Chris Hooley’s -ThinkBait-

Ok- ‘nother meme, but this one seems bit more interesting. It’s about the trust. Greg Niland kicked off what seems to be a good one this time.

Here’s the tree so far…

Greg Niland
trusts
Rae Hoffman
trusts
Michael Gray
trusts
Todd Malicoat
trusts
Andy Hagans
trusts
Cameron Olthuis
trusts
Jarrod Hunt
trusts
Chris Hooley (me!)
trusts
The SEOmoz peeps I still trust them, but they can’t keep the meme going.  I also trust Andrew Wee!
trusts
?????????

Who wouldn’t trust a team that blatantly publishes their financials, doesn’t even take a referral fee, refuses hand outs of any kind, and honestly works their butts off to help an entire community of SEO junkies? SEOMoz rocks.

I might need to arm wrestle Rand and / or Rebecca to keep this going.

Thanks for the tag Jarrod! I also trust your link brokerage!

SEOs and affiliate marketers are basically all competing for the same thing(s). With that said, I bring you the official SEO / Affiliate Marketer Code of Ethics.

• Take the money, let somebody else take the credit (unless you make a living speaking or writing books, in which case do the opposite)
• Your friend’s niche is like their ex and should be treated the same way. If you know about it, you can only get involved with his permission first, and you can’t ask for permission either.  You are, however, allowed to eye the niche up with longing and think about how great it would be if it was yours
• If you are blackhatting, you can’t blow the whistle on other blackhatters. Only white hats who are 100% spam free are allowed to submit SERP spam reports (which means I will be reporting ALL your silly websites in the morning)
• Don’t submit a SERP spam report unless the site you are reporting is either doing something A) illegal B) malicious, or C) if the site sucks so bad it is impossible not to try and get the person who created it banned and cut off from their income flow
• Getting a site banned is like burning down a building. There are very few times when it is OK.
• You can blog about your own new techniques / exploits, but cannot blog about other people’s unless it is already public knowledge or unless you have permission
• If you found an exploit, no matter how much I want to read your blog on it… Keep it to yourself, milk it, then right when it starts getting noticed THAT’s when you claim it
• Ideas are also like ex-girlfriends. You can’t steal an idea from a friend, but it is OK to work an “idea” if you don’t know her “ex-boyfriend”

Props to Sugarrae for helping me to focus this a bit.  We both may add a point or two after the fact.  Do you have any other “rules of engagement” or “laws of honor” for our industry that are missing?

There has been a lot of public link whoring link worthy stuff this week. I would be amiss if did not do something about this. With no further ado, here is the shizzle bizzles.

• Joe Morin has me asking Will You? You should ask on your site too. Who cares, it’s a great idea.  Especiallly if the lady is a Sex Goddess.
• Gray Wolf kinda called out Jason Calacanis and Ted Leonsis for being lamers. People bettah reckanize!
• HaitBait sounds too close to DrinkBait. I aint mad. I already registered CrapBait.com. Man, the originator of Buzz 2.0 must be proud!
• Rae is a baller. She only rolls in limos lately.
• The big revealing of SEO Fan Girl has us buzzing. Both good enough for some link love fo sho’
• SEO Loser still has the best post I’ve read in a long time… that is, until I created and SEO BoyBand. (I just linked to and bragged about myself which doesn’t mean crap, but it still felt cool.)
• Bill Slawski sizes up Yahoo! and their ability to determine buzz. Hint to Yahoo! - just drink more. You’ll find the buzz eventually.
• Boser’s back. The guerilla and the terrorist. Whoa, digg it baby.
• Something’s wrong with buying links? No, say it aint so. Does this mean I can’t buy Adwords, YPN, AdSonar, Pulse 360, CJ, and other stuff like that? Serioulsy… aren’t we all buying and selling links in one way or another?
• Chris Hooley interviewed on WebProWorld? Wow. Seriously guys, Wow. I look like a dumb guy trying to sound smart because that was DrinkBait day and I accidentally baited myself like 4 times. Ok not accidentally, but still.
• Naylor gets Nailed. One! Two! Three! Four! Getting ranked for Viagra? Score!
• Which reminds me, Matt Cutts and Yahoo! sports. Done. It’s all complex, really.
• I love people who love me, and that’s final.
• That was fun!

If I forgot anything awesome or funny or bait worthy, make sure to point it out in the comments. I’ll probably do something about it!