Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
Thank you for writing this Robert!
I couldn't agree with you more! Building your culture is foundational. Before doing the work, it's important to talk about how to do the work. And the how is all about culture. Are we collaborative? Transparent? Focused on solutions? Okay with failure? Willing to take risks? What's the most important thing to us? How do we want to give and take feedback? What should we do when we disagree about something important? and on and on...
Great Question Scott. This particular domain has stumped several other people.
uk.com is not a valid cc tld. The proper cctld for the uk is .co.uk. What you're looking at is two-letter rootdomain on a .com. It's just like shoes.com or anything else. People can basically buy subdomains from the owner of the uk.com rootdomain and host their websites there. As you can see, it's a clever strategy because they get alot of diverse incoming links from all the subdomains they sell on their root domain. Pretty clever, huh? 
Hi Sean,
Please add your API feature requests to the API Feature request forum. We really do look at that when making product development decisions.
You make some great arguments here and I'd love to see them in our feature requests! http://seomoz.zendesk.com/categories/6328-seomoz-apis-and-extras
Hi Janice,
We're working on adding more and more documentation to our Help Desk. So you should definitely check that out!
http://seomoz.zendesk.com/home
Enjoy!
Great Question Scott. This particular domain has stumped several other people.
uk.com is not a valid cc tld. The proper cctld for the uk is .co.uk. What you're looking at is two-letter rootdomain on a .com. It's just like shoes.com or anything else. People can basically buy subdomains from the owner of the uk.com rootdomain and host their websites there. As you can see, it's a clever strategy because they get alot of diverse incoming links from all the subdomains they sell on their root domain. Pretty clever, huh?
Thank you for writing this Robert!
I couldn't agree with you more! Building your culture is foundational. Before doing the work, it's important to talk about how to do the work. And the how is all about culture. Are we collaborative? Transparent? Focused on solutions? Okay with failure? Willing to take risks? What's the most important thing to us? How do we want to give and take feedback? What should we do when we disagree about something important? and on and on...
11/1/2021
After 14 years with Moz, Sarah says goodbye.
7/7/2021
We express solidarity with the Indigenous communities of this continent grieving their precious lost children.
6/28/2021
Russ was brilliant, funny, courageous, and empathetic. His impact on the SEO industry was incredible. He will be missed beyond words.
6/4/2021
We're thrilled to announce our acquisition by iContact Marketing Corp! Check out Sarah and Michael's chat discussing the details, and please celebrate with us as we chart the future of Moz together.
3/31/2021
As Women’s History Month draws to a close, Moz CEO Sarah Bird reflects on the contributions women have made to the SEO industry, and highlights the work we still have to do.
3/19/2021 We condemn the horrific acts of hate and violence targeting the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, which culminated in the tragic mass shooting in Georgia on March 17th. We mourn the loss of life and grieve with the families that have been broken by this latest racist, misogynistic hate crime.
6/2/2020 To be silent is to be complicit. We stand with people the world over demanding justice and grieving the losses of David McAtee, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many, many others.
10/10/2018 We're thrilled to announce our new partnership with STAT Search Analytics! Check out Sarah & Rob's fireside chat and please celebrate with us as we chart the future of SERP analytics together.
4/30/2018 We’ve rebuilt our link technology from the ground up and the data is now broadly available throughout Moz tools. It’s bigger, fresher, and much, much faster than our legacy link tech. And we’re just getting started! Learn what's new and take Link Explorer for a spin.
3/12/2018 The Moz 2017 annual report is here for your reading pleasure! Check out all the transparent details of our previous year in business, from our newest launches to financial numbers to how much we spent on matching charitable donations and beyond.
7/13/2017 We have some big news from the MozPlex: In early 2018, Rand will step away from day-to-day work at Moz and transition into an advisory role as a Moz Associate. Read on for more details.
3/7/2017 Take a gander at how 2016 shaped up for Moz as we share our internal data and reflect on everything that happened last year. It's the 2016 Moz annual report!
8/17/2016 We're focusing our efforts on core SEO such as rank tracking, keyword research, local listings, duplicate management, on-page, crawl, and links. To do so, some painful decisions were made: We'll sunset Moz Content and Followerwonk, and say goodbye to many of our fellow Mozzers. Send good vibes.
2/11/2016 It was a huge year for Moz! We worked hard to make our tools the best they can be, continue our TAGFEE legacy, and develop fancy new things for you to use toward the ever-important goal of better marketing. Review 2015 with us, reminisce about all that we went through together, and stand with us as we look to the bright and exciting future!
1/26/2016 We've got some big news to share with you! Read about how our new Series C round of financing will spur our product momentum for the future and continue to help our Moz community be the thriving, successful place it is today.
4/22/2015 The results are in, and 2014 showed significant improvement over 2013 for Moz. Check out our financials, community statistics, and more in this annual report card from our previous year.
1/30/2014 Learn more than you ever cared to know about Moz's inner workings. It's the 2013 year in review, complete with gigantic infographic! It's a metricstraveganza!
3/16/2010 May It Please the Mozzers, I haven't written on the blog in months, but I simply couldn't let today pass by without acknowledging the courage and perserverance shown by Rhea Drysdale in her pursuit of justice. She's my hero and I want to be just like her--A woman of action and humble fortitude. ...
2/6/2009 May It Please the Mozzers, Content aggregators should pay attention to a recent settlement between the New York Times and GateHouse Media. According to Online Media Daily, the New York Times agreed to remove headlines and first sentences of GateHouse articles referenced by the New York Times on one of its content aggregator sites, Boston.com. Is this case part of a trend?
12/16/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, I want to briefly touch on some collections methods and issues today. The first step is to try and collect the money yourself with follow-up invoices, letters and an offer of a payment plan. In this stage you can often accomplish two important things: getting a personal guarantee from the business owner, and getting the...
12/2/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, I wanted to give everyone a little update on the DSW v. Zappos and Commission Junction case. I first blogged about this case here, back in June 2008. Very briefly, the facts of the case are thus: DSW sued Zappos and Commission Junction over alleged trademark violations....
11/24/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, The world is filled with all kinds of nutty people. Mostly, this is a wonderful thing. But sometimes people go too far. This case involves two lawyers, a messy breakup, and a blog about "Guns, God, Food, Beer, Tools, Politics, and Whining." Stephen Hogge, a Florida attorney, operates the blog ...
11/14/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, The Washington State Attorney General announced in a press release yesterday that it was suing a Redmond-based SEO company, Visible.net. According to the Complaint, Visible also does business under the name WebMarketingSource.com, Caputures.com, and Captures.com (that's not a typo). The AG...
11/10/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, A Jury awarded 4.8 million USD to NetQuote after finding that its competitor, MostChoice, submitted more than 3,500 false applications for insurance quotes to the NetQuote website. The jury was so pissed that it actually awarded double the punitive damages than...
11/4/2008 If you have a site that includes user-generated content, you may one day receive a subpoena asking you for personally identifying information about your users. Receiving a subpoena can be intimidating and you often don't have a lot of time to respond. This post is designed to give you some high-level steps to follow.
10/28/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Many of you may remember the case Parker v. Google, Inc., in which the Court ruled that Google was not liable for direct copyright infringement by archiving and displaying usenet postings that contained copyrighted material, and also by displaying excerpts of websites in a list of search results. The case was one of many major search engine "win...
10/14/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Those of you who get paid to build links aren't going to believe this one. One of the world's largest law firms, Jones Day, actually filed suit against a small e-commerce company, BlockShopper, for linking to it with the anchor text "Jones Day." Yes. ...
9/30/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Attention everyone who co-blogs! If you create a blog collaboratively with another person, you may be wondering whether your blogger buddy creates potential liability for you each time she posts. We know that website operators can't be held liable for their users content thanks to Section 230 of the CDA. That's old news....
9/23/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Today I'm discussing a case involving alleged trademark infringement and meta tags. It's very dangerous to outrank your competitor, especially if that competitor has limitless pockets and very generic registered trademarks.
9/9/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, I am often asked, "Can I talk about my competitor on my website?" To answer this question, I thought I would do a quick post about comparative advertising. The Federal Trade Commission promotes lawful comparative advertising as a great way to inform consumers and increase competition. Describing how your pro...
8/25/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, In November 2007 I blogged about a wacky lawsuit involving the movie/book/TV phenomena called "The Secret" and an SEO, Dan Hollings. Several months have gone by and both parties have been busy. ...
8/19/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, I have an update on the Jason Gambert Saga. For those of you wanting a refresher, please see my first post on the internet marketer trying to trademark "SEO" and ...
8/11/2008 May It Please the Mozzers,...
8/4/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Continuing my mini-series on SEO contract clauses, today's Legal Monday focuses on indemnification clauses. These kinds of provisions are standard in many consulting contracts. They can be extremely valuable or extremely dangerous in your contract. Therefore it is very important to understand and use them intelligently. Inde...
7/28/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Last week, many of you requested more posts on common contract clauses. Your wish is my command: Today, I'm very briefly going to review "opportunity to cure" provisions. This provision is valuable for any one providing a good or service. ...
7/21/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Today's Legal Monday is brief (for a change!), but very important for anyone doing SEO consulting. When selling their products, consultants tend to use overstate their abilities and over promise on deliverables. It is important to resist this temptation and communicate as effectively and honestly with clients as possibl...
7/14/2008 I've had a few different people approach me because their sites have been banned by Google based on the filing of a DMCA Take-Down Notice. Their sites are gone from the SERPS and people want to know SEO and legal strategies for getting around this problem. Today I'm going to share the best legal response to this problem. Your best bet for getting content restored is to file a counter-notification in accordance with the DMCA. I'll give you some background information and then some sites with more detailed information and examples below.
6/30/2008 In this Utah case, Margae Inc., an internet marketing company with an odd homepage, is suing Clear Link, another internet marketing company in Utah District Court. Clear Link is a big fish providing and managing affiliate marketing services for some hot properties, such as Direct TV, ADT and Hughes Net. Margae is a smaller company that claims expertise in affiliate marketing and SEO. It agreed to provide affiliate and SEO services for Clear Link. Unfortunately, the parties disagree about the terms of that agreement.
6/23/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Today's Legal Monday has a little bit of everything, affiliate marketing, Twitter, Trademark Infringement, big name players, and stealth marketing. DSW, a large shoe retailer, filed a federal trademark infringement case last month against the online darling Zappos.com. ...
6/16/2008 I have some disconcerting news to report on today's Legal Monday. In a move that it will surely regret, the Associated Press (AP) declared war on the internet. Maybe that's a slight overstatement, but the AP will certainly rue the day it decided to adopt a policy of sending DMCA take-down notices to bloggers and social news aggregators. Last week, the AP sent seven DMCA take-down notices to The Drudge Retort, a site parodying The Drudge Report and serving as a social news aggregator. The 8,500 site users create blog entries with links to interesting news articles on the web. Rogers Cadenhead, owner of the Drudge Retort, received a letter from the AP's attorneys claiming that the Drudge Report was infringing on the AP's copyright by allowing its users to publish short (39 to 79 words) quotations from AP articles with links back to the original. Five of the six alleged infringements used different titles than the original AP article. The seventh claimed infringement was in a blog comment that used a short quote of an original AP article and linked back to it.
6/4/2008 Our European colleagues have been buzzing about a new law prohibiting certain stealth marketing tactics. Distilled, IPA, The BBC, BigMouthMedia, The Times Online and Marketing Week have speculated on the potential fallout of the new regulation. Many have predicted the demise of common, but controversial covert marketing techniques, including paid links, fake reviews, flogs, and comment seeding. What exactly does the law prohibit? Is it the death of stealth marketing? What does it mean for stealth marketers in other countries who may do some business in the UK?
5/27/2008 That's right ladies and gents, the zaniness continues. Mr. Gambert and I must be psychically connected because apparently he filed an official response to our Notice of Opposition at the same time I was filing our Motion for Default Judgment. You can take a look at the case documents and download copies of both Jason's 41-page response and my motion, here. It's forty-one pages and truthfully, I haven't sat down and studied the whole thing yet. But it's too delicious to withhold any longer.
5/19/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, There has been a lot of buzz surrounding New York State's new law requiring online retailers to collect sales tax from their New York Customers if they engage affiliate marketers in that state....
5/12/2008 Both cases involve using a competitor's trademark for advertising purposes. However, they represent fundamentally different understandings about how metatags work and the effect, if any, they have on the consumer. Because the value of using keywords in metatags for ranking purposes is minimal at best, you could respond to both of these cases with a resounding, "So what?" Why do we care if you can or can't use a competitor's mark in keyword metatags since that is not a viable SEO strategy?
5/5/2008 Last week, there was minor uproar over a Florida District Court's Order involving negative keywords. Understandably, many SEO/Ms were anxious that the Court screwed something up that would prevent companies from bidding on their competitors' trademarks for keyword advertising. Ars Technica ran the headline "'Negative Keyword' Ruling May Have Big Impact On search Ads." Search Engine Watch also expressed deep concern about the ruling, calling it "a dangerous precedent." The Horror! I want to assure the search community that the court's order isn't radical, nor is it likely to have adverse affects on keyword advertising. Let's take a quick look.
4/28/2008 In fact, the whole nasty mess is public record because the owners of The Secret are suing their former internet marketer for trademark infringement and violating his duty of loyalty to them. The case, TS Merchandising v. Hollings, was filed November 2007 and includes allegations that Hollings infringed and exploited The Secret's trademarks by selling his own merchandise under the brand, cutting unauthorized side deals with vendors of authentic merchandise, and generally using his knowledge of SEO for evil by seeking personal gain. The whole story has the bizarre, made-for-Tv feel about it. Regardless, it's an interesting look at the kind of trouble that internet marketers can get themselves into.
4/22/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, May It Please the Mozzers, Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending the Law and Business of Online Advertising, a conference co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Santa Clara’s High Tech Law Institute. ...
4/14/2008 Vulcan Golf v. Google et al. is an important case because it's the first time (as far as I know) that trademark owners have tried to hold Google liable for domain-related conduct. Plaintiffs are taking what they learned in the keyword advertising context and applying it to domaining. Further, because the case is potentially a class action, there are mega bucks on the line. Think about it: anyone who's ever had her trademark infringed by a domainer using a parking company and Google Adsense could theoretically sign up to be a plaintiff. The recent ruling paves the way for trademark holders to sue companies who provide advertising services, but neither own or register the offending domain name, to be held liable for trademark infringement and cybersquatting.
4/7/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, I was working on trademarking some SEOmoz marks the other day, when I noticed that someone is trying to register the trademark "SEO." I was shocked. Apparently, the guy who's doing this has managaged to get all the way to the publication stage of the registration process. That means he has met a preliminary review by a trademark attorney. Now the...
4/1/2008 My goal is to present a checklist of legal issues and trends surrounding affiliate marketing. I hope this will be interesting to both merchants and marketers. Affiliate marketing has unfortunately gained a bad reputation for being particularly high risk. While the industry is unlikely to ever be risk-free, it is possible to manage your risk by (1) investigating your prospective marketing partner; (2) using and maintaining a tight legal contract that allocates the risk and provides for the appropriate indemnifications, and (3) keeping informed about the current technology, marketing strategies, and regulatory climate. Without further ado, let's take a look at risk identification and management for merchants and affiliate marketers.
3/24/2008 I'm going to divide up the registration process into three parts because each application should include three things: (1) The Completed Application; (2) A Sample or Copy of the Work; and (3) the fee. Part One: The Completed Application Applications to register copyright are actually very short and pretty intuitive. Regardless, many people break out into a cold sweat at the thought of completing a copyright application. I have a feeling the paper part is what holds most people back. Because "seeing is believing," I am sharing with you the copyright applications I have created to get SEOmoz up to date on its copyright registration.
3/17/2008 The FTC announced today that Valueclick has agreed to pay 2.9 million dollars to settle the charges. This is the largest cash settlement since the inception of the Can-Spam Act in 2003. In addition, Valueclick is barred from future violations of the Can-Spam Act. It must also place conspicuous disclaimers indicating that consumers are required to participate and spend money on other obligations in order to qualify for "free" promotions. The settlement also requires them to provide a list of the obligations – such as applying for credit cards, purchasing products, or obtaining a car loan – that consumers must incur to qualify for a free product. Valueclick must also put in place strict measures to protect consumer information. Valueclick's compliance with these measure must be monitored by an independent party for 20 years.
3/10/2008 Today I want to discuss how trademark law plays out in the course of a domain name dispute. We're going to compare and contract the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act with I-CANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. As I see it, there are generally three kinds of domain name disputes. They are as follows: 1. Cybersquatting: You own a trademark and someone without a right to the mark is exploiting your mark in bad faith. 2. Two trademark holders, one domain name: You own a trademark, but someone else owns the same mark too and there is only one domain name. 3. No one owns the trademark, but everybody wants the brand: Not all domain names are trademark protected, but people inappropriately attempt to use trademark law to resolve domain name issues. While discussing each prototypical domain name dispute, we will also discover the different statutes and dispute resolution procedures available in domain name disputes.
3/3/2008
How Screwed Am I? Some Other Business Has the Same Name As I Mine.
Trademark Problem: When Two Businesses Own the Same or Similar Mark
It is possible for two businesses to own the same or similar marks. Remember that the guiding principle is consumer confusion. If the two marks identify different products and oper...
2/4/2008 ⇒ What is trademark law? → Product marks versus service marks ⇒ Where does trademark law come from? ⇒ Isn’t trademark the same thing as copyright? ⇒ Do I have any trademarks? How do I get some? → Be First in Your Market → Be Distinctive ⇒Trademark Law's Guiding Principle: Don't Confuse the Consumer ⇒ Limitations on Trademark Rights → Trademark does not protect disparaging or lewd marks. → Trademark holders do not “own†the words, logos, or slogan’s themselves. → Parodies of trademarks are permissible. → Non-commercial uses are permissible. → News reporting and product comparisons are permissible. ⇒ Caution! The Very Famous Marks Exception! ⇒ Should I register my trademarks?
1/28/2008 I invited Mr. Thomas B. Duffy, one of RipOff Report's attorneys to contact me with any corrections, feedback, documents, or missed cases that he thought might be helpful. I am very grateful to him for taking me up on my offer and contacting me last week. The phone call lasted for more than an hour. For today's Legal Monday, I want to summarize five of Mr. Duffy's responses.
1/21/2008 May It Please the Mozzers, Last week, there were several excellent posts elucidating the many ways RipOff Report violates Google's Terms of Service, and yet manages to stay on top of the Google search results pages. Rand, ...
1/14/2008 One of the most common problems facing anyone who publishes content online is copyright infringement. It's happened to me. It's happened to you. And it'll probably happen to this post too. (Oh, the irony!) What can you do when your copyright is being infringed? Don't get sad. Get letter-writing mad! There are four ways to stop someone from stealing your content. Before we dive into each of those methods, I want to preemptively address some caveats, complicating factors, and limitations of the "four methods" approach.
1/9/2008 Today, there are allegations flying around today that Network Solutions, a very popular internet registrar, has been exploiting that same five-day-refund rule to park domains and then sell them at an increased fee. If the allegations are true, then Network Solutions was operating a very cunning business. Here's how the scheme worked: Network Solutions would track what domains people were searching for. With this actionable intelligence in hand, it would quickly purchase those domains and park them. When an interested party went back online to purchase the domain, they would discover that Network Solutions had already registered it. Of course, Network Solutions was willing to sell it to them for a fee. This fee was more expensive than other competing registrars typically offer. Alternatively, if the interested party did not come back online to purchase the domain within five days, Network Solutions would simply take advantage of I-CANN's refund policy and void it's own registration. No cash out of their pockets!
1/7/2008 Dell has stepped in where I-CANN and Verisign have feared to tread by filing suit against one of the largest domain tasting networks. Dell did everything right to put itself in a good position for this lawsuit. Unfortunately, documents filed with the court last Friday, January 5, 2008 indicate that Dell may lose the case despite its efforts. Part I of this post talks about Dell v BelgiumDomains, LLC. Part II of this post asks a few questions about domain tasting.
12/18/2007 May it Please the Mozzers, I had the pleasure of attending Law Seminars International’s 16th Annual Seattle Conference on New Development in Technology Law last week. The place was chock full of brilliant legal minds and even a handful of techies. I want to spotlight one presentation in parti...
12/11/2007 ⇒ What is "fair use"? ⇒ Does the fair use defense only work in the United States? ⇒ How does fair use related to trademark, copyright and patent law? ⇒ What's the big deal about fair use? Why do we care? ⇒ There are four factors to consider when determining whether you are illegally infringing someone’s copyright or merely employing fair use of the material: → The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is nor nonprofit educational purposes; → The nature of the copyrighted work. → The amount and substantially of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and → The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. ⇒ But I thought I had a First Amendment Right to free speech. ⇒ Specific Applications. → Can I quote someone on my website? → Can I post someone else’s graphic on my website if I give credit to them? → Is my software vulnerable to fair use? → Is parody considered “fair use�
11/30/2007 Did you know that the difference between registration and non-registration could be you owing your attorney 15k versus you getting $150,000 in statutory damages? That's right. If you don't register, you could end up in the hole, even if you win. Alternatively, you could register, get your attorneys fees paid for and maybe actually get some cash back in your pocket. I think this post is worth your time, don't you? So, let's all take a deep breath, grab our caffeinated beverages of choice, and jump back into the exciting and riveting world of copyright registration.
11/21/2007 Fellow mozzers, I’d like to start off my first Q&A post by answering a question posed by Will Critchlow from Distilled. He was working through the complicated intersection of U.S. copyright law and international law. More specifically, how does one know where a copyright infringement case is heard and what law is applied for violations involving partie...