Christmas SEO Challenge for the Homeless

Dominic · 11-30-2004, 07:38 AM

We aim with the collective support of the SEO community to raise this page: http://christmas.homeless.org.au to the #1 spot in search engines for the search 'Christmas' and give all money raised from the site to non-profits that work with the homeless on Christmas Day.

The page about Christmas has been created as a place holder, for us to throw our collective strength behind and drive up the rankings (it will be developed as a shop front when it breaks the 200 mark in google).

Take the time to make a difference - How to help:

Option 1: Add a link to your site using the anchor text 'Christmas' to this page: http://christmas.homeless.org.au

Option 2: [preferred] Create a new page on your site about the topic of Christmas, using the word in the title, headings, body copy, meta tags, etc. Then link from this page using the anchor text 'Christmas' to the project page: http://christmas.homeless.org.au (please limit internal and external links on this page to zero or bare bones - and link to the christmas page).

Obviously some bragging rights will be available to the page which ranks the highest in Google, Yahoo and or MSN for the search 'Christmas' and links to the project page. Not only will you be helping the homeless but creating something you can point to as proof of your tallent / available resources.

Even if you simply want to donate your support and not compete - please create a Christmas page on your site and link to the project page this way.

Please let me know we have your support by emailing: dominic dot mapstone at gmail dot com [please detail the support you have given]

All money raised will go to organisations working with the homeless on Christmas Day.

The site will be developed when the page makes it inside the 200th spot on google.

The goal is to take over the search term 'Christmas' (and several related) by late 2005. Please lend your support now by building a 'Christmas' page.

gorillaboy · 11-30-2004, 07:45 AM

It's a nice idea. But I believe that's what is referred to as, "Google Bombing". A little too risky for most SEO's.

Dominic · 11-30-2004, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gorillaboy

It's a nice idea. But I believe that's what is referred to as, "Google Bombing". A little too risky for most SEO's.

Google Bombing as far as I am aware is for example linking to the official page about 'George Bush' with unrelated anchors such as 'miserable failure.'

Our site is about Christmas and has a project development timeframe of a little under a year.

gorillaboy · 11-30-2004, 08:06 AM

I don't think Google would appreciate any sort of SEO contest.

Besides, why not link to an established charity with a reputation and good existing rankings?

I'm not trying to be difficult. I appreciate what you're doing. But I think you'll find a lot of skeptical people.

Dominic · 11-30-2004, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gorillaboy

Why not link to an established charity with a reputation and good existing rankings?

I'm not trying to be difficult. I appreciate what you're doing. But I think you'll find a lot of skeptical people.

I'm a Social Worker, the page is a subdomain of this well established reputable site / organisation with good rankings: http://www.homeless.org.au

The reason for using our own site is exactly that - it has to be attached to a non-profit to show integrity.

As for being well known, it's always an uphill battle.

I want to be able to direct the funds to smaller charities that work specifically on Christmas Day with homeless people. By attaching the campaign to our site we can hopefully achieve that.

The idea came initally in another forum with the hope of simply making money and dividing it amongst the contributors. Then it was proposed to give the money to our work with homeless people, then more broardly to include other charities that help the homeless on Christmas Day. The project lost momentum as it was noble but realistically ppl were more interested when the prospect of making $$$ was involved (which is fair enough).

So we decided to keep the ball rolling as it would be a great achievement even from an awareness raising perspective to put homelessness centre stage in Christmas SERPS.

So the page has sat there for a month aging with only a handful of our own links to it - until now when we would like to attract outside support.

It may not work, but I'm willing to give it a shot because if it does work I believe it will be worth it and make a real difference.

awall19 · 11-30-2004, 03:43 PM

I am about to spam my blog for ya

Dominic · 11-30-2004, 07:29 PM

Thanks Aaron, as usual you are a great supporter of or work.

Shawn · 11-30-2004, 08:48 PM

Sounds like a good cause Dominic.

I added you here:

http://www.uncoverthenet.com/dir/7882/1.php
http://www.uncoverthenet.com/dir/7882/1572.php
http://www.uncoverthenet.com/dir/7882/314.php

and the business card page here:

http://www.uncoverthenet.com/listing/2016.php

Good luck

thebassman · 11-30-2004, 11:02 PM

You beat me to it... I went to add them for ya, Shawn, and they were there. d'oh!

Shawn · 11-30-2004, 11:04 PM

haha

Dominic · 12-01-2004, 07:21 AM

Thanks Shawn, thats a great help - nice directory BTW.

Bassman - it's really encouraging to get your support, as you are someone I have learnt a lot from.

Who else can write a page about Christmas and donate some links from it?

thebassman · 12-01-2004, 04:40 PM

Glad I can help.

If you have a write up, I'll post it up in my forum for you as well. I'm sure a lot of other forum owners would do the same.

Dominic · 12-04-2004, 12:25 AM

Thanks Bassman, will get back to you with one.

thebassman · 12-04-2004, 03:02 PM

Cool... just let me know.

Dominic · 12-04-2004, 08:16 PM

I just did a site: search on our homeless site and found we had already used the word 'Christmas' several times. So we converted the mentions of the word 'Christmas' to text links to the Christmas page.

Please do the same, especially if you have a large site or blog and donate (that may have a number of mentions) any mentions of the following words into links to the project:

Christmas - http://christmas.homeless.org.au/
Christmas Cards - http://christmas.homeless.org.au/christmas-cards.htm

Dominic · 12-19-2004, 12:39 AM

I added the donation buttons from Paypal today, not sure what you are spending on Christmas this year but if you can spare a small gift please donate today to help get the ball rolling.
http://christmas.homeless.org.au/christmas-help.htm

This year we are having homeless people around for Christmas lunch to join the regulars at hospitality house. Donations will go to small gifts for all (socks, jocks and clothes) and food for the day.

Thanks for the support and if you aren't able to donate but have the time to add a page to your site about Christmas and link to it from at least one page on your site it would be a great way of donating some links to the campaign.

rritoch · 12-19-2004, 08:25 AM

Hello,
I fully support what your doing, supporting big-name sites in my opinion doesn't do much for the homeless because they already have funding. I hope these links bring you lots of funding so you can spread the christmas spirit to the homeless. Below is the support I've provided.

8000+ pages listed on google.
1 home page pagerank 5 site listed on google.

Dominic · 12-19-2004, 11:06 AM

Thanks very much Ralph, I'm inspired by your support. I was beginning to believe this was going to be more of an uphill battle than originally planned as I had hoped to gain a lot of support from the seo community. Thanks for leading the way with a big link donation. I totally agree about the charity big guns.

lucidpixels · 12-20-2004, 10:34 AM

I have also added your link to my homepage
www.lbkonline.com

Merry X-mas

Dominic · 12-20-2004, 08:09 PM

Thank you lucidpixels and welcome to v7n forums. The forum is a top resource and I'm sure you will get a lot out of participating in the forums. Personally I've learnt a lot here and hope you do too.

Once again, thanks for your support.