We’re happy to be working with Blake Biesecker, our new chief technology officer here at AboutUs. Blake has been on the Portland technology scene for quite a while – he was CTO at Second Porch (which was purchased by Home Away earlier this year) and chief architect at SnapNames (and then at Oversee.net after it purchased SnapNames). He also worked at Gemstone Systems and Object Intelligence.

Blake has settled in quickly, and is turning his attention to hiring more developers to join AboutUs. We’re creating some exciting new things here, so if you have the skills we’re looking for, we’d love to hear from you: Jobs@AboutUs.org.

Are you a software developer who’s got the skills to pay the bills? Or do you know one?

Here at AboutUs we’re entering a period of growth, and expanding our team of builders to meet the demands of this new chapter in our company’s history.

AboutUs is a small, growing, venture-backed and profitable company based in Portland, Oregon.  Our office is open, our culture is entrepreneurial, and our people are skilled, creative and driven. We launched AboutUs.org in 2006 and it’s now one of the most visited places on the Internet. Now we’re tackling the Saas space with our SEO and website analysis tool, and we’re gaining traction.

Our work environment is ideal. There are more windows than walls in our spacious office. Our desks are on wheels, with 30″ cinema displays mounted on adjustable arms. The views of downtown and northeast Portland are unmatched. We play music, share laughs, and fly paper airplanes from one end of the space to the other.

We play harder than less successful companies work. Our ping pong table subs as a conference table. There’s lunch hour yoga once a week. The kitchen and refrigerator are always stocked. We strive to ensure you arrive each morning to find engaging, challenging, and rewarding work.

We’re looking for someone to impress us, and then grow with us. We offer competitive salary and benefits in a great work environment. For more information, visit our Careers page.

GymnasticsHoes.net is our newest addition to the BotGoneBad club!

paraphrasing the email:

‘AboutUs made it so that it has another meaning.
Would you mind correcting it?
People could be confused.
Yet, it’s fun how AboutUs wants to have it.’

In keeping up with one of the spirits of wiki — simple website editing that you can do — check out how you can change the spelling at our wiki page: Fix capitalization

Our apologies goes to the Gymnastic Shoe aggregator… and thanks for the chuckle.

This is very related to our These Websites Aren’t as Dirty as They Sound article!

A quick note to say that we appreciated being recognized by @MichaelCipi by being placed on his Twitter list “SEO settings themselves apart“. Thanks – it is a great list.

Have you gotten kudos lately – it would be great if you shared that here!

Best, Mark

I received this fantastic question about what is the best practice for editing multiple pages on AboutUs:

I manage several websites for clients and want to know If I can have one account and maintain several pages, or must I create a unique account for each client.

The choice is yours, and the easiest is to create just one account and maintain multiple pages. That way, all of your notifications go to one account. You can get notifications for someone else updating a page you care about, or one of our weekly emails letting you know about an SEO tip we have, updates to our products or a random piece of goodness!

Additionally, if you make your account personal,
meaning you put your portrait up and fill out your
personal profile, you will gain more reputation.

Have a great weekend!

In an email exchange with Ross Taylor of Alameda Internet Marketing (visit), he surfaced a question I thought more people would have:

I just had a thought – I could see they system being abused by:

Finding wikis approved for dofollow, editing the wiki, and inserting their own links. Is there any protection against that? Or let’s say a wiki gets vandalized, is there revision control to send it back to the way it was before it was hit?

Good point. We look at every edit within 24 hours and revert spamming. It is a pattern that we can usually easily pick out.

It is easy to fix, as easy as it is to edit, so we don’t worry so much about it. Occasionally we deal with a hard case, but usually that cools off when they see they aren’t getting anywhere.

The revision is in ‘more’ next to search in upper right area. Then click on ‘history’. You can revert on individual time date stamped versions.

Make sure to confirm your email and you will be alerted to edits on pages you care about.

You might remember, Ray won the Entrepreneurship Award for Individual Achievement a year and half ago. Check out his invitation for entrepreneurs in the Portland, Oregon area to join OEN.

We’re giving away one free year of the AboutUs Site Report (our in-depth SEO analysis tool for your entire website).  We’ve announced this contest on Facebook and to our email list, but we want to make sure you get your chance to have your name drawn on Tuesday.

To enter, just comment on our post about the contest on our Facebook page. (If you don’t already “like” us there, you’ll need to do that first.)

If you haven’t used the Site Report yet, you’ll get it free for a year if you win. If you’re already a Site Report customer, we’ll set you up with 12 more months – free!

If you want to get started right now, or if you don’t win, you can still try the Site Report for free for a week, and you can cancel any time. Start your free trial of the Site Report now.

Questions?  Email SiteReport@AboutUs.org.

Chris of the Dutch lighting company RoseDesign.nl (visit), recently found AboutUs and editing a wiki!

“I discovered AboutUs.org when I viewed my ip details on DomainTools.com.

To my surprise a wiki page about my website existed. I decided to edit it, filled in my company information, website title and micro summary, even tried the wiki text.

Later after reading an article on do-follow links on AboutUs.org I asked for a review. The page needed more work however, so following the suggestions provided by Mark Dilley and with his help I continued to edit the wiki text , also adding links and a logo.

Soon we were both satisfied with the result, and I now have what I hope is an informative AboutUs.org wiki page which also links to my website.

In conclusion learning how to do this has been an interesting experience that I would recommend to others.”

Chris Rose 26-5-2011

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When was the last time you edited – or even looked at – your website's profile on AboutUs.org?

It could probably use some love. It may be missing something like contact info or a summary at the top. And we bet you'd be amazed at how much you can do in the Wiki section to transform your site's page into a beautiful marketing piece for your company.

Take a look at some outstanding website profiles, and learn how to do cool things with wiki formatting.

Find the page about your website by searching for it (like example.com) at the top right on AboutUs.org. To edit, sign in a blue pencil icon on the page.

Bonus! Once you're happy with a page, let us know and we can make its links to your website DoFollow. Those are the type of links that help your SEO, and DoFollow pages also show up much higher in AboutUs.org search results.

More Coming Soon + Free Trial
We're working to make the Site Report a more robust SEO tool for you.  Stay tuned for a few new features next week.

Aren't using the Site Report yet? Click to try it free for a week. If you ever stop loving it, you can cancel any time.

Questions? We want to help you create a great page.
Chat with us, reply to this email, or call 1.800.AboutUs or +1.503.488.5763