Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest SEO of them all?

Competition time! Are you the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) person in Ireland? Want to prove it? Via the Irish Web Awards vehicle, we’re running another competition to see who’s the best at SEO in Ireland.

Mister Wilson Spammer
Photo owned by Mister Wilson (cc)

You have until December 1st at 3pm to rank your website for the following phrase: geansai gorm. Yup, we’re using a phrase as gaelige in order as as not to pollute the indices as much as possible.

Criteria:

  • Entries open to all Irish individuals and Irish businesses.
  • Search is to be performed on google.ie. Without Pages From Ireland selected, with personalisation off and from an Irish IP address.
  • The domain to rank must be a new domain. Must not contain the keywords in the domain name at all and no ccTLD domains are to be used.
  • Only want the homepage to rank, not other non-useful pages.
  • 301 redirects are not permitted.
  • Keywords as gaeilge instead of english but copy can be in English

Edit: Forgot to say a big thanks to both Cormac and Richard for their feedback about this idea.

89 Responses to “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest SEO of them all?”

  1. Mike says:

    Great idea damien. Might even have a go

  2. Before everyone goes off blogging about blue jumpers, please don’t even bother doing so on WordPress.com as part of this competition. Your blog will likely be suspended.

    I wonder if any will show up on http://en.search.wordpress.com/?q=geansai+gorm

  3. Aidan says:

    sounds like a great competition

  4. Damien says:

    @Maryrose Love? And a piece of glass. Which we’ll keep away from people with hammers. The main prize is being seen as the best

    @Donncha Why would WordPress suspend a blog that takes part?

  5. Mike says:

    Thje prize for me is what I’d learn about SEO. Brilliant idea.

  6. Damien – there are SEO contests going on all the time and they’re generally written in a spammy way, and usually designed to drive traffic to another site which is against our TOS.

    Not all are spammy of course, but they’re not the sort of blogs that people like to see in a community like WordPress.com.

  7. Damien says:

    @Donncha Ah ok, I get you. So if they create splogs just to redirect to another site? Is using WordPress to host the actual site ok though?

  8. Hiya,

    Damien, does “The domain to rank must be a new domain.” mean I’d have to buy a domain to participate or could I use a subdomain on a domain I already own?

    Jaime.

  9. Unfortunately I’d say the blog would be suspended too, otherwise we’d have lots of blogs showing up talking inanely about Geansai Gorm, probably with text that’s totally unconnected to jumpers.

    The blogs will abuse the tags pages, and our users will stumble upon them, get annoyed and fire off emails to support or blog about how much spam there is at WordPress.com.

    So, sorry, but please advice bloggers to stay away from WordPress.com if they’re going to take part in the SEO contest.

  10. Kae Verens says:

    good question, jaime.

    Also, damien, you say that no ccTDL domains must be “used” – does that mean that the target domain must not be a ccLTD, or that none of the sites that are used to point the geansai gorm words to the site must be hosted on a ccLTD?

  11. […] Web Awards vehicle, we?re running another competition to see who?s the best at SEO in Ireland. Damien Mulley Blog Archive Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest SEO of them all? So who’s entering? __________________ PHP Code: […]

  12. Kae Verens says:

    hrm. can’t spell ccTLD

  13. Louie says:

    An excellent idea. This should be fun… 🙂
    Does it require registration or any form of “I am in” message?

  14. Paul Anthony says:

    Sounds like fun. Think we should limit this to new domains exclusively.

  15. […] has set in motion a little competition for SEOs. This competition has a little Irish spin on it, aimed at Irish  businesses and Irish individuals. […]

  16. paul savage says:

    Great idea, and I guess I should at least put in an entry. I will try to rustle something up under http://www.mybluejumper.com/

  17. Damien says:

    Yes, this sounds like a bit of fun, it might even sharpen up my SEO skills. How do you enter?

  18. Shocking… All the easy domain names are taken already!

    Something more obscure it is, so.

  19. […] you have found yourself in a fierce competition to rank for the term geansai gorm on Goolge.ie but have you considered the important factors to get […]

  20. Went with the dutch translation myself – I’ve no idea why!

  21. […] Blacknight are now sponsoring the SEO competition. […]

  22. […] Damien Mulley, via the Irish Web Awards, has launched the latest search for Ireland’s greatest SEO. […]

  23. If this is affiliated to the Awards ‘vehicle’ why is it the only award or category where people have to perform in order to enter? In the Awards proper, you could submit work you had done to be considered.

    Also, I’d like to ask the question of why something spurious like ‘geansai gorm’ had to be picked? There are lots of not-for-profits out there with no ranking whatsoever who would love to get some free SEO from a bunch of people with the time on their hands to do it. Mycharity.ie would be able to give you a list of them – they are not rare!

  24. […] to rank for is geansai gorm which is blue jumper in Irish. For full competition rules check out Damiens blog. And if that doesn’t sound like a fun enough challenge Blacknight have made things even more […]

  25. Damien says:

    @Maryrose 1. Because as you know in SEO it is very hard, perhaps too hard, to fairly judge anything SEO related if people are not optimising for the same thing, at the same time, using the same rules.

    2. After checking previous competitions where a charity was given the best ranked domain after, it showed that if non “spurious” terms were used it polluted the index for genuine search terms and thus affected all those other businesses or charities that were also looking to be found for the same search terms.

    If you want myCharity.ie to rank well, why not get some of the SEO people you work with to do work on their site pro-bono, I don’t see how this competition is the only way for them to get a search listings push.

  26. FYI I have nothing to do with mycharity.ie. They were just a name that came to mind that would be able to give you 10 + worthy charities that all have no PR or no ranking to speak of. But thanks for answering my question. I wish everyone the best of luck. 🙂

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  30. Geansai Gorm says:

    I’m in 🙂

  31. […] is having a little competition on to see who can rank for the term Geansai Gorm by December 1st at 3pm. I’m game and here is […]

  32. […] that is the imaginative title that Damien Mulley selected on his geansai gorm seo competition post.  Damien you have created a monster. But I’ll give it a go for the […]

  33. Danny says:

    Define ‘new domain’ please. What is the last applicable date of registration?

  34. Geansai Gorm says:

    Damien, just spotted this, this afternoon. You’ve created a monster, but I’m game for a laugh. Here’s my effort at the Geansai Gorm competion is here. It’s really Roger G here – but I couldn’t resist the above link. Already I see I could have gotten a better domain name. Have to say I agree with Eoghan. SEO is bullshit.

  35. Kae Verens says:

    I think he means the domain should not have existed before the geansai gorm contest started.

  36. […] Mulley has posted a new SEO Competition. The competition is to get first place on a Google.ie search for “Geansai Gorm” by […]

  37. Me says:

    Thank you Damien for spicing things up with this contest.
    Let the fun begin !

  38. […] Damien Mulley with some feedback from Cormac & Richard announced a new competition to find the “Greatest SEO of them all” available only for Irish individuals and Irish business, but read on because there are a few rules that can not be broken: […]

  39. […] Tuesday Damien Mulley announced a competition to determine “Are you the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) person in Ireland?“  Of course among all the usual faces there has been quite a buzz. Its a great idea for a […]

  40. Joe says:

    This is going to be an interesting competition.

    Best of luck to all of you, I’ve no doubt workloads will suffer due to this little game.

  41. […] add us. It’s located at twitter.com/geansai_gorm and there you should find some updates about Mulley’s competition. Actually after thinking about this project I am starting to wonder just how much time it would […]

  42. […] can watch ( and learn ) from this : Damien Mulley Blog Archive Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest SEO of them all? All competing sites are new so…ask around the guys ( or girls ) who own them […]

  43. […] there troublemaking in Geansai Gormland? And who’d have thunk it? Accusations are flying on the news that there’s someone […]

  44. […] them evenly throughout the document. •    Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers. •    Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, […]

  45. ggwinner dot com says:

    I would really like to know your oppinion on this : http://geansaigorm.blogsome.com/2008/11/04/exclusive-ggwinner-may-not-be-a-new-domain/

    Of course before 27.11.2008 🙂

    P.S. You don’t have to post this comment..

    Regards,

  46. David Quaid says:

    Sounds like a good idea! I’m a week late it seems but I’m game!

    I’m throwing my hat in the ring for ‘Geansai Gorm’ with http://www.msbcentral.com.

  47. Dara says:

    I’ve bitten the Geansai gorm bullet too -all be it slightly late with what I feel is a very different angle than most others. My effort is at http://www.asgaelige.com