Review of Ranked Hard, the SEO Comic Strip

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:57:19 +0000

When you think about Search Engine Optimization, you generally don’t think “that’s funny.” As any webmaster can tell you, trying to keep up with the changes in the algorithms Google uses for its searches is like trying to herd cats. SEO is more likely to lead to frustration than it is to laughter. Enter Ranked Hard

Ranked Hard is a monthly webcomic drawn by Kelly Ishikawa and written by the folks at Big Oak – an SEO company. These folks know the ins and the outs, the ups and downs of the SEO biz, and it shows. From their commentary on Black Hat SEO to their take on Google Adwords, the Big Oak folks take no prisoners, and leave you laughing all along the way.

Most of the time, the comic is so spot-on that you wonder where the fictional Ranked Hard SEO company and the real Big Oak begins. Such is the world of SEO.

One of the more compelling things about Ranked Hard, though, isn’t the comics themselves; it’s the discussions that the comics engender. It’s almost hilarious to watch people who obviously take themselves too seriously get worked up by a simple webcomic. Even some of the so-called “celebrity” SEO experts, lampooned in September’s comic, showed up to say exactly how hilarious they thought Ranked Hard was.
Ranked Hard is full of inside jokes. If you’re not intimately familiar with the SEO field, chances are you’re going to miss some of the major funny. On the other hand, Ranked Hard does sometimes provide sort of a meta-narrative by way of character discussions (See, for example, “Cutt Her Some Slack”) so you won’t always be completely lost if you’re an SEO neophyte.

My one complaint about Ranked Hard is its infrequency. A month is just too long to wait between installments. Here’s to hoping the Big Oak folks can find a way (or the time) to step up their production of Ranked Hard.

Check them out now at http://www.rankedhard.com/

Who Needs Money?

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:00:40 +0000

Today we’ve got a review which is long overdue. You guys might remember a little while ago, a certain Mr Park took the blogosphere by storm when he offered not only a review on the Chow, but also with yours truly. Poor Sven won the review but had his review pitched (surfer slang) several times because we had a few ‘urgent’ posts we felt we had to get out first. Ofcourse, as soon as those were done, we went on a long holiday! We’re just hoping Sven has the cool and laid-back surfer dude attitude to forgive us.

Sven’s blog is a little different, unusual…we like it!

Seriously, Sven’s blog is probably unlike 99% of the blogs you’ve seen out there. Its got a real personal feeling to it, full of personal posting material, philosophical writing, arty images and a load of inspirational insights. If you’re running low on ideas what to blog about next, make sure you browse though Sven’s RSS feeds because we can guarantee there’s something in it for everyone.

This image on the left is a little timeline of what the blog looked like in the past few years. Recently updated to svensworld 2.0, the current design is fabulous. We couldn’t find any other reference as to who might have designed it but Sven himself, excellent job dude! The only thing we can whinge about a bit is perhaps at the top and bottom of the sidebar, where there’s two units that kinda ruin the blog’s feng-shui. The ad blocks just feel a little out of place. We’d like to apologize to our readers for not slagging the design a bit more – we know it’s what you’re all waiting for

You should consider to start a blog design company, or team up with one of our good friends over at weborithm.com to wipeout the competition Sven, we think your work is definitely capable of it. Then again, it seems you’ve found your big wave and you’re riding it! (anyone had enough of the surf puns yet? Hope so because we ran out.)

The more observant boys and girls amongst us might have noticed that instead of the usual .Com, Svensworld is a .DE domain (Germany). It might be another reason why we like Sven’s blog, English isn’t his native language either, like us. This again adds to the more personal touch this blogger has – .Com is just so…Commercial!

To sum up Sven’s World, we took a shortcut, copied the blog’s meta tags and figured that if its good enough for Google, its good enough for you; [meta name="keywords" content="surf waves, gone surfing, art, artists, artwork, concept art, design, basketball, streetball, breakdance, creative, creativity, breakdance, paintings, vacation, holidays, ink, pencil, sculpture, fighting, bboying, hiphop, rap, jazz, funk, ocean, sea," /]

Its great to see that not all of us bloggers have sold our souls to the almighty dollar and that there’s still some people out there that don’t play the make money online game, but instead entertain us with their artistic and benevolent personalities. Surf’s up dude!

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Review of Ranked Hard, the SEO Comic Strip

Who Needs Money?