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| Several contests have generated significant media attention online. | Several contests have generated significant media attention online. | ||
| ===Nigritude ultramarine=== | ===Nigritude ultramarine=== {{mergefrom|Nigritude ultramarine}} | ||
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| *'''Dates:''' | *'''Dates:''' | ||
| *'''Keyword:''' Nigritude ultramarine | *'''Keyword:''' Nigritude ultramarine | ||
Revision as of 02:18, 22 January 2006
In SEO (search engine optimization) contests, webmasters compete to rank best on Google for a given (usually nonsense) keyword or keyword combination. They have become an often important method for webmasters to promote their web sites and gain web traffic. While the contestants compete for prizes, fame or glory, the organising body often benefits as well.
History
The nigritude ultramarine competition by SearchGuild is widely acclaimed as the mother of all SEO contests. 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 #1 on Google in three months time for the search phrase seraphim proudleduck.
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 lots of questionable techniques like "keyword stuffing".
A competition in progress as of January 1, 2006 is SEOLogs' redscowl bluesingsky, another set of made-up words. It is scheduled to end on March 1, 2006.
A contest that had been announced earlier - but only started on January 15 2006 - is the one by V7N SEO forum administrator John Scott and another search engine optimizer, WebGuerrilla. In this particular contest, both competitions use the same search phrase v7ndotcom elursrebmem, but each has its own set of special rules.
The basics
All these contests appear to be based on a number of common factors:
- In simple words, a SEO contest invites webmasters to trick the search engines. Some webmasters resort to spam, while others use white-hat optimization techniques (like providing good content covering the competition, or optimizing page titles).
- While there are many search engines around, they all seem to focus on Google in particular. Google is known to be a difficult search engine to rank well on, especially for new web sites.
- Most SEO contests expect people to optimize a single web page for a non-existent phrase of two silly words. The main reason for this is to keep existing web sites from getting a head start. But at the same time it makes sure that regular internet searchers won't be bombarded with "spammy" results when searching the web for "regular" information.
- Blogs seem to do well at these challenges, indicating in a way that pages with valuable content are preferred by search engines over regular websites, especially when it comes to newsworthy and fresh information of a temporary nature.
The differences
Certain special rules and limitations are invented to set contest apart from the rest. Often, these limitations will make it harder to benefit from the ranking algorithm - including quirks - of the targetted search engine. For example, the January 2006 Redscowl Bluesingsky contest issued by SEOLogs is open for new domains only. That means that the contestants cannot benefit from the ranking advantage old web sites are thought to have over new ones. An example of that is the age advantage Anil Dash' blog page had over the well-received but brand new Nigritude Ultramarine FAQ - respectively ended 1st and 6th in the Nigritude Ultramarine challenge. Most likely, the Redscowl Bluesingsky game will be won by a domain of the style redscowl-bluesingsky.com which is bound to attract natural links, and benefit from the fact that the URL is made up entirely of the search words.
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 blog or forum. 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... Good example are the contest announced by V7N 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 of January 15, 2006.
Notable Contests
Several contests have generated significant media attention online.
===Nigritude ultramarine===
 | It has been suggested that Nigritude ultramarine be merged into this article. (Discuss) |
- Dates:
- Keyword: Nigritude ultramarine
- Prize:
- Sponsor:
Nigritude ultramarine' was created by Dark Blue. It was the first such competition. The phrase was chosen because Google initially showed no results for it, so the competition would not adversely affect results for anything real. The phrase is also a rough synonym for 'dark blue'.
Seraphim proudleduck
| It has been suggested that Seraphim proudleduck be merged into this article. (Discuss) |
- Dates:
- Keyword:
- Prize:
- Sponsor:
Seraphim proudleduck was created by Salmonbones. The contest ran from 1 September 2004 to 1 January 2005.
V7ndotcom Elursrebmem
- Dates: January 15, 2006 - May 15, 2006
- Keyword: V7ndotcom Elursrebmem
- Prize:
- Sponsor:
The contest runs from January 15, 2006 to May 15, 2006. The prizes are awarded for the top five positions in Google. A number of webmasters in the Search industry have decided to give any winnings they have to charity. However their intentions are questionable, because some of those who have entered the contest, have also entered into past seo contests and claimed to give to charity but kept the cash prize for themselves.
Controversy
On January 18 the MSN search engine began blocking the specific phrase V7ndotcom elursrebmem and showing zero results. This was first uncovered by Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped .
Serps
- Dates:January 16 2004 - April 16 2004
- Keyword: Serps
- Prize: none
- Sponsor: various
The competition originated in the Usenet newsgroup alt.internet.search-engines. Serps was chosen as the keyword for the initial competition, primarily due to the fact it is an acronym for Search Engine Results Page. Not a well known word, except by SEOs, this meant it was not a particularly competitive target, allowing for the tracking of competing sites to be reasonably easy. SEO professional Brett Tabke claims to have invented the abbreviation in 2000 in a forum post on his site webmasterworld.com.
The competition officially began on January 16, 2004, and ended April 16. There was no entry fee and no prize, and the competition was open to all.
See also
- nigritude ultramarine
- seraphim proudleduck
- search engine optimization
- Google bomb
- spamming and search engine spammer
External links
- SEO Contest Tracking & Quarterly Contests
- John Scott Interview
- SEO Contests
- SearchGuild Nigritude Ultramarine contest
- SEOlogs.com Redscowl Bluesingsky contest
- v7n Contest