It is no surprise when a newspaper or other publication backs a presidential candidate. We’ve seen it happen forever. The issue that stands before us today is that one of the major media outlets is secretly backing a candidate without letting us all in on the secret.

We all know that FOX’s, “Fair and Balanced” motto is a huge joke, in looking at their far right slant on the news. After last night’s CNN / You Tube “debate,” it seems that CNN needs to change theirs from “The Most Trusted Name in News” to “We Really Want Obama to Win in 2008.” While watching this “debate” it became hard not to notice that host, Anderson Cooper, favored the Junior Senator from Illinois. Not once was he cut off, even when he failed to keep to the topic at hand. Furthermore, it was compelling to see how truly un-balanced Cooper moderated the event.

From ChrisDodd.com:

It is not hard to see that the amount of time allotted to Obama (15:11) was close to 3 minutes longer than Clinton (12:26), and a whopping 6 minutes longer than the average given to all 8 of the candidates of 9.17 minutes.

If you accuse me of being unfair, then I ask you to also look at the June 3, 2007 CNN “Debate” moderated by Wolf Blitzer:

In the first CNN debate in New Hampshire, it is clear that the amount of time allotted to Obama (16:00) was 1.57 minutes longer than Clinton (14:26), 4.3 minutes longer than Edwards (11:42), and a whopping 5 1/2 minutes longer than the average given to all 8 of the candidates of 10.5 minutes.

Conclusions:
I challenge anyone – especially CNN – to take a look at this data and try to conclude anything other then favoritism. When the mega news corporations stand behind our top tier candidates, no wonder the guys in the second tier don’t stand a chance.

While on vacation, I met a great guy — a friend of a friend — who had a website developed for his company. When he found out that I worked in the internet business, he began to ask me a few questions about how things work, SEO, and then some. In building his website, he hired a design firm that did a great job. He was not satisfied with simply having a website and found a company that could do SEO (Search engine optimization) work for him to help his site rank for certain keywords.

They had been working for many months together. The SEO company kept billing him and he kept paying. Unfortunately, since he had no idea what an SEO consultant actually did, he could not verify that they were doing a good or effective job. He asked me if getting a handful of leads over a few months was good, and I responded that it was not. This led me to become curious and visit his site.

I was shocked!

The company did not do even the most basic of SEO work for him. His code was not optimized, whatsoever.

This happens every day to countless people around the world. People calling themselves SEO experts charge people an arm & a leg to get their site ranked in the search engines. Many of these companies have no idea what they are doing.

How Can You Avoid an Unscrupulous SEO Company?

I recommend making sure you use a company that you have been referred to. Make sure they can provide references. Find out what keywords those references wanted to rank for and see if they rank for them. Contact the owners of those sites and ask them questions. A very quick hint if a SEO company is worth their salt is to see what keywords they rank for. Ask them. If they can’t get their own sites to do well in the search engines, do you think they will be able to help you?

Be sure that there are a set of expectations established before signing any contract. You must have in writing EXACTLY what you expect this company to do. They should be willing to provide details on how they intend on working with you and helping you out. If they do not, STAY AWAY! If they won’t answer your questions, STAY AWAY.

Basically, be extremely careful when working with any SEO company. There are many legit ones out there, but if you don’t do your part and investigate the companies you work with, you can find yourself paying out the a** to a company that is doing nothing for you.

Hey all. After a much needed vacation, I returned home to be bombarded by various headaches that popped out of nowhere. I have been dealing with these and am now ready to jump back in! I’m back!

Breaking News: Google Sued Over Sponsored Links

I must mention an article that I just came upon, titled Google faces landmark lawsuit over sponsored links. This article talks about a lawsuit facing Google, that could alter the way many of us make money online. If you use Google Adsense / Adwords, I suggest you read it and familiarize yourself with what is going on. Keeping up with news like that presented in this piece is essential for anyone who uses the internet as a tool to make money.

We’ll see you again very soon . . .