SEO for Web 2.0

On Wednesday I went to a LinkedIn and Adam Lasnik, Google Search Evengalest (aka: MiniMatt) Is your Web 2.0 SEO Simply Tactical or Holistic? After giving a brief history of the "content to links" movement in SEO, Andreas wisely advises the audience to build link building into their mindset. He then asked each panel member if they have a specific linking strategy and what is the role of SEO in the Web 2.0 strategy. David of LinkedIn said that they didn't have a specific linking strategy because they "had the luxury of having a high page rank before the public profiles." While SEO was not an initial focus for LinkedIn, "optimization of the public profiles has brought more users," though they rely more on viral marketing. I love that Joelle from Engage told the crowd that they were in the process of developing a Linking Strategy. Not many new companies (or well established ones) think like that. I guess that stems from her previous experience at The New Model SEO Customer. Finally they covered online competition for Web 2.0 companies. Is a Web 2.0 competitor different? What is their Strategy and are they spamming? Andreas brings up a screenshot of a #3 in Msn Live Search for the search query: Florida Online Dating. And when you check other queries by state such as: [state] Online Dating, they rank in the top 10 for both Yahoo and MSN Live Search for many of these queries. I wish I had done this search that night to see where they ranked in Google at that time. While the meat of optimizing AJAX and Web 2.0 technologies weren't actually discussed until I asked during the Q&A, it was still a great event with a great discussion. However many people afterward told me that they were disappointed for the same reasons that I was. The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

Natasha Robinson