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Posts by Rand Fishkin:

Team

Making Performance Reviews Better

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
We’re doing performance reviews at SEOmoz right now. It’s tough, because on the one hand, I agree with a lot of the general criticism of traditional reviews and I’ve seen plenty of data to suggest that classic reviews can have negatives that outweigh their value. Some good reading on that here: 1, 2, 3, and 4. On the other side,…
Marketing

Mobile Won’t Change Everything

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I constantly hear the refrain that “mobile’s going to change everything.” Everything in this context is typically presumed to mean search, social media, advertising, marketing, and the Internet broadly. Since I’m a marketing professional and a marketing-focused entrepreneur, I’ll ignore the other items and focus on the marketing part of that equation. And, perhaps weirdly, I disagree with the statement…
Personal

Harnessing Beautiful Writing

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed myself drawn to some exceptional examples of the written word. I’m not sure why. I don’t normally seek out poetic writers or articles that focus on the flourish and elegance of the words rather than the content, but when it’s caught my eye recently, it’s made me want to remember how it was…
Moz Startups

Our First Acquisition

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
You’ve likely seen the news today that Moz made its first major acquisition. It was an exciting, rewarding day at the office and an invigorating one for our team, particularly the Followerwonk folks. We’re still a very young company and so this is a bit of a test for us across the board. Acquisitions are notorious for having challenges around…
Moz Team

Diving Deep on TAGFEE

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
For the last 5 years, SEOmoz has lived by a set of core values collectively referred to as TAGFEE. The acronym represents the values we hold to be more important than any particular business goal (such as revenue, growth, margins, etc). And, though we believe that these values will help us be more successful in achieving those business-minded goals, we…
Data

Why You Can’t Trust Comscore’s Search Market Share Numbers

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Nearly every media source in the United States uses Comscore’s data to report on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, AOL and other engines. Even the US government, when analyzing Google’s potential monopoly status used these figures. Yet, this data is completely misleading. Here’s what Comscore says Google’s current market share looks like: Yet, many folks who run analytics on their websites see…
Personal

An Impossible-to-Live-up-to Hero: Chuck Feeney

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
When people ask me what I want to do with my life or what I’m trying to do with SEOmoz, I often mentioned Chuck Feeney, founder of Duty Free shops and the study of the book, The Billionaire Who Wasn’t. The New York Times recently wrote about Mr. Feeney’s efforts to rid himself of his last $1.5 Billion through charitable…
Marketing Startups

Exceptional Upgrade Path UX from WPEngine

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I’m fascinated by the mechanics of startup marketing, customer acquisition, and revenue generation. So when I received this email for my WPEngine WordPress Hosting account (on which Dharmesh and I host inbound.org), I couldn’t help but get curious: It’s hard to list all the ways this email is a work of marketing art, but I’ll start with a few of…

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