This all started as an SEO contest entry from the contest Isulong SEOph. Organized by Marc Macalua which was an idea that sprang up from the old email group SEO Philippines had. It was a contest I participated in as a sponsor representing YDS Web Solution helping out in the prizes along with:

• LakesideSQL
• PlogHost
• Alleba
• Scott Horne
• Kabarkada
• BitStop
• Healthy Culinary Creations
• Cerveo

Contest ended, I did not win anything. Ranked number 11 on Google.com.ph when the contest ended. And these were who the Isulong SEOph winners were. For this contest, I was using the domain isulongseoph.com.ph.

Then Ituloy AngSulong comes along

Ituloy AngSulong was the second contest by SEO Philippines. Once again organized well byMarc Macalua, and with bigger prizes. Again sponsored by:

• Boris Kerbikov of Lakeside Technologies
• Itay Kaul of CPays.com (2,400.00 USD)
• Wilson Chua of Philippine WebHosting (20,000.00 PHP)
• Benj Arriola of Action Online Technology and Business Blog (10,000.00 PHP)
• Junelle Caravana of Intiendes (5,000.00 PHP)
• Andrew dela Serna of Dota Allstars Strategy (5,000.00 PHP)
• Rhea Ong Yiu of Photography by Rhea Ong Yiu (3,000.00 PHP)
• Carlo Roxas of Tech News & Reviews (3,000.00 PHP)
• Giovanni Castro of Free Web Content (2,000.00 PHP)

I just got 10th of Google, and two more consolation prizes being in the top 40 in Google. I was then using the domain ituloy-angsulong.com and ituloy-angsulong.info. Check the rest of the Ituloy AngSulong winners.

Then GlobalWarming Awareness2007 SEO Contest comes along

After registering the domain globalwarmingawareness07.com and several other domains for the SEO World Championship, I just thought this website is already a mess. So many domains and all this 301 madness and I keep reoptimizing this site for different keywords try to get some traffic coming to it with some interesting (I hope they interesting) SEO stuff trying to get people to this site and do the best linkbait I can. And it did not work out well with this site. And I was also busy with other stuff. Although I was using the domain globalwarmingwareness07.com, it was just not working well. Although my site was coming out on the list on the top 40, but isulongseoph.com was coming out and the 301s were not kicking in yet. Although I ended up winning the top prize in the SEO World Championship, I won it using my other entry on Global Warming.

Here comes SEO Religion

But with all the work I put into these sites, all these changing domains, and doing nothing but talking about SEO, then I am making this my permanent SEO/SEM Blog. And since I bought the domain SEOReligion.com, which I just thought of out of the blue when making a blog post for the SEORockstars, which is no longer updated, I might as well use that domain as my main SEO domain for this site.

So originally this site was used for the SEO contest, but today it is now mainly my SEO/SEM site. A lot still has to be fixed. But it is really hard to make and maintain a website for yourself if it is one of your paid projects to work on. But at least the site alone pay for itself.

So what benefit can you really get from joining the Ituloy AngSulong SEO contest?

I guess various competitors will have various reasons. But for me, here are my reasons:

1. The Learning Experience – Isulong SEOph alone has opened my eyes into more insights on Google, and even given a deeper understanding on country specific Google.com.ph and how the SERPs differ with Google.com. Now, Ituloy AngSulong is a contest that includes Yahoo and MSN, which is already showing me some differences in indexing rates in Google, Yahoo and MSN.
2. The Earning Potential – If I am going to work on an SEO contest entry and optimized it well, this will increase rankings, increase page rank, increase the websites overall popularity. And a popular website has earning potential as long as you know how you will monetize it well. Win or lose in the SEO contest, trying to win in the contest is worth the learning experience already. And at the same time, might as well maximize the time spent in optimizing your website and adding in good content. This gives the site better longevity as you develop your own community and monetize it from there. If you made an Ituloy AngSulong entry and after the SEO contest, the site is worth as trash, I suggest do something else to it so that your hard work has gone somewhere into something productive.
3. The SEO Experiment Laboratory – In way still part of the learning experience reason I mentioned above, SEO professionals all know the SEO basic practices, but this is a progressive learning experience, as SEO techniques today, can be way different to the SEO techniques of tomorrow. There are already many SEO techniques of the past that are totally outdated today. As search engines get better and better, SEO techniques change correspondingly. Some techniques can be a bit shady and considered banned by some search engines, although they give you a better understanding of how the search engines work. These shady techniques also known as Blackhat SEO, can be on the borderline, or beyond what is permitted by the search engines. But doing Blackhat SEO teaches you more lessons on search engine behavior, but doing this is on client website may not be worth the risk. Getting your client banned in Google, Yahoo or MSN/Live can mean losing a client and losing business. Having a separate website can be used as your own SEO experiment laboratory. Not necessarily meaning I do all Blackhat on this website, but experiments that may be near the borderline of what is allowed can be tested without the risk of losing a client. And as I suggest, if you find a way to cheat the search engine, I do suggest on reporting it to the search engines instead of abusing it. And after reporting it, then blog about it so you gain the credit and credibility of discovering the search engine flaw, but you report it so it will not be abused and you gain you good rapport with the search engines.
4. The Branding and Cross-Promotion of your other Services – I have a business and technology blog, where I used to post some of my SEO discoveries. I have a finance/business/investment blog. A personal blog and more blogs target to smaller niches. I have not created a blog dedicated to SEO/SEM alone, and I believe my Ituloy AngSulong entry will be my permanent SEO/SEM blog and develop it’s brand to be an SEO/SEM resource. Although there are many SEO/SEM blogs with higher authority as they have been in this business longer that I ever knew SEO, SEO is still a progressive learning experience. Things change as search engines change and new techniques will come out, and that brings everyone on an equal playing field. The more news worthy your SEO/SEM blog has, the more popular it will get as an SEO/SEM resource. And this is where you develop your brand around it and try to become an authority in the field. Ans as you start to get this authority, you can even push for cross-promoting your other services that you believe your target audience may also be interested in.
5. The Contest Prizes – Now this is the last reason. It is just an added bonus. If you win in the contest, you get all these Ituloy AngSulong SEO contest prizes. Aside from the money, you get the recognition and is a definite plus to your SEO resume. Without these contest sponsors, there would have been no prizes:
   • Boris Kerbikov of Lakeside Technologies
   • Itay Kaul of CPays.com (2,400.00 USD)
   • Wilson Chua of Philippine WebHosting (20,000.00 PHP)
   • Benj Arriola of Action Online Technology and Business Blog (10,000.00 PHP)
   • Junelle Caravana of Intiendes (5,000.00 PHP)
   • Rhea Ong Yiu of Photography by Rhea Ong Yiu (3,000.00 PHP)
   • Carlo Roxas of Tech News & Reviews (3,000.00 PHP)
   • Giovanni Castro of Free Web Content (2,000.00 PHP)

   Without them, the prizes will not be as attractive as they are today. Thanks to all Ituloy AngSulong contest sponsors who support Ituloy AngSulong. You have been truly a help of the development of SEO in the Philippines and the world over.

What are your reasons to join Ituloy AngSulong? Have you joined already? Or you are just planning to join Ituloy AngSulong? It’s not too late.

Triple Jackpot Prize

• 60,000.00 PHP for the contest entry with the highest cumulative rank
• 35,000.00 PHP for the contest entry with the second highest cumulative rank
• 15,000.00 PHP for the contest entry with the third highest cumulative rank

Main Contest Prizes

Consolation Prizes

In addition, we have the following prizes to be given away:

• Best in Design Award – the contest organizers will select three finalists. The final winner will be selected via an on-the-spot poll during the awarding ceremonies and will receive 10,000.00 PHP.
• Google Bonus Prize – 1,000.00 PHP each for sites Rank 11th to 40th in Google (sponsored by Boris Kerbikov)

I came here [to the United State] when I was 2 [years old]. I don’t really speak Tagalog, but what does that [Isulong SEOph and Ituloy AngSulong] mean?

What is Isulong – Root word of Isulong is Sulong which means improve, develop, move onwards, advance, or get better. When a letter I is placed before a word in Tagalog, the Filipino language, this is like adding the word to before it. Thus Isulong means to improve, to develop, to move onwards, to advance, or to get better.

What is SEOph – SEO is what we already know. And PH is the two letter ISO Country Code for the Philippines. The words were just put together to make it a fresh word in the search engines.

What is Ituloy – The root word Ituloy is Tuloy which simply means continue. Thus Ituloy means to continue.

What is AngSulong – Ang is the article the. And Sulong as I have already defined above is improve, develop, move onwards, advance, or get better. Thus AngSulong is the development. This again is actually two words that were place together so that the word becomes unique in the SERPs

So what is Isulong SEOph? It means to improve SEO of the Philippines. And what is Ituloy AngSulong? It is to continue the development.

Isulong SEOph was the first contest of SEO Philippines that lasted from June 1, 2006 to the Isulong SEOph awarding day or September 31, 2006. And Ituloy AngSulong is the 2nd SEO Contest of SEO Philippines.

Jay-Arth A. Lorbes
1406AA2 Wack-Wack Twin Towers
Greenhills East, Mandaluyong City
isulong-seoph.mylucena.com

October’s lucky winner of the Isulong SEOPH Raffle draw (site #43). He wins a white 80 GB iPod Video! Congratulations Jay-Arth! Now it is time for you to work on your Ituloy AngSulong site.

1. Contest starts October 28, 2006 8:00 PM and ends February 23, 2007 8:00 PM.
2. The contest is open to all Filipinos. It’s also open to non-Filipinos who can be present at the awarding ceremonies. If a non-Filipino should win and he’s not physically present at the event, he is disqualified from the contest.
3. For this contest, we’ll have three sets of winners: forty (40) for Google, ten (10) for Yahoo! and five (5) for MSN.
4. To win, you have to rank from #1 to #40 in Google, #1 to #10 in Yahoo! and #1 for MSN for the contest keyword. Each spot has its corresponding prize (see above)
5. To qualify for the Triple Jackpot Prize, you must have an entry that’s on the top 40 results of the big three: Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Your entry should also have the required links from LakesideSQL.com, LogoDesignExpress.com and CPays.com. The contest entry page that has the highest cumulative rank on all three search engines will be declared the grand champion. The contest entires that have the second and third highest cumulative ranks on all three search engines will receive the second and third Triple Jackpot prizes, respectively. If you have two or more contest entries (on the same domain) on the top 40, we’ll pick the higher ranking entry for the computations. During the awarding ceremonies, there’ll be a public viewing of all three search engine result pages (SERP) to determine the winners.To illustrate:
   • Contest Entry A is #4 in Google, #17 in Yahoo! and #8 in MSN = cumulative rank of 29
   • Contest Entry B is #3 in Google, #5 in Yahoo! and #11 in MSN = cumulative rank of 19 (this is the winner)

   Required Links for LakesideSQL.com

   • sql tuning (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com/sql-performance-tuning.html)
   • microsoft sql server (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com)
   • sql server (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com/sql-performance/sql-profiler.html)
   • sql performance (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com/sql-performance-tuning.html)
   • remote dba (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com/remote-dba.html)
   • sql server 2005 (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com)
   • sql server (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com)
   • deadlock (link to http://www.lakesidesql.com/sql-performance/deadlocks.html)

   Required Links for LogoDesignExpress.com

   • logo design (link to http://www.logodesignexpress.com)
   • custom logo (link to http://www.logodesignexpress.com)
   • logo designs (link to http://www.logodesignexpress.com)
   • business logo (link to http://www.logodesignexpress.com)
   • company logo (link to http://www.logodesignexpress.com)
   • professional logo design (link to http://www.logodesignexpress.com)

   Required Links for CPays.com

   I joined the largest Search Engine Optimization competition on the web! Play in high quality online casinos at casino en ligne, online kasino, speel spel and other great sites!

   This will come out as:

   I joined the largest Search Engine Optimization competition on the web! Play in high quality online casinos at casino en ligne, online kasino, speel spel and other great sites!

6. For the purpose of this competition, indented listings in the SERPs will not be counted.
7. Contest updates will be posted on the following sites: SEO Philippines Mailing List, SEO Philippines Blog, SEO Philippines Forum and Macalua.com.
8. VERY IMPORTANT: In order to win, contestants must read and acknowledge the full contest terms and conditions outlined above by posting a “I have read the contest mechanics and I agree“ comment on this page. Please include in your comment 1) your full name and 2) your contest entry URLs. Contestants who do not comply are not eligible to win.
9. Last but not the least, the contest keyword is ituloy angsulong (without quotation marks).