I can’t believe that it’s been a year since my first post. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been blogging for ages, but it’s only been a year. In this year, I’ve met some interesting folks, both online and offline (although there are a few I’d still love to meet in person -and many more-), attracted nearly 150,000 visitors (not bad for a niche blog), thousands of links and even got nominated for a SEJ blog award.

The 10 most popular Wiep.net posts of the past year (according to Google Analytics):

1. Link Value Factors
2. 10 Unusual places to drop your URL
3. The 4 different types of authority links (and 11 ways to get them)
4. Even my grandma can improve your website
5. Link Baiting: which hook attracts the right fish?
6. 10 More ways to build links without buying them
7. A spammer with a conscience
8. How to use Google AdWords to find new links
9. Where do you start your link marketing campaign?
10. When to end your link marketing activities

Prepare yourself for at least another year of (mainly) link building related posts, because I sure as hell am not finished yet :)

Apparently, the beta version of Internet Explorer 8 has difficulties counting.

Every page on social media website Sphinn has a numbered list of the ten most Sphunn upcoming news items. This feature of the internet marketing news portal looks perfectly normal if you use Firefox (or any other version of IE), but the latest Beta version sure finds it difficult to count properly.

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Last week, I noticed that the PageRank of Wiep.net dropped from 4 to 2. The PR of all internal pages, such as the Link Value Factors, dropped with two points as well, so this is clearly a manual PageRank penalty. After discussing this with several folks, the only reason I can think of why this happened is the footer of my blog (this design is a free WP Theme). It’s either that, or it’s because I haven’t been blogging a lot lately and this is Matt’s way to let me know that I should post more often :)

First of all I want to stress out that I personally couldn’t care less about this penalty and this is not an “I want my PageRank back!” scream. I wouldn’t even care if Google turned it into a PR0, a greyed out PR or even a red or purple PageRank, but I do care about the reason why. If this PageRank penalty is because of the links in the footer (it actually is my only website that’s 100% clean :P ), it’s wrong for several reasons.

1. Lots of WP templates work with ’sponsored by’ footer and/ or blogroll links and lots of mom and pop bloggers have never heard of either paid links, Matt Cutts, or even Google. Others may think that PageRank is directly related to their rankings and will turn hysterical if they see that their PR has been lowered because of factors that they don’t know is wrong.
In stead of lowering the rankings of the advertisers, Google thinks it’s more appropriate to lower the toolbar PR of template users who -in some cases, not in my case!- don’t even know they’re doing something wrong.

2. How about ‘designed by’ links? Can your PR get lowered because of linking to your website designer as well? This is pretty much the same.

3. This actually is a penalty for linking to irrelevant websites. Besides using the WP template, I never accepted any form of payment or whatsoever, so technically, the links aren’t even paid ones.

4. Indirectly, Google’s telling people which website template they can use and which ones they can’t. It’s either breaking the template’s conditions of use (leaving the links up is mandatory), risking a lowered PageRank, or following the Rules Of Google.

Some have suggested to nofollow or remove the links in the footer and to do a reinclusion request, but I’ve decided not to. In stead, I’ll do exactly what I said I will do my footer; I’ll leave the links up (which is mandatory when you use the template) until I have a new design. Do you have designing skills that rock and some spare time? Drop me a note and you might just end up with a ‘designed by’ footer link. From a PR2 blog…

Until then, does someone have a green pen, so I can fill up the void on my toolbar?

Because most Americans are at the SMX right now, this must be the perfect time for me to write a post targeted at all my Dutch (and Belgian) readers. Normally I don’t geo target my blog posts, but in this case I’ll make an exception :)

One of my colleagues decided it’s time to move on and will leave Tribal Internet Marketing pretty soon. He and I work pretty close and kind of manage the whole Link Marketing department. This means that Tribal’s looking for someone with link building related experience. The vacancy is so fresh that the profile of this new function isn’t even online yet, but I can assure you that it’s a pretty interesting job.

So, if you have SEO and/ or link building related experience and if you want to work together with me and several other very inspiring people (check out the video and other vacancies as well), feel free to drop me an email ;)

I’ll be heading at the SES in London next week, so if you happen to be there as well and if you’re also interested in drinking a beer, feel free to drop me a comment or an email.

Oh, and if you’re interested in drinking several beers, you certainly should drop me a note ;)

Are you afraid to miss that breaking news post or interesting discussion, but you don’t have the time to keep up with all the 246 feeds in your RSS reader? Don’t sign up for that Time Management training just yet, but try to follow everything through roundups in stead. There are lots of regular search industry related roundups (most of them are weekly ones) that will save you lots of time and make sure that you don’t miss anything at the same time…

Daily Roundups

SEL’s SearchCap: The Day in Search (Recommended)
 Search Engine Land lists all SEL posts, as well as other interesting industry pieces and links to all posts that made it to Sphinn’s front page that day.

E-Marketing Performance Team Reading List
 Stoney deGeyter lists whatever he and his team came across that day.

Search Engine Roundtable’s Search Forum Recap
 Barry, Tamar and the others hunt search related forums on a daily basis, so you don’t have to!

Raven’s SEO Daily Readings
 The Raven SEO Blog lists the most interesting SEO headlines every day.

Weekly Roundups

Pronet’s Social Media MarketingWrap Up (Wednesday)
 Muhammad Saleem stuffs a week of SMM into one post every Wednesday.

SEOmoz’ Roundup Thirsday (Thirsday, duh…)
 Not only search related stuff, but other items get listed (and rated) every week as well.

Web Strategy’s Weekly Social Networking Digest (Thirsday)
 Jeremiah Owyang digs up the best of social networking every Thirsday.

SearchRank’s Weekly Rap-Up (Friday, Recommended)
 David Wallace lists all search related stuff he feels is worth mentioning every week.

The Mad Hat’s Friday Tea Time (Friday)
 Aaron tries to cover what happened in the world of search in his very own way.

SER’s Search Buzz Roundup (Friday, Recommended)
 Tamar does a great job listing every newsworthy search related item every week.

Bruce Clay’s Friday Recap (Friday)
 Lisa Barone reports the best SEO related stuff every Friday. Oh, and what she learned at BoingBoing as well…

Marketing Pilgrim’s Linky Goodness (Friday)
 It’s not SEO News if it didn’t got listed in one of MP’s weekly roundups.

Get Elastic’s Bloggers Digest (Friday)
 From Ecommerce to Email Marketing, Linda Bustos lists it all in the weekly Bloggers Digest.

Wiep.net’s Link Building this Week (Friday)
 I try to recap whatever happens in the link building niche on a weekly basis myself as well.

Vandelay Design’s Weekly Links (Usually on Saturday)
 Steven lists the best design, blogging and SEO related posts every week.

Daily Blog Tips’ Link Tips (Sunday)
 Everything a blogger needs to know can be found in DBT’s Sunday Link Tips.

Pandia’s Weekend Wrap Up (Sunday)
 Your weekly dosis of Search Engine Headlines.

Monthly Roundups

Small Business SEM’s Best posts of 2008 (Recommended)
 Last year, Matt McGee of Small Business SEM bundled the posts from his Best Posts of 2007 and organized the SEMMYS. This year, he takes of with the Best posts of 2008.

Yellowhouse Hosting’s This Month in SEO (Recommended)
 What started as a weekly SEO roundup, turned into an in-depth monthly summary of everything what happened in the field of search. If even following just roundups is too much for you, I suggest reading only this one. The signal to noise ratio is excellent and Steven (aka VanGogh) describes almost every post for optimal readability.

If I missed one, please let me know…