When I was new to SEO I did a bunch of on the page analysis to try to figure out exactly what other people are doing. The problem is that it gets you focused on things that do not matter. A site may end up ranking high at the sacrifice of conversion.

As search algorithms advance basic link analysis tools, at least for Google, are starting to become what keyword density tools are: a waste of time.

Link analysis software was cool, especially when Google used to show all of the PageRank 4 and above links, back when their search relevancy algorithm was a bit more dependant on raw PageRank.

Now Google only shows a limited random set of backlinks, and the other search engines also limit the search depth to 1,000 results, which makes it hard to do useful analysis with the various link analysis tools on the market.

If it were quick and easy to query a database deeply (deeper than 1,000) then the link analysis tools would be much more useful. None of them currently on the market really make that a quick and easy process.

The other problem mentioned above, of harder relevancy algorithms, is not one that is going to go away. WMW supporters forum has a thread about the Google "Sandbox". A friend of mine just got through reading the whole thing, stating that most of it was of little value, but he found a couple posts enlightening. The second post here by Ron Burk has some good tidbits

To keep improving the results, you find more variables for the algorithm-creating machine to use, and you add to your store of human-ranked pages for it to "learn" from. What you don't do is bother understanding the actual algorithm -- it was constructed by a machine and is way too complex for anyone to keep in their head.
...
Psychologists have shown repeatedly that when you give people a system to optimize, all you have to do is secretly introduce a delay between their actions and the results of their actions, and they will go bonkers. In fact, in a very simple (single variable!) model in which people are trying to control the temperature in a virtual refridgerator, you can get some of the same irrational responses you see in these forums

and the first post here by Captain CaveMan (which incidentally is the name of an awesome cartoon character) does as well:

Without giving away the store, I don't know how else to say it. There is no sandbox. People speak of it as though it were some simple 'thing' that stops new sites from being seen. That has simply never been true. What was true was that in its early days, some of the algo elements and related filters were so tight that only a very few new sites got past them (some accidentally; some methodically). Over time that changed; more sites started getting out, presumably as G worked to surface more new, higher quality sites.

There is no sandbox. There is only a serious of rotating algo's and related filters, that make it far harder for sites launched after spring of '04 to be widely seen in the SERP's. Not impossible. Harder. And certainly not as hard now as was true seven months ago. This has been hashed and rehashed so many times that it's hard to understand why it's still confusing.

If you can only see a few of the variables and overexert effort to satisfy those variables you may end up tripping filters and not satisfying other criteria.

By targeting certain terms / phrases / concepts / ideas you can target overtly biased consumer feedback which appears to be unbiased information.

You can spend well under $100 creating a system which erodes brands of competing business models. Just use AdWords to market a blog requesting feedback about the company or its products. Generally people are going to be more inclined to research and speak their mind if they are not satisfied.

This may not work well against smaller companies since they are going to be more inclined to accept and look for feedback, but if large companies place themselves ahead of their customers it is exceptionally easy to make that known.

If the feedback site does a good enough job it can garner many free links from other people who may not like the service. Eventually you can use the site for cheap link popularity and to do comparitive advertising for a broad range of terms surrounding a competitors names and / or products.

For example, I could create a site about feedback on the services of various SEO companies. That site would garner both positive and negative feedback. Even though it would have both, it would cast a shadow of doubt over SEO services which might make my ebook look more appealing to a wider audience base.

With all of the people who market SEO services based on the ethics and best practices angles I am surprised nobody has cashed in by creating an SEO service feedback blog.

Sure some firms would shun it, but those would likely be some of the same firms who don't give a crap about their customers.

If I created that sort of site I would not market anything but the feedback off the start. Each page would link out to the reviewed firm for that page. Companies which had great reviews would likely link in. People who hated some of the firms would likely link in.

links links links... !!!!

Disclaimer: Of course you can go too far with this, and it can result in significant social or legal expenses.

From thee LinkWorth blog

Today LinkWorth is proud to launch its newest advertising product called, Billboard Link Ads. This new and exciting technology takes text link advertising to an entirely new level by allowing the advertiser to create a very effective write up about their product or service being promoted, embedding targeted linked keywords and/or phrases throughout the content and having the entire dedicated page hosted on one of our partner websites. So instead of buying a simple text link from someone, you are purchasing an entire page with up to 10 text links included throughout the content.

I am a bit surprised that nobody has tried to set up a marketplace for this until now.

As long as people have been buying and selling links for you would think that many more people would pick up on this idea. WeBuildPages has been marketing this concept, but the idea of being able to chose amongst an open marketplace makes the idea much more scalable.

I know search engines can probably pick up on more patterns than most webmasters realize, but many people selling links through LinkWorth link back to LinkWorth on their site using affiliate links, which likely makes it both easy and appealing for some search engines to give less weighting to links from those sites or decide to not want to count those ads.

LinkWorth should protect their inventory partners and advertisers better than that if they aim to create a longterm solution.

There are many affordable programmers and many marketers are sitting on stacks of cash. There should be more people pushing these types of solutions.

Needed:
Danny Sullivan writes Worthless Shady Criminals: A Defense Of SEO

Decry a particular SEO tactic, if you want -- but don't decry the entire SEM industry as being rotten. If you want to do that, then here are some other stereotypes you'd also better buy into:

• All car salesmen are crooks

• All lawyers are crooks
• Teachers teach because they can't do
  
• Bloggers don't check facts

• [Insert Race/Culture/Nationality Here] is [Insert Derogatory Comment/Stereotype Here]

Ask Jeeves:
Profits increase 35%

Yahoo!:
Think Big contest gives away 10,000,000 Yahoo! ad impressions. I think Jeremy Z should win with the Viagra Rolex Watches.

Yahoo! also thinks small. Cutting up ads on stored My Yahoo! web pages. Webmasters are already complaining about how My Yahoo! stores web pages.

Charity:
Google foundation may invest in for-profit firms. Am going to apply for a grant soon. Will let you know how it goes :)

Quickly on the heals of Google's personalized offering, Yahoo! offers a search storing system.

My Web allows you to import your bookmarks, unless...

My Web currently does not support bookmark import from this browser.

We currently Support Internet Explorer Favorites and Yahoo! Bookmarks.

We are looking into extending support for additional browsers soon.

Some of the interesting things from this new offering:

• Save an exact copy of any page you like - from Yahoo! Toolbar or directly from your search results

• Searching across full-text and your notes enables instant retrieval
• Create categories for your saved pages - travel, projects, events
• Share your favorites with friends and colleagues - via email, IM, and RSS
• Accessible anywhere, not just from your own computer
• Save both an exact copy and a link - the content you save will always be there when you return

Not sure how appealing it is to webmasters for Yahoo! to be storing dated cached copies of web pages. What happens if your content was incorrect and you later change it? What happens if your advertisers change? Google autolink really shafted webmasters, and it appears other search engines will only follow suit.

It looks like they are also using this launch to promote their toolbar (which for some reason beyond me still lacks a connectivity measurement). The toolbar will make it quick and easy to save pages.

The social / sharing concept is rather interesting, and is an area where Yahoo! seems to be well ahead of Google. I also believe that Yahoo! only store things you request to be stored, while Google stores whatever you click on when logged in. Google later lets you remove things if you want to. Unlike Google, Yahoo! also stores a cached copy of each page that you chose to save.

I have not tested this out yet, but I will start playing here soon :)

I am fairly certain these bookmarking and sharing system are going to open up many new creative ways to spam.