Disclaimer: This article consists of our favorite articles of the past year and does not have actionable SEO techniques. Please read on if you're interested in knowing more about us, and what we like!

This week I've been personally invested in Gwen Bell's The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge aka #best09. The idea is that each day in December you reflect on the past year and write about a different topic each day. Obviously you can write every day, or pick and choose which topics you want to cover. It's only been a few days but I've enjoyed reading through some of the blogs and tweets from people participating. Today the topic is:

December 3 Article. What's an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious'd and reference throughout the year.

Since the topic is right up our alley, the SEOmoz crew decided to put together a list of our favorite articles from 2009. Some of these are search related, but many of them are not. Take a peek into our minds and I think you'll find it interesting the types of articles we love.

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Not sure if it "qualifies" since it's from last year, but I shared this article, about what it really means to be a billionaire, with a ton of people. It's absolutely fascinating, especially if you're someone (like me) who fantasizes about how you would potentially spend great sums of cash :)

On the flip-side of the equation is this excellent article from the Washington Post illuminating the incredibly high cost of being poor. Fascinating and eye-opening. 

Together they pack a one-two punch that sheds a ton of light on just how drastic wealth and class disparity can be, even in the U.S.

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I'm a big fan of this GapingVoid post from October: The moment

From an SEO standpoint, I've been getting a lot of mileage from Eric Enge's interview with Google Image search engineer Peter Linsley. It's a topic that doesn't get covered often, and the information in the article is incredibly useful.

This Smashing Mag post is Usability-oriented, but great stuff for any web person. Unlike many of these kinds of articles, almost every point in this one is directly actionable:

Of course, I also think this post was pretty good - the author is clearly a genius ;)

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Life lesson: There is no speed limit - talks about how education is designed to get everyone through and how many people take this slow pace with them throughout their life.

We Have Been De-googled! - One blog talks about the impact of being kicked out of Google for seemingly no reason.

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The article that made the biggest impact on my life this year was this one from SEOmoz. It is Lindsay's first post and it was an announcement of the job opening I ended up getting. :)

Personally this short post helped me get my personal goals organized.

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Rand's favorites from the past few months:
http://www.contrast.ie/blog/youre-just-getting-started/
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/11/24/on-self-promotion/
http://000fff.org/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you-think-about-user-centred-design-is-wrong/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-death-of-the-blog-post/
http://www.everywhereist.com/borough-market-a-place-for-love-but-not-vegetarians/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html?hp
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-slow-death.html?partner=fogcreek
http://cdixon.org/?p=1391

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I'll continue to add to this list if any of the other team members decide to add theirs as well. 2009 has been a wonderful year for us and we look forward to many great articles in 2010. Please tell us about your favorite posts and articles from 2009. And we encourage you to be a part of the blog challenge!

By the way, there's still time to get your FREE SES Chicago Pass by purchasing a year of PRO! We've only got a few passes left, so you should probably hurry. SES just raised their prices to $1995 for a pass, so $799 for an entire year of PRO and a full-access SES Pass is an awesome deal (and if Chicago's not your thing, SES will let you exchange the pass for any SES Event in 2010).