Fun Friday Wacky News Story Extravaganza!

September 24, 2010 - It's a Fun Friday triple threat! I typically take suggestions for Fun Friday blog topics from everyone in the We Do Web Content office, and this week I was so bombarded by articles that I decided to give a sample of everything we had to offer this week in the wacky world of SEO, search engine shenanigans, and Internet marketing!

Defamed teachers, disappearing cities, and lawyer videos, oh my! 

SEO Story: Fired Teacher Struggles To Regain Internet Identity

This lesson in the importance of SEO comes from Jonesboro, GA. Randolph Forde was a high school teacher who was arrested for allegedly offering to pay a student $50 to kill another student on suspicions he was gay. It was found that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against him and the case was dropped. However, the damage had been done.

The media had a field day with the case and articles were popping up left and right with his name attached to each one. Even though the case is history, the scars left on his reputation by the media coverage are still lingering, and costing him job opportunities.

We've reported previously on the importance of how your name appears when you "Google yourself" and how some celebrities may be using SEO practices to help combat any bad press. The unfortunate Mr. Forde may need to look into some more affordable SEO strategies to help get his name cleared up!

Google Story: Google Maps Can Make Cities Disappear

For approximately 1 month the well-established city of Sunrise, FL did not exist. No, this wasn't the act of aliens or terrorists, but rather an error with Google Maps. Sunrise continued to exist physically on the Earth, and its 90k+ population continued to survive, unaware that their Internet existence was gone.

The biggest abnormality that Sunrise residents noticed was the lack of business coming to their local stores. Business owners were receiving complaints from customers saying they couldn't find their address on Google Maps. Many were being directed to Sarasota, FL, a city more than 200 miles away on the opposite coast.

The mayor of Sunrise, Roger B. Wishner, wasn't too pleased with his absentee city and let Google's engineers know about it. Google calls the incident a "technical error" and has since restored the city to its popular map and business search feature.

It's important that your clients can find you online as most searches for professional services take place via the Internet. Google maps allows for businesses to claim their address and insert a listing, linking to their website, phone numbers, and more. It's a crucial Internet marketing tool to claim your Google Local listing and make sure your clients can find your office!

Lawyer Internet Marketing Story: When Online Lawyer Videos Go Viral

Here's a case of bad lawyer marketing turned positive. As with many instances of viral videos, the original source is usually a comedy of errors. But with the power of the Internet, even the most unfortunate video ("Double Rainbow" guy, we're looking at you!) can become a successful marketing tool with enough Internet nerds behind you.

A Florida divorce attorney has been picked up as having one of the worst lawyer advertising videos around. Of course, any time you claim something is "the worst on the Internet" you're going to have hundreds, even thousands of viewers watching it to determine if they can't find one even more awful.

But hey, press like this got the attorney's name out there, in the spotlight, and his 15 minutes of fame may have just sparked a huge increase in his client contacts. We're betting The Divorce Deli probably saw a sharp spike in their website hits after that article ran!

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