo!, Google, or MSN Search is mainly determined by internet hyperlinks pointing to that document, forcing webmasters to link to a web site is quite a powerful way to increase its web presence. A good example is the contest announced by V7N (using the phrase v7ndotcom elursrebmem) and its counterpart by WebGuerrilla. While the first of these originally required the contestants to link to V7N forums, the second forbids its players to do just that. Instead, a special link to Google engineer Matt Cutts' blog is imperative. Because of this rivalry, both the rules and prize money on both these SEO contests were updated regularly up until the official start date on January 15, 2006.

Benefits of SEO

SEO is not a cost but an investment that imparts results in the long term. You cannot expect a miracle to happen overnight—it takes weeks or even months to reach the top-of-the-results chart. There is no fixed way to accomplish this; however, a combination of several methods can help you achieve higher rankings in a calculative (and not manipulative) way.[10]

The following are several advantages of implementing SEO in your web design projects:

  • Catering to a massive audience: SEO is organic, and as your site goes up the rankings, you get more traffic. Studies related to various factors of SEO (link building, user-engaging content, and so on) indicate that sites visible in the first few pages of search engine results garner more traffic than the rest. For example, if a user wants to buy sneakers online, they usually click site links that appear on the first or second SERP without bothering to scroll through the rest; they do not want to spend too much of their valuable time and are looking for a quick resolution. Not only will traffic increase as a result of SEO, but the recommendations of users visiting your website will help you get more hits and attract new customers (a lot depends on the content or what's on offer— you learn about that in subsequent chapters). The reach and scope you achieve by implementing SEO leads to a larger target audience.
  • Permanent results: When you use a pay-per-click approach, your site appears at the top of the SERP; however, the moment you stop paying for ads, the site will no longer be visible. On the other hand, SEO results are not dependent on ads, and with efficient maintenance, your site will appear at the top of the charts without having to advertise. You do not pay Google or advertising vendors to achieve the top spot on the SERP. (Note that at times, you may need the services of a digital marketing agency for various reasons, such as providing quality content on a regular basis or obtaining better online advertisement and exposure.)
  • Low cost of implementation: Iearlier days, marketing consultants advocated the use of brochures, ads, and television to advertise products. The amount of money spent on advertising was huge. Today, creating and hosting a website is not expensive. Hiring a digital marketing expert or using the services of a professional seo [11] organization can be a viable option, depending on your line of business or niche. In the long run, you can stabilize your site's position among the search results with minimum upkeep, resulting in a huge return on your investment for SEO implementation.

See also

References
  1. Message-ID <ar3n2f$eug8e$5@ID-143025.news.dfncis.de>
  2. "Nigritude Ultramarine - Anil Dash". Blog. Retrieved 2012-07-28.
  3. "DarkBlue SEO Challenge competition details". Retrieved 21 May 2014. SEOChallenge - Nigritude Ultramarine is now over
  4. ""seraphim proudleduck" Contest Announcement". UK: Internet Archive. 2004. Archived from the original on 1 November 2004. Retrieved 21 May 2014. Salmonbones.co.uk is pleased to announce a contest in which anyone who has the ability to publish a page on the web can win. On January the 1st, 2005 at 1am (in the UK) the highest ranked page in google for the search term 'seraphim proudleduck' shall win its publisher £1000. A bonus prize exists for the highest ranked image in google for the same search term.
  5. "Wix SEO Battle | Lovers vs. Haters | Wix.com". Wix SEO Battle | Lovers vs. Haters | Wix.com. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
  6. "Wix SEO - SEO tips for Wix from a team of SEO experts". Wix SEO Lovers. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
  7. "Wix SEO Battle | Lovers vs. Haters | Wix.com". Wix SEO Battle | Lovers vs. Haters | Wix.com. Retrieved 2020-01-10.
  8. "Closing thoughts on the Wix SEO competition, and how we made our final push". Marie Haynes Consulting. 2019-12-30. Retrieved 2020-01-10.
  9. "Single Post Wins Google Contest". wired.com. July 8, 2004. Retrieved 2014-07-06.
  10. "What Is Seo And How It Works (search engine optimization) Contest". web-beginner.net. July 8, 2004.
  11. "What Is Seo And How It Works (search engine optimization) Contest". web-beginner.net. July 4, 2021.
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