Alex Chudnovsky introduces readers to three free tools that can help you identify if your site links to good neighbors. He provides details on how to use them, as well as identifies the warning signs that may tip you off to a bad neighbor -- that is, a heavily spammed Web site. The first is the "Domain neighbourhood checker" to verify a list of domain hosts that appear on the same IP address or subnet. Also, "backlink history" verifies domain, which lets you analyze the rate links are gained. The final tool lets you check for bad neighbors on top …

SEOptimise has complied a list of more than 30 non-google SEO "how to" online marketing resources for 2009. The handy list includes shopping search engine and comparison sites like BizRate, NexTag or Kelkoo that have existed for years or have lost their oomph but are still around. The post also mentions Yahoo Answers, review sites, and niche communities that provide articles about social networks and resources such as Traffikd and Sphinn.

A Google patent provides details on how advertising from Google may be reviewed by human evaluators, according to William Slawski. He also recently spotted a classified ad for "a temporary Ads Quality Rater." The patent, System and method for rating electronic documents, details how advertisements might be reviewed. Evaluators would create a trust score for ads as well as ranking and classifying the ads on a number of criteria.

Should you work with a performance SEM agency? Adam Viener writes that in many cases you will need to have a paid search campaign running first because such an agency's business model is based on the sales and leads generated. The agency will want to estimate how much revenue they can expect to generate per click before agreeing to take on clients. Some important numbers marketers might need to know before contacting such an agency include commission rate, site conversion rate, and average order size. Viener explains that performance SEM firms often lose money on many of the …

Brian Carter serves up pointers on how to go beyond the limits of one AdWords account to find success without violating the Double Serving Policy. He explains the exceptions will allow you to get more impressions within regulations, but provides a disclaimer with the instructions: "There's no guarantee that you'll be approved if you heed these criteria." Carter says don't abuse the strategy. Don't be black hat -- it won't serve you in the end. "Your offering on every website has to appeal to the prospect that searches for your keywords," he writes. If the ad doesn't fit …

Measure organic traffic by its impact on the return on investment (ROI), not by traffic, according to Daniel Waisberg. He believes some of the elements that paid search experts typically think about when optimizing a page are often left out when optimizing organic campaigns. For starters, don't equate organic search campaigns with free traffic. It's possible to gain free traffic, but the most successful campaigns will require an SEO expert. Fine-tune landing pages and expand keyword targeting on search engines. These tasks should bring in new page views and ultimately conversions.

If you didn't get enough of Google's Searchology Tuesday, Matt Cutts provides some of the stuff you might have missed. Aside from the four new features, Pat Riley mentioned a couple of internal code names for spell check, such as "did you mean:" Or, "Spellmeleon" for when Google really thinks the user messed up the spelling. Power searchers who really do want to search on "ipodd," for example, can query [+ipodd] with a '+' character in front of the word that you want to match exactly. Cutts writes that "Spellmeleon makes life *so* much better for my webspam team" …

The only link-building secrets are the ones SEO experts don't hear when told. That's according to Debra Mastaler, who believes sometimes people just don't listen. The information on customer surveys, Web site elements, RSS, directories, content development and offline sources to build quality links are all available, but the information seems to go in one ear and out the other, she writes in a rant. The real secrets aren't based on link building, she adds. The trick is finding Web site sources to link with. So, she offers advice on finding link partners that have stability and have been …

Peter Meyers believes the real power of Twitter is in "transforming online connections into real-world relationships." For him, the microblogging site has become the most powerful tool at his disposal to bridge the gap between his personal and professional lives. Twitter tweets alert Meyers when friends and colleagues travel into his area. In one example, tweeting provided him with a "posse" of folks to hang out with a SEO conference. He explains that "with little or no effort, I managed to round up a group of 6, most of whom I'd never met before, and we accidentally bumped into …

How do companies give away things and still make a profit? Provide free information that could lead more consumers to your Web site, according to Stoney deGeyter. Giving consumers something for "free" and earning a return on investments requires creativity, but it can be done. For instance, deGeyter points to Costco's food-tasting frenzy on the weekends, where vendors will set up tables in the store, giving shoppers a free taste. The hope is that people will then buy the whole package.