SEO contests are competitions between webmasters and SEO professionals. The object of the game is to produce a website or a web page optimized for the competition keyword or key phrase given by the contest holder.

In order to create a level playing ground, contest holders invent a key word or key phrase that, upon searching Google, would yield no results for the search phrase.

Some examples of SEO contest keyphrases are ambatchdotcom seocontest, carcasherdotcom seocontest, Nigritude ultramarine, seraphim proudleduck, Isulong SEOPH and Vorgermilten.

One SEO contest sponsored by milliondollarscreenshot.com used a string of common words as their keyphrase. “The four required words” used a quoted string of every day words as their target key phrase.

In virtually every SEO contest a requirement is to provide a link back to the sponsor. This is how the SEO Contest sponsor benefits from the contest in achieving massive amounts of backlinks through the contest entry.

Prizes vary by contest. The ambatchdotcom seocontest offers monthly checkpoint prizes for the top 3 results in Google at the end of each month. On July 31, August 31st and September 30th Ambatch paid $350 in prizes. The grand prize on October 20th will be $4000 for the first position entry, $2000 for the second position entry and $500 for the third place entry. However, prizes vary from contest to contest. While most offer cash prizes, some have offered televisions and ipods while another contest holder offered a high ranking website as the grand prize.

Ambatch is only interested in Google results while other contest holders have had a variety of hoops for participants to jump through. While it appears the majority of contest holders use Google to choose their winner, other contests have looked for first place entries in the big three, Google, Yahoo and MSN. Others have tried a variety of different tactics, one in particular chose A9 images as their benchmark for the winning entry.

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