For those of you that are Office-aholics like myself, you noticed that Ryan (formerly “The Temp”) got carted away by the po-po for fraud in the season finale last night. He wanted to show the value of the Dunder Mifflin Infinity website (his pet project), so he had salesmen log their sales on the website as well as on paper, so they were being counted twice.

If Ryan had been smart, he would have hired an internet marketing company (yes, yes, a shameless plug) to boost Dunder Mifflin’s website in the organic rankings, which in turn would have increased their sales. I think they, as a paper company, would have also benefited from a great optimized pay-per-click campaign.

At any rate, now Ryan is going to be in need of some great reputation management to clean up his image, now that he’s probably going to be going away for a long time.

I can’t wait for the new season to start in the fall - fingers crossed for no more writer’s strikes!

I suppose it’s a good thing, considering Vizad has been super busy lately. I do need to make more time to write on my blogs, though.

At any rate, we’ll get some pics taken when Vizad’s newest linkbuilder comes to town!

One interesting item of note mentioned in an article on msn: advertisers are expecting to double their online ad spend over the next three years. This is good news for the internet marketing industry - both seo and ppc companies can expect to see an increase in contracts from companies looking to compete online. At least that’s my take on it.

At any rate, I’m interested to see how this plays out. Yahoo has turned Microsoft’s offers before, but now it seems that they’re considering this one. We’ll see…

At any rate, let me know if the update has hurt or helped you - it’s interesting to see what’s going on in the mind of Google…not that we every really know!

As a small business owner, I rely on the integrity of other companies to keep my business running. When we set up our office, we signed up with Qwest, because they were the biggest company, and the best, I assumed. I was wrong. As our phone/fax/internet bills increased every month, I realized I needed to cut costs, and find another company that would be more affordable.

We decided to switch our phone lines to Eschelon, and keep our internet and fax line through Qwest. Eschelon (which is now Integra) promised to save us money, and George Stewart, our sales rep, said the service would be great, and promised we would be very happy.

I guess phone service salesmen can be trusted as much as a used car salesman.

With Eschelon, our voicmail would go out every week. We realized that we were missing calls from clients, and not getting the messages they left. We would have entire days where our phone lines didn’t work. When I called Eschelon to complain, they told us all the phone companies in the area were having problems, and to be patient. It wasn’t THEIR fault. The problem was, our fax line with Qwest was working fine. Ha. Caught in a lie, Eschelon. Nice try.

We finally grew fed up of having phone lines that were totally unreliable. We decided to look into VoIP phones, and had those installed. We switched companies again, hoping to finally find one that would work for us.

Our current phones have been great, however, I soon received ginormous bills in the mail from both Qwest and Eschelon, because I had cancelled all plans with both companies. They said they were early termination charges. These charges were never discussed or disclosed to me - between the two phone companies, they wanted me to pay around $1,000 in charges for services that were completely unreliable. I was shocked. I can’t imagine charging a client a cancellation fee because they cancelled due to my ineptitude. I would humbly apologize and hope that I could make it up to them somehow.

Not Qwest or Eschelon. Nope. I had to pay. I called both to argue my case, and Qwest basically told me I had no options. They gave me an address to write a complaint letter to. I did so, and didn’t hear anything back. I wrote another letter, demanding a response. Finally, I received a response from a very nice lady, who told me there wasn’t much she could do, but she offered a $50 credit on my home phone since I was no longer a Qwest business customer. I still had to pay the outrageous fees. This angered me, but I realized I had to suck it up, and learn from the experience.

My dealings with Eschelon were very similar. I told them that I had to cancel because they couldn’t keep my phone lines working, and if I didn’t have phones, I would go out of business. After much back and forth, they said they would cut the “early termination” charge by 25%. I agreed to this so I could be done with them, but I’m not happy. It is outrageous that they tack on these fees. It’s like an extra slap in the face for an already dissatisfied client.

My lesson from all of this: read the fine print. As questions about early termination charges. And if at all possible, don’t sign any long term contracts. If the company is worth their salt, they will let you do month-to-month. (Our current company, Veracity, lets us do that.) There are reasons why these phone companies lock you in - because their service is sub-par, and their prices are too high. I’ve learned on of my lesson - stay away from Qwest and Eschelon, don’t sign long term contracts, and ask questions about any fees or charges they may tack on.

Anyway, the show was fabulous. We were given center orchestra tickets and had the chance to meet the cast after the show. Well, take pictures with the cast - they were still very much in character, and were very silent (and expressionless). The seats were great, and we really had a great view. The “Blue Men” were highly entertaining, with outlandish antics like throwing marshmallows and catching them in their mouths to playing with paint and drums at the same time.

The band was entertaining as well. They had costumes that glowed and really added to the atmosphere. The music was really fun to listen to - it was loud and well played.

Blue Man Group is a performance that is hard to describe…unique and original are two words that come to mind, but again, they aren’t very descriptive. Just imagine the Three Stooges meet Charlie Chaplin (they don’t say a word) meet…a big vat of blue paint. All set in modern/futuristic times.

I had a chance to see the Blue Man Group in Chicago a couple of years ago, and while the shows were similar, the one in Vegas seemed to be a bit more entertaining. I don’t know why…maybe it was just the excitement of being there.

I really enjoyed the show, thanks to PubCon. I would recommend it to anyone - it’s good family fun. (Probably not the younger kids - they might be intimidated by how loud the show is.) I look forward to catching another show in Las Vegas next time I go - maybe if I end up going to CES again this year. We’ll see!

We stayed at the Wynn - a beautiful 5 star hotel in a great location. We were on the 54th floor with an incredible view of the Strip. The pool area is exquisite, and the restaurants all offer fabulous cuisine. But enough about the Wynn…this is an internet marketing blog, and I need to stick to the topic!

There were many speakers and topics discussed. Overall, I think the show was somewhat basic, however, there were some more advanced panelists there that gave some good information and advice. I’ll cover my favorite speakers/classes soon.

One of the coolest perks were the tickets we got hooked up with for Vegas shows. Our group ended up going to see the Blue Man Group - it was a great show. I’ll write more about it in a bit, and try to post some pictures.

Thanks, WebmasterWorld, for a great show. I look forward to coming back next year!

At any rate, I’m sure Google will do another update to adjust this, and also to raise the pr’s of other sites. We’ll see when (and if) this happens - it will be interesting to see. Maybe seogurl will move up from a pr0.

I will say, however, that I don’t think Google’s “pagerank” system is that important. (Ok, that probably sounds lame considering I just admitted seogurl is a 0…but I think most seo’s will agree.) Google even admits that it doesn’t really reflect the true value of the website - it’s just an estimated indicator of it. I think this is especially true since it’s been so long since Google did an update. Now, I know that seogurl is a pretty new website, and doesn’t have a ton of content, so most likely the pr will stay 0 for a while. I’m not too concerned about that…I’ll just try to develop good content, and eventually the pr will reflect that.

SewellDirect took 13th place - of course I have to mention them because that’s where Preston Wily, my husband works, and the reason I was at the lunch. (SewellDirect is an internet retailer of computer hardware and software.)

And finally, Doba, a drop shipping company, took first place. What an honor for them - being ranked as the fastest growing company in Utah for the past year. We’ve seen good things from them, and I’m sure their company will continue to grow and expand.

Congrats to all of the top 100 companies - Utah certainly is a great place to be an entrepreneur and run a business.

This year they have a lot of excellent speakers lined up again. Guy will be moderating one of the evening sessions with a panel including Matt Cutts - I’m really looking forward to that. Craig Newmark (CraigsList fame) is going to be one of the keynote speakers this year - that should be good. I grew up in the Bay Area (San Jose), and have been using CraigsList for a long time. I’m looking forward to hearing him talk.

The sessions that are scheduled look like they’re going to be awesome. I’m wishing I could go to everything, but I suppose that’s why we have other employees going - so we can cover most of them.

At any rate, if any of you are planning on attending Pubcon 2007 and would like to meet up, shoot me an email and let me know. I’d love to meet up with other SEOs.