Recently I’ve been impressed with the number of different initiatives in the SEO community involving giving something back. Bruce Clay recently launched an SEO for Charity contest, one of the 5 finalists in Marketing Pilgrim’s SEM Scholarship Contest is a viral attempt to raise money to fight AIDS in Africa, and I just recently noticed that Aaron Wall makes his SEO Book available free to charities. So, when Chris Garrett offered to help launch a few blog memes, I figured this would be a good chance to follow in the industry leaders’ footsteps and do something for someone else for a change.

The Charity Link Meme -

The national media recently picked up on the fact that Stephen Colbert had been Google bombed to the top of the search results for the term “Greatest Living American.” Essentially this meme looks to do the same thing, only for a good cause. Several good causes in fact. The rules are simple, copy the list of charities and links (grab it from whomever tags you) and add your 5 favorite charities or non-profit organizations to the end (link to their sites with anchor text of the causes they champion). Of course finish things off by tagging 5 other webmasters/bloggers and then publishing the post or the webpage. Then drop a comment at the end of this post or email me at bcook at seorefugee.com. I’ll try to keep the list up to date but if the meme does in fact take off I might have trouble keeping up.

Ideally this list will be published hundreds of times across hundreds of high quality sites, generating hundreds of links for the charity websites with anchor text aimed at improving their rankings in the search results. Better rankings results in more exposure and hopefully more exposure results in more funding and more education on the different causes as well. I’d also like to encourage everyone to consider donating to any of these charities as well. Many of us in the blogosphere have been blessed financially and it’s never a bad idea to help out those less fortunate.

Ok, enough of my droning on. Here’s my list of charities:

Update: I’d like to say a BIG thanks to all who have participated so far. It’s really quite amazing to watch this unfold. Also, I’d like to encourage you to go over and read Marty Weintraub’s post on this meme. It really put’s an emphasis on the point of this meme. Thanks again to Marty and everyone that’s contributed.

Spontaneous:

Tag, you’re it:

  1. Chris Garrett
    1. D’Arcy
    2. Raj
      1. Andy Boyd
      2. Brett Bumeter
      3. Sharon Sarmiento
      4. Liz Strauss
      5. Ben Yoskovitz
    3. Ahmed
    4. Mark
      1. Tomas
      2. Sara
      3. John
      4. Brendon
      5. Jelena
        1. Josh
        2. Dragan
        3. Moses
        4. Egor
    5. Adam
      1. Ashley Cecil
  2. Donna Fontenot -
    1. Michael VanDeMar
    2. Barry Schwartz
    3. Aaron Wall
    4. Nathan Weinberg
    5. Andrey Milyan
      1. Joe Whyte
      2. Lee Odden
        1. Laura Thieme - Environmental Awareness & Global Warming
        2. Stephan Spencer - Changes for Good
        3. Jim Boykin
        4. Li Evans
        5. Jim Hedger
      3. Darren Rowse
      4. Kim Krause Berg
        1. Sophie Wegat
        2. Jennifer Laycock
        3. Lisa Barone
        4. Bill Slawski
        5. David Temple
          1. Joe Whyte Rockyfied
          2. Becky Ryan - Webmoxy
          3. Ilker Yodas - The Thinking Blog
          4. Maximillian Kaizen - Hunter of Genius
          5. Chris Winfield - 10e20
      5. Andy Beal
        1. Jordan McCollum
        2. Sheila Beal
          1. Darren Rowse
          2. Kuanyin
          3. Blessed1
          4. Matt
          5. Sightseer
        3. David Wallace
          1. Matt McGee
          2. Barry Schwartz
            1. Link Building Blog
            2. Bling Bling Blog
            3. ShoeMoney
            4. Search Marketing Thoughts
            5. Techipedia
          3. Chris Winfield
          4. Jennifer Laycock
          5. Stoney deGeyter
        1. Jennifer Slegg
        2. Andy Beard
          1. Stefan Juhl
          2. Gavin
          3. Fraser
          4. Keith
          5. Shaun
            1. David
            2. Joel
              1. Eco Kev
              2. Adnan
              3. Brendon
              4. Yaro
              5. Tyler
            3. SEO Woman
            4. Alister
            5. Saman
  3. John Chow
  4. Tamar Weinberg
  5. Neil Patel

Spontaneous:

  1. Kamal
  2. SEO Practices
    1. Guillermo Zuñiga Dot Com
    2. Hawaii SEO
    3. SEO’Brien
    4. Getting hit by traffic… Not cars
    5. SEO by the Sea
  3. Marty Weintraub
    1. Cartoon Barry Blog
    2. SEOsk.com
    3. Search Matters
      1. Darin Carter
      2. SEO Black Hat
      3. GrayWolf
      4. StepForth
      5. Gord Hotchkiss
    4. SEOptimise
    5. Cornwall SEO
      1. Rob Watts
      2. Rand Fishkin
      3. Andy Hagans
      4. Michael Gray
      5. Todd Malicoat

Oh, and if you are interested in a giant list of the different charities out there, check out Charity Navigator and Charity Watch.