Data center services play a critical role in the operations of many businesses worldwide, and in this area, you can’t get any better than NTT Communications Corporation.  The company has recently acquired Secode AB, a northern European group that has consistently been in the lead when it comes to data center service security.  The acquisition was announced earlier this month, although terms of the deal were not released to the general public.

What is known is that Secode AB will become a full subsidiary of the much larger NTT Communications.  This move allows Secode AB to continue providing its services to its clients – old and new – as well as to improve them.  At the same time, the resources of NTT Communications will be behind the subsidiary a hundred per cent.

NTT Communications is already an established name in the world of data centers.  It currently offers services all over the world, and has proved to be reliable. Some highlights of their data center services:

• Full-scale preparations for power outage and fire disaster.
• Green data center equipped with efficient cooling facilities.
• Security system installing the latest authentication methods.
• 24 ⁄ 7 operation and maintenance system.
• System redundancy in power supply, air conditioning and network.
• Stable network achieved by using backbones and access lines from multiple carriers.
• Quality is certified by NTT Communications Data Center standards.

While the acquisition allows Secode AB to continue operations (as well as expand them) in Nordic countries, its centers will be absorbed by other NTT Communications security operation centers located in the US, Japan, Germany, and Singapore.  Bottom line: data center service security will only be strengthened.

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SEOmoz recently launched a new link popularity checker and backlink analysis tool called Open Site Explorer. While I find the tool to be useful there is nothing really revolutionary about the tool. However, I do like using the tool compared to what I’ve been using before simply because of the clear presentation of results, which makes for a good quick check.

To be honest I haven’t really twiddled much with the Open Site Explorer so there’s likely hidden gems I haven’t found. To remedy my lack of knowledge on the other possible uses I will be attending the FREE Webinar SEOmoz is giving Thursday. There will be actually 2 webinars to be held on Wednesday, January 27th at 2:00PM (PST), and Thursday, January 28th at 10:00AM (PST). To join the Open Site Explorer webinar register here.  I am not sure if there’s still a slot for the Wednesday webinar but just a few minutes ago I registered for the Thursday webinar and got in. I suggest you join to learn the ins and outs without having to even strain a bit figuring out what you can possibly do. In my experience webinars like these where half the time is spent in Q&A can yield gems in terms of tips from the experts.

If you’re booked for both schedules or just didn’t get a slot you can view the webinar later in SEOmoz’s webinars page.

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Phil Muncaster reported recently in V3.co.uk that hackers will be using Harry Potter to distribute malware. Harry Potter himself won’t be waving his magic wand anytime soon to harm anyone’s PC (He’s the good guy! Come on!) but what the hackers will be doing is simply distribute malware by attaching them to bogus sites advertised as pages where one can download the upcoming movie “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” even before it is released. Black hat SEO will be playing an important part in their scheme because they will be optimizing these sites in order to rank well so as to get the fans that just can’t wait for the movie to come out.

Right now though with the would be victims on the path to unauthorized sneek peaks I can’t imagine the Harry Potter guys trying to do anything about the it. After all word of the malware distribution might even help quell illegal early distribution of the movie.

Aside from the Harry Potter movie, Rik Ferguson, senior security adviser at security vendor Trend Micro, is reported to have said that he also expects black hat SEOs to use the Michael Jackson tragedy to do harm and profit.

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If you’ll be somewhere in the Washington area on August 24 and 25 make sure you sign up for SEOmoz’s PRO Training Series 2009 immediately. SEOmoz’s training seminars get sold out really quick so you’d better decide quickly. This is one of the seminars that will actually help you learn something useful about SEO providing value other than networking. Seminar’s limited to 220 participants only.
The good thing though is if you’re too far away or found out too late you can still get the knowledge they’ll be sharing on the seminar via the SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar 2009: Tips, Tricks & Tactics DVD, which is already available for pre-order.

Stuff you’ll learn in the seminar include:

* Content Creation
* Site Architecture
* Linkbuilding
* Keyword Research
* Social Media Marketing
* Conversion Rate Optimization
* Competitive Intelligence
* Vertical Search
* Search Engine Penalties & Guidelines

There will also be elective courses.

Those in Europe will have to wait till October for SEOmoz to go to London to hold another seminar there. Speakers will differ for the two seminars but Rand Fishkin will be present in both seminars.

Price will be $899 per person. SEOmoz PRO members of course can get in at a discounted rate of $599. The seminar DVD can be bought for $249.

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I have not used Internet Explorer for quite a while now. Ever since I tried Mozilla Firefox, I was hooked. I did try out Safari and Google Chrome – and still use them sometimes – but never IE. I can’t overlook the fact that there are still countless people out there who use IE, though, and when working on web sites or blogs, those users cannot be discounted.

There is some news with regard to SEO and the new version of the Internet Explorer, IE8. Andrew Girdwood has this to say about the matter:

Popular search engine optimisation and internet marketing blogs look set to prove that they practise what they preach by boasting designs that hold up well in the forthcoming Internet Explorer 8.

It is the new ‘Suggested Sites’ feature that is most likely to upset these stalwart bloggers as Microsoft’s technology offers to take readers straight to competing blogs or, in some cases, unfamiliar download sites.

In his article, he highlights some of the most prolific blogs on SEO and search and points out things about their design that may be affected by IE8. You might want to take a closer look at those points in his article, especially if you have picked up a design idea or two from any of those blogs he talks about.

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Let me ask you a question, who is “the man” when it comes to SEO? The obvious answer would be the search engine (the search engines, rather). And when it comes to search engines, we all have to admit that Google is the dominant entity. So when I read on their blog that they have released an SEO starter guide, I thought to myself – perfect!

What can we expect from their starter guide? Here is an excerpt of the blog post:

Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.

The guide is in PDF format and downloads in less than a minute. I have not had the time to go over it thoroughly but I am expecting something simple and effective. Others already have their opinion, like Bill Hartzer. He points out a big flaw where “the example site noted in the guide is set up as a 302 Temporary Redirect to the Google.com home page.” He states that this is something that you would NEVER want to do. Apparently, Google’s starter guide is not error free. Why don’t you take a look at it for yourself? Perhaps in the future, we can tackle some topics presented there.

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If you want to stay on top of things when it comes to technology, you certainly have to keep abreast of the developments in this field. SEO is not an exemption. Currently ongoing over in San Jose is the Search Engine Strategies convention. It started yesterday and will continue until the 22nd of this month.

What is this all about? SES provides the following information:

Join us for our 10th Annual SES event this August in San Jose, California, home to the largest concentration of successful internet and high-tech companies in the world.
SES San Jose affords delegates the largest learning and networking opportunity of the year, as the 70+ sessions (80% of which are new to the agenda) will cover everything that is search-related, and the numerous networking parties are back, including the famed Google Dance and Search Bash.

Fellow marketers, webmasters, executive decision makers, including first timers and SES Alumni, will converge to learn how to maximize their business’s Search Engine Marketing (SEM) opportunities, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search advertising, in addition to staying informed of the latest industry, tools, and algorithm developments and solutions.

More so, they guarantee that participants will learn:

• How search engines list Web sites for free and through paid placements;
• How to get free “organic” traffic by building a site that pleases search engines and your visitors;
• How to efficiently purchase listings guaranteed to rank your company at the top of search engine results;
• How to calculate the ROI of your search marketing efforts by tracking your visitors from the time they hit your site until they buy—and get tips on improving conversion if they don’t!
• How to build links that generate traffic to your Web site, and how to avoid the penalties of “spamming” the search engines;
• What’s coming next in the constantly evolving world of Web search, and how you can profit from it.

Interesting, to say the least. I don’t know if you can still make it as the conference has started but they are set to have other similar events in other parts of the US in the ensuing months. If I were you, I’d take a look at their web site and see if there is one near your area.

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I guess now is a good time as any to have some fun on this blog.  I was browsing other SEO-focused sites and ran across a very amusing cartoon on Jason Calacanis.  See for yourself:

If you do not know who Jason Calacanis is, here is a bit of information on him.  I got it from his site because to be honest, I didn’t know much about him either.

Jason McCabe Calacanis is CEO and co-founder of Weblogs Inc., a network of widely read blogs including Engadget – ranked # 1 by Technorati – Joystiq, Autoblog, and Blogging Baby. Founded in January of 2004, Weblogs, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL in November of 2005. Calacanis, who was appointed a senior vice president of AOL, maintains editorial supervision over Weblogs, Inc. In June of 2006, Calacanis and relaunched Netscape, the iconic browser owned by AOL and was named its general manager.

Prior to forming Weblogs Inc., Calacanis was CEO and founder of Rising Tide Studios, a media company that published print and online publications including the Silicon Alley Reporter, a must-read monthly that chronicled New York’s internet and new media industries. The company also produced of high-profile industry specific conferences in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. After the industry consolidated, the company’s flagship publication changed its focus and became Venture Reporter, which was purchased by Dow Jones.

I am sure you know all about Engadget – who doesn’t?  Suffice it to say that Jason is a well-known person in our world.

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Calm down – I know your heart is probably pounding like crazy right now, especially if you are working on your own blog which focuses on SEO. I felt the same way when I started reading Lee Odden’s post about Wordpress labeling SEO blogs as “banned .” Reading on, however, it was made clear that Wordpress is pertaining to blogs which are search engine optimized in a “bad” way and not blogs which talk about SEO – much like this blog.

These are the blogs which Wordpress specifically bans:

• Scraper blogs: Blogs that take content from other blogs and re-publish it without permission (this is sometimes called scraping). If a blog contains all or mostly stolen and unoriginal content, it’s gone!
• SEO blogs: Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans. These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and other search engines into ranking them highly. WordPress.com is not meant for this type of activity.
• Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs and get-rich-quick schemes (”Make six figures from home!!”, “20 easy steps to top profits!!”, etc). To be clear, examples like people writing original book or movie reviews and linking them to Amazon, or people linking to their own products on Etsy do NOT fall into this category.
• Warez blogs: Blogs that promote pirated copies of ebooks, software packages, music, movies, games, etc.

I suppose that Wordpress could word the classification tags in a more specific way so as to avoid confusion and reactions like I felt when I first read the post. Still, we should not overreact as we know very well that blogs such as this one do not fall under any of these categories.

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For many people, it used to be that Flickr was perfect for SEO purposes. However, when Flickr suddenly made use of nofollow tags to comments and picture captions, it seemed that the bomb dropped on these people. Naturally, negative reactions erupted all over the web because of this action – which took place around last week, by the way. If you have not heard of this, don’t get immediately swayed by the prevailing opinion – that Flickr is now useless for SEO. I ran across a post on this issue, which provided me with a better perspective of the whole she-bang. Will Paoletto at BigOak Blog shares:

1.) Flickr has not added nofollow to discussion boards. For those of you who liked to scout out high PageRank pages and just drop your link as a comment to the photo, which could be accomplished easily if you owned a link-laundering website, you can still do this in the Flickr group discussion boards. Flickr has not yet added nofollow tags to those, and given the preponderance of discussions that revolve around people sharing photos, you can just as easily drop relevant external links in the discussion and reap link juice benefits.

2.) Flickr has not added nofollow to personal profile pages. If you have a personal profile page, you can place targeted anchor text on it, point links at it, and receive full SEO benefit as it gains PageRank.

3.) Flickr has not added nofollow to group pages. If you own a Flickr group, you can still put as many links as you wish on the main group page without fear of them being turned into nofollow.

So there you go – you still have three areas wherein you can work your SEO magic. What do you think?

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