Just a week ago I was off to my first Search Engine Strategies Conference and as I look back, it was a great time.

There was so much information floating around that it was hard not to miss some pieces here and there. From the new definition of RSS - Really Simple Stealing - go the explanation of some of Google’s patents, there was a little something for everyone.

Some of my favorite sessions were on blogs, RSS and website usability. I got to hear from people at Ask, MSN, Yahoo, Google, Technorati and many other major search engines. I even talked to people from MSN, Yahoo and Google during lunch or after sessions. It was a great opportunity to get to know a few folks.

Google has posted the official 2005 Google Dance pictures. I looked and didn’t see myself. Do you see yourself?

I made it home safe and sound, barely. I found myself cutting it close getting to the airport once.

I have so much information to share but the weekend is filled up with family stuff so I’ll try to post it as the week goes on. All in all it was a good conference and I learned a lot.

I got to meet Todd Malicoat aka Stuntdubl tonight and Justilien Gaspard (I think that’s right as I don’t seem to have a business card) from WeBuildPages.com. Both are really nice guys and I enjoyed talking with and getting to know the business from their point of view. Both gave me some great information and tips that I’ve already started using.

I also got some good information from today’s sessions. How to ‘pimp my site’ was very enjoyable and so was one on site usability. It was great to hear from all the major search engines in the keynote on where they’ve been and where they are going too. Hopefully I’ll get around to posting my notes in the next week.

It was my first GoogleDance and it sure was a lot of fun. Google gave us free pop, water, beer and wine to drink. There was everything from hot dogs to shrimp, soft pretzels, beer nuts and some cheesy potatoes to eat. For desert you could grab a root beer float, cookies, bars or Cold Stone ice cream. All was free and unlimited. I sure wish I had some cookies now.

I was expecting a lot and it didn’t disappoint. You could go dace with the live band or play volleyball, video games, get your picture taken in a photo booth, talk to Google employees or just walk around. Lots to do and lots of fun.

Just got back from the GoogleDance and it was a lot of fun. Got pictures too. I know I haven’t gotten any posts up today but I’ve been busy. Hopefully more information tomorrow.

Yahoo Search Night Off was a lot of fun. They rented out Paramounts Great America and we were given free food, drinks, ice cream and rides! I only made it on three rides, however they were fun rides. Especially when riding in the front of the Top Gun roller coaster. Invertigo was cool too

My last session of the day was on competitive research. Knowing what your competitor is doing can help you out. Things to watch include:

• Alexia - Check stats, traffic and analyze links
• PPC - See what competitors are bidding on or optimizing or
• Market Leap to check backlinks
• Use email alerts to keep track of where competitors are getting links and who is talking about you
• Ebay - Start ups usually start here
• Compare sites load times, internal linking, homepage copy, indexed number of pages and the transaction experience.

Another session I was looking forward to but not really impressed with. It was mainly about Yahoo, Google, Ask and A9 talking about their personalized search and search history services. How they worked, how they can improve your personal search and things like that. No real information on how they would effect regular search results so I asked. They said that they do watch what sites are clicked on and what sites are bookmarked in the personal areas. It is possible that that could effect search engine rankings, however it’s a very small piece of the puzzle. They already know where you go and what you do if you use a Google/Ask/Yahoo/A9 Toolbar and this is just an extension of that.

I was a little disappointed at this one, however it was still quite interesting. They spend most of the time talking about video searches and no time talking about how to create Podcasts like I was hoping they would.

Blinks has the best service because they have software that actually listens to every Podcast and video and then uses voice recognition software to create indexable consent for that clip. This way no one can put in a description that says it’s about computers when it’s really about software. Kinda smart.