As a hobbiest, I can't compete with all those professional SEO's (especially the black hatter's) ... since they have backlinks galore, hidden keyword stuffing, 301/302 redirect trickery, link farms, invisible text, doorway pages, cloaking, etc. but I thought I would toss up a contest page anyway with any/all proceeds going directly to the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research.
While many, many people graciousely helped out in one way or another, there were a handful of folks who were on an Email list that I could bounce ideas off of, solicit feedback, and provide general assistance during the contest that ran from January 15th to May 15th, 2006. There was no formal "selection process" or determining who was white or black hat SEO. When they heard about the contest, they offered to help, and said "sure" when I asked if they wanted to be a sounding board. I told them from the get-go that there was no fame/money involved - just helping out a good cause. But they diligently read my Emails and responded with tons of great ideas and support. As is common these days, the interactions were all virtual. In alphabetical order, I'm very grateful toward:
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Andrew Hitchcock is attending the University of Washington - my Alma-mater ... Go Huskies! My goal is a computer science major and a minor in chemistry. I plan to graduate sometime in 2007-2008. My interests include data mining, computer vision, machine learning, finance/investing, ultimate frisbee, cooking, bicycling, sustainability, and USE dance parties. From March 2005 through February 2006 I was a Google Quality Rater. |
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(Golf) Bag Man prefers to remain anonymous, but as his name implies, he enjoys a certain activity - FORE! ;-) |
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Darren Cronian is Travel Executive and founder of Worldwide Holiday Homes - a UK-based holiday accommodation provider who feature 1,000 holiday homes for rent in 51 countries across the World. He also writes for reguarly in his travel blog about his travels and topics affecting the travel industry. One of Darren's loves in life is travelling around the world and has been lucky to visit Malaysia, Australia, Prague, Norway and other European destinations. |
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Dominic Taylor is the company director of Thermal Degree, a British web design and hosting company. He is also a full time geek. I'm also a bit of an amateur photographer and love my Canon 300D and 50mm f/1.8 ... the 28 - 135 f/4-5.6 IS comes close, though. I live in a little town near Bristol, England although I spend quite a bit of time chasing my girlfriend around the globe. I've never lost a running race (nor hopefully an SEO contest!) to someone my own age and I was a legendary right wing rugby player back at school. I swam at national level and then injured my shoulder in rugby, which lasted 10 months, so I never got back to the Nationals again. So then I went to my next love, computers, and ended up where I am today. |
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Frank Barajas is a seasoned SEO and online marketer that enjoys flying under the radar with many of his projects. He thirives on assisting small businesses in sales, marketing and obviously many aspects of a business' online initiatives. He has a strong passion for anything SEO and has help many friends with their online initiatives and provide timely and helpful advice on his blog called You Should Know - he is currently involved in getting a horse magazines site online and reviving a leather directory site. |
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Hans Mast is a conservative (politically & religiously), Mennonite, computer programmer from Catlett, VA who loves to play basketball, volleyball and most any sport. I am Manager, Computer-guy, and Customer Service and Sales Rep for Golden Rule Travel & Communications which is a Christian travel agency- thanks for helping us bring in the gold in the contest. |
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Jeff Barr is a Web Services Evangelist for Amazon.com, focusing on creating developer awareness for the Amazon software platform. Jeff has a longstanding interest in Web services and programmatic information interchange. Jeff has held development and management positions at KnowNow, eByz, Akopia, and Microsoft, and was a co-founder of Visix Software. Jeff's interests include collecting and organizing news feeds using his site, www.syndic8.com. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from the American University and has done graduate work in Computer Science at the George Washington University. |
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Josh Green works as the Blog Development Manager at Blizzard Internet marketing. Prior to starting at Blizzard, he worked for six years as a Police/Fire/EMS dispatcher and call-taker for the City of Golden, CO. and went into the field as an on-scene communicator during the Hayman Fire. He worked as a cowboy for five summers in Cimarron, NM at the Philmont Scout Ranch, taking care of 180 head of horses and 100 burros, and of course he loved roping and branding. A volunteer firefighter for almost ten years Josh also rode saddlebronc and was a rodeo clown. When not competing in SEO contest he plays the XBox 360, stalks rats, watches nascar, and reads as much science fiction as he can get his hands on. |
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Kyle Schumacher is lives in Niceville Fl where he enjoys boating, fishing, wrestling, working out and of course girls. But in his spare time he is a computer and business nerd. He especially enjoys Internet marketing. He future goal is to retire (who really wants to work there whole life?) by the success of one of his current or future ventures. Kyle is known for his competitiveness in everything he does and is excited about a chance to use every competive edge he can to help a good cause ... and his local paper wrote a nice story about his help |
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Preston Wily is the VP of Business Development for Sewell Direct, an online retailer of computer hardware and accessories. He grew up in Richmond, Virginia, studied economics at Brigham Young University (in Utah) and now lives in Salt Lake City with his wife. Internet marketing, once his major job responsibility, is now more of a hobby as he finds less time at work to dedicate to SEO. |
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Sarah King is a website developer from New Zealand - when she's not juggling business, clients, husband and children you'll find her on a bike of some sort - glad to see she is wearing a helmet as shown in the picture. Like most Kiwis, she's well travelled and now the littlies are not so little the backpacks will be dusted off. Follow her online exploits at her blog above. |
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Shannon Smyrl hails from hearty Texas stock and firmly believes in the creed of the old west - the good guys wear white hats ... and my guess is the bad guys wear black hats. She was raised in the true southern tradition. Her sterling pattern belongs to the Zodiac of patterns all proper young ladies choose. She knows not to wear white shoes before Easter, to wear dark cottons after labor day, and to say yes mam, no sir, and bless your heart. She even fooled her classmates into voting her most courteous of her senior class. Shannon has many hobbies and interests including ballet and genealogy. |
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R. Steven Rainwater started programming about 20 years ago and has worked in most programming languages at one time or another including C, C++, Perl, Pascal, Modula-2, REXX, even stuff like COBOL and Forth. I wrote and released a few long-forgotten shareware programs back in the early 80's before I discovered the concept of Free Software. I am a member of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group and maintain the Robot Competition FAQ. I restore vintage 80's era arcade video games from time to time and am also an ODP/DMOZ editor. My company, NCC, is based in Dallas and does website design, software development, and other interesting stuff ... such as helping this good cause - thanx Mr. Robot! |
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Tom Brandes is President and CEO of Sundance Communications which sells Business Telephone Equipment. I also admin a Telephone Tech Forum along with a directory of Telephone Installers. I've been in the Phone Business since 1970, and got into the Internetin 1998. I occasionally drink a beer or two while shooting horseshoes or relaxing on the patio with some good tunes and from time to time hit Las Vegas for the fine food and entertainment. Glad to be a part of this elite crowd helping out this good cause. |
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The HULK is person behind the v7ndotcom elursrebmem site working with the Puny Humans above. His alter-ego prefers to remain anonymous throughout this process, (although he's well know for his halloween decorations and christmas lights) but the I'm doing this is because my two kids have Celiac Disease - an intolerance of gluten, which is in barley, oats, wheat, etc. This is not a food allergy, but an autoimmune disorder (like diabetes), so it is not something you grow out of. It is often un/mis-diagnosed, so raising awareness is another reason I'm doing this. Plus I'd love to see a cure so that when my kids grow up, I would be able to go out and have a beer & pizza with them. |
