A lot of companies are paying for back links to boost their natural search results in Google.

These purchased links really work because they are from very well-known publishers. In fact, many of the most well known, prestigious publications are selling links.

It’s very difficult for Google to catch these paid links because 1) they look like regular links and 2) these publishers are top publishers with great reputation and brand recognition.

If you’re an advertiser, should you join the game and purchase back links?

It’s up to you. I have worked in the internet marketing industry long enough to tell you that buying links is like addicting to drugs.

Once you get a good ranking in Google due to the links you purchased, you’ll become dependent on the purchased links. You have to keep spending money to “subscribe” the links. Otherwise, you’ll see a drop in your ranking.

It’s like addicting to drugs. You’ll have some instant gratifications, but you’ll be addicted to something bad.

• POP Access to Yahoo! Email: I’ve been using Yahoo Mail since 1995. Prior to 2001 (or 2002), Yahoo! lets users to download emails to POP client such as Outlook. It had since started to charge for such a simple feature. Please make it a free feature again, Yahoo!
• Juniper VPN Access on my T-Mobile G2 with Google Android Phone (T-Mobile) : I love my G2 phone from T-Mobile. However, as far as I know, there is no Android client for the Juniper VPN (my employer uses Juniper Virtual Private Network that allows employees to access corporate network remotely.)
• A real-time bandwidth meter for my G2 phone: I want to find out exactly how much bandwidth an application is using. I’d like to know the information in real-time so that I don’t waste the bandwidth and get over charged. There has to be something like this out there, but I haven’t been able to find the app. Any recommendation?
• More user friendly email “archiving” capability on Microsoft Outlook: Maybe it’s just me, I found it’s quite inconvenient to move emails around in Outlook when my email usage exceeds the capacity assigned by my network administrator. I have a local folder to store my emails to save space, but there has to be easier and more convenient way to save emails locally and reduce storage space on Exchange server.

I’m not so sure.

You might have noticed that I recently made some changes to this blog. When I started blogging 18 months ago, I made the rookie mistake of using the default Permalinks Setting of “http://www.GeekMBA360.com/?p=123″. In case you’re not familiar with Permalink, it’s the permanent URL to individual blog post or page.

For example, a very popular page on this blog is Great Depression 2.0 Layoff Tracker. Since I previously chose the default Permalinks setting, the URL for this page was “www.GeekMBA360.com?page_id=235″. Although Google scans the entire page, it puts a lot of emphasis on the URL. Since my default URL “page_id=235″ is not descriptive at all, it is really damaging from SEO standpoint.

I recently changed the default URL to “%postname%” which automatically inserts the blog post/page title to the URL. So, instead of “www.GeekMBA360.com/page_id=235″, I now have “http://www.geekmba360.com/great-depression-20-high-tech-layoff-tracker-updated-daily” as the URL for the same page.

Within a couple of days, I see 10% – 20% increase in daily traffic.

You might ask me why I didn’t make this change earlier. I was actually very nervous about making the change because I had to figure out a way to safely redirect the old URL to the new URL. I don’t want to have any broken link as a result of this change. And I don’t want to give search engine the impression that I have duplicated content in which case I’ll be penalized by search engine. Fortunately, I found the Permalink Redirect WordPress Plugin that worked brilliantly to address this issue.

At least from this example, I think Search Engine Optimization (SEO) still matters. Search Engine has not gotten to the point that they can figure out everything on their own. This reminds me of my college days of studying artificial intelligence — it’s a great vision, but we’re not there yet.

Related post:

• Is Amazon Kindle Publishing For Blogs Beta Program a good deal for bloggers?
• Why newspapers are dying and bloggers are winning
• My wish list of blogging software improvements

Recommended Search Engine Optimization books:

• The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Theory in Practice)
• SEO Warrior
• Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions

I still read a few old media newspapers and magazines. But, most of my readings are now done on the web. 

I do watch TV, but mostly for the entertainment value, not for getting information.

Below is a list of my favorite source of information.

Career and life advice:

• Harrison Barnes is a former lawyer, serial entrepreneur, and prolific blogger. Unlike a typical career coach who has never done any real work, Harrison has a lot of experiences and lessons learned from the trenches. And he writes in a very clear and compelling manner. He is easily one of my favorite bloggers in the career advice space.
• Marty Nemko: A veteran career counselor who is not afraid of speaking his mind. I don’t always agree with Marty’s political views, but I enjoy his honest and practical career advice. He also has interesting take on Men’s Issues. (Marty is the co-president of the National Organization for Men). 
• I’m very hesitant to include Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist blog on this list — I read Penelope’s blog regularly because I appreciate Penelope’s writing talent, her wits, and her ability to grab attention. But, I disagree with 75%+ of her career advice to generation-Y. Because Penelope’s view is so different from mine, I decide to include her blog on this list.
• The Blog of Tim Ferris: Some people loves Four Hour Work Week and Tim Ferris, while others absolutely dismiss his book. I think he is a brilliant marketer and a master promoter. I don’t fully agree with everything in his book, but I do agree with many of the principles embedded in his book. I also admire how he took a different path and succeed in doing so.

Venture Capital:

• A VC by Fred Wilson: I love this blog. My favorite post is I Got Lucky — how many venture capitalists have the humility to admit they got lucky, take the time to share and interact with readers, and have a deep understanding of both business side and technology side of his area of focus?
• Feld Thoughts: Brad Feld and Fred Wilson are friend. Brad’s blog is like a close cousin to Fred’s blog: equally insightful,  interactive, and down to earth.
• Both Altos Ventures Musings and Redeye VC have great stuff, but they don’t update their content that often.

Entrepreneurship:

• Blog Maverick: If you haven’t read Mark Cuban’s blog, read "Success & Motivation" series first.  
• infoChachkie: This blog was initially written under the mysterious pen name of "Uncle Saul". Lately, Uncle Saul has revealed his identify: start-up veteran and venture investor John Greathouse. When you read this blog, you’ll feel that you’re listening to a very wise man. 
• Summation: I’m a long-time reader of fellow Cal graduate, and serial entrepreneur Auren Hoffman’s blog. In fact, he started this blog in 1997 well before the term "blog" was invented. 
• Johnchow.com: John Chow is controversial, but it’s hard to argue about his result. He makes 30K+ each month by blogging about what he eats, who he talks to, etc. If you work in online marketing, you should pay attention to what John Chow does on this web site — a very shrewd online entrepreneur.
• Northwest Passage by Steve Murch: Steve Murch is a serial entrepreneur who sold his previous company to Expedia. His current project is really interesting: he has grown BigOven to one of the most popular recipe sites in a very crowed market. And it was a solo effort for the first four years.

Technology industry news

• Business Insider: I like its mix of news and analyst-style analysis. 
• VentureBeat Blog: This used to be my favorite tech blog. But, lately, I feel that they run too many long articles — I don’t have time to read all of the long posts! But, still, I love the serious journalism of VentureBeat. 
• TechFlash: a must-read for anyone who wants to follow the high tech scene in Seattle.

Economy and finance

• Calculated Risk: News and analysis about economy — better than 99.9% of the main stream financial media (if there is still such a thing called "main stream financial media".
• RGE – Nouriel Roubini blog: Roubini is not always right, but he has been right more often than not. More than two years ago he correctly predicted the current financial crisis. I suggest you to read his writing regularly to get a better understanding of our economy.

What do you read regularly? Do you have any recommendations? I’d love to hear from you.

Related posts:

• Who are making a lot of money from the economic downturn and where do they get their financial news and analysis?
• A great investment book that teaches you how to think
• A Book I always Turn To When I’m looking for a Job

What kind of intelligence can you infer from above information?

Let me tell you something. There is a high probability that Mary Anne is looking for a new job. She is improving her profile, networking like crazy, and trying to build positive word-of-mouth referrals.

People’s behaviors on LinkedIn can reveal a lot about what they’re thinking and doing. 

I’m not telling you to jump to conclusion about others’ plans and intentions based on their behaviors on LinkedIn. But, LinkedIn is definitely a channel for career and office intelligence.

The reverse is true as well — if you’re not careful on LinkedIn, others (which might include your boss and subordinate) might know a lot more about you than you want them to know.

Just a few days, someone I knew was pulled into a room by his manager. His manager had found out from social networking sites that my friend was actively contacting recruiters. The manager asked: "You’re looking around. Why? Are you committed to your job?"

Facebook could be even more problematic. A lot of people are connected to both their personal friends and co-workers on Facebook. You might be flirting with a former classmate on the Facebook Wall, but if you’re not careful, your action will be "broadcasted" to a lot more people than you would have preferred. Your colleagues might notice that you’ve been on Facebook a lot during working hours. That’s usually not a good thing in front of your coworkers.

Most of the social networking sites make it really easy to share and reveal information by default. I’m all for the benefit of social networking: connecting, sharing, and building a community. But, I also believe in the separation of professional life and personal life.

It’s dangerous to  mix them up.

So, I practice a bare bone, minimalist social networking strategy:

• I turned on most of the privacy settings on LinkedIn.
• I use LinkedIn to connect to former and present colleagues. I rarely update LinkedIn profile. Even if I update my profile, people won’t get the automatic notification since I’ve turned on my private settings. They have to specifically come to my profile page to see any changes I made.
• I have separate Facebook accounts for professional and personal purposes. I don’t connect to any co-workers on Facebook.

Call me paranoid and/or old fashioned. I just think we’re much better off by calling each other, grabbing a cup of coffee, and having lunch together to learn more about each other.

Related posts:

• How to overcome writer’s or blogger’s block
• Is your paycheck correct?
• Do Time Management techniques work?
• If you’re laid off and let go today, are you going to lose all of your personal data on your computer at work?

Recommended reading:

How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition)

Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy

The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?

Database Nation : The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century

Brought you by GeekMBA Micropublishing:

• How to become a product manager
• How to get a job at amazon.com
• How I negotiated with auto insurance company to settle total loss and got $1,000 more back

Lately I’ve tried a few “tricks” to overcome writer’s block. Although they don’t work all the time, they have really helped me to be more “prolific” in creating content.

Let me share with you my tricks.

1. Use email to compose. When I reply emails, I write really fast. It seems that my thoughts just flow onto the computer. Lately, I start to compose blog posts using Microsoft Outlook. I just send an email to myself. There seems to be less writer’s block when I’m “pretending” to write an email to myself.
2. Instead of typing the words, I use a voice recorder to record my thoughts. And use a voice recognition software to translate my thoughts onto words. I speak faster than I write, so it saves me time. Speech recognition software such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking ; has matured over the years. They actually work quite well.
3. Break a large writing project into small trunks, and write a few sentences when you get even a few minutes of spare time. When I’m working on long post or premium report, I sometime put a lot of pressure onto myself – I want to force myself to sit down for hours to complete an entire draft. But, it doesn’t work. What I’ve learned is that I work better if I break the project into a lot of smaller parts. When I get free time, I’ll write down a few sentences. It allows me to keep making progress without putting too much pressure on myself.

What tricks do you use to overcome writer’s or blogger’s block? I’d like to hear.

Related posts:

• Seven lessons I learned from relocating to a new city
• Everyone should know a little bit about Fuzzy logic
• Is your paycheck correct?
• Do Time Management techniques work?

Excellent resources:

• Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Dummies
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred Wireless
• Plantronics Foldable USB Stereo Headset

Wise Bread is only a little bit over two years ago, but it has achieve some very impressive traffic stats:

• it averages 1 million page views and 500K unique users per month
• its Alexa ranking is 24,493
• it has over 17,000 RSS feed readers
• it’s ranked in the top 2,000 according to Technorati rankings.

For anyone who is familiar with the competitive world of problogging, you know these are very impressive stats. It’s very hard to achieve these traffic numbers within such short period of time. They must be doing something right.

I read several personal finance blogs, but I still find Wise Bread’s blog posts to be highly informative, practical, and relevant. They have great content.

Additionally, Wise Bread also has a very interesting business model — it’s essentially a co-op for a group of bloggers. Most of these bloggers have their own blogs, but they also "guest blog" on Wise Bread. Each of them gets a share of the ad revenue on the Wise Bread site based on the traffic generated by the blogger’s post.

Now, the group of Wise Bread bloggers just reach another important milestone — they just published a new book called 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget .

I just got a copy of this book. I enjoyed reading it. It is extremely relevant to our current economic environment.

Are you tightening up your belt to save money? It offers tips such as “10 Ways to Simplify Your Budget”, “6 Tips for Following a Budget without Breaking Down Into Tears”, and “6 Ways to Avoid Tricky Traps at the Supermarket”.

Are you passionate about green living? Then check out articles such as "10 Ways to Go Green and Save Money at the Same Time", "7 Secrets to Gas-efficient Driving", "10 Ways to Hold Off on Heating", and "Seven Ways to Lower Water Heater Cost".

Love food but concerned about the cost? It offers great tips such as "6 Simple Tips for Buying Great Affordable Wine", "How to Save a Bundle with Assembly Cooking”, “4 Small Kitchen Gadgets that Equal Big Savings”, and "7 Ways to Save Big Money with Ice Cube Trays".

There are a lot of more practical advice, practical tips, and clever ideas in the book. Just like the Wise Bread blog, this book is informative, practical, and relevant.

Check it out. You will end up living large on a small budget.

Given the current state of economy and job market, I know a lot of people who are thinking about moving to a new city with better job prospect and lower cost of living.

Relocation is not easy. For most people who relocate to a new city, they will have to face two very stressful events at the same time: moving and starting a new job.

I relocated to Seattle four and half years ago after living and working in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade. I would like to share with you seven lessons I have learned from my own relocation experience.

Plan to stay in temporary housing for 60 days

If you’re going to live in temporary housing, plan to stay in the temporary housing for at least two months. Many employers offer 30 days of furnished corporate apartment/Extended Stay to their new hires. Thirty days is not enough. When I moved to Seattle, I was single with no family obligation. However, starting a new job in a new city kept me very busy. I was working most of the time during the week, and I only had time to check out apartments in the weekend. Plus, it took time to find the right housing and negotiated an acceptable price. You should ask for 30-60 more days of temporary housing — most employers will compromise and let you stay longer.

If you have kids, move to the new city by yourself first

When you move to a new city to start a new job, there is always the risk that that the new job is not a good fit. If you  have a family to support, you need to make sure that you’re comfortable with your new work environment. It’s much easier if you can focus on your work, and find a place to live during the first 90 days after you relocate. You’re much better off to leave your wife and kids home while you try to establish yourself in the new city. It won’t be easy, but I think it’s a safer strategy for you to leave the family behind for a short period of time.

If your spouse needs to look for a job in the new city, you should plan that it’ll 6-12 months for him/her to get a new job.

Some employers offer assistance to help new hire’s spouses in their job hunting process. Don’t bet on the employers’ "assistances". The consistent complaints I heard is that the employers are not helpful at all in term of helping spouses to get jobs. The resources they provide is minimal. You need to rely on your own resources to get a job for your spouse.

You should have a back-up plan

You might not like your new city for a variety of reasons:

• The new job doesn’t work out.
• Your husband/wife doesn’t like to live in the new city.
• Your kids miss their friends. They don’t like the new school.
• The new city is simply not “right” for your family
• etc.

Don’t trust travel guide — you’ll only get to know a city after you’ve lived there for a few months. Perception is different from reality.

There is a good chance that you might end up dislike your new city. So, you need a back-up plan. In case you don’t like your new city, can you move back to where you come from? You should think about worst-case scenario, and have a contingency plan.

Rent, don’t buy a house in the first 12 months

It takes time for you to get used to a new city, and get a feel for its neighborhood. You need to orient yourself before you jump into the local real estate market. Take your time. Don’t give in to pressures from your family, friends, real estate agents, coworkers, etc. You should buy a new house in the new city only if you have the financial resources, you feel you’ve established yourself in your new company, and you’ve done some research about the local market. Given how busy you’ll be during your first year at your new city, I highly recommend that you rent for at least a year before buying any property.

You should definitely negotiate your relocation package

It’s much easier for you to negotiate your relocation package than negotiating your salary. Employers need to maintain salary parity, but they’re much more flexible in negotiating relocation packages. They wanted you to relocate to a new city. The knew that once you move to a new place, you will work really hard to establish yourself. And you probably won’t switch job any time soon. From employer’s standpoint, it’s smart for them to offer you a little bit more to attract you to relocate. So, you should definitely negotiate your relocation package. Ask for longer temporary housing stay. Ask for higher amount of relocation stipend. Ask for help to search for housing, find schools for your kids, or even sell your old house. You should try to get as much help as you can from you employer.

Leverage online and offline communities to quickly establish a personal network in your new city

You should proactively leverage the following tools/organizations:

• Search on linkedIn and Facebook for friends/co-workers/alums who live in your new city. Set up lunch/coffee with them. 
• Search your college/graduate school alum directories for alums who live in your new city. Initial contacts.
• Go to MeetUp, and start attending a few local MeetUp event.
• Join the local ToastMaster.
• Join a local gym, and go to work out there regularly. Gym is actually a good place to meet people. 
• Start attending a church
• Join several local trade associations. Start volunteering and attending events.
• Start volunteering.

Excellent resources on relocation:

• Managing Your Move: The Complete Relocation Guide
• How to Survive A Move: by Hundreds of Happy People Who Did and Some Things to Avoid, From a Few Who Haven’t Unpacked Yet (Hundreds of Heads Survival Guides)
• Moving with Kids: 25 Ways to Ease Your Family’s Transition to a New Home

According to data from Gartner, in third quarter of 2008, 5.6 million Netbook computers were shipped compared to 4.7 million iPhones sold in the same quarter.

I think this trend makes a lot of sense. I’ve been thinking about getting a Netbook myself.

Here is my thought process for getting a Netbook. I have computers at work and at home. But, frequently, I found myself in situations that I would like to have access to a computer outside work and home:

• while I’m taking a break in coffee shops, sometime I want to write down a few thoughts and create a blog post
• our kids take music lessons in the weekend. I could get a lot of work done while waiting outside the classroom
• while our kids are taking a nap in the car, I have some precious “free time” and would like to write something down or check my emails
• we have family members living abroad and we communicate with them via Skype. Having a light-weighted computer will enable us to talk to our relatives any time with zero cost

I think you get the idea. With a busy job and kids, time is precious for me. I want to be able to utilize whatever “free time” I have. Although iPhone or Blackberry will provide some of the desired functionality, they cannot replace an actual computer.

But, I don’t need all of the features of a laptop. All I need is a device with the following characteristics:

• light-weight, but I can still use a keyboard to type
• let me check email
• let me work on MS Word and Excel documents
• allow me to use Skype to communicate
• in-expensive.

A Netbook does the job. I’m wondering if we’re going to see a further explosive growth of Netbook Computers.

In fact, I just did a little bit research on Amazon.com. A whooping 7 out 10 items on the “best seller in computers & PC Hardware ” list are Netbook computers! (see list below)

• ASUS Eee PC 1000HE 10-Inch Netbook (1.66 GHz Intel Atom N280 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 10 GB Eee Storage, Bluetooth, XP Home, 9.5 Hour Battery Life) Black
• Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 6 Cell Battery, XP Home) Blue
• Acer Aspire One AOD150-1165 10.1-Inch Netbook – Sapphire Blue
• ASUS Eee PC 1000HA 10-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel ATOM N270 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 10 GB Eee Storage, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) Fine Ebony
• Acer Aspire One AOA150-1126 8.9-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) White
• Acer Aspire One AOD150-1920 10.1-Inch Netbook – Ruby Red
• ASUS Eee PC 900HA 8.9-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel ATOM N270 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 10 GB Eee Storage, XP Home) Black

The class not only introduced a very exciting new field to me, but also taught me to look at our world in a different way.

What’s fuzzy logic? When my friends asked me this question, I give the following example (my example is a little bit simplistic, but I think it will give you the general idea):

• Let’s say that I just washed an apple, and I was about to eat it. Was my apple an apple? Of course, it’s 100% an apple, fresh, just washed, looking tasty. 
• I took one bite of my apple. Was the apple still an apple? Well, not exactly. Instead of being 100% apple, it’s about 90% since I took a bite.
• I took another bite of my apple. Was the apple still an apple? Instead of being 100% apple, it’s about 85% since I took another bite.
• I’d continue to eat my apple. And my apple’s degree of "apple-ness" would continue to decrease.

The key thing here is that I’m not looking at things in term of black and white, yes or no, apple or not apple — I’m looking at things in term of degrees.

This is a very powerful way of thinking.

Just look at our world — republican or democrat, love or hate, religious or atheist, big government or small government, efficient market or not — sometimes we seems to wear binary lens to look at things. However, in a lot of cases, we’re much better off to think in term of degrees, instead of black and white. The world is not as extreme as it appears to be. There could be middle ground or fuzziness, where you will find insights and keys to solve your problems.

If you’re interested in learning more about Fuzzy Logic (which I think everybody should), I recommend you to read Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic by Bart Kosko, a world renown researcher and popularizer of fuzzy logic.

If you like this book, I also recommend you to read

• Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life
• Why Not?: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
• Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive