SEO Contests are always great to watch, to see the latest tricks which work in Google right now.
With exactly three weeks left until the end of the Dave Pasternack SEO contest, I’m watching with baited breath to find out who the winner will be.
This is for two reasons:
- It’s going to be a great case study about how to knock off sites which already have built up credibility and authority in SERPs, and;
- Dave Pasternack has built up a huge amount of link love out of this controversy - so the SEO’ers are already chasing a moving target!
A few hours ago, I had a look through the SERPs to see how the competition was going.
Positions 1-3 - Chef Dave Pasternack
Although there’s still 3 weeks left in the contest, the New York chef by the same name is still ranking in the top 3 spots, on the back of an article published in the New Yorker, and two PR3 sites.
And before you ask, no - these sites don’t have anything to do with Dave Pasternack’s ability to “bake a cake“.
Position 4 - SEO Competition Announcement
Aaron Wall’s announcement of the Dave Pasternack SEO competition comes in at #4 with 333 page links (according to Yahoo)…
It makes this page more highly linked-to than all of the pages above it combined, however factors such as a low PageRank (showing a zero for PR at the moment , and being a relatively new page may be causing problems.
However, Aaron Wall has already stated:
If Threadwatch.org is the top ranked site the winner will be the next site ranked below Threadwatch.org…
Fair enough.
Position 4 - 100
Most of these spots are filled with blog posts reporting on the Pasternackgate controversy and the competition, plus Dave Pasternack’s bio on Did-It.com, Technorati and the usual 2.0 suspects.
One of the few (if only) blogs which seems to be actively link building (baiting?) for the competition is IncrediBILL’s blog. He did an update on the competition a few days ago, but unfortunately his page has slipped from #5 to #2 in Yahoo since then.
(I also enjoyed IncrediBILL’s post which mentioned Dave Pasternack ranked #1 for SEO AntiChrist. I thought they fixed Google Bombing?… Maybe it’s because DP mentions the word “SEO” on his site.)
And beyond…
Beyond that, I didn’t see much worth mentioning to be honest.
Two spam blogs which were set up with major blogging sites under Dave Pasternack’s name (but never used) were two of the few examples which used Dave Pasternack’s name in a URL. But it looked like both blogs were abandoned shortly after.
Who’s doing any Dave Pasternack SEO?
I searched through forums and popular SEO hang-outs…
I didn’t see anyone discussing their own SEO pages… only a handful of people using forum signature spam to link to their entries.
Perhaps the SEO’ers are saving their run until the last minute? Perhaps the cost of toppling the New Yorker outweighs the potential of a $1,000 reward?
Or perhaps SEO’ers are just so busy with their current clients that they have no time for games 
Whatever the reason, at this stage it looks like the $1,000 might be going to the chef of the same name, mentioned in a New Yorker article.
It would be a shame to see neither party win - maybe Aaron Wall can buy himself a nice $1,000 feed at Esca.
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8 responses so far ↓
1 Pete // Feb 8, 2007 at 10:51 am
I think I may have missed something here…
What is the whole point of this contest? To see who can create a site/blog/page which ranks high for the search term - Dave Pasternack ??
Who is this mysterious Dave Pasternack?
Whats the outcomes? Are the winners going to reveal how they did it?
2 Brent Hodgson // Feb 8, 2007 at 11:24 am
Long story short, Dave Pasternack is the chairman of the industry organisation which represents SEO, SEM & PPC professionals.
However, he regularly seems to make comments which denegrate and devalue the work of SEO’ers.
Most recently saying “SEO isn’t rocket science… It’s like baking a cake.” (ie - if you follow Googles Webmaster Guidelines, you’re 99% of the way there).
The SEO competition (for top rank under Dave’s name) is in response to this.
see: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/11507
3 Dave Pasternack // Feb 9, 2007 at 2:12 am
Brent wrote:
>Long story short, Dave Pasternack is the chairman of the industry organisation which represents SEO, SEM & PPC professionals.
>However, he regularly seems to make comments which denegrate and devalue the work of SEO’ers.
First off, Brent,thanks for this update on the contest. I do want to clarify that I am not, however, “the chairman of the industry organisation which represents SEO, SEM & PPC professionals.” You may be thinking of SEMPO, an organization of which my business partner, Kevin Lee, is a board member. I am the President of Did-it, a paid search firm.
In terms of my “regularly making comments which denigrate and devalue the work of SEO’ers,” I would say that this is a bit of a stretch. I would prefer to say that I critique those SEO’s who defensively insist that SEO is such a difficult, mind-bendingly difficult discipline that it can’t be carried out by mere mortal, non-rocket scientist types. Frankly, I’m bullish on the future of SEO, but believe it’s a core competency that should be embraced by anyone doing Web development, e-commerce, etc. But is it “rocket science”? Nope.
Many people didn’t read my original article (they seem to have simply read their own Blog posts). In it, this passage appears, and it illustrates my belief about the future of SEO:
“Smart marketers will continue to invest in SEO in a way that makes best sense to them, and the best SEO firms will remain in demand, because there remain thousands of commercial Web sites out there in need of basic search engine optimization.”
4 Brent Hodgson // Feb 9, 2007 at 11:18 am
Thanks for the clarification, Dave.
I must have got my wires crossed re: chairman of SEMPO from this post:
http://clueless.webguerrilla.com/talking-frogs/ (see point #4)
I still do disagree with your “rocket science” comments, because I come across plenty of content-rich sites which are making all the right moves as far as Google is concerned, yet don’t appear in the top spots on SERPs.
Many blogs have this problem.
Shaun Stenning just completed some research on SEO, Blogs and SERPs. Presumably, you’d think content rich, well structured dynamic content would be exactly what Google wants - but blogs rarely hit the first few spots on SERPs on anything but long tail keywords.
(Shaun’s allowed me to publish his findings, which I will do shortly via my blog.)
Even though a site which follows all of Google’s webmaster guidelines might get you part of the way there, there’s still a jump to reach the top spots - where the biggest traffic lies.
This is where being a “rocket scientist” pays off.
5 paisley // Feb 13, 2007 at 8:52 am
Dave pasternack is still a PPC Assclown.. SEO AnitChrist.. lol.. PPC Myopian was one term used. PPC twit is the word we use around my office..
but I did come up with an idea..
There is a way for certain terms to be regulated and therfore penalized..
I think now my goal is to see that happen with Dave Pasternack’s name ..
I really don’t give a shit about the $1000, but hey.. maybe i can waste that money for PPC..
maybe i should be an Assclown huckster like Dave Pasternack and make T-shirt that say…
“SEO, 3 out 4 rocket scientists don’t get it either.”
ok.. experiment.. since i like the way you think…
what does one day matter? I’ve played with this for a day.. that’s it.. then i will stop.. i’m not going for the $1000
6 Steve Wiideman // Feb 13, 2007 at 11:31 am
I for one have never participated in an SEO Contest, but I was bored at lunch and thought I’d join in the fun this time around. Brent, you are my idol man. I’m glad you’re tracking the progress of this contest (good form dude).
Why don’t we get a scorecard going? Or better yet, when the contest is over, let’s create a table with 20-30 SEO practices (criteria) so all of us in the industry can look over the top sites and pick apart their strategies. I’ll post the results at SEOStandards.org once I’ve completed the UI (ETA ~mid-March).
Thanks again and keep up the good work!
Steve
7 About Dave Pasternack // Apr 6, 2007 at 5:35 pm
8 IncrediBILL's Random Rants: 2007-02-04 // Jun 19, 2007 at 5:23 pm
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