| LED Digest 2248: Creative Linking |
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Who else noticed - MSN site visits fell right off the table a week ago with the launch of MSN's new Windows Live Search, live.com. It's been quite surprising and frustrating that live.com is not passing referrers to web stats. ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. September 18, 2006 Issue no. 2248 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== MSN Went Live.com and Killed Stats ==-- ~ Cheryl Berry "It's been quite surprising...that live.com is not passing referrers to web stats." --== Creative Linking - Database Queries ==-- ~ Dave Roberts "...the link is on a page that is accessed through a database query." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Dropping PPC ==-- ~ Ivan Jimenez "...I avoid using Google unless the client specifically asks for it." ~ Chris Nielsen "...were you using the conversion tracking from both systems?" ~ Michael Motherwell "PPC can and does make people money." --== Taguchi Multivariate Testing ==-- ~ Sumantra Roy "Taguchi testing is a form of Multivariate testing." --== Getting Traffic ==-- ~ Jill Whalen "...the keyword meta tag is not going to have any affect on your rankings." ~ Janelle Smith "If any of you could provide me with some helpful tools, or sites [focused on SEO/M]..." --== Small Biz & Search [was: Search Guru] ==-- ~ Rick Gortatowsky "Don't put all your eggs in one basket..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Online Backups ==-- ~ Richard Graham ========== NEW =================================== From: Cheryl Berry Subject: MSN went Live.com and Killed Stats Who else noticed... MSN site visits fell right off the table a week ago with the launch of MSN's new Windows Live Search - live.com. It's been quite surprising and frustrating that live.com is not passing referrers to web stats. It took a bit of digging to find articles supporting what I had suspected when the fall-off occurred -- see http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060915-085113 and http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006168.html Not only are the referrers not showing as search engines but no referring data at all! LEDers what do you think? Is this a beta glitch or a plan to keep analytical data proprietary? Cheryl Berry cheryl, bookkeepinghelp.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Dave Roberts Subject: Creative Linking - Database Queries I have a client who got a link from a company with a high pagerank site that is very relevant. The problem is that the link is on a page that is accessed through a database query. So I thought -- is there a way to make this look like a static link to a search engine spider? So from my client's site we linked to the other site with a URL that caused a query to be run on the other site that would produce the page that had the link to my client's site. The idea is that the search engine spider will find the link on our site and follow it -- causing the database query to be run, so the spider would see the page generated by the query, and find the link to my client's site. Giving us credit for a reciprocal link. What do you think? Will it work? Dave Roberts http://www.davedoesitall.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Ivan Jimenez Subject: PPC Engines > During the month Google was turned off sales > decreased by less than 2%... I do think that about > 25% (max) of the money I paid to Google was > because of click fraud. Still, ditching Google six > months ago has had literally no impact on my sales. - Gregory Marquess, LED 2247 FYI... I provide PPC management and in many cases, I avoid using Google unless the client specifically asks for it. I've had (and witnessed) mixed results with Google but there is simply too much "secrecy" and too difficult to gauge where to allocate bid dollars, etc. I understand (or at least I think I do) the BIG PICTURE and what Google has been doing over the past few years but it seems that they've been alienating marketers that actually have the desire to carefully plan their marketing campaigns. When it comes to Google PPC campaigns, too many marketers are being forced to approach it with an 'I hope this works' attitude as opposed to a 'based on my research and analysis, I am quite sure this will happen' attitude -- which by the way, is the whole basis of pay per click... guaranteed results, remember? In case you haven't noticed, I like Yahoo! Search (Overture). Relatively speaking, they have far better reach and do more in terms of combating click fraud than their competition. Yahoo! Search puts out a good product that is superior to what is currently out there (again, based on reach and results). Google, to me, is the hands-down champ when it comes to organic search but when it comes to their PPC program, let's just say secrecy remains the number one priority there. Ivan Jimenez Smarter Clicks : Search Marketing Solutions http://www.smarterclicks.com ij, smarterclicks.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: PPC engines > I saw a 32% decline in sales when I had Overture > completely turned off. During the month Google was > turned off sales decreased by less than 2%... - Gregory Marquess, LED 2247 I had to write in response to this because I was so surprised at the numbers. But I also had a question, and that was were you using the conversion tracking from both systems? It doesn't sound like it, since you had to stop the campaigns to see what would happen to your sales. Anyone that is using PPC and doesn't use conversion tracking is really operating in the dark. The only option I know of is to shut things down like Gregory did, which can be a little painful to do, and may not give you a complete picture since other factors could also be at work to affect sales. While I feel certain that click fraud is generally rampant in most industries, I suspect that Gregory's Google campaign had a number of other problems related to such a poor return. Before giving up completely I suggest talking with a consultant, or a Google rep, since getting help from them costs nothing and can be quite effective. Thank you, Chris Nielsen http://www.pcb-directory.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Motherwell Subject: PPC engines > Early on the ROI [for PPC] was very high but as > more and more people discovered the internet > as a venue for selling merchandise it began to > dwindle. Bidding wars for top positions ensued. > Costs began to rise. - Robert Bass, LED 2246 Which seems to all point to something OTHER THAN click fraud to me! > Despite what these PPC engines would have you believe, > I still maintain that the Emperor has no clothes. I don't get that. Your post was a very good example of the effect on business of a market becoming crowded. And then, suddenly, with a wild turn, you conclude with click fraud. As you said, you used to get sales and good ROI. So, clearly, the Emperor had clothes at some point ;) For my $0.02, I don't believe the Emperor has no clothes. He may be missing one sock, or even have no pants on, but he is certainly mostly clothed ;) PPC can and does make people money. Heck, it made your good self money at one point. Unless those people no longer use search (doubtful), they are still out there. Thing is, so are all your competitors. The early days of search were about competing fullstop. Now, it is about competing WELL, that is not just being there on a SERP, but achieving something from being there. Just being there used to cut it, but now, with hundreds of choices, people can go elsewhere. My questions about your particular example would be geared towards finding an answer to why your campaign went wrong. Did you have the right words? Did the consumer become educated such that the words yesterday where no longer today's words (think computer vs notebook, windows 95 and Vista). Or did, as your post seems to indicate, the market just become over saturated, with the ROI diluted to uselessness? IMHO, click fraud is the last thing your post, to me, indicated was the issue. You outlined very lucidly and succinctly a tale of change in an industry towards the point at which easy wins are all taken. Lastly, if you have excellent results with SEO and don't need PPC, that is fantastic, and there is no point chasing a seemingly impossible dream you pay for the privilege of chasing. Just make sure you learn the right lesson, and attribute what caused a once beautiful relationship to sour to the right cause (increased competition / whatever), and not the most worrying and "hot right now", but unlikely, cause: click fraud. Michael Motherwell -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Sumantra Roy Subject: Taguchi testing > ... is there any difference between "Taguchi testing" and > "multivariate testing"? Or, do they refer to the same thing? - Valerie Walk, LED 2247 Hi Valerie Taguchi testing is a form of Multivariate testing. There are different techniques one can use to perform Multivariate testing - the Taguchi technique is one of them. Basically, in Statistics, there is a concept called Design of Experiments (also called "Experimental Design") which is used to determine how to improve the performance of a system by changing different variables that affect the outcome of the system at the same time. It was originally invented to improve agricultural yields, and was then later applied to manufacturing. There are a pretty large number of experimental design techniques that are available in Statistics, one of which is the Taguchi technique. Taguchi is a popular technique in manufacturing because it is relatively simple to implement (compared to the other experimental design techniques) and can often be a lot faster than the other techniques. When experimental design techniques was applied to the specific area of improving the conversion rates of web sites, it came to be popularly known in the online marketing world as multivariate testing. If you want to learn more about this topic, I have written a white paper that you can download from our site - it's at http://conversionmultiplier.com/taguchi-multivariate-testing.htm Hope that helps. Sumantra Roy http://www.conversionmultiplier.com - Maximize your web site's conversion rates using multivariate testing. -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Jill Whalen Subject: Getting traffic > Have you optimized the content of your site to correlate > with your targeted keywords? Also, have you implemented > metatags on your site and manually submitted your site > to the major search engines? - Kym McLaughlin, LED 2247 Optimizing your content to correlate to the targeted keywords is definitely a must. Of course, this assumes you've done some heavy-duty keyword research, and are targeting keywords people are actually searching for. But implementing meta tags -- more specifically the keyword meta tag -- is not going to have any affect on your rankings. Neither will manually submitting your site to the major search engines. Both are unnecessary steps that won't do a thing for your rankings, your traffic, your conversions or your sales. Hope this helps! Jill Whalen Register Now for the High RankingsR Seminar http://www.highrankings.com/seminar -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Janelle Smith Subject: Getting traffic Hello All, I've been doing Online Marketing for a little over a year now. Much of my work has been PPC related and I've just recently started to branch off into SEO. If any of you could provide me with some helpful tools, or sites out there that would help give me a little more knowledge I'd really appreciate it. Everyone at my office has their own method and I would like to explore some others. Thanks Janelle Smith, Marketing Analyst -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Rick Gortatowsky Subject: Small Biz and Search Secrets > Until you can see the actual algorithms used > to determine index placement there are in fact > secrets. Anyone who has those secrets or comes > close to figuring out what they are will get above > average results... That's what separates a high > quality SEO person from the average Joe... - Mark Whitman, LED 2242 I am not sure I'd use the term secrets. A software engineer understands the driving factors behind web technologies better than a layman does, and thus even if the proprietary source behind search engines were made completely public most people would not be able to follow it even with comments :) Search engines providers of any significance are constantly working to try and service their bread and butter, revenue in. Changes occur. One gentlemen quite correctly stated that large business views this as nuts. To such businesses it is far better to spend the money to buy traffic, period. They do not want to know how or why, just results thank you. They are interested in earnings, exposure and competition not how many bits are in a byte. They want the nybbles (arr arr) that result in conversions to revenue. Some companies see it best to purchasing the engineering to get there yet others go with proven sites. Target for example uses Amazon technologies. Why muddle about when its all tax deductible! But small business, well that's different. There are two choices, pay those who can do it and hope they actually get you results (and odds are you will need to continue to pay them to keep results) or learn; perhaps a combination of both. Search engines are not the ONLY mechanism by which traffic can be obtained. That's important to consider as well. As I noted in a prior post by example. If you have an eCommerce site for example it may be quite wise to set up a portal using a content management system that consolidates potential customers. If one vends kitchenware then a portal where people can discuss culinary delights and then some is favorable. If one peddles DVD videos then a reviews site, discussion boards, mailing lists etc. is an obvious asset to your video sales site. You can thus latch traffic from that portal to your commerce site. Consider you can purchase hosting for say $250 a year that is ample to support Joomla / Mambo or others that are free Content Management Systems. Now let's say in a year you have some moderators handling the forums, you have nice RSS feeds about whatall, DVD releases, stories, movie facts, you may have pages for your users so Joe/sephine User has her own page where she puts her favorite actors and movies... maybe even an email address for them... you have 10,000 users many who submit reviews on and on after only a year. You have built a pool of 10,000 people interested in what you sell, videos... You can direct market right to them. You can write the entire site off as a business expense. What does $250 get you in search engines? Squat. Additionally you will find that the folks who are mainstays within your portal love it. They are your A #1's. You care about them and they will care about you. These foundations are far more STABLE towards continual success and growth than you can COUNT ON via ANY search engine or external means. There is an old phrase, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" and this is ever so true on the Internet. Sites like I describe above will do you MUCH better as a small business than ANY search engine will ever do for you as a small business. You have an advantage over big business in that regard. You can create sites to gather and focus people, big business does not do this well... They see such things as "bells and whistles". Rick Gortatowsky ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Richard Graham Subject: Online Backups Hello, Does anyone have any recommendations for online backup services? It seems like this is a much better way to go than burning DVDs all the time. http://www.carbonite.com/ looks very good, easy to use, automatic software and nice price. But it doesn't back up installed software nor external disks ( I want to back up everything, just in case my drives get stolen or lost) http://www.streamload.com/ also looks good with huge disk space, but seems to have had some bad reviews ( e.g. comments on Cnet's blog). Does anyone have a service they could recommend? Ideally 200Gb - ish, plus automatic daily backups. Thanks, Richard Graham www.genkigerman.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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