Micheal VanDeMar is active on various SEO forums and digs for fact over hype. His "Bad Neighborhood" tool is one of the best defenses in SEO.

Name: Michael VanDeMar
Aliases: mvandemar, Sorien
Single or Married: Single
Kids: Nope, but absolute my 2 nieces and my nephew are angels
Home Site: Endless Poetry
Memberships: SEO Refugee, DP, Castle Arcanum MUD, Everquest (an evil MMORPG time sink)
Contact info: michael@endlesspoetry.com

How did you get into SEO?

I got my start initially back in 1997 working in the adult entertainment industry optimizing sites for Infoseek. My main love is programming, but I do get a kick out of seeing myself in a number one position here and there.

What other areas do you specialize in? How do they compliment your SEO efforts?

Web based programming and database integration/development. It helps being able to write all of my own apps. It is much faster and more cost efficient, not to mention the fact that I don’t have to explain exactly what it is that I want to myself. :)

Any favorite projects you’d like to share?

Better Mortgage Refinancing is my only commercial site that I am promoting at the moment. It is more of a long term effort.

Endless Poetry was one of my first sites that I purchased my own domain for. It was a combination experiment of mixing various computer generated poetry algorithms as well as my first foray into porting Javascript routines over into PHP.

Bad Neighborhood lets web masters check for "bad" - possibly banned - links on their web sites.

http://www.bad-neighborhood.com - it was a tool I needed at one time, so I built it. A couple of people had mentioned how useful it would be to have that tool, and so instead of sending out my script to everyone who asked I just threw it up on it’s own site. I plan on adding more tools to it as I go, and am working on one now as a matter of fact.

Editor’s Note: The "Bad Neighborhood" checker is a must use tool for serious SEOs - I love it!

http://randomseo.introgrammar.com was me getting tired of certain people who kept giving bad advice on various SEO forums. I remembered seeing a random essay generator for TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) written in Javascript, so I borrowed the core of that, asked around for a large number of SEO based terms, ported it over into PHP, and stuck it in my signature on the various forums. It gets traffic, but so far no one has commented on it. I think they may not realize it’s a joke and think it’s just very technical. Unfortunately, I don’t think Google has much of a sense of humor.
Originally they put me at #1 for [random seo] but shortly thereafter appear to have banned me. :)

I also have a few educational based sites that I’ve been meaning to add content to that I just haven’t had the time to take care of.

What part of SEO drives you nuts?

Someone mentioning something that might be a possibility on a forum somewhere, and it getting repeated as fact often enough where people don’t know that it was just a guess. I’ve seen this multiple times. When a newcomer makes outlandish statements it’s not so bad, but when I hear it from people who should know better it gets a little under my skin.

What’s your favorite part of SEO?

Building tools to make the job easier. I like being able to make what other people might have to buy and to automate things that would otherwise have to be done by hand.

Where do you see SEO going over the next 5 years?

Honestly, I have no clue. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that some of the black hat and gray hat methods will fall by the wayside. Many would disagree with me here, saying that black hatters will just adjust, but honestly I think that once Google and the rest get a clue and start using the same AI technology that is used in facial recognition programs then quality sites will be much easier to distinguish without the human element that is required now.

Any favorite tips or advice?

Yes. If you don’t have patience then SEO is the wrong field for you.

What industries do you work in?

I don’t, per se. SEO is mostly a hobby. If it pays off, great, if not, well, that’s ok too.

Do you take jobs or just work privately?

As far as SEO I will give advice or teach, but no jobs. I do take small programming jobs here and there.

What is your SEO Philosophy?

Pretty much the same as with the rest of my life, if you can’t have fun doing it, don’t bother doing it.

Michael, your endless poetry site offers 6 languages. Are you multi-lingual?

I took several years of French, but I’m quite rusty in that. The translations on that site were all done using Google. If one of the lines of poetry has foreign profanity in it, blame them. :)

Anything else?

Yes. Peace out. :)