The search engine industry is never shy about embracing the various holiday activities, even if the day being celebrated is strictly a Hallmark event; and Valentine’s Day is no exception. From a minor logo alteration to perhaps a Super Bowl/Veronica Mars marriage proposal, many search pundits turn their creative juices up a little more if the day(s) has some significance to it.

Not only do the gurus provide holiday flair, the search engines themselves usually join in the celebratory fun by debuting logos following the particular holiday theme, with the most obvious being Google. As expected, Google introduced a Valentine-flavored logo featuring a chocolate covered strawberry as the lower case “g” and “l”. However, they were not the only engine to feature a heart-shaped theme.

Ask.com also joined in the Hallmark holiday fun by using a Valentine’s heart as their search button while Yahoo uses a Flash animated couple seeking cover from a rain storm mixed with red hearts… so all in all, it was a nice celebration of a questionable holiday. I’m also not surprised that Live.com/MSN stayed out the mix either. Their current design isn’t very modification friendly.

As for the search bloggers, the heart-shaped cake was once again taken by Chris Hooley (who admits being inspired by Rand Fishkin). Because Hooley doesn’t seem to have a date for today’s celebration, he’s holding a “Who Wants To Date An SEO” competition - a move that may cause the opposite sex to start an all-out war while the victor is determined. The entry rules are as follows:

Sign up, or sign a friend up. You will receive an affiliate ID soon thereafter, and a link to a page with a counter with your affiliate ID attached once upon launch of the contest. Once the contest starts, there will be a period of 3 weeks while hits are tallied up on you or your friend’s counter. At the end of the contest, the person with the most hits on their counter wins. Easy.

So if you are interested in making a lonely SEO, um, not lonely, get over there and sign up. The day of the date won’t be announced until there are at least 20 so don’t delay… especially if you are curious when the event is going to happen.

Posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 5:36 pm. Permalink