There was a breaking story (cough...cough...) in the New York Times last weekend about how J.C. Penney used amazingly aggressive SEO tactics and got busted. A few things are interesting from an SEO perspective about this story, and then there are some aspects of how the New York Times looked at the case that are, frankly, annoying.

Many of you are new to blogging and are still trying to figure out the marketing side of your blog. As I've written many times before, modern blogging is about 50% marketing and 50% blogging. Why? Because there are over 150,000,000 active domains on the Internet when I last checked. This is up from 45,000,000 two years ago. Yes, it's safe to say that the Internet has been FLOODED with content over the last few years, with many of these new websites being blogs. Yes, competition.

Hey there, Adam- So, I went through your whole Blogging Tutorial from December. I'm certain I screwed parts of it up (I'm new to this - give me some slack) BUT by the end of the tutorial, I was able to type in my fancy little three-word keyword phrase and see some pretty interesting results... Says google thirty minutes before I did your tutorial: "No results found for "disgusting food film"." Says google thirty minutes AFTER I did y

I watch the people coming to Blogskinny.com with Google Analytics, of course. If you still have not put this on your blog, please stop reading and get to work. Return when you have some data on who is visiting your website. As I look at my blog statistics, I often wonder who these people really are? I know many of you contact me (and I like that). And I've gotten to know many of you. But there are so many more that I never contact.

As you know, my snowy holiday respite without any Internet service has put me in a deeply philosophical place. Perhaps this is tiring for those of you who are here for practical tips on how make your blog more successful. But I like to think that your blogging, which is writing, will be that much more powerful if your reasons for blogging are clear. And toward that end, I’m sharing my philosophical ramblings in the hope that you may gleam insight in some small way. Today’s thought is a deep one, and certainly not original. The Taoists often say there is a deep paradox in life that each of us needs to reconcile. Something along the lines of:

Day 5 of no Internet service. It has actually been quite enjoyable to not be able to get online. As much as I’ve missed some of my routine online activities, it has also been cool to really unplug. I know, how clique? But seriously, have you tried it? Are your vacations real vacations? In my non-Internet respite, I’ve been able to read more and think a ton. I’ve also had time for more physical activity. Walking in nature, spending time with my kids, playing fetch with my dog. These things are powerful both for deep spiritual revival as well as day-to-day happiness. Which brings me to my theme for today.

We got to our mountain retreat for the holiday to find that our broadband was not functional. Despite the assurances of our DSL company, there was no Internet. What? No Internet. I could hear the disappointment in my family through their sighs as they realized that they would not be able to update their Facebook profiles. As for me, this meant no blogging for a few days. Okay – Let’s not be overly dramatic. The DSL company said they could have us up and running in about 4 or 5 days, citing the holiday for the extended delay. I thought there was food for thought in this episode. So at the risk of sounding insanely clique, here we go: Does online 24x7 make us happier or less happy? I’ve heard this debated by important scholars as well as radio shock-jocks. The paradox is clear.

I read an interesting article over the weekend at PC Magazine declaring that blogging is, once again, dead! See the full article here. I feel like I've read this article many many times over the last few years. And it makes me wonder what the numbers really tell us. Sure - There has been explosive growth in Facebook and Twitter But are these two platforms really the same as blogging? Twitter has been called a micro-blogging platform. The micro part I get. But a blogging platform? I'm not sure. I really don't know what Twitter is, really. I know that the

Last week I published a fairly LARGE blogger tutorial that gave you a hands-one experiment that, I believe, will do more to further your knowledge of how the search engines work than any article you might read. It's no secret that I believe SEO is a bloggers best friend. But most websites out there that discuss search engine optimization really don't get into the most critical aspects of how to do it. I see so many people running around trying difficult things, I know they have motivation. I know they want very much to make thei