If you’re not too busy, stop by Marketing Sherpa and nominate bradfallon.com for the Best Blog Award. The form is here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=83271011576

Select the second category: Best blog on online marketing (Search, email, Web, etc.)

I don’t think I’m allowed to bribe people, but I just wanted to let you know I am adding a new links page and it is lonely for some links . . . .

As most of you know, there are automated software applications that automatically create “content” for search engines. While the search engines are getting smarter, so is the software.

As the arms race continues, here is a glimpse at the level of difficulty the search engines face. These grad students used their software to automatically generate an entire academic research paper, including charts, graphs, text, footnotes, and a table of contents.

You can see their story, read their paper, and try the software yourself here.

I’m in New Jersey with Andy and we’re finishing the Stomper Videos. We are having a contest to name the product. Ideas so far: Stomping the Search Engines: Extreme Videos, Google’s Revenge, Revenge of the Spider, heh.

Submit your suggestions to contest@instantseoexpert.com. The person with the winning idea gets the videos free.

Did you know Pepsi used to be called “Brad’s Drink“? Me either, but now you do. Hat tip: Todd Taylor

I thought I was the only one that thought that the fake blogs created by big company marketing departments were a dumb idea. As I discussed with Henry Copeland on my SEO Radio Show, a fake blog is the exact opposite of what a blog is supposed to be.

A corporate blog is “supposed to be” an opportunity for a company to communicate with its customers and prospects in a real voice. The less interference from Corporate Communications and the Legal department, the better.

A fake blog, where a marketing departments makes up a character, is not generally funny or cool. It’s usually embarassingly unfunny.

But I guess I’m not alone. They’re called “flogs” and there’s already a website devoted to the subject.

So the Big Seminar is this weekend in Atlanta. Alex Mandossian got me an invite (thanks, Alex) so I’m going to check it out. Talked to John Reese, Frank Kern & Ken Giddens there today. John is best known for selling $1 million in info products in one day. Good work if you can get it.

The keys, of course, are to (1) have a good product, (2) have a lot of joint venture partners with big lists, and (3) organize the heck out of the product launch. John did all three very well.

But if you don’t know a bunch of people with big lists that will promote your product, then welcome to the club.

I suggest you make Google your joint venture partner. Google will send you traffic for free — and unlike JV partners, you don’t have to pay Google.

I’ll be speaking at Affiliate Summit June 13-14 in Las Vegas. If you want to take your affiliate program t the next level, this is the major event of the year. And if you want to learn any what the top affiliates and top publishers know, then you have to go to Vegas to hear it. Because whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Ken Giddens and I are going to be doing a 3-day seminar sometime later this year. If you ever get a chance to hear Ken, grab it. (He’s the only guy I know that ever got thrown out of Google’s offices.)

Paymentech sucks is still the #3 listing on Google for “Paymentech.”

But if you need a good merchant account, call Christine at 1-800-814-3163. She will hook you up and take care of you if you have any problems.

The links on this blog are being updated. If you are an online wedding favor retailer and you need some good links to help your web site rank higher in the search engines, including links from this blog, just send a request to linkrequest (at)instantseoexpert (dot) com. If you would like a link and you are not a wedding favor retailer, see my links for coffee page here.

**If you previously donated coffee (or chai), the link page was accidentally erased. We have all the emails and the links will all be back soon!

In case you missed it, Yahoo told everyone before they released the latest index. Or at least, they told those who Yahoo’s own blog.

It’s worth linking to Google’s April Fool’s Day product release, Google Gulp. The 2 gig’s of space for Gmail, not a hoax. Google Gulp … not a hoax either? Danny Sullivan claims to have been gulped. You be the judge.