| LED Digest 2258: Rankings Up, Sales Down |
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A concerned LEDer wonders today why, with their search engine rankings continuing to improve, their sales are declining. It's a very pertinent question. Also, Shari Thurow rips the corpse off PageRank with her post. ================================================== 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 .............................................. October 3, 2006 Issue no. 2258 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Rankings Up, Sales Down ==-- ~ Angelo Simone "Can anyone tell me why my ranking continues to rise, but sales seem to continue to go down?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Falling Google Rankings ==-- ~ Shari Thurow "[PageRank is] a bogus number. Quit relying on it. Quit asking questions about it. Just ignore it." ~ Reg Charie "[There] seems to be a tightening of Google's 'keyword spamming' algorithms." --== Meta Tags (and More) ==-- ~ Derek Andrews "Urban myths only waste time." ~ Chris Nielsen "While still not conclusive evidence, it's great to hear such things." --== Form Spam ==-- ~ Al Toman "I've edited out my rants since I take spam- fighting very seriously." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Strange Referrals ==-- ~ Dean Wright ========== NEW =================================== From: Angelo Simone Subject: Rankings Increasing, Sales Decreasing? Can anyone tell me why my ranking continues to rise, Google PR of 6, Alexa 272,000, but sales seem to continue to go down? I know I have a ton of competition but I have great products, fair prices and a nice website, I keep adding more related links and have hired a firm to do over my Home page but nothing I do seems to help. When my home page was reworked my rankings went up but business didn't. I also use Ineedhits & Google adwords PPC for promoting my site but I keep paying out and get nothing back for it. One of my problems now is that I am afraid to cancel Adwords or change anything else as far as promotions because I am afraid things might get worse. I had a severe drop in sales that happened overnight about three years ago can anyone explain any of this please. Angelo Simone www.angeleentshirt.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Shari Thurow Subject: Positioning > ... why [has] one of my sites retained a Google PR 6 while > falling from #4 to page 40 for an important search term? - Dan Rosenfield, LED 2257 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1081/55/ Hi all- This is in response to Dan Rosenfeld's post regarding rankings. First, and I have to say this, quit using a number between 1 and 10 to determine your site's link popularity. PageRank is not a number between 1 and 10. And quit using that friggin' toolbar. In fact, remove it if you see that you've become addicted to looking at that number. The toolbar has never been accurate, and I doubt it ever will be. I have seen sites with PR0 make millions of dollars in sales, and I've seen sites with PR9 make nothing. It's a bogus number. Quit relying on it. Quit asking questions about it. Just ignore it. Okay, end of rant. All search engine positions fluctuate. It does not matter that a site has retained top 30 positions for over 5 years. It does not matter if your site has a top 10 position and suddenly drops to position 150. All search engine positions fluctuate. Once people accept that simple fact? Life gets easier. Positions fluctuate for a variety of reasons. The main one is that algorithms change. Search engines also hiccup (for lack of a better term). A Web site owner might have done nothing to the site, but the search engine might hiccup. Panicking is not a good idea. Leave the site alone. Positions fluctuate because new sites / pages are added to the Web all of the time, and pages (and the corresponding URLs) no longer exist. Link development is dynamic, too. One good news story can really change the linkage properties of a URL. What I care about is what I see in my Web analytics (site statistics) software. If I see that my or a client's site gets consistent, qualified search engine traffic over time, and through usability testing, A/B testing, multivariate testing, etc. the pages are converting? That's what I want. A search engine "hiccup" is just a glitch. If a site is missing from top search engine results for an important term, don't be afraid to use PPC advertising. It's fast, and you can always turn it off when you don't need it anymore. I also look at search results and turn in any search engine spam. I see if other sites have better interfaces (ie usability) than my site(s), and I also look for high-quality link development opportunities. I usually find some good PR opportunities that way. And I do all of this without giving a hoot about a number between 1 and 10. My 2 cents. Sincerely, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director Grantastic Designs, Inc. http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/tips.html -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Reg Charie Subject: Positioning Hi Dan, I took a look at your site and I suspect that your drop is due to the amount of repetitions of the word "degrees" in your mainpage. (101 times). You are not alone having your site sink in the rankings for what seems to be a tightening of Google's "keyword spamming" algorithms. In LED Digest 2244 http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/999/55/ I replied to MO Douglas regarding the same problem. (Dropping in rankings for a well established site.) Thank You, Reg Charie www.dotcom-productions.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Derek Andrews Subject: Meta-tags > Whether or not any of the search engines use the keywords > in meta tags as part of their algorithms for ranking pages, > I do know that they index them. Here's how I know... - Kathy Wilson, LED 2257 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1081/55/ This is interesting information, but before it becomes accepted as scientific truth the data needs to be peer reviewed and tested, and finally put into some sort of context regarding its application. It could be that some other factor, such as Google bombing, is causing the results that Kathy is seeing. First of all I think that we would need to see the website and the keyword in question, and determine which search engines are providing the referrals. This would allow confirmation that the data is being interpreted correctly, and check to see how much competition there is for the misspelled word. Then we could design tests on multiple websites to confirm the finding and get some idea of how much weighting a meta keyword will receive. I think it would also be important to check that it doesn't incur a penalty for including a word that isn't visible in the page, and that no long-term effects come in to play. I say all this not because I disbelieve Kathy, but because I believe that evidence like this can easily be misconstrued and then used in a manner that will create no benefits. Urban myths only waste time. Something scientifically proven, tested, published and thoroughly understood so that the circumstances in which it is of some benefit would be of great value. Derek Andrews, woodturner http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: Meta tags > I added the misspelled name to her keyword meta tags > and when I checked her stats shortly thereafter, discovered > that it was one of the keywords used to find her website > during searches by her website visitors. - Kathy Wilson, LED 2257 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1081/55/ While still not conclusive evidence, it's great to hear such things. I have long held that the purpose of the keywords tag should be to provide several functions to help the search engines: - List important keywords / phrases - List other words that mean the same thing (synonyms), but are not practical to include in the site - List other variations, abbreviations, acronyms, etc. Still, I have to say that what you have seen may not but 100% true, since some search engines are getting very good about spelling corrections and may have caused your client's site to appear, even if the spelling was off (you did say it was a common misspelling.). I think more testing would be needed before we could safely say what you saw is true. This is the type of thing that leads many astray (myself included), in the appearance of an effect that seems to be the result of something we have done or observed. If the result is repeatable and can be confirmed, that's great and good science. Thank you, Chris Nielsen http://www.best-free-search-engine-list.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Al Toman Subject: Form spam > ... does anyone know of a way to stop persistent spammers > who use the response form on my website...? - Dan Rosenfield, LED 2257 I've edited out my rants since I take spam-fighting very seriously. ALL my client's web sites have free anti-spam & secure input forms and mailto tags prior to publication. I'd suggest that webmasters across the W.W.W. use the freely available resources today and address this issue. You can simply do the Google and find free cool stuff. However, I've highlighted a tiny few of the 101 ways to kill spam before spam becomes spam. Firstly, the concern isn't that Mr. Rosenfield, himself, is receiving multiple garbage emails but rather that his response form is potentially and most likely sending multiple thousands of us, garbage emails. Spam filtering is $billions of dollars too late~! The $billions of annual damage has already been done. And WE are paying for it! Mr. Rosenfield has been kind enough to alert us webmasters as to where we can stop the $billions of damage before becoming $billions of damage, at our contact forms and mailto tags (other more sophisticated web sites require more intense script trickery). Spam filtering is the band-aide on the scraped knee. Anti-spam contact form and mailto scripts are the knee pads, protecting them from being scraped and puts a serious dent into Johonson & Johnson BandAide stock! Not to mention spam stock. Jacob Nielson is a PhD dude and explains how / why he obfuscates his mailto tag here, http://www.useit.com/about/whynomailto.html. It's a good thing that he didn't do his PhD dissertation in mailto tags else he'd come across some very simple, simple, simple techniques that are accessible and useable. Anyway, get your helmet and kneepads on and let's go! The Adam guy suggested adding the requirement of image recognition & manually entering a match to gain access, commonly known as Captcha. This is a good workable suggestion, however, it carries several disadvantages with it. Useability and accessibility is one. One serious no-no is that I'm blind (figuratively) and I can't see the image. But the Adam Guy is a Nice Guy and as he should, puts the ALT TAG to use, detailing the distorted graphic image, of sorts. Me as spammer says, "Cool, Nice Guy"! Naturally, W2.0 dictates audio (as if it is something new) so me being blind (figuratively) is no excuse. However, it can be for various reasons (my main computer is mute, it makes no sound unless the hard drive is coming to a grinding halt) and the script itself is rather bulky. Bottom line, most W.W.W. interneters are not going to install it and the ONLY WAY to bury spam is to make sure most ALL W.W.W. interneters are pro-active in the war against spam. "Bring em on"! Considering, a better option is to 1) drop the image recognition but 2) maintain the manual input requirement. You do this by asking a simple randomly selected question: example 1) 2+2 = ? (hint: it's not 3) example 2) Mary came to work in a green dress. What color is Mary's dress? (hint: your being color blind is no excuse!) example 3) How many ears does the Adam Guy have? (hint: forget the middle one; that's a nose.) example 4) If a woodchuck would chuck wood what would a woodchuck chuck? (hint: pine is softer than oak) example 5) Steve Pronger rides a red bicycle to work. How many tires is he riding on? (hint: that ain't no 4-wheeler, Steve) However, there are more simple ways to deter form-spam attacks if you do not have access to or capability of the simple script described above. - Digest Spam on the Front Line - Firstly, learn how to script input forms properly. While you're at it, learn how to design your web-compliant web site :-)~ Spammers are highly intelligent, patient, and motivated. Spammers hate webmasters who are highly intelligent, patient, and motivated. Therefore, if you wish to fight spam, serve spammers what they hate most, intelligence, patience, and motivation. [1] If you are not concerned with auto-fil forms, don't use input names such as "email", "name", "business", "address", "street", "city", "state", "zip", and "phone" to mention a few. <.input type='text' name='liame' size='20' maxlength='48' /> The spammer's seach bot may be scripted to seek, find, and digest "email" (Google's not the only one using search bots, ya know!?!). If you are insistent upon auto-fil forms, then simply install a BACK END spam-eating script (described below). [2] Include an appropriate "maxlength" in your form's input. <.input type='text' name='liame' size='20' maxlength='48' /> 32-64 is acceptable for email addresses. 24-32 for personal full names. Place a maximum number of characters on each input field appropriate to the type of data being collected. This prevents Mr. UCE from writing a book of malicious script of various species into these fields. As well, as we'll see later, a simple BACK END script does more anti-spam magic with each form field. [3] Post your form, Get it? <.form name='eat-this_spammer' action='$PHP_SELF' method='post' > The data in a POST form doesn't carry in the URL whereas GET carries the data in the URL. This is the URL of a GET FORM: http://snipurl.com/antispamform [studio9.ws] It reveals all kinds of stuff, hey? Worse, now that I know your form GETS IT, maybe I'm just smart enough to use your form without using your form!?! Ouch! This is the URL of a POST FORM: http://studio9.ws/webcontact.php Wah? No stuff? Dang! [4] Advertise and Post a Sign on Your Contact Web Page "This is a spam-free form. Go ahead! Try and spam me and make my day!" - Slap Spam on the Back End (Spam Spanking) - Sever side is the real fun big-boy playground. We twist spammers. We grind spammers. We execute spammers. We send spammers into the infinite corners of cyber space! Because WE CARE (and it's FUN, FUN, FUN) and it wastes spammers' time and resources. I use PHP because it is a sever-side script (you don't see it in your client browser) and it's easy, easy, easy. The problem with PHP is, is that it is too easy and many PHP scripters ignore security. Oops! So, you, yes, you, better know the script that's on your web page. Firstly, properly gather the input field data using POST: --------------------- if ($_POST['submit']) { do something ... } else { echo "bug-off!"; exit(); -or- more politely, return back to the input form } --------------------- [2] Next, check if the Adam Guy sports 2 ears. If not, "Oops" and return to the form. --------------------- if ($_POST['submit']) { $question = $_POST['twobigears']; if ($question != 2) { echo "<p>Sorry! Adam Guy does not have $question ears!</p>"; echo "<p>Please try again!</p>"; } ... do something ... } --------------------- [3] Test each form field data appropriately (for spam) One handy spam character is the comma. Therefore, you want to keep a check on that thar comma. If you detect a comma you can do several things. Two of which are 1) kill the form transmission or 2) replace / remove the comma and permit the form to do its thing. $name = "King George the 3rd, Iz Cool"; $name = str_replace(","," ratz ", $name); now, $name = "King George the 3rd ratz Iz Cool" This doesn't show how spammers implement the comma, causing helter skelter, in the name (or any other) input field, however, it shows you that you can stop the helter before it becomes skelter. You may also want to ratz-out the "@", "CC", and "BCC", if found. To simplify, you can just accept selected characters in the name (or any other) input field: $name=ereg_replace("[^a-z,A-Z,0-9,-,.,' ']","",$name); This permits lower and upper case characters a-z, numbers 0-9, dash, period, and space. All other characters are replaced with a NULL. $name = "<.a href='spam-you.com'>King, Me George@the 3rd.net<./a>"; now, $name = "a hrefspam-you.comKing Me Georgethe 3rd.neta"; You can also recognize "href" and kill that too! Do this appropriately with names, emails, addresses, phone numbers, dates, dollar amounts, and any other fields that you use. [4] The Bloody Bloggin Textarea Most all 100 million bloggers are infamous for sporting ego-boosting comment forms! These are simply a form textarea open door to spam delight~! Yum! Yum! Leonardo da Vinci blogged several hundred years before web bloggers (some 5,000 journals). He permitted comment (from trusted sources only) and has yet to be spammed! Well, Tonto, we can stick an arrow into it and still digest our eggos too! There are two things, among others, that spammers like to do with the open-door textarea: 1) write malicious code of all sorts 2) send emails Well, why does your textarea permit script? Is it necessary? If not, kill it! If you really, really, really want someone to send you script, then, one way to secure your form is to convert the script to harmless jibber-jabber, receive it, examine it, then, reverse-convert the jabber-jibber to script. Worse, why are you using your textarea as a post office? I'll bet you're not even getting the 39 cents for the stamp, now are ya? Spammers need to write some "stuff" to allow them to send both you and 1,000's of others email via your form. So, simply, recognize and kill the "stuff". Bang! Bang! Bye-Bye! And don't forget to collect your 39 cents. [5] Rapid Fire, NOT! One thing spammers love to do with your form is to machine gun it. Often, 5-6 emails are transmitted in rapid succession. The nice thing about poorly scripted forms is that each one of these emails can potentially spam multiple emails~! Well, a real no-brainer fix is to install a Nappy-Time script to your form or use the Adam Guy's modified manual input question. Yup. Spammers hate the wate and they'll leave you alone! [6] Not my email address, Mister! Spammers often use YOUR email address, of sorts, in the form's "from email" input field. If you know your email address, of sorts, and you see it being Ms. Used, kill the form. Guranateed, it's spam, anyway! [7] Databases Several spam fighters create these huge databases of either IP addresses or known spam-transmitting addresses or of naughty words. Okay, if you want. It's your bandwidth. This is discussed somewhat in the Adam Guy's suggestion at http://www.hashcash.org/. Maybe a "good word" data base would be much smaller!?! [8] Headers Though headers have their issues, there are a few that can test your form immediately upon receipt even before your html document is writ by the server and you can take whatever action that you'd like. Your choice. [9] Redundancy Some efforts are redundant. However, they fire within less than nanoseconds, so, I personally prefer to have them all in place. Often, spam-blocker "A" may be cracked, therefore, spam-blocker "B" can be a real bummer to the spammers ego and pocket book. HAH! [10] FTC Your Favorite Spammer If you're from the USA (and as far as I'm concerned, even if you are from your own beautiful country) send the spammer's spam to the FTC (go to the FTC site for details). A php script can do it automatically, transparent to your personal daily activities. However, I keep track of these on purpose in my study of spam technique. I intentionally keep my website open to spam to study spammers. However, their handywork doesn't go any further, guaranteed. [11] More Tricks As spammers increase their intelligence, so must we spam-fighters. However, fighting spam isn't of any value unless the entire W.W.W. community makes an effort to take back the W.W.W. Effort takes time, money, and energy. So, you know as well as I, it ain't gonna happen. Get out the band aids! Happy Spam Fighting, Al Toman studio9.ws ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Dean Wright Subject: Unheard of referrals? September's tracking system on one of my sites came up with two new referrals I have never heard of. Their volume was 3 or 4 times higher than Google. One was: search-us-4u.info Second one was search511.com. Does anyone have any idea what they are and where they are from???? Is it a rip off click fraud? Dean Wright www.electricblanketupgrade.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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