If you are involved in SEO, especially if you are working on the “dark side” of the business, this post from Matt Cutts might interest you.

It sounds like Google is going to start notifying webmasters when their Web sites are getting penalized by Google for breaking the webmaster guidelines. Of course, this is only when the site looks legit - not if the page is an obvious spam factory.

And speaking of spam factories, Matt also shows us a page that is so badly optimized that I think it tripped ALL of the Google spam filters.

Here is the list of tactics the page uses from the Mighty Cutts himself:

• keyword-stuffing
• deliberately including misspellings
• nonsense or gibberish text, probably auto-generated by a program
• you might be able to guess from the left-hand side and all the variants of “tax deferred” that there are many other pages like this. Youd be right: the site has thousands of doorway pages.
• the site owner attempted to gather links by programmatically spamming other sites. Specifically, the site owner found a vulnerable software package on the web that doesnt yet support the nofollow attribute for untrusted links, and then spammed several good sites trying to get links.
• this site is also cloaking. Search engines get the static page loaded with keywords that you see. Users get a completely different page.
• the pages returned to users employ sneaky redirects. Users get a small page with a JavaScript redirect and also a meta refresh; each page just does a redirect to the root page of this domain.

Hilarious stuff. Whoever made this page was so “black hat” in their SEO they might have a black hole on their head.

[Thanks to the Black Hole Encyclopedia for the pic]

So your new affiliate site is SEOd to the max and the PPC campaign is converting like Moonies in the Miami airport. When you are just about to buy that new M5 and you get an email:

All your base are belong to us … pay up ten grand or we will DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) you out of business.

Talk about bad Karma. Yep, it happens but the scam business, like all internet businesses, is maturing. The big time players are thinking lower price, higher volume. Now you can have your DDoS and other assorted threats for the paltry sum of $10.99. Yep, ten dollars and ninety nine cents. Now that capitalism at its best.

Read about it: here.

Keep on …

This letter was sent out to Inside Adwords subscribers yesterday:

From: inside-adwords@googlegroups.com [mailto:inside-adwords@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Inside AdWords crew
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 6:18 PM
To: inside-adwords@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Inside AdWords] Ads quality and you
Earlier this week we caught up with Nick, Product Manager for our ongoing ads quality initiatives, about a change to the AdWords system that you may notice in the coming weeks.

Read the rest of this entry »

I ran across this interesting, but kinda long article that compares affiliate marketing with the network marketing (think Amway). It is a pretty interesting comparison with an expected conclusion - thank your lucky stars you are in the affiliate business.

I would be curious to know how many of our affiliates have been with a network marketing company before. So, how about it, anyone been in the network marketing business before? Anyone in it right now?

If you have please leave a comment. And if you havent leave a comment anyway

Que Pasa? No. Que va-t-il sur?

Guess what the next big thing will be from across the pond?

Quaero.

French President Jacques Chirac has decided to leave a legacy of French Innovation by commissioning a rival to Google. Good luck on that one. The landscape is littered with the carcasses of rivals to Google.

Read about it here.

Keep on.

Now the last thing I would do is promote search engine spam tools on the InsureMe Affiliate Blog. We are way to classy for that.

I mean, if you are going to promote spam tools you would just be so dirty. So wrong. So very black hat. So…so….so Microsoft!

Threadwatch reports that the new add-ons for IE 7 — add-ons that have “been carefully screened by Microsoft” — include the Alexa Booster and Doorway Page Wizard. Both tools are used to artificially boost search engine rankings.

The descriptions are classic so I gotta post them:

Read the rest of this entry »

Dave … open the hatch Dave. Ok, I am over 40 and confess to being an old Space Odyssey freak. HAL and Dave. What a pair. This may mean nothing to you but Dave is about to take on a new meaning which could mean doll-ahs in yo pocket.

Dave.tv is releasing a new version of their software which will inject Adsense like advertising into video streams viewed over the internet. Watching a show about space creatures with razors for hands, see and ad about …. well, you get the idea.

Check the buzz about Dave.tv.

Keep on.

So you are playing your favorite smash and grab video game … driving or swinging something horrific at someone else. Microsoft decides they want to sell you something. Yep, it is coming and probably already here in some games.

Microsoft is buying Massive, Inc which is a startup that places advertisements in video games. Looks like yet another way to attract traffic. Not sure if I am happy about this one though.

Read about it here in the WSJ.

Enjoy!

It looks like the “Penguin Zazzo Party Report” experiment is going well - the homepage is indexed in Yahoo now, but not the internal page. Interesting.

Check it out:

So now the site is indexed by MSN and Yahoo, but still no love from Google…

I just got off the phone with R, a buddy of mine who also happens to be one of our big affiliates and pretty darn good SEO (might be a bit of an understatement). It was a great conversation on we had a pretty good laugh at the expense of MSN Search.

You see, there is this one person out there who has figured out how to spam the heck out of MSN and get ranked in the search results for whatever term that he/she wants.

Now I am not going to call anyone out on this directly - I actually kinda respect the affiliate for finding a loop-hole and going all out. I mean, this person is ranking at or near the top for practically any result that can make you money online.

I think the real question is if MSN will be able to clean up their results and keep them clean or if they will continue to be susceptible to this kind of manipulation. I mean, I understand that MSN Search is still fairly young, but it seems like the algorithm is getting fooled by some new twists on old tricks - including redirects.

The funny part is, it looks like this affiliate is ranking for some terms in Yahoo! as well.

I guess it is time for some search engineers to take a hard look at their spam filtering techniques.

Finally, as a bit of a side note, what the heck is going on with Yahoo and MSN ranking blogspot domains? I think all you have to do is create a free blog, point some links, and the power of the blogspot domain will help you rise to the top. Whats up with that!

Alright, Im done. Thanks for the fun talk R.

Well, it looks like our Google Page Creator page has been picked up in MSN -

So one part of the Page Creator experiment is done, but there is still nothing indexed on Yahoo or Google.

Weve all had dreams of a money tree; our own slice of heaven as it were. So far science has come up empty. Turns out, however, there is one. Its called Google. Can you say $2.25 Billion for the QUARTER with $592.3 Million in profit! Thats a money tree.

A few interesting tidbits on their quarter from This article:

1. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, a market research firm, 49 percent of U.S. online searches were at Googles sites in March, 22.5 percent at Yahoo and 10.9 percent at MSN.
2. The total number of online searches conducted in the United States in March increased 15 percent from March 2005 to 6.4 billion, Nielsen//NetRatings found.
3. During the quarter, Google spent $345 million purchasing property and equipment, and hired 1,110 new full-time employees for a total of 6,790 full-time employees.

Looks like we better get used to the Goog …

Keep on …

I dont know how I would feel right now if I worked at Ask.com.

It seems the CEO who is credited with the big turnaround at Ask.com, Steve Berkowitz, has decided to jump ship and head over to Microsoft. His new position is Senior Vice President of the Platforms and Services Division.

If I was an Asker I would hope that Steve left because he felt his work was done, not because he sees a gloomy future for Ask - but you would have to think that if he was confident that Ask was going to be a winner in the “search wars” he would have stuck around.

Danny Sullivan over at Search Engine Watch says Microsoft should have gone beyond acquiring Berkowitz and bought Ask.com altogether. An interesting thought.

All I do know is that this is not going to help Asks position as the red-headed stepchild of search - even if they have those cool preview binoculars…

Its Friday, its after five, and I am almost done with my workday.

I thought instead of pointing you to a helpful tool or an interesting article on search marketing, I would point somewhere fun.

Ladies and gents, enjoy this site - representing Deutschland.

These commercials always crack up the InsureMe affiliate team…

Want to reach a captive audience? Sure! We all do. Guess what? Soon you will be able to. A new company called Webaroo will soon be launching a product which, with caveats, allows you to literally take the web with you. They coin it the web unplugged. Essentially, they have developed search algorithms which will find and load, with completeness, content (sites, pages, ads, etc) of interest … when you connect to the internet and store said content on your hard drive. With hard drives steadily increasing in size this is now becoming feasible.

Check them out: Webaroo!

So, now we have a new avenue to attract customers who are chained to a plane, or bus, etc.

Enjoy!

Google just released its Google Page Creator in Beta today.

Since hearing about page creator I thought about the implications it has for affiliates, especially those who cant build Web sites on their own.

So, in the spirit of experimentation I created my Google Page Creator Page and turned it into a review for the Page Creator. Check it out and make sure to come back and let me know what you think Googles vision for Page Creator is and what it means for affiliates.

Penguin Zazzo Party Report (this will make more sense once you read the review).

If you dont know who Seth Godin is, you should. He is a marketer and a writer. He is also one of my heroes - in a business kinda way.

So I was very excited to see him define “landing page” on his blog. Even if you know what a landing page is, it is still worth a read.

I will save you any further Seth worship talk and let you go and read the post for yourself.

Imagine if you will, you are a government … a very well known and large government. Also imagine, if you please, you have needs just like any other well known and large government … for example, say good people to do your spying for you. How do you find just the right people to infiltrate all those nasty “other” governments? Silly man, purchase a sponsored link on Google of course. This is living proof search engines are the center of the known universe.

Spy 4-Me

Hello everyone. James here. No, not the “other” James … Im the nerd James, the IT James, the “please find a date for the geek James”. I will be dropping bits of information or articles I find interesting related to the search engine or related worlds.

Thanks so much for all you do for InsureMe!

So a while back I said I wanted to do some interviews through email with willing affiliates and post them here on the Affiliate Blog. I thought it would be good to let the Affiliate Blogs readers learn more about other affiliate marketers.

I got absolutely no response on the blog, but I like to think that it was because people just didnt know they were supposed to comment and let me know they would be interested. Yeah - pretty sure that was it.

So, with this failure behind me I picked up the phone and got some people lined up to do interviews.

Now, possibly I wasnt overly clear that there was an incentive to do an interview. That incentive is a text link from this site to a site of your choosing - and since we are rockin a Google PageRank of 5, you know you want a link. Thats like a hundred dollar a month value or something. All from talking about yourself!

Anyway, today I am writing some interview questions for some interviews I have set up with some of our top InsureMe affiliates. I was hoping to get some feedback from our fair readers on questions to ask.

Would you like to know how many hours a day they work? What kind of cars they drive? What they eat for breakfast? Would you like a step-by-step guide of how to make a six figure per-year income sending insurance traffic?

Let me know, and I will ask them. But I cant guarantee that they will answer that last question, or guarantee that if they did I wouldnt turn that information into an e-book and sell it for MILLIONS!

Ahem.

Now, by reading this post you have decided that you would like to get interviewed, all for a FREE LINK FROM THIS SITE, send me an email or leave a comment.

Cant wait to hear back from you.

I ran across this tool and I figured it might be useful to you. It is the SEO Tools Keyword Optimizer.

What does it do?

All you need to do is plug in a list of keywords. The Keyword Optimizer will then take that list, remove any duplicate keywords, and alphabetize the list for you. This could come in really handy when you are using a site link WordTracker to generate a massive keyword list.

So - without any further ado, and thanks to SEO Tools, here is the Keyword Optimizer!

Have you ever thought that to yourself? Have you ever wished that you lived in a world where Google wasnt around? And for that matter, search engines werent around?

As an affiliate marketer your answer to these questions may very well be no - but many online companies may wish that search engines werent around.

Seth Godin posts about the lack of love for Google by many online companies and the reality that search engines arent going anywhere. He also discusses why the online world is no longer full of Web sites as much as it is full of Web pages.

A quick and interesting Friday read.

Thats right folks - Googles got a calendar just for you!

I know, I know. You have Outlook and it does just fine. Me too. But I guess Google Calendars is way cooler than Outlook, and anyway, Google is your friend. Right?

I will let the illustrious Chris Sherman from Search Engine Watch give you the skinny on Google Calendar. Read it and decide if giving all of your appointment information to Google is worth the hassle of importing your Outlook info.

My big question is this - If I schedule in a date with my girlfriend, will I get served a Google ad for breath spray or flowers?

Stay tuned.

Search engine optimization coach and author Dan Thies has made a commitment to daily blogging. And that is a very good thing for you and me because Dan seems to be willing to provide some useful insight into the SEO world.

Dans first post talks about the Box of Dreams concept. Check it out, it could help you get some of those things done that you have been meaning to do for a long time.

Dans second post gets more into the nitty-gritty of search marketing and takes on something that is near and dear to all of us - improving conversion.

You know when you get that piece of advice that is both obvious and brilliant all at once? I would put this post in that category.

His advice? Make sure your links are blue and underlined. Thats right, the default setting for links.

But heres the thing - those of us who have Web designers, either in-house or outsourced, will usually get a Web page that is very pretty to look at and has the links stylized into some color to better blend into your site. Heck, check out this blog! Perfect example.

The problem is that people are trained to look at those blue links - eye tracking tests prove it. So when you make links blend, you are going to get fewer clicks through to other pages.

Now, this can be a good thing if you are trying to push your visitors in a single direction (i.e. your lead form, purchasing page, etc.), but if you want people to actually look around your site, you want them to be able to easily identify links.

So, my fair affiliates, it is time to fight against the artistic bourgeois. It is time to fight against the attractive over the functional. It is time to make your Web sites links BLUE AND UNDERLINED.

Holy buckets Batman! Google has another Beta product! WOOHOO!

Thats right AdWords fans, Google is giving you yet another tool to help you run the best AdWords account possible. This time, it is a tool that helps you manage your AdWords account from your desktop, and it is called the AdWords Editor.

So what can the editor do for you? Here is a list from the Google site:

• Navigate your account quickly and easily
• Locate and edit keywords, CPCs, and more
• Make bulk changes to keywords and ad text
• Work offline, then upload your changes
• Copy and paste keywords and ad text

Sounds pretty cool, eh? For the full list of features, go here.

As with any new product release from Google I headed over to Search Engine Watch to get the scuttlebutt. What I found was some positive feedback and a bunch of posts talking about limitations of the AdWords Editor.

Keystones post was the most informative. It read:

I have tried Editor:

1. It is great tool for larger/bigger campaigns.
2. It is impossible to download an already existing large campaign.
3. You cant upload image ads. I am sure Google Guys are working on that.
4. To get recent changes button seems to be broken.(kidding!: it doesnt work too well).
5. Does not have any provision to view “all time” data.
6. Save lot of time to make new catagories/ad text.
7. Interface is quiet simple… goes without saying!!

Overall a great tool with lot of bugs!.

Keystone.

So there you go - great tool with many bugs - but that is what Beta is for, eh?

I am sure we will give it a whirl over here at some point. Once we do we will let you know how it works.

[Thanks to thekidswindow.co.uk for the photo]

Warning: This turned into a bit of a rant…

I ran across this article in the New York Times titled “This Boring Headline is Written for Google.” The piece looks at how journalists are realizing that they are going to have to consider search engines when they are writing their article titles.

The sad part is that many journalists are kicking and screaming as they are forced to “dumb down” their titles for the search engines. This is one of my favorite quotes from the piece:

In newspapers and magazines, for example, section titles and headlines are distilled nuggets of human brainwork, tapping context and culture. “Part of the craft of journalism for more than a century has been to think up clever titles and headlines, and Google comes along and says, The heck with that, ” observed Ed Canale, vice president for strategy and new media at The Sacramento Bee.

Ah, yeah Eddy, this is all a conspiracy by Google to make you write bad headlines.

Or maybe it is because algorithms have a difficult time figuring out what your creative, keyword-free titles actually mean. Do you think that could be it?

Read the rest of this entry »

Just wanted to let you know that I am heading out of the office to go snowboarding with some people from Yahoo! I will be back in the office on Monday - so no post for you tomorrow :).

Hopefully I will come back with some new info on the Q3 change to a click-through-rate ranking model.

In the mean time, take a few minutes to review some of the PPC and SEO tools we have highlighted over the last few months.

Have a great weekend!

Looks like Google has updated its PageRank on the Google Toolbar once again. So you know what that means - the post-update PageRank rumor mill is open for business! YEEHAW!

So, is the new PageRank broken? Is it broken for homepages only, but working fine for internal pages? Can you really get PageRank penalties from Google? Is there such thing as GoogleBowling?

No one really knows outside of the Googleplex, but I can guarantee you there are many opinions.

Make sure you check out the Search Engine Watch Forum discussion on all of the latest theories. If anything, make sure you read Danny Sullivans site analysis in the thread - you will see why he is the Mighty Search Engine Guru.

Personally, I am digging the new update - our Insurance Agent blog picked up a PR6. Jamesy likes.

WOW!

I just read a fantastic report entitled “The Spyware - Clickfraud Connection - And Yahoos Role Revised.” Very eye opening stuff.

The report details how spyware companies use Yahoo!s Publisher Network to generate revenue through click-fraud - even if the user never clicked an ad!

It seems that spyware companies are using a method that Ben Edelman calls “syndication-based click fraud.” Here is his description:

Spyware syndication falls within the general problem of syndication-based click fraud. Suppose X, the Yahoo partner site, hires a spyware vendor to send users to its site and to make it appear as if those users clicked Xs Yahoo ads. Then advertisers will pay Yahoo, and Yahoo will pay X, even though users never actually clicked the ads.

Ben uses full packet logs, annotated screenshots and even videos to prove his point.

This article is a must read for anyone who is currently using content match in their Yahoo! Search Marketing PPC account.

Let me tell you, if you thought you hated spyware companies before, you are going to hate them even more after reading this.

The big question is if Yahoo! will take action in this matter in light of Bens convincing evidence. It seems that the reputation of their PPC content matchs relevance and validity relies upon it. More to come…(hopefully)

Threadwatch has an interesting post that talks about the use of the “nofollow” tag on sites like Google, Technorati, and Wikipedia.

Seems that by using the SearchStatus extension for Firefox you are able to easily see all of the links that have “nofollow” tags.

Now I can understand the use of “nofollow” on blogs like this one - we already get too much comment spam - but Google not giving out link love? Cmon!

Is it really necessary to horde your link juice? Some might argue that it is, but many successful sites are able to rank well with outbound links…of course these sites also usually provide good content and draw in good links on their own.

Anyway, check out the post, and let me know if you are actively using the “nofollow” tag on your Web sites.

Happy Monday.