| LED Digest 1731: Web Ad Trademark Law |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. 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 ................................................. January 19, 2003 Issue #1731 ................................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= <Moderator Comment> ~ Gaggle Chasing Google ~ Web Ad Trademark Law --== Ad Blocking Software ==-- ~ Greg Watson "Hover Ad software can create all sorts of borders..." --== Debunking Google's PageRank ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "PageRank is irrelevant. When are people going to understand this?" ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Whois Data for Sale ==-- ~ Nancy Cardinali --== Third-party Fulfillment Services ==-- ~ Peter Warnock --== Ecommerce Security via PIN ==-- ~ Nick Gassman ===== CONTINUING ================================= <Moderator Comment> Couple items of interest today: 1) There's a Gaggle Chasing Google http://wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,61902,00.html "If you want to take a crack at knocking Google off its perch as the world's most popular search engine, you had better get in line. According to recent reports, both Yahoo and Microsoft already have started preparing next-generation search technologies in a bid to capture a portion of the fast-growing market for search advertising. "According to Kelsey Group program director Greg Sterling, "2004 is going to be the Year of the Search. There's a lot of innovation ahead, and that's going to prove to be a big challenge for Google." "The stiffest competition is likely to come from Yahoo, a company that has played both friend and foe to Google in the past... when analytics firm Nielsen/NetRatings last measured search habits in March 2003, the company found that the number of unique visitors to Yahoo Search trailed Google by a mere 10 percent." 2) Web Ad Trademark Law to be Retested http://news.com.com/2100-1024-5142058.html "Dealing a potential setback to the Web search advertising market, a federal appeals court has reopened a lawsuit challenging the unauthorized use of trademarks in ads linked to search engine keywords. "The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Wednesday found Playboy Enterprises can pursue charges that Excite and Netscape Communications violated its trademark by selling banner advertisements triggered by the terms "playboy" and "playmate." The decision reverses a district court ruling that dismissed the suit without a trial in 2000." Make it a great week, Adam ------------------- From: Greg Watson Subject: Ad blockers > ... where are people like Ken Evoy regarding > this whole ad blocking issue...? - Marty Milette, LED 1728 Where are they? Well, most were out in front of this last year. Corey Rudl was touting a new product called Hover Ad Creator which uses Javascript to create the same effect of popup ads without triggering the pop-up blockers. I'm on vacation this week so you can see a simple example of a "Hover Ad" on my website http://www.gregwatson.com promoting a 20% Vacation discount for orders that come in while I'm on vacation (I sell PMDD fertilizers). Corey's Hover Ad software can create all sorts of borders including those that look just like a standard browser popup window. Other borders / formats include Classic Windows popup, XP Window, Special Alert which looks like a dialog box, a timed count down box, a Set Your Home Page dialog box, and a drop-n-bounce box. You can read more about hover ads at http://www.marketingtips.com/hoverad/ . Greg Watson http://www.gregwatson.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Debunking PageRank Myths > I have been building link exchanges for quite some time now and > noticed that my Google page rank has slowly but surely increased. - Frank Zipperer, LED 1730 PageRank is irrelevant. When are people going to understand this? All that PageRank value you see in the Toolbar means is that Google has estimated approximately what your site's percentile ranking in VALUE TO THE AVERAGE SURFER should be. It has absolutely nothing to do with how your page fares in the search results. PageRank changes for many sites every time Google recalibrates its database. Sometimes they do that on a monthly basis. Sometimes they do it less often. PageRank also changes for many sites every time Google changes its calculating algorithms (and that is PLURAL -- there is more than one Google algorithm at work). They make MAJOR changes once or twice a year (and usually thousands of people start acting like Google has never done that before immediately after a change is rolled out). > I just had a decrease in [pagerank] when I placed a weblink > banner on my home page... does Google penalize a site for > having exchange links on the front page? Banner exchanges do NOT help anyone's link popularity, EXCEPT the banner exchanges'. That is because all the links go back to the banner exchange server, NOT to the target sites. All bCentral exchange code links back to bCentral. So, the search engines know this and they filter the banner exchange links. You and I are NOT penalized for including banner exchange code on our pages. Google understands what banner exchanges are all about. Nor does placement of banner exchange code DIRECTLY impact your site's importance. That is, it can indirectly impact your site's importance by pushing down important text and HTML code, making that seem less important. It depends on exactly what Google is filtering and how. In the final analysis, all that any Webmaster needs to be concerned with is WHERE THEIR SITE RANKS IN SEARCH RESULTS. PageRank has nothing to do with that. PageRank has nothing to do with that. PageRank has nothing to do with that. I regularly get low PR pages to outperform high PR pages. I do that by making my pages more relevant to the search terms I am targeting. I do that by writing good, clean copy and placing my desired search terms IN THE TITLE TAG and IN H1 HEADER TAGS. It helps to have inbound links. It doesn't matter if they come from PR10 or PR0 sites. The more links you get, the less important their overall PR becomes. There is a lot of nonsense being passed around the Internet right now, and one of the dumbest theories is that you have to get inbound links from high PR sites. Google pulled the rug out from under THAT theory last Summer. Move on. Just build good content and design good title tags and H1 header tags. People lose their rankings MOSTLY because they shoot themselves in the foot with bad design decisions. They pay way too much attention to the people who preach nonsense and complain every time Google slams their rankings. When was the last time any of you saw ME whine about Google's changes? They rarely have negative impacts on my sites. I just don't pay attention to PageRank or inbound links. There is absolutely no need to do that. And, oddly enough, that IS the way Google wants us to handle our sites. Gosh. What a coincidence. Michael Martinez, Author Understanding Middle-earth http://www.xenite.org/ ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Nancy Cardinali Subject: Whois for sale When I posted that email re: Whois info for sale, I wasn't trying to fuel the spam issue. I think that thread has been beaten to death, for now. I was, however, interested in HOW this info was extracted for sale. I was under the impression (from a previous LED post) this info was somehow 'secure'. I guess not... Nancy Cardinali ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Peter Warnock Subject: 3rd party fulfillment Can anyone refer a reputable fulfillment house? If there were less than 500 orders, what would an acceptable price range be for the service? Peter Warnock Webstruction, LLC ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Nick Gassman Subject: Secure online transactions In the posts I've seen so far on fraud someone did mention the 'Verified by Visa' program, which enables registered customers to enter a PIN as part of an online transaction. I'm not familiar with the full detail, but it may be that with transactions by this method the card company takes on the fraud risk, rather than the merchant. Either way, it's less risky for the merchant. For the consumer in 'blacklisted' countries it provides a means of doing business with companies offering this service, without having to go through the extra faxing and stuff. Mastercard are offering a similar program. http://www.mastercardmerchant.com/securecode/ Here's the Visa link https://usa.visa.com/personal/secure_with_visa/verified_by_visa.html As a company that does business online around the world, we are implementing these to reduce our fraud exposure, and also as a benefit for customers who are nervous about online transactions. Nick Gassman http://ba.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2003 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr. |
