I recently moved some directories on my website and I’m now redirecting some residual 404s. In the process, I was thinking about creating a customized 404 page and wanted to see what other folks were doing with their 404s. What I found was funny, geeky, disturbing yet all around, entertaining. Here are some of the jems I found:

There’s music with this one. Lionel Richie is singing, “well hello, is it me you’re looking for”. The overly sensitive males of the cheesy 80’s get to host this 404.
http://www.blogjam.com/whatever

You’ll notice just about every story on this faux news page pertains to a 404. Note the All Your Base reference at the bottom right.
http://www.trinicom.com/trinicom/servererror/404.htm

Of course Pownce…”it’s a trap!”. Simple and funny.
http://www.pownce.com/404.html

This one comes from Retard Zone. The combo of aesthetics, bizarreness, and ridicularity merge in this Bermuda Triangle of a 404.
http://retardzone.com/ifarted

This 404 displays a cracked out milk shake running and screaming across the screen while evil techno music plays in the background.
http://gelatocms.com/404

Not only is the page missing but here are some other things that have also gone missing: http://www.zug.com/mp3/nothere.htm

Pretty cool albeit geeky 404 which presents 37 different moments from the Capcom game Phoenix Wright in all its 8 bit glory.
http://www.bazixgd.com/nonexistantpage

Etsy has a great 404 from Nintendo’s Link (a game I probably played way too much back in the day).
http://www.etsy.com/error.php?error_id=12

Of course Jib Jab would have something funny right? Not bad:
http://www.jibjab.com/404.html

Urban Outfitters has one…not that impressive, only because they paid someone half a cent in Malaysia to build it.
http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/html/404.html

B3ta presents a slideshow of various 404 themed images. Some NFSW.
http://www.b3ta.com/ergergerrfv

Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht host the online show Diggnation where they can be seen commenting and recapping on the week in Digg and other online happenings. From the comfort of a couch with laptops and beers in hand, Kevin and Alex go over some recently submitted content by yours truly. Squareoak submitted Geeky Weddings LMAO which to date has received 2262 Diggs. You can forward to 26:16 to hear the commentary. Thanks for the mention guys!

In order to see how these two sides potentially go about their business, let’s give a top black hat and a top white hat the same challenge. What if we gave each pro a simple website (same industry and page count) to optimize and market? The winner would have the most backlinks and traffic for their respective sites.

The black hat would autosubmit their site links to bulletin board systems, catalogues, forums, and guestbooks, receiving loads of traffic and backlinks. This strategy would be almost guaranteed to work but only for a week, if that, until Google figures it out and places the black hat’s domain in permanent solitary confinement. The white hat would bookmark, network, create content and submit to the social news sites, possibly breaking through on Digg receiving 100,000 hits in a twenty-four hour period. Each strategy would work well but it’s most likely that the black hat would walk home victorious at the week’s end. However, if we’re measuring success via staying power within the search engine indexes, the white hat would be the victor.

Many of us perceive black hat to be evil because of the ominous name and because black hat tactics usually aim to compromise the integrity of online properties for personal gain, an obvious moral disincentive. But is it really evil?

Your decision to stay within the white pastures or go hunting in the black forests boils down to a moral and social decision. If you’re a good white hat, over time you’ll build a solid reputation. You’ll be respected in the community and have various companies knocking on your door requesting your services. Hopefully you’re adding valuable or interesting content to the internet. Even though your efforts are propelled by a paying client, your content is still good, interesting, educational, and respected. Over time you’ll make good money and you may establish yourself as an industry expert.

If you’re a good black hat you’re pumping sites and making a quick dollar. You’re in it for the cash and you could care less if catzforum.com is having serious spam problems. You’re in it to buck the system and you feel that Google is blacker than the blackest of hats. You’re not doing it to build a reputation; you’re doing it to buy that lovely beach house in Monaco and the rare Aston Martin you’ve always wanted.

So…who are you? Black hat, white, or maybe a bit of both?

Industry References:
SEO Black Hat Brain vs. White Hat Brain
My boss is obsessed with Black Hat SEO
White Hat Vs. Black Hat

I thought about attending the event months before SMX Social Media NYC was to begin. I had never been to a search marketing conference and was somewhat wary of laying down the loot. However I was reassured by Marty Weintraub (aimClear) that attending would be well worth it. Thank you Marty, you were right!

So why was it worth it? Did I learn anything? Will I go again?

I think the major value was the networking. I literally have a pile of 60 – 70 business cards from attendees across all different industries. I met some really great people who are all in it for the same reasons. Everyone is there to learn and to explore leveraging new technology to increase social awareness. It’s really quite exciting, new, fun, and when you leverage these sites successfully for yourself or clients…it’s an incredible rush.

For decades huge media companies have owned the dissemination of information. Corporations like FOX, NYT, NBC, CBS, Viacom, etc. I would have to say that the influence of a Digg power account is comparable if not more effective than traditional media. When in history has so much power been given to masses? Exciting stuff to be a part of.

People Who Made An Impression

Marty Weintraub – aimClear, Search Marketing Firm
Marty convinced me that attending SMX would be a good idea and he was right. Thank you.

Brian Wallace – Nowsourcing, Search Marketing, IT, CMS, System Architecture,etc
I met Brian at the very end of the SMX conference. While the Wikipedia clinic was running we were in the back cheering-on his Digg submission, hoping for it to go popular…and it did!

Kimberly Krause Berg – Cre8pc, Website Usability Services
Kim was really cool. I met her first at the pre-party and then talked with her more throughout the event. On Tuesday night during the after-conference networking at Elmo, she invited me out to dinner with about 8 other folks. It was a great time. Thank you Kim!

Eric Lander – Search Engine Journal, Blogger
I met Eric during dinner on Tuesday night. Eric’s a good dude and a good writer. I’m sure I’ll be seeing him around the hood.

Matt McGee – Marchex, SEO Manager
I met Matt at dinner as well. Guy’s got a great sense of humor and really knows his answering services. I still reference Matt’s blog post about ‘How to Optimize A Site in 60 Minutes’

Eric Enge – Stone Temple Consulting, President
I sat across from Eric during dinner. A good dude that loves the Red Sox. I couldn’t believe how much SEO related writing he’s been contracted to do. The man is an SEO original gangsta.

Tamar Weinberg – Blogger
I met Tamar late in the second day. She had some advice for me on one of my live blogging posts. Thank you! Tamar is extremely passionate about what she does and an undoubted power user.

Or Darom –  888.com, Marketing
I met Or during the pre-party. She and her husband had flown all the way from Israel just to attend SMX. Like me, she had never been to a conference before and was excited to network and learn.

Liana Evans – KeyRelevance, Director of Internet Marketing
I met Li during dinner. I never knew someone could love Twitter so much. Li was taking pictures throughout the event and leading some interesting/hillarious dinner conversation. It was a pleasure to meet you Li!

Chris Winfield – 10e20, President
I talked with Chris briefly at the pre-party. He made an excellent suggestion to change my Sphinn username from my company name Squareoak to my actual name BrendanPicha. A good call. Good presentation btw Chris. Loved the linkbait ideas.

Jason Falls – Doe Anderson, Account Manager
Jason is more on the marketing side of things and was attending, like most, to learn more about social media. Jason flew up from Kentucky. I think you should definitely post that article idea you were talking about.

Rob Key – Converseon, CEO
I didn’t actually talk with or get to meet Rob but I thought his presentation was the most captivating. He compared marketers to anthropologists and how we’ll enter these online worlds without a clue about how they operate. He used an analogy about a television show where these two British guys try to get themselves adopted by a remote tribe. What they must do is:

Make friends with community elders
Understand and respect community mores
Lead with altruism and come bearing gifts
Discover what a community needs
Learn the linguistics
Value and cultivate the relationships
Leverage the opportunities

He then applied this to online communities. Applying these same techniques in order to leverage a marketing campaign within Second Life. The campaign turned out to be really successful. I really love when people mesh disciplines, theories, or industries and come to a conclusive understanding or solution. Very interesting stuff. Thanks Rob.

So will I be attending conferences in the future? Well if they’re anything like SMX you bet. I had a great time, met some fantastic people, and learned quite a bit.

It was nice to meet everyone and hopefully we’ll cross paths again soon!

I never speak negatively of people related to our industry, it’s simply bad form. However in this case, I feel like I have to defend myself. I was checking the backlinks to my site and noticed some traffic from ClipClip.org. I followed the link back and found a relatively negative post about Squareoak from a user named John. In the post, John is commenting on this Squareoak post that lists the javascript for auto populating many bookmarking sites. This javascript is something that bookmarking sites provide so that users can simply click on the bookmarklet in their toolbar and post whatever content they’re currently viewing. For some reason John thinks that my post is somehow spammy. Not only is this javascript provided by the bookmarking sites themselves but my suggestion of replacing a standard bookmarked URL with the actual javascript provided can help people save space in their toolbar. This increased efficiency also helps and promotes the intent of sites like ClipClip.org.

If people decide to use existing ClipClip.org functionality for spammy purposes that’s no fault of mine. It’s simply a little off-setting when someone with completely unoriginal ideas like ClipClip.org or URL.com associates my corporate image with spam. I detest spam, it’s the antithesis of the internet’s intent. Thanks for the shout out John but do me and other industry professionals a favor and keep your clips to yourself.

Oh and if you’re going to publicly criticize me, could you do it with more than a frowny face?