DarkBlue SEO CHALLENGE

Search Engine Contest sweeps the Net - Internet Marketing Phenomenon

July 7 /PRNewswire/ DarkBlue.com (http://www.darkblue.com) (ASX: DBS)

The Internet Marketing contest "SEO Challenge" sponsored by SearchGuild.com and DarkBlue.com has swept the globe to be the largest Search Engine contest of all time. Webmasters are racing to be the #1 listing for the fictitious phrase "Nigritude Ultramarine" in Google.com. Over half a million new web pages have been created for the contest phrase in just 30 days.

Competition News Highlights:

510,000 web pages have been created on the fictitious search term “nigritude ultramarine”. No previous pages had been published on this term before the competition began.

There are an estimated 760 official entrants in the contest with thousands more watching from the sidelines.

User involvement has grown from one forum to now include hundreds of forums and Web logs.

Countless threads have spawned on numerous forums with an estimated total views of over 70,000.

Alexa.com reports that “Nigritude Ultramarine” is worlds “4th hottest search” on the 19th May.

The competition has crossed language barriers to include Spanish, Greek, Norwegian, Japanese, and French web sites.

Through participating in lively forum discussions for webmaster communities, DarkBlue.com representatives found that there was a widespread interest in having a competition to compare search engine optimization skills, hence the creation of the SEO Challenge.

The contest involves getting a web page to the top of the search engine results page for the search term “nigritude ultramarine” at Google.com. This search term returned zero results on the launch of this competition and now returns over 500,000 web pages.

CONTACT E-mail: seochallenge@darkblue.com

Table of Contents:

Who is DarkBlue?
Who is SearchGuild?
Why was the SEO Challenge contest created?
Why use "Nigritude Ultramarine" as the search term?
Why Google.com?
What are the prizes on offer?
General information
Statistics: DarkBlue.com SEO Challenge competition
The First Stage Winner
The Second Stage Winner
Official Links
Other Links (Forums, Web logs and other interesting web sites)
Foreign Web Sites

1. Who is DarkBlue?

DarkBlue is an Affiliate Marketing company based in Brisbane, Australia. This online marketing network was launched in 2002 and is essentially a "Cost per Acquisition" (CPA) affiliate network. DarkBlue services hundreds of advertisers and serves more than 1 billion banner impressions per month primarily requested by USA Internet users.

The DarkBlue business model differs to other affiliate networks in that they don't charge commissions, set up or maintenance fees. DarkBlue's revolutionary model ensures that the affiliate gets the full commission, which in turn encourages affiliates to send more traffic to the advertiser creating a win-win market model.

In return for facilitating this transaction the DarkBlue network receives the benefit of some of the Internet traffic after the advertiser has had the opportunity to convert the traffic to sales.

DarkBlue believes in participating in the online community as a peer, advertiser, affiliate and provider. Through constant participation and a "living online" business environment, DarkBlue has strong bonds with the webmasters and users that are the cornerstone of this successful network.

2. Who is SearchGuild?

SearchGuild is an open forum for the discussion of search engine optimization and search engines. It also has related directories, articles, utilities, news and a downloadable browser toolbar. SearchGuild aims to provide a fun, productive and interactive environment where both the experienced and the new can discuss search engines and search engine optimization. Essentially we aim to provide maximum benefit for the members and guests by discussing the latest news, developments and everything in between relevant to SEO.

3. Why was the "SEO Challenge" contest created?

After talking to forum participants it became apparent that a lot of people didn't completely understand the benefits of search engine optimization as a means to attract targeted traffic to their web sites.

This contest is a way to promote learning through forums, dispel false beliefs about search engines and let the experts willing to share their knowledge do so through online examples.

The competition is primarily sponsored by SearchGuild.com and DarkBlue.com for three reasons:

Support the forum communities and have a little fun.
Provide a medium for experts to demonstrate "best practice" search engine optimisation as the most effective way to increase targeted traffic to web sites.
Raise the exposure of DarkBlue.com as an Affiliate Advertising Network.

4. Why use "Nigritude Ultramarine" as the search term?

Nigritude Ultramarine is a play on words and loosely means "Dark Blue" in Latin.

It was important that "nigritude ultramarine" returned zero results on Google.com before the contest began. There are now over 518,000 pages indexed for the term after only 32 days. (08/06/2004.)

5. Why Google.com?

Google.com was the search engine of choice due to its premiere standing in the search market. Although most search engines will spider and index the contest entrant's pages, due to Google's popularity we have elected to use their results as a mechanism to determine a winner.

Google has a number of quality guidelines which Darkblue.com requires entrants to consider when creating any entry web site. Darkblue.com has strict policies against deceitful conduct and bans affiliates from its network that use these practices.

The Google Quality Guidelines can be found at:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

6. What are the prizes on offer?

#1 listing in Google after one month drawn on the 7th June 9am GMT - Apple Mini iPod
#1 listing in Google after two months drawn on the 7th July 9am GMT - Sony 17 inch Flat Panel LCD Monitor
Judges Choice to be awarded by SearchGuild.com on 7th July 9am GMT - James Bond Stealth Camera
Best Blog on 7th July 9am GMT - Remote Controlled Hovercraft
Best Definition 7th July 9am GMT - Remote Controlled Flying Saucer

For exact details:

http://www.darkblue.com/seochallenge/

7. General information

The SEO Challenge has received support from a wide range of Search Engine Optimization, Webmaster and Web Design communities. The word of mouth growth the competition has received is astonishing. The contest was announced on the 8th May through the DarkBlue.com and SearchGuild.com. The competition has continued to spread through the Internet at an exponential rate.

The contest has had some very high profile web sites and land based newspapers comment and report on the contest. Forums across the Internet are discussing it amongst their members, web logs are keeping up to date with all the events as they unfold and news web sites are offering editorial descriptions of daily events.

Professionals in the search engine optimization industry are competing along with webmasters and web enthusiasts. No matter who wins the prizes, it is a great learning experience for everyone. This competition has become a fabulous opportunity for webmasters to network and participate in their communities.

A point of interest is that many webmaster communities have come together to take part in the competition. Some forum members have banded collectively to share their knowledge, resources and skills to collectively compete for the top honours. Others have chosen to support one individual member and assist them to compete for the title of "Superior SEO Expert".

What is the real result? The contest is largely about worldwide community and some good "new fashioned" fun. Watching the progress of the contestants pushing to be #1 has proven to be a daily education from the experts.

8. Statistics: DarkBlue.com SEO Challenge competition

(As of 8th June - Competition has been running for 32 days)

28650 users have visited the official contest web page.
Alexa.com reports that “Nigritude Ultramarine” is worlds “4th hottest search” on the 19th May.
Number has been as high as 519,000 web pages created and indexed after one month. (0 pages were originally found when searched for on Google.com)
Google Ad space has been purchased for the SEO targeted search term “nigritude ultramarine.”
709 forum posts have been lodged at the official competition thread located at SearchGuild.com - http://www.searchguild.com/tpage10157-0.html
29145 users have viewed the official forum thread for the competition. The involvement has grown from one forum to now include hundreds of Forums and Web logs.
The competition has crossed language barriers to include Spanish, Greek, Norwegian, Japanese, and French.
All major SEO forums have at least one Nigritude Ultramarine thread.
Slashdot Article published May 9th http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/09/1840217
Wall Street Journal article published May 21st
Number one position in Blogdex.net June 6th
Wired article published June 8th http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63755,00.html
Search Engine Watch article published May 27th http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/3360231

9. The First Stage Winner

The winner of the "Players" prize was Merkey [forums.merkey.net]. He has been heavily involved on the official SearchGuild thread as well as many related forums and concentrated on networking to gain support.

10.The Second Stage Winner

The winner of the “Stayers” prize was Anil Dash [http://www.dashes.com/anil/2004/06/04/nigritude_ultra]. Anil entered the competition on June 4 and quickly climbed the ranks.

As a prominent figure in the blogging community, this entry became quickly linked to and was listed as the fasted spreading news item in blogdex.net on the 7th of June. [posted on the 7th of June here: http://www.seochallenge.com/archives/2004_06.html]

11. Official Links

SearchGuild:
www.searchguild.com

DarkBlue:
www.darkblue.com

DarkBlue Official SEO Challenge page:
www.darkblue.com/seochallenge

Official Search Guild competition thread:
http://www.searchguild.com/tpage10157-0.html

SEO Challenge Official Blog:
www.seochallenge.com

12. Other Links (Forums, Web logs and other interesting web sites)

SEOChat: (Forum)
http://forums.seochat.com/t10368/s.html

WebWorkShop: (Forum)
http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?t=1471

WebProWorld: (Forum)
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=19424

HighRankings: (Forum)
http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6335&st=0

DigitalPoint: (Forum)
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=553

JimWorld: (Forum)
http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/forum::members-lounge/thread::1083948024/start::1/

High Search Engine Rankings.com: (Blog)
http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/search_engine_news_blog.htm

SlashDOT: (Web News)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/09/1840217&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=217&tid=95

Wikipedia: (Web Encyclopedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigritude_ultramarine

Google Groups: (Search Engine)
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=nigritude%20ultramarine&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wg

Ozzu.com: (Forum)
http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic24627.html

Web Pro World:(Web News)
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20040512NigritudeUltramarineSEOsClashForTopRanking.html