| LED Digest 1747: AOL Bouncing Email, Keywords, lots more |
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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 ................................................ February 12, 2004 Issue #1747 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ===================== --== AOL Bouncing Email ==-- ~ Verna Wiseman "On my last email blast 1600 AOL addresses bounced back." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Keywords in Meta Tags ==-- ~ Derek Andrews "I really don't believe anything has changed. Use [keywords], but don't expect them to help much..." ~ Clint Whitsett "I have been playing the same game with several of my sites." <Moderator Comment> --== Spammer Using our Domain, Help! ==-- ~ Brigitte Burchett "I would like to thank everyone very much..." ~ Ian Petrie "One of my domains has been hijacked in this way." --== Losing Filtered Email ==-- ~ Tom Anson "My situation is different, but I found this post interesting." --== Email Address Verification ==-- ~ Kathryn Martyn "My habit is to leave false details when seeking marketing information..." ~ Ian Petrie "I've given out several hundred e-mail addresses over the last two or three years..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Bayesian & Other Filtering Solutions ==-- ~ Ron Carmickle --== Joker of the Day ==-- ~ Marty R. Milette ======= NEW ====================================== From: Verna Wiseman Subject: AOL Bounce Backs I send to an email list of 7000+ names. 1616 have AOL addresses. On my last email blast 1600 AOL addresses bounced back. I am not sending spam, this is an opt-in e-newsletter. I asked the provider of the email service and he said they were bouncing because the recipients couldn't read an HTML email. I find that hard to believe! I think something else is going on, and I don't know how to work around it. Got any suggestions? Verna Wiseman, CTPA Communications Director ESG Printmasters ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Derek Andrews Subject: Keywords ------------------------- "Many years ago, the wisdom for search engine keywords in meta tags was: never repeat a word, be comprehensive and make sure they're relevant to the text in the body of the page. "These days, I notice that some of the top sites do repeat keywords and have very few of them. "So in 2004, what is the accepted wisdom amongst LEDers with keywords?" ------------------------- - Jack Yan, LED 1746 Looking at the search results Jack Yan mentioned, I don't think meta keywords are playing any significant part in the ranking of the results. The number two listing doesn't even use the meta keyword tag, so that factor cannot have any significant weighting in the algorithm. I would suggest he looks at the page titles, and the keyword density within them. Then take into account the Toolbar Page Rank of those with relevant page titles and I think you will start to see some correlation with the ranking. Counting the number of backwards links is a very crude measure. You must also take into account the Page Rank of those pages, and the number of links on them. The anchor text on those pages may also have a huge impact, and I suspect that is how the number two site gets its positioning. And if you believe that Google has implemented a theme based page rank, take a look at the contents of pages that link to you. I notice the number one ranking site is in a DMOZ category that includes the word Fashion. How relevant that is I don't know, but it is one other factor that may play a part in a ranking algorithm. So to answer Jack's question about meta keywords in 2004, I really don't believe anything has changed. Use them, but don't expect them to help much, if at all, but don't abuse them. Only use keywords that appear on the page. Other wise, don't worry too much about them other than auditing them periodically to make sure they have kept up with page content. Derek Andrews, woodturner http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Clint Whitsett Subject: Keywords Jack, I have been playing the same game with several of my sites. In fact several of my competitors and I have been sort of playing the name-game. The company I work for manufactures all types of coatings but our primary product line is elastomeric roof coatings. A year ago at Google there was no unison to the way that folks in our industry titled their home pages. Then I got some advice from the gurus at everycontracor.com about relevant linking content and key words etc. The main thing I did was add the specific key term that I wanted people to search for to my title; in this case Elastomeric Roof Coatings. I had already told Google how I wanted to be categorized which was under ../business/construction products. After I added the term "elastomeric" to the title I noticed within a week that all of my competitors had done the same thing. In fact enough of us did so that Google created a new category for elastomeric roof coatings. The good thing was that now we were coming up in the top 5 and had a huge jump in traffic but the bad thing was that we were no longer visible under the "roofing" category which, according to Overture, has 10 times as many searches. Now all of a sudden my traffic has dropped by 60% and we have dropped back 3 full pages in the search results with no explanation! Pages that are .gov and have 5-year old articles on cool roofing are coming up in the #1 - 10 spots and they have no key terms at all nor do their titles mention roof coatings. >From what I can tell, Google just spins the wheel now and then and picks a hand full of sites to be on top at random intervals. It's very frustrating to put a lot of time and energy into improving your ranking just to have all the rules tossed out the window. So, has anybody been able to offer you any REAL wisdom? If so please forward. Lets go see what Danny has to say at searchenginewatch.com Thanks very much and best regards, Clint Whitsett, Marketing Coordinator United Coatings <Moderator Comment> Danny Sullivan (of SearchEngineWatch.com) has been a regular poster in the past. It would be interesting to hear from him on this subject; Danny, if you're still out there, let's hear from you. -Adam ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Brigitte Burchett Subject: Joe Job I would like to thank everyone very much for all the help with our spam problem, both on and off list. What we currently have does not seem to be a Joe-Job, but a spoofer (or several of them - it is hard to tell since they do not even seem to use real name and addresses when registering their sites). I have managed to get 3 websites shut down, but 2 are still going gang-busters ( www.djenis.info and www.qpksd.info ). Both of these are hosted at www.joker.com and that host could care less. I have contacted them using the abuse form on their site and when that failed to get a response I even called them (overseas). Nobody answers the phone, no message taking capabilities, just a recording to leave messages on the website. Thanks again! Brigitte Burchett www.pondmarket.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Ian Petrie Subject: Joe Job One of my domains has been hijacked in this way. Not a "Joe-Job". Just for their convenience so that they didn't have to deal with bounces. When this first started, the spam was for a MLM scam. My e-mail address was bogus. There was a web address - but I'm fairly confident that that was hijacked as well. I could track it back to an otherwise legitimate looking business albeit in the far east. They were relying on a fax number and a PO Box in Florida to harvest suckers. I faxed a bill for about $2,500 dollars for the use of my domain name to the fax number. Followed by another, several hundred dollars higher a few days later. The abuse of my domain stopped - at least for that scam. I suspect I might have been passed on though. I'm now getting bounces for one of the chain-letter scams - "Parents found $40,000 in kids closet" - and there is no fax number, just supposedly personal names and addresses. I haven't worked up the energy to print and post invoices accross the world to see if it works again Ian Petrie MD Vetlist Ltd www.any-uk-vet.co.uk ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tom Anson Subject: Losing email In response to Ken Evoy's post (LED 1745) about MicroSoft bouncing his e-mail, I've been having a similar problem with Hotmail, MSN and even Yahoo e-mail accounts. My situation is different, but I found this post interesting. My situation: I have a small business that, while it's growing, doesn't have the volume of post-sales e-mail to register on anyone's radar. However, I send out a newsletter about once a month, and sometimes have special announcement e-mails to send. I've found that, if I just send the one "mass" e-mail, things get through pretty well; but if I send a second "mass" e-mail too close in proximity, everything from these companies gets bounced. My host is working with these companies to rectify the problem. Their problem is that it's intermitent, not a constant issue. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Kathryn Martyn Subject: Email verification > What is the problem with providing a "real" email > address to obtain information or a trial on a product > you have shown interest in? ... it is a proven and > completely legitimate method of effectively > marketing a product. - Steve Pronger, LED 1746 I completely agree with Steve. My habit is to leave false details when seeking marketing information or I'm "just looking" but if I'm actually "kicking the tires" I leave my real details for two reasons: 1) I want to see if the company is as legit as they appear before I do business with them. I'm not worried about being spammed by a professional company. I'm also in the habit of purchasing prior to the expiration of a free trial period so perhaps I'm the exception, but once I see a product fulfills my needs, I buy. 2) I want the company to know who I am. I'm a professional too. I want to use my real name, my real business name, and my real site address. Perhaps they will visit my site and have a need for my services? That's simple networking, folks. People that are legitimately interested will give true details and those that do not were never interested parties in the first place. I give away a free book on my site and I require a real e-mail address to receive the download information. Why? Because I don't want someone to simply link to the book and use up bandwidth - not that I wouldn't want the world to see the writing - it's just not cost effective. If a person indicates on the form they want to receive my newsletter, Bits-n-Bites for People who Chew, or the Daily Bites about using unique psychological methods for weight loss, then I add them to my mailing list, otherwise, I don't have any use for that name. I wasn't given permission to use it, and I don't. That's opt-in. I gain valuable marketing information from their IP address, and I know by my referrers which marketing efforts are most effective, then I can respond quickly to those that leave comments. I have no evil intent. So, if they give a false name, I don't care, but they must give a real address or they don't get the info. It's that simple. Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP Ending Emotional Eating, One Bite at a Time http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Ian Petrie Subject: Email verification I regularly provide an e-mail address at web sites. It always takes the form " This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ". If I visit the Super Thrimbits web site, I use This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it If I don't want to expose my company name, visiting a rivals site for instance, I use another domain not connected to my company. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it I started doing this because of fears of spam. I reckoned that, if the e-mail I used was clearly identified with the name of the site I visited, at the very least I could expect an apology. It would also be very easy to filter or block. I've given out several hundred e-mail addresses over the last two or three years - though all to legitimate businesses, not in the murkier corners of the Internet. I've never had to block one of these identifiable adresses. I still get heaps of spam. Several addresses published on web pages have spread from list to list. One of my main domains has been hijacked as a return address so I get loads of bounces - but that is another thread. Ian Petrie www.any-uk-vet.co.uk ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Ron Carmickle Subject: Bayesian filters > I just do not feel confident that filters will let > through the mail that I need to run my business. - Wanda Husick, LED 1741 Thanks for the great list Adam. Bayesian filtering all the way. After many try's at stopping Spam I tried a Bayesian filter (SpamBully) and was totally blown away by its performance. After about 2 weeks of training I get ZERO!!! Spam. An occasional look through the Spam file to make sure there's not any filtered mail, that I wanted, is all that's needed. I looked long and hard at the different types of filters available and realized the downfall most of them have is the inability to filter out graphics and decipher language at the same time. Bayesian filters are the only ones that have that ability, that I could find. The only problem I have come across is the integration into outlook and outlook-express. Although the filters work great there is still a few little, very little that is, bugs to work out in the integration department. What I realized is, most of these filters are still in the experimental state and are works in progress. I am looking at installing Spambayes into Outlook, Has anyone had problems with this application. My first attempt at installing didn't work and I haven't had time to figure out what went wrong. I am currently using Spambully in Outlook-Express and really like its features, but it does not integrate with Outlook. Avid Reader, Ron Carmickle ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Marty R. Milette Subject: Joke of the day Here's a sample of one of America's Stupidest Thieves -- it should give some of you a chuckle... Do a view source of http://www.customtoolbar.com you'll see that this thief didn't even bother to remove my name and company name from the meta tags he stole from my REAL site at: http://www.custom-toolbars.com I guess nobody told him that it's a good idea to remove the real author's name... (I haven't contacted him about it yet because I wanted everyone to see the lengths some people will go for higher search engine rankings. Please don't spoil the surprise I have in store for him. :) Cheers, Marty R. Milette marty [at] milette [dot] com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind." - Seneca |
