Utah SEO, Bryan Phelps and Paid Links

Posted by on Aug 8, 2007 in Blog, Google, Internet, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Utah, Utah Business, Utah Internet Marketing

Bryan Phelps has ranked #1 for “utah seo” for the past few days. He recently posted about it and seems to be surprised by the results.
Obviously this isn’t some huge dent in the internet marketing world as the search phrase barely gets any traffic. And that limited traffic is most likely composed of others in the field, but it’s still interesting to discuss.

Bryan’s site was started early 2007. He posted about random topics early on. Then, about a month ago he changed his title to “utah seo specialist” and was able to acquire some links. Now for the past few days he’s been ranking over firms that have put much more time into their rankings. Some of these firms were ranking well because of content (blog posts, age, good internal linking/cross site linking, etc – the guys at MWI always do well in these areas, especially blogs), while others are using purchased links plus the other stuff (check out the sponsored links at SEORoundtable. Utah firms have a strong presence there.

Will Bryan stay on top?
I highly doubt it. (Bryan, can we still be friends?)
In the past year I’ve seen many in the top spot including Vizad, Chris Sandberg, 97th Floor,MWI and UtahWebServices. In the end, the firms will knock Bryan down.

Which practices will win in the end?
Some of the search engines have come out and said they don’t like the paid link route and have even provided ways for others to report them. I personally don’t buy links for my own sites, but I’ve never reported anyone and never will.

I’ve enjoyed following the competition for the key phrase “utah seo”. It will be fun to see what happens next. For now Bryan Phelps is the champ. (Don’t let it get to your head or you could find yourself the newest member of the OrangeSoda link building team ;-) )

Update – 8/10/2007 – BryanPhelps.com fell to #2
HA HA