They are not announced until the start of the contest on sunday. I have put in a request for "boat insurance" though.
http://www.v7n.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22836 You don't need to join, just get a ranking in google for the keywords when they are announced.
I predict this to be a complete circus. No rules have been set and its very vague what will and wont fly. I think we will see a lot of new rules come into play as the contest goes on and a lot of people will get pissed off. I put up some cash for it mainly becuase I just love contests and I am glad to see someone step up and run one.
I think that Google will be in charge of the rules indirectly. I bet you a lot of entries will get banned and there will be backstabbing as well. I think the contest will be representative of what is going on in the seo world today, only more extreme.
(keep in mind while I am critisizing I havent found the time to ever put one together) Well I think the ball was really droped on the publicity. There should have been a few press releases and some well coordinated social networking to get the word out. If this contest would have been sposored by digitalpoint it would be probably have been on the frontpage of the wallstreet journal. I started getting a sour taste in my mouth about it when he posted on oilmans blog that he was taking it to private forums to milk all there was from it.
I think it's hard to get the mainstream audience excited over it, but I think the press releases will be a good idea. Will pass it on to him
I think the fact that it's 5 more days before the contest starts, it may be good timing to do that tomorrow or so.
You have some excellent points Shoemoney - I posted over at V7N with a list of each "sponsor" (sorry about mis-spelling your first name) with the express purpose of reducing some of the FUD ... plus I've heard "10K SEO contest" ... but I only count a total of 7K on the table. I have some ideas on drumming up "alternate" publicity about my entry (which will be 100% for charity), but yea, John Scott needs to nail down the "rules" BEFORE the contest starts. He's talking about changing the link requirements which I think is silly - go with what he originally wrote. While normally I wouldn't say registration is required (let Google speak!), in this case because of the link/not-link aspect, I'd say it would be a good idea to do so by the halfway point of the contest. I already have an entry put together and would love your support ... ;-)
Hi, I bookmarked your blog for updates . I stand no chance before you big boys of SEO but I will try and see where I find myself when it's all over . Thanks for info . Regards
You do have a chance though, and that is the beauty with seo. Someone can come in and get top rankings just by understanding the process so much better than everything else.
The major publicity with these does not come until after the contest is started. The reason for this is quite simple if you think about it. After the contest starts, people start putting those two hitherto unknown keywords everywhere. They start popping up all over the web in links to mysterious pages that have the mysterious words on them in heavy density. It's this proliferation of links that gets the most people involved, and will justify interest by the press. The exact words were: If you consider the purpose of the contest, I believe you'll understand that statement better. Cheers
Bah!! Change it to five hours!!! There should of been a claus in the original thread: John reserves the right to start the contest sooner!!! Rumor has it that you'll be able to get the keywords a day early if you win an ebay auction!!! er....dream time!!!