The Busby SEO Challenge Story

It's June 5 When the Challenge Started

Allow me to start off with how it all started for the Busby SEO Challenge Worldcup. June 5 (my birthday), a good friend told me through a messenger about what he saw from a previous blog of one of the top10 ranking participants of the the SEOcontest2008. This was about a new contest, the Busby SEO Challenge contest. At first I was not convinced to join him in his quest but later on, I learned that there are some loose ends that's supposed to be settled for the Philippines to win this one and I'd like to take part on it all. It's time for the redemption song by Bob Marley.

Blog Age and Natural Title Tag Tells It

So we were surprised that nobody seem to be busy here in the Philippines or at least in Australia yet where the major sponsor is from, no one was aware that a new SEO contest is being cooked and the rules are being solicited to popular personalities from previous SEO championship participants of the SEOContest2008 where our bet from the Philippines, Benj Arriola got the second slot at the end after his entry buckled down to the last minute. Going back, since I was not really much of a contest-win ego-type blogger hungry for a win but rather loves a silent life as a webmaster, I thought of it for a while. From the looks and prize of it, $5,000.00 I said to myself I would like to try this out If I can win or at least, just to learn what strengths my own blog has. I was surprised that after a post, it only took about 2 hours and the entry was already in the first page that same day. Slim competition yet so I was there and that made me decide to take the challenge.

So We Were in the Challenge

At first I never thought to go against some of the best there is in the SEO business but the art of SEO and my natural love of the way we can try to see how manipulation can take effect for such entries, then we finally got in and signed up. This blog is not part of it but if this post will rank high after a few link building efforts, you bet I will have this one joined in the Busby SEO Challenge contest.

The Rules are not Clear from the Start

The first week is really a very fruitful start for the team of 3 newbies but we later on learned that entries that have either of the contest keywords which are busby, seo and challenge will be disqualified. It was not really clear to everyone from the start and so we fell down low on morale because of the sudden change of the rules. The original rule was that the domain cannot contain or include in any way the keyphrase in any order but was later on changed to "the domain entry to the challenge must not include any of the 3 keywords in the domain. We took it, all of us, the participants and so we began to think and work out another entry and see if it has the same power as the original entry we have which contained the word SEO in the domain.

Surprise Comes in so Many Odd Ways

Yes! Again, we were surprised because after a post, the next day, the entry landed in the first page and so we began to take it from there and decided to make it official and change the team name and have the new entry claimed under our new team name.

The Rules are Still not Clear Today ?

Yes, up to this point on, the rules are still not clear, the loophole that I am seeing in this SEO challenge is that there is no clear ruling on how an entry may be disqualified if found out to be using unethical SEO methods. This is a very vague rule and I cannot contest on this one. I bet this includes the 301, 302 and so on redirects and other ways very obvious to the entries on top of the results. Some one put a malicious content on our entry so we dropped in rankings from the first page to the second page. I have experienced this before and at first I thought that it was the change in theme that caused our entry to drop rankings but no, it was part of the effect due to a malicious insertion of something, how? I still don't know. We had it cured by the way but we were not able to recover from the tragedy that it has incurred on us and our site.

The Busby SEO Challenge is Full of Wonders

Indeed, the Busby SEO Challenge is full of wonders that after a major set back to our entry we got back in front at # 14 today knowing that we were not able to handle things out because of the typhoon that struck the city and we had been left by it without any internet connection or 4 consecutive days. Even if that is the case, we still did not give up. we are and will continue to be on tail over others and we will try our best to be there until the second month comes. After that. we will go all out on our campaign. There is a big possibility on our entries to go on top again but i am hoping that this post will go to somewhere after the ping.

Assessment and A Call to the SEO Contest Admin

As a suggestion, I would like to inform in this post although this is a bit informal that they should make clear all the rules as soon as possible to avoid disputes in the end. There will be no room for loopholes in the SEO challenge rulings. It has to be set in a clear and definite mode to be made available for all contestants and it should be done fast. I just hope the admin hears this or reads this post.