This is my second review for ReviewMe, first discussed around here last month. The subject of the review pays me to review their product or service, though I’m under no obligation to provide a positive review. Let me know if you think this sort of thing is arse–I’m definitely seeking feedback.
One other note: I’m using the rel=”nofollow” tag for ReviewMe subjects, so that they’re not buying my link juice along with their review.
I can’t remember why, but I’ve definitely visited SEO Book.com before. They want me to check out their search engine marketing glossary, a single page hosting a whole schwack of plain-language definitions of search engine optimization terms.
Like the whole site, I like the aesthetic of the glossary. It’s simple and easy to use, with plenty of whitespace between entries. I like that there are links to other SEO glossaries–in fact, the author–one Aaron Wall–is very liberal with their linking.
Like Aaron, I get asked about SEO, and SEO-specific questions, a lot. It’s kind of a dark art that I don’t fully understand, and there’s a lot of misconceptions about what works and what doesn’t.
Here’s the litmus test: can I send a Normal Human to this glossary and will they come away knowing what they need? Let’s take the aforementioned term ‘nofollow’ as an example:
Attribute used to prevent a link from passing link authority. Commonly used on sites with user generated content, like in blog comments…
Google’s Matt Cutts also pushes webmasters to use nofollow on any paid links, but since Google is the world’s largest link broker, their advice on how other people should buy or sell links should be taken with a grain of salt. Please note that it is generally not advised to practice link hoarding as that may look quite unnatural. Outbound links may also boost your relevancy scores in some search engines.
That’s pretty good. I like that, in addition to the defintion, he provides some context and personal opinion (in the introductory text, he divulges his biases as they pertain to these definitions). There isn’t actually an entry for ‘link authority’, so he might want to change the language there, but I’m just being picky.
I learned a bunch of stuff and followed some interesting links. For instance, I’d never seen this heat map from Google on where to put your AdSense ads.
The grammar isn’t perfect. I know my grammar on this site isn’t anything to write home about, either, but (and this is my own bias) a glossary feels a little more official and formal than a weblog. The page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license, so if I was really keen, I could republish the glossary and try to improve the sentence structure. I’m not that keen.
I’ve got some minor quibbles and recommendations. It’d be great if there was a glossary-specific RSS feed, so that I could be notified when entries are added or updated. This is only necessary for the inexperienced users, but it might be cool if there was a page-specific search field as well. I know you can just search in the browser, but plenty of people don’t know that, or use that functionality regularly.
In short, the site is a very good resource for folks learning about SEO, and those who have always been wondering what, say, ‘siphoning’ means. It does what it says on the box without any fuss, and that’s something I appreciate.
For some bonus links, Aaron wrote a blog post linking to a bunch of other ReviewMe reviews. In related news, Roland and Paul have been engaging in an SEO debate. I’m firmly in Roland’s corner on this one.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Since you asked for feedback, I’ll link to a comment I wrote in response to Tim Bray’s very similar question (where I see you also commented, but maybe you didn’t follow the comment feed):
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/12/13/Blog-PR#c1166222254.351876
To summarize here: I still naively desire that commercial content not influence “real experiences” on the web. You provide enough explanation of the process to make your article interesting, but I only skimmed your review and consciously did not look at what you reviewed.
Andy: Thanks for your comments. I see your point, and would only pose a ‘shades of grey’ rebuttal. Everything I blog about comes from somewhere–on one end there are things I randomly find, and on the other there are clear motivations (money, friends’ projects and so forth). When they’re at the money, clients, friends end of the scale, I try to make the context as clear as possible. That way–as you skimmed–readers can treat the post the way they want.