Corporate Sites consulting

Mike Moran is an author and pioneer in search marketing at IBM Corp. Since the early 2000s, Mike has worked to establish ground-breaking strategies on a corporate level, in order to implement SEO changes on a massive scale.

Stephan Spencer, Netconcepts’ founder and president, interviewed Mike about the unique challenges that mega-corporations have related to SEO implementation, understanding the ROI and hidden benefits behind SEO, and what the solutions are to solving those challenges. Read more about how savvy decision-making and well-written processes can help solve SEO implementation problems on a corporate level.

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While “one page salesletters” can be what Stephan Spencer, President and Founder of Netconcepts calls, “an SEO nightmare,” proper optimization of microsites can be beneficial to SEO. In this article, Stephan writes about the right (and wrong) way to treat microsites as an SEO option.

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They say that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” But not if you’re a site owner! I’ve seen designs copied, content copied, even entire sites copied. It’s so easy for someone to “view source” and take whatever they like, without regard to copyright.

You can locate copyright infringers pretty easily with Copyscape if they’ve lifted some of your page copy. It’s much more difficult if they’ve limited their sticky fingers to just your design.

So far I’ve discovered by tip-off or by chance that our Netconcepts.com site design has been “pinched” at least 3 times. One of them was a fairly big company. More than a year and they finally stopped using our design, but the evidence of their misbehavior is permanently archived in the Wayback Machine (hint: pick a date in 2004 and compare with my company’s site). In fact, the Wayback Machine is quite useful in that it can serve as indisputable proof of who is the source and who is the copy: whichever site shows the design in use before the other is the source.

The way I see it, you have five options for dealing with an infringer:

• Do nothing,
• file a DMCA infringement notification with Google, to get them yanked out of Google,
• contact the infringing company’s CEO,
• “out” them on your blog
• have your lawyer send them a nastygram.

I have to admit that we’ve often done nothing, just because we’re so busy. Eventually they’ll redesign (maybe pinching another design from somewhere else?). Of course that’s not a great option if you’re serious about protecting your IP (intellectual property) rights.

With our most recent infringer, we’ve taken a more active role. We spoke to their CEO. He asked for 2 months to redesign, which we’ve granted them.

So, what would you do? What’s the most legally correct response? The most pragmatic response?

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Just read this awesome post from Chris Smith of Verizon Directories (SuperPages.com), where he lays out his criteria for selecting an SEO firm to work with. In summary (I’m paraphrasing here), the SEO agency…:

• should have longevity and track record of at least somewhat related work
• should not have promoted itself using unrealistic promises and representations
• should have a clean record (no black-hat methods)
• should not have tried to impress with a cursory 5-minute site assessment leading to naive recommendations
• should not have insulted our technical work
• should not have made claims of secret methods/knowledge
• should have priced their services reasonably
• should have posted information on their website about the companies/sites they’ve done work for
• should have demonstrated strong technical work on their own site as well as clients’ sites
• should have good people and make that evident on their company site
• should have projected a professional demeanor
• shouldn’t have pestered or been hard-selling
• should be flexible in legal contract negotiations, once selected

Good stuff! Read Chris’ full article: “How major companies choose SEOs”.

(Disclaimer: yes, Verizon SuperPages.com is a client of ours, and no we don’t wear sandals to business meetings.)

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