Before delving into industry news from the last two weeks, inspired by a pickup line used last night at the SEOmoz Training Seminar after party, I felt compelled to kick things off with a list of the five worst SEO pickup lines that no attendee of the SEOmoz Training Seminar in London should use this October.

5. Did it hurt? Did what hurt? ...when you stopped ranking for 'heaven.'

4. You know you can't spell duplicate content without u and i, right?

3. I'm not sure if you pay $79 a month, but you're a PRO member in my book.

2. Nice shoes... wanna rank? 

1. My name is Danny, what do you say we 301 back to my place?

Five Thumbs

Four Thumbs

  • Oprah's Affiliate Smackdown: Last week was not a good time to be among the acai berry affiliates using images of Oprah or Dr. Oz without their endorsement. Both Oprah and Dr. Oz filed lawsuits against 50 online marketers who were using articles, video, images, and other such content to increase click through rates and sales.

  • Why Craigslist is a Mess: Craig Newmark may be content with a small home and a bird feeder, but it's hard to look at Craigslist's "ambiance of neglect" and not wonder why the classified giant hasn't done more to improve over the years. In his recent article Wired's Gary Wolf takes a behind the curtain at Founder Craig Newmark, CEO Jim Buckmaster, and the inner workings of the company.

Three Thumbs

  • Continued Focus on Local Search: David Mihm and others received a myriad of questions at the SEOmoz Training Seminar this week, but mozzers are not alone with their interest in local search. MSNBC will soon weave more local search results into their site through the acquisition of EveryBlock, a site founded by ChicagoCrime.org founder Adrian Holovaty.
  • DaaS Companies are Emerging: Wall Street Journal's article goes into the successes of companies such as Open Table and talks about how data mining can be incredibly lucrative for data as a service (DaaS) companies who do it right.

Two Thumbs

  • Meet Sheryl Sandberg: She narrowly missed Forbes' list of 100 most powerful women, but Harvard graduate, ex-Googler and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is playing an instrumental role in balancing data protection with advertising revenue. And with Facebook lagging MySpace to the tune of hundreds of millions in annual revenue, it's an area where the social network has room for improvement.
  • 14 Reasons Enterprise 2.0 Projects Fail: We might learn more from our failures than from our successes, but with any luck this list of why enterprise 2.0 projects fail can prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from falling into common pitfalls.

Thumbs Down

  • PR Firm Reverb Communications Creates False Reviews: Any PR is good PR, right? What about bad PR for a PR firm? Well, after being exposed for hiring dozens of interns to write fake reviews at the Apple App Strore, Reverb Communications now knows a thing or two about the absolute value of PR.

Rocking on YOUmoz

  1. US Websites Break into UK SERPs by John Sparks
  2. Increase Google AdWords Quality Scores by Enhancing User Experience by RandyP
  3. The Importance of NoFollow Links by Junseth

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