| LED Digest 1811: PPC Click Suspicions |
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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 ................................................ May 27, 2004 Issue #1811 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Third Tier PPC Providers - Worth It? ==-- ~ Jim Girardeau "It would be in the PPC engine's (short-term) interest to let the scams go..." ~ Tom Anson "No one seems to be home at these 3rd-tier PPCs." --== To PayPal or not to PayPal ==-- ~ Steven Rothberg "...PayPal was now allowing at least some merchants to accept payments by phone." --== Credible SEOs and SEMs ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "I decided to subcontract my SEO work." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Opt-in Lists - Building Your Own ==-- ~ Greg Thibodeaux --== Outbound Links Increasing Rankings ==-- ~ Dirk Johnson ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Jim Girardeau Subject: 3rd tier PPC > One of the biggest problems seems to concern the PPC's > relationship with the contract sites that use their technology. > Some of these, it seems to me, must find it profitable to dummy > click on their own engine when times are slow (for which they > receive part of the revenue). - Sandy Galvin, LED 1809 As a regular PPC user for the last 4 years (at about $20,000 per year), I second Ms. Galvin's comments on dummy or low quality PPC clicks. Over the last few years I've used AdWords, Overture, FindWhat, AhHa/Enhance, Looksmart, Sprinks, Kanoodle and a couple others. I've found that the quality of affiliate search sites these PPC engines use drops off dramatically after AdWords and Overture and, to some extent, FindWhat. Looksmart seems to be getting worse and worse in this regard. When I fund the lesser PPC accounts, the traffic numbers go up, but when I go to view some of the sites that are sending the increase in referrals, some of them aren't even there later the same day! And there's no way that these unknown sites could deliver more honest traffic in a day than well-known, reputable sites. Now if that's not indicative of a scam, what is? Maybe this is why when you call these low-level PPC places they won't tell you which sites are serving their results? It would be in the PPC engine's (short-term) interest to let the scams go, since the PPC engine and the scammer both get paid. The more the scammer makes, the more the PPC engine makes. Only the customer is harmed. There's no incentive for them to change unless the customers figure this out and stop using them. And about SearchScout, which shows up on my logs too... they are owned by Claria which offers ad services through GAIN (Gator Advertising and Information Network) which is one of the biggest purveyors of sleazy advertising methods. Where is SearchScout getting it's sponsored results... Overture! (which is owned by Yahoo) So, it's not just the little PPCs that are letting ethics slide for higher profit! Even Overture/Yahoo is willing to partner with one of the sleaziest advertising firms on the net if it makes them some money. At least Google is still ethical and they let you decide if you want your ads to just run on Google or the full run of their network. They'll even let you target by language and geography too. Try calling Overture and asking to restrict your ads from running on sites like SearchScout and they'll tell you it's not possible. Try asking to run your ad only in the United States, same answer. They can't afford to let you be in control of your advertising because they're making so much money off-targeting your ad and partnering with sleazy companies like Gator/GAIN. We're all in for really bad time if Google's IPO decreases their ethical standards or causes them to think that letting their bogus click security loosen a little will make them more money. Jim Girardeau SocialService.Com - The Social Service Job Site http://www.socialservice.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Tom Anson Subject: 3rd tier PPC I have yet to dive into Overture or AdWords, but I've had PPC accounts with a number of 3rd-tier PPC engines for several years now. I've never had to re-fund my account (and haven't been able to get a refund of my account). My advice is to save your money. No one seems to be home at these 3rd-tier PPCs. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Steven Rothberg Subject: PayPal or CC Debra Sawyers indicated that you can't take PayPal payments over the phone. I know that used to be the case, but I thought I saw something a few months back that PayPal was now allowing at least some merchants to accept payments by phone. We haven't had a customer request that yet, but a non-profit that I work with will likely want to use its PayPal merchant account to accept credit card payments for membership dues this fall, so can anyone tell me whether we'll be able to do that? Steven Rothberg The Highest Traffic Job Board for Students & Grads http://www.collegerecruiter.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: Credible SEOs > I figured I've been in the minority for the following > statements. I feel Web designers and copywriters > need to understand search and incorporate those > skills as a standard service. - Shari Thurow, LED 1810 My almost nine years in the Web design field included a brief stint as an SEO. And I wasn't very good at it. So, having learned this painful lesson about what I didn't know, and this included the loss of a longtime client, I decided to subcontract my SEO work. Talk about a no-brainer: I went to the guy who has put one of my postcard marketing sites at the top of the search engines. I figured that if his work is good enough to make me money, well, he's good enough for my design clients. If needed, he works with a copywriter to beef up the words and make them more search engine-friendly. So, lesson to all of the designers out there: If you're not very good at something, there are plenty of others who are. Strike up a business relationship with them, and you'll be miles ahead. Martha Retallick "The Passionate Postcarder" http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Greg Thibodeaux Subject: Source for Paid "Opt-In" lists - Building your own. I have a client who has a new (spiritually based) product he wants to sell online and wants to do some email marketing to a 3rd party list. Does this really work? What are the best companies to get targeted lists from (or are there any)? Is there a better way to build a list from scratch fast? Greg Thibodeaux ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Dirk Johnson Subject: Outbound links > After doing linking campaigns for a couple of clients, I noticed > that pagerank seemed to increase as soon as I put outbound > links on the site, long before any number of links could be > reciprocated... I reported this in several forums, and was > heartily poo-pooed by the experts... - Dave Roberts, LED 1808 Dave, It's no surprise that you got "heartily poo-pooed by the experts". As someone who does link management work full-time, and has done it for years, I stay out of those forums. The "advice" presented in them is notoriously misguided. Your analysis was correct. The "experts" have never seen the phenomenon of outbound links helping a site because they are too concerned about gaming Google with their linking efforts, and creating complex theories. They'd never put a non-reciprocating link on their sites, because that would run counter to their coveted theories. They flamed you out because you challenged their beliefs. They are not really interested in facts and analysis and what actually works. Here are a few of the myths that are widely-circulated on those boards as "fact", when, in fact, I see case after case that refutes all of it: - Myth 1: Non-reciprocating, outbound links are "bad". As you observed correctly, they can actually help. Google seems to reward sites for being genuine resources to their visitors. And to do so implies a lot of non-reciprocating links. The only thing that "leaks" about the whole concept of "leaking" PageRank to non-reciprocating outbound links is the theory of "leaking PR" itself. Maybe it holds up mathematically in the famous PageRank equation, but real world examples of index results refute the effect of it on actual index results, very consistently. As you've observed, it actually helps. - Myth 2: Low PR links bring down your own PR. The fact is, every link earned adds to your overall standing. Even the original PageRank equation (which is very likely not a big factor in the actual Google index results anyhow) is an summation, with the PR of each link evaluated separately, and then totaled. It is not an average. Whoever thinks otherwise simply does not understand advanced algebra. It is true that some links count more than others. But, mathematically, they all count, cumulatively. There is emerging and very strong evidence that the sum total of links from unique domains, while also tossing out the influence of multiple links from the same domain, is a very strong factor in Google's index results. The PageRank formula does not account for this at all because it does not distinguish for unique domains, so I suspect that this evaluation is a separate, and very significant factor inside the Google indexing algorithm. My guess is that it's probably Google's way of devaluing the following situations: - Multiple instances on a site of affiliate links that point directly back to the merchant domain. - Internal links within a site. - Outright gamesmanship and "sister" site link structuring. - Paid advertising text links that show up on every page of a advertiser's site. The "first" link coming back from a domain is the one matters. The rest seem to be discounted heavily inside Google. I see a lot of examples of sites with thousands of links that come from a handful of domains that do not index as well as a site that has only a few hundred of links, but they all come back from unique domains. And those links are not necessarily high PR links. The site with more unique domain links generally gets indexed higher for specific keywords. I have never seen this tidbit described on any discussion board or put forward by any SEO specialist, because arriving at this conclusion is not readily apparent, except to those of us who do advanced analysis of competitive link back situation reports on a daily basis. You read it here, first. Forget about PR. Unique domains matter. Big time. - Myth 3: "One-way" backward links count more than reciprocal links. This is a myth being perpetrated and perpetuated by the "PR links for sale" industry, and by the SEO gurus who rely on that industry to get their index results. Sites with large numbers of reciprocal links and limited numbers of one-way links continue to index extremely well. Again, all it takes is a look at some actual, real world index results, and then analyze the link-back profiles, in depth. - Myth 4: Google counts only the links from pages with PR4 and higher. This one is famous, and even the SEO crowd knows that it is a flawed theory. Yet it is perpetuated and recycled by the amateurs on the discussion boards, probably because Google only shows high PR links in their standard link back report. There are a lot of sites that have very few PR4 links coming back, but a large number of lower PR links, and they index extremely well. Again, think "unique domains" here. - Myth 5: Links outside of your "theme" will hurt you. Total bunk. The real reason for not pursuing links outside of your "theme" is because it is not appropriate to do it, and it is mostly a waste of time and money. Themeing takes place on the page level, not the domain level. And links coming from "non-themed" sites can reside on pages that are quite well-themed. A link from the "travel links" page of a gambling site may be very helpful to a travel agent, if only from a keyword density analysis perspective. The direct traffic from that link would be non-existent. Please realize that I am not a fan of this practice at all, but the results that I have seen prove that it works. Take it for what it's worth. If you want a link strategy that works well, then forget all of gobbledygook on the discussion boards. Success is much more simple than that. Just set out to link as if your site traffic depended on it, and that Google did not exist. Request links from as many sites as you can find in your realm of interest that publicly offer to reciprocate. Link to them first, and request links from them using their preferred method of submission. Be sure to use their online submission form, if one is provided. Be gracious and patient. Don't ever threaten to remove links if you don't get a reciprocal. And no gamesmanship with respect to PR, networks, page coding, etc. Keep doing this work indefinitely, with as much vigor as you can muster. You'll likely be amazed at the outcome, and you'll soon leave the "game players" in the dust. I see this happen all the time. Dave, you'll rarely see that kind of straightforward advice on a linking discussion board, where gamesmanship is celebrated. Yes, it's more interesting to over-analyze something, but it is all quite misguided. Thanks! Dirk Johnson, Owner LinkStrategy.com http://www.linkstrategy.com djohnson, roiwebsites.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. 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