UPONG, everyone’s 3rd favourite fictional organisation, today released valuable research outlining the growing incidence of what UPONG refers to as GIV: Google Immunetoranking Virus.
This terrible and potentially financially deadly condition threatens SERP destruction for the unwitting Victims.
“GIV has a large number of symptoms that range from complete disappearance to a reduction in reported links right through to the site appearing to have no pages indexed”, said newly appointed imagined UPONG Treasurer Sarah Emma O’Guru.
“In the last few years,” S.E. O’Guru said, “the number of incidents of GIV has increased dramatically. When the first instances where discovered, in a small group of 12 otherwise healthy and active Homosexual pr0n sites based in New York, we thought it was an isolated occurrence of a bad data push. Since then, the disease has spread to both Africa and India, with Nigerian 419 sites hit particularly hard, with 1 out of every 4 being a sufferer.”
Not much is known of the root cause of the illness, but it appears to be a disease that infects via links. So far, prevention is the only known cure, and the application of a link condom at both ends of a link is vital.
“Without it”, S.E. O’Guru said, “Both sites can potentially fall victim. Worse still, it can take years for the illness to show signs, and seemingly healthy sites can suddenly develop AIGS (Aint Indexed at Google Syndrome). All site owners need to be careful right now, because only one link partner needs to have it, and a whole network of sites can be brought down.”
The saddest stories of all are of the innocent, newly registered baby sites who are born with GIV, due to previous owners callous misuse. For such sites, a superhuman effort may help them last a while, but eventually they fall victim to AIG, and a long, slow, lingering SERP death, bereft of traffic.
The UPONG research also turned up several illnesses related to, and often misdiagnosed as, GIV.
One such illness, referred to as Assburger Syndrome, is a disease that affects many people. This illness is characterised by a misunderstanding of how Search Engines work, and a subsequent obsessive watching of one keyword, reloaded every ten minutes or so, for signs of ranking improvement. Assburger sufferers also exhibit an increasing anti-social lifestyle, predicated upon finding “patterns” in SERPs that no one else can see.
“Assburgers”, S.E. O’Guru told isos. “Is an all too common affliction that affects many wannabe online business owners. The only real cure is to get these people away from there computers and out socialising, where they can start to achieve real, demonstrable improvements in their lives.”
The second illness often mistakenly diagnosed as GIV was Enserpalitis. This disease is characterised by a swelling of rankings for a brief period of time, with a subsequent return to normal traffic and ranking levels shortly thereafter. Such bouts leave the sufferer unrealistically hopeful and reliant upon the traffic, and can lead to massive monetary loses when the rankings and traffic subside to more realistic levels.
UPONG treasurer S.E. O’Guru said that UPONG are committed to not only cataloguing such illnesses, but also actively working towards a cure. “At this time, the talented and brilliant people in our underground SEO bunker are researching potential coding solutions that we feel may delay, and in some cases reverse, the effects of GIV. One hopeful technology is IPv6 research, which we feel may offer greater flexibility and resistance to the IPv4 dieasses. Until then, prevention is the only cure, and link condoms are the absolute bare minimum of protection required, with link abstinence a more effective, and much safer, option.”
September 5th, 2006
Ok, we are out.
Of ideas that is. The closet is in no danger, I assure you. I don’t care if Brokeback Mountain and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’s number one box office / ratings are proving that society’s acceptance is growing, ok?
In any case, we are out of ideas. It is getting so desperate, we are forced to fall back on that oldest of old TV tricks: the flashback episode. Not only are they cheap and easy to put together, but they are a totally lame way to point out past hilarity. I guess we could sell this as “proving that isos has come far enough to be considered to have a Back catalogue”, but that wouldn’t be our style.
And we won’t fob this off as a “Halloween Special” or “Encore Presentation” either. Nope, it is a lame idea executed in the lame fashion which our our six readers (especially Torka) have come to expect from isos.
Scottie: So Mike, I remember starting isos well. After over 10 posts and at least three laughs, do you have a favorite isos moment?
Mike: Ah, there are so many moments that snuck slightly above banal it is almost impossibly hard to choose. But if I had to choose one, I would have to say I remember the 404 error handling page with immense fondness. Searching for lightbulb jokes is a great way to avoid doing one’s taxes and, to be honest, a post like this is the ideal time to point people towards it. I spent a good 8 minutes on that, and I bet even the most loyal isos readers (especially Torka), haven’t even seen it. It is pure, unadulterated quality, and don’t anyone try to tell me that feminist, Dianic, Wiccan, lesbian jokes don’t kill! No one!!!
Scottie: Mike, exactly how much further do you have to push it before you start getting hate mail? (You know you haven’t “arrived” until you have stalkers…) Surely there are people out there with no sense of humor who take your silly stories very seriously… I can’t believe you don’t have a single death threat…
Mike: Well Scottie, hate mail has, unfortunately, been rather light on the ground. I think perhaps we have to start naming names, and really up the ante on this whole endeavour.
Scottie: Well, you certainly don’t know how to use Springer Marketing very well if you can’t get some nasty comments… The road to fame is paved with fights, drama, and unsubstantiated accusations. Haven’t you learned anything?
Mike: Alas, no. But Scottie, enough of me, surely you must have a favourite moment from the isos vaults you would like to share it with us.
Scottie: I think the link-building by commiting crimes was brilliant and original. You don’t find many people willing to make that sort of commitment to linking, but for the ones who do, they payoff is incalculable! And, it’s not as final as the sslb program, but can be even more effective, depending on the crime. And who doesn’t enjoy a good crime against a celebrity?
Mike: Or the government? People love those, and they often come with the added benefit of financial page links that usually so hard to get.
Scottie: It all comes down to planning, Mike. Even when you are off-the-wall, you have to find the crime with the most potential for wide ranging links. Knocking over the corner convenience store just doesn’t have the staying power that stalking and threatening Kate Moss has… and if you can actually throw something at her… pure gold.
Mike: Or perhaps water pistol Heath Ledger. No real damage, and links galore!
Scottie: Well, remember, if there was no real danger in the first place, the links will be short lived. You want the potential damage discussed for months, even years to come… like people who almost shoot the president. That’s not just linking, it’s making history.
Mike: So what about our newest Blog contributor Santa. Has the Old Coot lived up to what was expected?
Scottie: Santa did an excellent job with his correspondance on the state of Christmas wishes. That’s a classic we’ll want to revisit every year!
Mike: I worry about that though. He seems to only ever work one day a year, so perhaps more than that is expecting too much?
Scottie: One day! My god, man, do you think all of Christmas happens in a day? He does PR work year round, not to mention the elf-uprisings that he has to handle… As busy as he is, I’m thrilled he found the time to share some of his frustrations with us at isos. Our 6 readers appreciated it as well. At least, no one flamed him… (which I can’t say for the Johnsons, who forgot to douse the fire in the fireplace… but that’s a story he can tell us next year.)
Mike: I think, at this point, whilst we are patting ourselves on the back and acting all important and stuff, that we also should point out our superb and excellent range of tools
Mike: The 100% accurate Keyword Resaerch tool.
Mike: The hillarious search function.
Mike: And the Ego-Boosting polls (top right) that never seem to get many votes, but the votes they do always somehow manage to be anything but ego-boosting. We really should stop putting in a last option that is so nasty.
Scottie: Well, I’m most impressed with the tools and I think the Complaint form is very effective. People who don’t click all the links miss out on some of the funniest parts of the site! No simple function has gotten away from Mike’s notice…. everything is booby-trapped and wrapped in a subtle or not-so-subtle joke.
Mike: Like the footer!
Scottie: Exactly! “This Blog is bought to you by the letters “S”, “E”, “O” and “M”, and by the number “$0″. Subtle…
Mike: I have really enjoyed our trip down memory lane Scottie, and I hope, next time we run low on ontopic hillarity, we can do another Flashback special.
Scottie: Hey- next time we run out of topics, you’d better believe we’ll be right back here, rehashing the old stuff that we have to live up to.
Mike: And so, that wraps up the isos flashback special folks. We hope you enjoyed the walk down memory lane. Any last comments Scottie?
Scottie: Yep. I want to tell all 6 of our readers (especially Torka) folks, don’t miss next week’s “flashback on things we didn’t write” special. It’s sure to be a real crowd-pleaser!
February 2nd, 2006
So often, it is hard to come up with an idea for building links. So hard and so vital, I often sit up at night crying myself to sleep trying to think of a way to build links. Often, I wake up crying as well, after a night dreaming of ways to build links, most of which are no good (although the one involving a “link exchange” with a certain celebrity blogger was, how shall we say, “interesting”).
So we at isos thought, well, actually, we stole the idea, “Why not have a competition to see who comes up with the best link building idea”?
So here we go, write the best link building idea below, and you will win, well, you win nothing. Sorry, but we are just too cheap!
OK OK, no, I take that back, you will win the greatest prize ever. It’s so amazingly cool that even Cool Hand Luke would be going “Wow, that is cool”, and when you go to your high School reunion, everyone will be like all fat and old and stuff and you will be so cool it will be so totally obvious.
People, we are talking zero degrees kelvin cool here, and we all know it don’t get no cooler than that!
So tell us all your best ideas. NOW!
February 1st, 2006
