Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week:

•  Are you going to Pubcon? Do you enjoy kicking ass? If you answered "yes" to those questions then you're in luck! Rae Hoffman is giving away a ticket to meet Shawn Tompkins and learn some MMA 101 while you're networking in Vegas next week. All you have to do is leave a comment over on Rae's blog about why you kick ass. If your comment is the best, you'll win the free ticket!
• Missed SMX London but clamoring for a recap? Richard Baxter was kind enough to summarize SMX London in two posts, so check them out if you want to get your jolly ol' recap on.
• Michael Gray has a new project called Viral Conversations. The site "[brings] together product marketers and people who test products and generate product reviews. These online reviews are effective tools in the marketing of new products in the marketplace. Get your items into the hands of real life people who will get the word out about your product line." It should be an interesting site to keep an eye on...
• The SEO Greenhouse came out with a nifty SERP rank traffic calculator that's based on AOL traffic data. It doesn't spell funny words like 80085, but it's handy nonetheless.
• SEOmoz associate Will Critchlow answers the question "Should I invest in SEO during a downturn?" No, but you should invest in SEOmoz. I've got a student loan to pay off!
• WeBuildPages lists 10 reasons why your website looks like spam. I'm sure that stuffing "free cialis" into every nook and cranny of your site isn't helping.
  
• SEOptimise shares the lazy blogger's guide to quality content and social media success. It's short and sweet. Go check it out.
• Flickr just celebrated its 3 billionth uploaded image. It's of a door. Hmm, I guess they're saving the good stuff for 5 billion.
  
• Not to be outdone, Firefox recently hit record market share. It approaches 20% while Internet Explorer continues to slip.
• Okay, I'll come out and say it: this octopus is an asshole. This one, on the other hand, is effin' rad.
  
• I fancy myself a decent athlete, but even I admit that this is pretty hardcore.
• Tom Schmitz predicts the 2008 Presidential election winner by analyzing both candidates' websites, rankings, and SEO efforts. Pete Quily also compared the social media activity and search engine results of the two candidates.
  
• Speaking of the election, as you probably know, Tuesday proved to be an exceptionally historic night. As I'm sure you're all aware, this election marked the first time a Delawarean has been elected to national office. Inspiring, isn't it? I thought Delaware was a made up place, like Narnia or Mordor.
  
• Okay, pretty much most of these roundup links will be election-related so just bear with me here. According to Hitwise, Yahoo! was the #1 source of election news. I bet Google's glad we only have these things once every 4 years. Meanwhile, Twitter, Digg, YouTube, and the LA Times all reported record-breaking traffic numbers on Election Day.
  

• Seth Godin shares some marketing lessons learned from the US election. The #1 lesson learned: Tina Fey is able to make any situation at least 75% funnier.
  
• Fast Company published a duo of interesting articles. First, they analyzed how social media boosted election awareness and voting. Secondly, they ask whether employees are twittering away productivity. To the latter I scoff and say hell no! I'm not procrastinating, I'm conducting research for a blog post!
• ReadWriteWeb teaches us how to use the new Google web search RSS feeds.
• Ian Lurie is one sneaky bastard. He created a handy post on how to stop plagiarism in 3 easy steps. Tired of getting your blog content scraped and stolen by filthy spammers? Well, at least you can have a little fun messin' with them...
• Bschool.com has a list of 50 web tools to keep tabs on your competitor. Great resources...especially that Page Strength tool. Whoever came up with that one is pretty spectacular. ;)
• Speaking of 50, here are 50 websites you'll wonder how you lived without. #1 is obviously SEOmoz. How could you live without me and my ridiculously long roundups?
• Google and Yahoo! are officially seeing other people. Yahoo! is already trying to go on the rebound with Microsoft.  Meanwhile, Ask is still sitting in the corner of the gymnasium wondering why nobody will ask it to dance.
  
• CIO.com has a list of 9 startups that are doing well despite the struggling economy. I'm shocked to see that DiamondCrustedGoblets.com didn't make the list...
• My lovely friend Tamar Weinberg put together the ultimate productivity toolbar for creative people. If you're creative, you should find this list to be incredibly useful. If you're not creative then you still have a lucrative future as a Family Guy writer.
  

• Conductor released a report detailing natural search trends of the Fortune 500 in Q3 of 2008. Rand looked through the report and found that "72% of Fortune 500s are nearly invisible in the organic results for the top terms they bid on in PPC. Tragic, but interesting." Indeed.
• Rand's 5-star pick of the week is a video from the Business of Software conference that has a ton of startup advice.
  
• As for my 5-star link? You know what they say: 700 pictures are worth more words than you can imagine.

YOUmoz entries:

• URL Tagging: Clean Up Your Act. Rishil talks about how URL parameters can cause duplicate problems and general headaches in your SEO efforts.
• The Island of Dr. Yahoogle, or The Reverse Directory Hypothesis. Buybigtires posits that if search engines are viewing two terms as being synonymous, then anchor text containing either term could potentially boost rankings in both search results.
  
• Don't Forget to Optimize for Images (Including PDFs). Petrosianii reminds us that images can bring traffic to our sites and provides some handy tips on how to optimize images for ranking purposes.
  
• How to Generate Backlinks from Search Traffic from Brand Keywords. Undercoverseo suggests finding brand mentions and asking the folks who are mentioning your brand to include a link to your website.
  

Best of YOUmoz:

• Reputation Management Theory by developdaly asks that instead of creating a network for his client, would it be better to "create two or more networks that compete with each other, avoiding linking the sites together and, if possible, avoiding the overlapping of their content category." He proposes an interesting linking method and sparks an engaging discussion in the comments. 

• SEO specialist for TravelCLICK in Schaumburg, IL
• Director of SEO for SEO Inc. in Carlsbad, CA
• SEO manager for SMG Search in Chicago, IL
• Contracted directory sales rep for HubMaxMedia in San Diego, CA
• SEO executive for Gravytrain in Hampton Hill, London, UK
• SEO specialist and online marketing specialist for GotVMail in Needham, MA
• SEO and PPC specialist for iClick Solutions in Phoenix, AZ
• SEO programmer for Just Search in Poynton, Cheshire, UK
• Web application developer for eSolution Advisors in Arizona
  
• eCommerce Search Specialist for Lowe's in Mooresville, NC

Featured companies:

United States/North America:

• TravelCLICK in Schaumburg, IL
• HubMaxMedia in San Diego, CA
• InterCoastal Net Designs in the US
• Customer Magnetism in Virginia Beach, VA
• WebPrise in Orlando, FL
• Global Marketing Resources in Tustin, CA
• eSolution Advisors in Arizona

UK / Europe:

• Just Me and My in the UK
• PixelPoems Online Architects in Vienna, Austria
• High.One Online Marketing in Vienna, Austria
• High-Tech Hire in Kyiv, Ukraine

Asia:

• ZealousWeb Technologies in Ahmedabad, India
  

Featured resumes:

Currently looking:

• Cody Ward is the owner of hockEdeals.com. He's only explored the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to marketing and business development, but he is eager to learn and apply his knowledge, skills, and experience to helping organizations achieve their goals while simultaneously doing what he enjoys.
• Chirag Patel has worked as a strategic Internet marketing expert, an SEO specialist, and an online brand analyst for top IT names from different geographical locations. He/she is currently working with Silvertouch Technologies as an SEO team leader and is interested in working in the same capacity with room for more growth.

Happily Employed:

• Kate Morris has been working in the SEM field for 6 years. She currently serves as the SEM marketer for RateGenius, and she'll be speaking about landing page optimization at Pubcon next week. Kate has also guest posted here on YOUmoz and over at Bruce Clay.
• Adam Hankey works for icoastalnet.com. I'd write a short blurb about him, but his resume is a bit scant at the moment.
• Christopher Regan in Costa Mesa, CA, is looking for a dynamic SEM/SEO/PPC and project management role requiring thorough experience in strategy and structured marketing & analytics, web/IT/CMS configurations, team/vendor communication & leadership.