We have seen in the past few years Bing growing leaps and bounds in the search market. However, the growth really isn’t coming from Google’s market share, though it has nibbled some away. Instead Bing is growing because it is cannibalizing its partner Yahoo!

Growth is growth though, and Bing is becoming a significant player in the search industry. As a search marketer this is obviously very important to me. I personally don’t care how my users find my website (Google, Bing, or their mother), just that they do find it.

I don’t ever use this blog to share my political views, but I think this subject is important to every blogger no matter what he or she chooses to write about.  The below youtube video does a great job visualizing the damage that the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)—though, the video doesn’t directly mention SOPA—can truly have on our web ecosystem.

PIPA and SOPA are bills which have been introduced in the Senate and the House to give the U.S. government and corporations the ability to censor the net. This is all done in the name of protecting “creativity” and “copyrights.” The law would allow entire sites to be censored by corporate and government entities. All this is achieved by simply convincing a judge that a website is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under these bills, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, would be considered illegal behavior.

On July 4th 1776 a ragtag group, whom we respectfully refer to as our founding fathers, declared independence from Great Britain, the largest political and geographical power the world has ever known. Our founding fathers represented the small and unorganized 13 American colonies who were diverse in their beliefs and their allegiances. However, they had one common goal and that was to gain freedom to govern themselves.

This statement of independence, or what would be known throughout American history as The Declaration of Independence, came six years before the end of the American Revolutionary War. It was the winning of the Revolutionary War that made the Declaration of Independence  a reality.

Achieving the final goal of independence from Britain was fraught with mistakes and over-calculations. However, what was more important than the Declaration of Independence was America’s Declaration of Endurance. This declaration was created without pomp and celebration, and persisted throughout the colonies as an unwritten code.

I came across the below video and it beautifully put into perspective why we work to obtain the harvest. Obviously, there are issues with how the mafia operates (which the video points out), but the metaphor is profound.

If we make the focus only on the work we miss out on the reason why we are doing it! We are not working for the sake of work, and we definitely shouldn’t work to increase our work. The Laws of the Harvest are about working hard, but more importantly they are about enjoying the harvest.

To sow means to work with the intention of reaping from these efforts. Work hard, but never lose sight to why you are working.

I spent my childhood years on a farm in southern Utah. The first few memories of life that I can recall deal with tormenting chickens and helping my dad out on our two and half acre “garden.”

We only lived there a few years before my parents moved us to the big city. However, I have often thought back on this time in my life and recognized the diligent effort my parents put into that plot of land.

The thing that makes farm life interesting is that if you are going to survive you have to work and you have to work hard. Yet, it is not just working at any old thing, anyone can do tedious labor without accomplishing anything of substance.

I have dedicated some space on MyMarketer (and definitely the design) to understanding the Laws of the Harvest. I struggled over whether I should create a completely different blog for this purpose (and maybe someday I will), but since my chosen profession is web marketing I wanted a daily reminder of what work I should be doing.

I have spent time studying the harvest and the laws that apply to its success. Below I have listed out the ten laws I believe lead to a fruitful harvest. There are likely more laws, and hopefully over the next little while additional laws will surface as I continue to study this topic.

I cannot take full credit for the creation of these laws. There are several sources I draw my inspiration from (and some sources I outright steal inspiration). However, in my life these are the laws that have played the most important roles to achieving success.

When contemplating what to write for this post a clip, introduced to me recently, kept playing through my mind. So, to put this post into context I ask you watch the video before reading on.

You gotta admit, that was pretty funny! I am not familiar with this show, but if you’ve been around marketing for a while you might feel that the creators found their inspiration from the Internet marketing world.

There is no doubt that a complex marketing vernacular exists. It isn’t exactly Tolkien, but if you are new to the industry you’ll have your work cut out trying to understand what everyone is talking about.

After five years of blogging on anything and everything related to the Internet, MyMarketer has undergone a new focus and look. The focus is geared around my philosophy of how to be successful with web marketing.

Over the last decade I have seen, and have been guilty of participating in, many get quick or get rich marketing campaigns. It is a rare day that one, if any, have succeeded to bring the desired results to those who participated in them.

However, contrast these glitzy empty marketing strategies, with the marketing principles surrounding the laws of the harvest. Time and time again I have seen people climb to the top of their game and achieve their marketing goals by following the first law of the harvest: You Reap What You Sow.

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan reported today that Google setup a “honeypot” to prove that Bing is copying its search results. According to Danny’s article Bing does not deny Google’s allegations:

“Opt-in programs like the [Bing] toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites. This “Google experiment” seems like a hack to confuse and manipulate some of these signals.”

12/30/2010 UPDATE: My good friend Tyler sent me over a more in depth case study on the LDS Church’s SEO efforts. It comes from a U.K. Web Development firm, and the author breaks down the Mormon Church’s strong points in SEO. Very interesting read!