SEO contest
Encyclopedia
An SEO contest is a prize-awarding activity which challenges search engine optimization
(SEO) practitioners to achieve high ranking under major search engine
s 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 an 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.
by German webmasters, started on 2002 November 15 in the German-language usenet
group de.comm.infosystems.www.authoring.misc. In the English-language world, 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 number 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".
Internationally, in 2005 two major contests took place in Europe. In Germany the Hommingberger Gepardenforelle by the computer magazine c't
spawned almost 4 million results. The 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 number 2 winner.
Since then, SEO contests have become a part of some academic classes. In 2008 Luis von Ahn
at CMU
created a contest for his students, and in 2010 Adam Wierman picked it up at Caltech.
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. Good example are 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 www.SEO-sk.com contests were updated regularly up until the official start date of January 15, 2006.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
(SEO) practitioners to achieve high ranking under major search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
s such as Google
Google search
Google or Google Web Search is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. Google Search is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web, receiving several hundred million queries each day through its various services....
, Yahoo
Yahoo! Search
Yahoo! Search is a web search engine, owned by Yahoo! Inc. and was , the 2nd largest search engine on the web by query volume, at 6.42%, after its competitor Google at 85.35% and before Baidu at 3.67%, according to Net Applications....
, and MSN using certain keyword(s). This type of contest is controversial because it often leads to massive amounts of link spamming
Spamdexing
In computing, spamdexing is the deliberate manipulation of search engine indexes...
as participants try to boost the rankings of their pages by any means available.
The organizing body of an 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
The first recorded SEO Contest was SchnitzelmitkartoffelsalatSchnitzelmitkartoffelsalat
Schnitzelmitkartoffelsalat is a German phrase that is used to test the operations of search engines and the methods of search engine optimization. It was first mentioned on November 15, 2002 by Steffi Abel in the newsgroup...
by German webmasters, started on 2002 November 15 in the German-language usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
group de.comm.infosystems.www.authoring.misc. In the English-language world, 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
Anil Dash
Anil Dash is a blogger, entrepreneur and technologist. He is currently the Director of Public Technology Incubator Expert Labs and a partner at ACTIVATE.com, a media & technology consulting firm....
. On September 1 of the same year, webmasters were challenged to rank number 1 on Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
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".
Internationally, in 2005 two major contests took place in Europe. In Germany the Hommingberger Gepardenforelle by the computer magazine c't
C't
c't – Magazin für Computertechnik is a German computer magazine, published by the Heinz Heise publishing house. Originally a special section of the electronics magazine elrad, the magazine has been published monthly since December 1983 and biweekly since October 1997...
spawned almost 4 million results. The 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
Jeremy Schoemaker
Jeremy "ShoeMoney" Schoemaker is a web entrepreneur, founder of ShoeMoney Media, and co-founder of the AuctionAds service.In March 2007, Schoemaker and his business partner David Dellanave launched AuctionAds, an eBay affiliate marketing service that serves eBay auction ads on contextually...
won this contest, and since he contributed the winner's money, he donated it to the number 2 winner.
Since then, SEO contests have become a part of some academic classes. In 2008 Luis von Ahn
Luis von Ahn
Luis von Ahn is an entrepreneur and an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He is known as one of the pioneers of the idea of crowdsourcing. He is the founder of the company reCAPTCHA, which was sold to Google in 2009...
at CMU
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
created a contest for his students, and in 2010 Adam Wierman picked it up at Caltech.
Tactics
Some webmasters resort to spam, while others use white-hat optimization techniques, like providing good content covering the competition, or optimizing page titles. 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 startHead start (positioning)
In positioning, a head start is a start in advance of the starting position of others in competition, or simply toward the finish line or desired outcome...
and to make sure that regular internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
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!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
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 (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
Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts works for the Search Quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues. In an interview with USA Today in June 2008, Cutts provided advice on how to optimize search results on Google.-Career:...
' blog is imperative. Because of this rivalry, both the rules and prize money on both these www.SEO-sk.com contests were updated regularly up until the official start date of January 15, 2006.