Shandyking that is.

About a week ago we announced the newest addition to the BOTW executive team. We are psyched to get Adam on board, and we’re confident that he’ll help us bring BOTW to the next level.

With more than a handful of projects running simultaneously, there are a lot of business opportunities that don’t get the attention they deserve. For months now we’ve had multiple business development deals that are somewhere along the sales cycle, but to date have not yielded much fruit.

The addition of Adam to the BOTW team will enable us to maintain focus on operating and growing our core business without having to neglect the numerous business development opportunities that we pursue. Moreover, his entrepreneurial values and keen knowledge of the search industry will prove instrumental in the successful development and launch of future BOTW projects.

Adam is well recognized in the search industry as a forward thinker with great networking skills and a passion for sales. We’re certain that BOTW will be a stronger company for his joining, and we look forward to a long and prosperous working relationship.

We announced via press release yesterday that we have some new additions to the BOTW editorial team. In an effort to provide users with a better resource, we decided that we could use the help of some editors with experience in building quality directories. Enter the Nerd Herd.

We ran an ad a handful of months ago seeking a qualified editor. After finding our man, we formulated a plan to put together an editorial Dream Team. While there is still room for additional talent, the current Nerd Herd is in a league of their own. The few dozen editors that currently comprise the crew include pioneers in the web directory industry, with years of experience editing at directories such as Zeal and DMOZ.

Consistent with our mission, the crew will focus on beefing up both the web directory and blog directory with additional high quality resources. Additionally, their experience uniquely enables them to help shape the taxonomy of the directories in a manner that is intuitive and helpful to users. They will contribute on future projects, and their insight will enhance our efficiencies.

They’re a pretty impressive group of people to work with, and we’re glad to have ‘em on board. We look forward to an exciting future!

Interested parties should contact robjones[at]botw[dot]org to learn about joining the team.

Another search conference, another great charity party. So goes the tale of the BOTW crew.

Last week at the SES NY conference, BOTW teamed up once again with IMNY to hold a charity party. The event was put together as an opportunity for industry professionals to come together for a night of networking and laughing, with all of the proceeds raised to be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

As anticipated, the event was a great success. We raised approximately $17,000 to donate, almost 200 people attended, lots of drinks were served, and only one table was broken (note: the Black Finn tables don’t seem to be made for dancing on).

A huge thank you to Danny Sullivan for helping out and being such a good sport. Additional shout outs to those who did more than they needed to: Neil Patel, We Build Pages, Greg Niland, Pepperjam, Vintage Tub and Bath and The Outreach Center.

Foe more on the party, check out the party recap page, and have some fun browsing through all the pictures from the event, here and here (thanks Li).

Once again, thanks to all who participated. We look forward to seeing all of you at the next charity party!

We are very happy to announce that we will be raffling tickets for FOUR upcoming internet marketing conferences. That’s Right! There are four conference badges - together worth over $8,000. One of them could have your name on it!

So come on out to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, network with industry titans, and have a chance to win a full pass to any one of the following search conferences:

• SMX Social Media (April 22-23)
• SES Toronto (June 17-18)
• SES San Jose (Aug 18-21)
• SMX East (Oct 6-8)

The SES NY Charity Party will be going down Tuesday night March 18th, at The Black Finn. Raffle tickets are only $5. All money will be donated to charity. Drinks are on us from 8 to midnight. Full party details can be found on the SES NY Charity Party page.

After a couple of weeks of voting for this year’s charity recipient for the SES NY Charity Party, the search community has spoken. The race was tight, with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society squeaking out the win by a mere 2% of the votes. Charity advocate Marty Weintraub rallied his troops, and the last handful of votes were enough to tip the scales.

The event has gotten some nice attention, and we’re confident that this will be our largest gathering to date. The original SEO Ninja, Jim Boykin, has graciously offered to make a large donation, and others are stepping up and opening their wallets.

There’s a Facebook event page with pictures from previous events, and general chaos amongst attendees.

We look forward to seeing you there!

As anybody who follows this blog (or BOTW) knows, we like to run promotions from time to time. It’s a great way to reward our current members and introduce new people to the BOTW web directory. We’ve been doing them awhile now, and each one proves more successful than the last.

It is our pleasure to announce our first promotion of 2008. For the month of March, all submissions and sponsorships are 25% off their regular pricing, for both the web directory and the blog directory. When prompted, use the promotion code SAVEBIG, and you’ll instantly receive a 25% discount off current pricing. For the entire month of March, the SAVEBIG code will provide discounts on:

The code is good for an unlimited amount of submissions, so take advantage of the discount and submit away. But don’t wait too long - the offer expires March 31, 2008.

Attention resellers: This promotion is commissionable. So you can pass along the great savings to your users and receive the same great commission. They save, and you make money. It’s a great opportunity to get your users introduced to BOTW offerings. Start now!

Not a BOTW reseller? Find out more about the BOTW reseller program.

About a year ago, Greg Niland approached us about sponsoring an industry party where all the proceeds would be donated to charity. Since the proposition appealed to both our desire to drink alcohol with industry friends and our philanthropic streak, it wasn’t a very hard sale. Due to the giving nature of the search community (and a shared interest of drinking alcohol), the event exceeded our expectations. We raised a bunch of money for charity (Ronald McDonald House), and everybody had a good time.

Repeat scenario a handful of months ago when we got together with the fine folks at IMNY and sponsored the SMX Social charity party. Once again the event exceeded expectations, a bunch of money was raised for charity (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society), and a good time was had by all.

It is our pleasure to announce that we will be sponsoring our third charity party at the upcoming SES Conference in New York next month. This time we are letting the search community decide which charity will receive the proceeds from the event. A handful of people have championed a charity, and after all the votes are tallied, the winning charity will be selected.

Full details of the event at the SES NY Charity Party page.

Make sure to stop by and cast your vote. Thanks - we look forward to seeing you at the party.

Some time ago if a web marketer wanted to know details about a site it could take hours to investigate. How many links does a site have? How many pages does a site have cached in Google? How old is the site? What is the site’s Alexa rank? It was enough to drive you nuts!

Fortunately where there is a need, there is typically a savvy business person to step in and fill the gap. Enter Aaron Wall and the SEO for Firefox Extension. By simply downloading and activating the extension, interested marketers can discover a plethora of details about any given site, providing some understanding to the search engine listings.

We are pleased to announce that the super-cool SEO for Firefox extension now includes details about BOTW listings. Included amongst the host of features, web marketers can now see if a given site has been listed within the BOTW directory. Very nice!

Find out about all the features here (make sure to watch the instructional video). After learning more about the extension, download and activate it, and take your insight to the next level. And don’t forget to chech out the rest of the SEO tools provided by Aaron - the keyword suggestion tool is ingenious.

Happy surfing!

As expected, the turnout for our WIN10K promotion was awesome. We were confident that the promotion would spark interest, but we were flabbergasted by the amount of attention it drew. Here’s a pearl for you budding entrepreneurs: people like discounts and giveaways.

On Thursday, December 6 we announced the winner of the promotion live from the exhibition floor at PubCon, Las Vegas. We were really excited about doing it, and had a blast with the fanfare.

The winner for the Best of the Web WIN10K giveaway is:

MMG Worldwide.

We’d like to thank everybody who participated in the promotion, and wish all of you the best of luck on our future giveaways.

I think I see the beginning of a tradition here.

On Thursday, December 6 a gathering of the minds took place amongst some heavy hitters in the SEO world. David Klein hosted the Purposeinc Texas Hold’em tournament in the poker room of the Venetian casino. Approximately 90 people showed up, all looking for their seat at the final table. The BOTW crew had seats at four of the original 10 tables. After all the players had jockeyed for position, we were given a warm welcome, and the cards were dealt.

The action heated up quickly with big bluffer Neil Patel quickly sending Dan Rezmovits home with the infamous designation of first man out. The first table was consolidated in short time, and the action grew a bit more frenzied. Yours truly made an ill-advised (in hindsight) play on a pair of Jacks and was dealt a fatal blow by Ben Huh, chief cheezburger at the wildly popular I Can Has Cheezburger. Ben ultimately finished in 7th place and took home some money - sweet!

After the first break, approximately 7 tables remained, and a couple dozen or so of the early losers wandered about sharing their tales of misfortune. When play resumed, most of us watched the others for a bit, while others found alternative outlets to satisfy their desires (Vegas is good like that). With just 5 or so tables remaining, team BOTW was looking good with Jared, Rob and Brian still alive. However, the luck changed quickly.

After the second break, both Jared and Brian were playing with short stacks. Only Rob was looking good with a handful of big take downs that had him sitting with a nice pile of chips. Some of the other players still hanging on were Rebecca Kelley, Patrick Sexton, Dave Dellanave, and many others who were soon to be eliminated. Fortunately, there was a side game going on at a table a few spots away, and the recently disposed had a place to hop in to keep their ride going.

When the dust settled, at the final table three players remained. One of the finalists was our very own Rob Schmid, representing BOTW at the final table. With his relatively small stack, he appeared to be a long shot at best. Unfortunately, his mad skills were just no match for high stacks Shoemoney. In a surprise run, playing some stand up head to head poker, Dan Perry was able to out last Shoe and claim the title of PubCon Poker Tournament Champion.

At the end of the night, some money was raised for charity, we were in the company of friends, the drinks were coming (although a little slowly), and a good time was had by all. We were happy to co-sponsor the tournament, and look forward to doing it again next year.

Much love.