| LED Digest 1825: Stealing Images; also Link Vendors? |
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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 ................................................ June 22, 2004 Issue #1825 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ===================== --== Text Link Vendors? ==-- ~ Ajeet Khurana "Does anyone have an experience to share on buying / selling text links?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The End of I-Sales ==-- ~ David Yancey "...relatively fewer of your readers are still in the (online business) 'newbie' group..." ~ Tom Anson "Those in this forum have been most generous with their time..." --== What are Alexa Rankings Worth? ==-- ~ Greg Watson "...traffic is always relative to comparable sites and...your goals." --== Image Search ==-- ~ Ian Dickson "Having your image used all over the place might be [an effective] viral marketing operation..." ~ Willie Crawford "I've never really worried about someone stealing my content or images..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Pros & Cons of Virtual IPs ==-- ~ Mark Ungvarsky ~ Charles Miesel --== Outbound Links ==-- ~ Karl L. Baldwin ======= NEW ===================================== From: Ajeet Khurana Subject: Text Link Brokers Are there any intermediaries / marketplaces / brokers for buying and selling text links? I am not talking about firms that specialize in raising linkpop by link marketing campaigns. Rather, I want to know if there are any vendors of links. Does anyone have an experience to share on buying / selling text links? Thanks Ajeet Khurana http://search-engines.allinfoabout.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: David Yancey Subject: End of I-Sales > I'd really love to hear your thoughts - not just on the fate of > I-Sales [and the other I-Lists], but on the bigger picture here. - Adam, LED 1821 Adam, when I saw the message to I-Salers from Andy Bourland, I, too, was not that surprised. As we all know, Andy has struggled for a year or more to find a way to make a profit from the discussion list format. Why do some lists, like LED, manage to flourish, while even an experienced ebusiness publisher like Andy cannot make it work? You suggest that perhaps the evolving, maturing web itself may hold the answer. I think you are correct. There are no reliable numbers on this that I am aware of, but my educated guess is that the ratio of online business-oriented readers with, say, less than six months online experience, versus those with, say two or more years of trying to master all this stuff, has flip-flopped in the last 18-30 months. This is a long way of saying that, while the absolute number of ebusiness-focused readers is still growing, relatively fewer of your readers are still in the (online business) "newbie" group. If correct, then this means that as the *proportion* of readers who are truly new to doing business online falls, the discussion lists like LED and I-Sales need to move up the expertise curve, to reflect the relatively more advanced information needs of the average reader. By and large, I have not seen I-Sales make this migration in terms of the topics it covers and the level of discussion. In contrast, LED manages to strike a very good topical balance, IMO. You (with the assistance of a core of active posters) also have managed to deal with the issues that especially affect site owners - - the excellent threads on selecting SEO help and on locally-based SEM are recent examples. The real energy for a discussion list comes from the shared sense of need by the majority of readers. If a post reflects the concerns of many or most of the readers, it will get responded to, as you well know. I feel that the LED content "works" largely because the LED audience is fairly well-focused, consisting mainly of those who are actively developing and promoting commercial sites, as opposed to (in my perception) the broader-based readership of not only I-sales, but Cliff Kurtzman's Online Ads, and Adam Boettiger's I-Advertising, too - - both of which are not nearly as active as they were in the heady days of the boom. Is the discussion list format dying, then? Yes, in my estimation. LED can well be the exception that proves the rule, however. But with the maturing web, and the now-demonstrated reality that a hefty percentage of commerce is migrating to the web and email, I see the need for new, more professional problem-solving and helper publications and sites. By and large, these will be fee as well as sponsor supported. The for-fee model will work just as it already works with other professional information tools aimed at readers who are quite accustomed to paying for quality content, credible advice and usable guidance. We will soon announce such a publication, in fact, having seen this emerging need earlier this year. We expect to succeed, and I also expect LED will continue to flourish, but nonetheless, I am sorry to see the suspension of I-Sales, which was such a supportive ember in the thousands of campfires of web business pioneers, and which, with hindsight, we all can now see also helped light the fires of a true business revolution. David Yancey http://www.vivante.com "Web searching *your* way" ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Tom Anson Subject: End of I-Sales Hi Adam, I certainly hope that LED Digest is not going the way of I-Sales, et al. It is an indispensable forum for me. When I started building my first website, I knew nothing about the internet (I wasn't even sure what a search engine was) or on-line marketing. This forum has been a great learning source and life-line. Those in this forum have been most generous with their time, offering me more help than I could ever afford at normal rates, and boundless encouragement. What you see in the forum is only the tip of the iceberg. It's a wonderful community. I've been part of some other forums, I-Search, I-Copywriting and I-Design included. None of them have been as helpful as LED Digest. (Most of their good posts were also carried in LED Digest.) And I've found that questions I asked in these other forums were much less likely to be published, which meant that discussion lines were not picked up and help was not provided. If discussion lists are, in fact, showing early signs of extinction, I wonder if it's not because of the time pressures we all seem to face, and the tendency of everything on the web getting monetized. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Greg Watson Subject: Alexa > The number of visitors to a site *IS* an indication of success. - Shari Thurow, LED 1822 > How can it NOT be? - Ken Evoy, LED 1824 "Success" is often an intangible description unique to the goals of each website. For example, for one of my websites, I set a goal of reaching 100 customers a year out of an estimated 3,000 viable prospects in the United States. Thus, this particular website will never receive a large number of visitors (ironically, it does have an Alexa ranking of less than 100,000). However, in January alone this year, I achieved my entire 2004 sales goals! The website has a conversion factor of about 4% of *unique* visitors, but many of these visitors keep coming back. Five months later, the website is starting to experience repeat sales, something which I thought would not occur for at least 12 months. So while I consider the site an extraordinary success... traffic is always "relative" to comparable sites and relative to your goals. Mr. Evoy did an exceptional job of pointing out this very fact! That the Alexa rankings are an excellent comparison tool to compare your site to comparable sites! So I whole-heartedly agree with Mr. Evoy. Of course I'm biased because I'm also one of his customers! Greg Watson http://www.gregwatson.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Ian Dickson Subject: Image search > Why would anyone want their images to be > indexed by a search engine? - Kathy Wilson Anderson, LED 1822 Not my area, but even I can think of why someone might want this. Having your image stolen used all over the place might be just the sort of viral marketing operation that would appeal to a brand builder with an unknown brand. (Build awareness, then tap into that to make your later campaign work better). It could also be used to test image styles - i.e. put up a few and if one of them gets used by teenage girls as a chat icon, and teen girls are your market, you've just found something valuable at little cost. Ian Dickson www.commkit.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Willie Crawford Subject: Image search Hi LEDers, Regarding Kathy Wilson Anderson's comment in LED 1822, I've noticed many images that have names other than the searched for term indexed on some search engines. I've often searched for a term and found images that weren't named after the term and just appeared to be returned because they were from a website related to the term??? I personally am a high touch marketer who likes to know who I am dealing with. So I do look for the person's photo on their website before I start doing business with them or even accept them as a client. It doesn't matter what the person looks like, I just like to feel that I am talking to a person, and I like to feel that I "know" that person. If I don't find an image on their site, I often do image searches. If that fails, I am less likely to do business with them, just because I do like to know who I am dealing with. I've never really worried about someone stealing my content or images because it's easy enough to do searches, discover the stolen content, and then have their host or their host's upline have them remove it... or simply shut down their site! Willie Crawford http://masterthepayperclicks.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Mark Ungvarsky Subject: Direct vs. virtual IP addresses > [Our] hosting company would prefer that all of the domains > be "virtual" - and that we only use one IP address... I would > think that there is an advantage in being located directly by > an IP address, or a disadvantage in not having one... - Kory Hellmer, LED 1824 Kory Hellmer asks if there is an advantage to having a distinct IP address for a Website as opposed to using a "shared" IP address. With shared IP addresses there is the danger of someone spamming from another Website on the same IP block that your site sits. That could result in your Website being inadvertently included on some blacklists. If you know and are comfortable with your web host (or the client is anyway) then it probably won't be a problem. If you DON'T know the web host pick up the phone and discuss this concern with them first. Get to know your host -- it's in your best interest. Not everyone out there is ethical or keeps tabs on who sits on the IP blocks they maintain. Other than that, it really doesn't matter. The search engines rank you through the incoming links that point to your site -- not what IP address you have. Best regards, Mark Ungvarsky Secure Marketing, LLC http://www.securemarketingsolutions.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Charles Miesel Subject: Virtual IPs A quality host would have the option, often for a modest fee, of dedicated IP's. These are often bundled with shared certificates, or sometimes the host is a certificate reseller. While I cannot overtly advertise to a list, I will say that I am involved in hosting. Charles Miesel ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Karl Baldwin Subject: Outbound links > Karl Baldwin had an interesting post [issue 1815] studying > whether outbound links help or hurt rankings in Google... - Jill Whalen, LED 1820 > ... as an often times critic of Jill Whalen I feel compelled to > acknowledge the accuracy and excellence of [her] contribution. - Bob Wakfer, LED 1824 Hey Jill and Bob, You have been dumping on a point that I wasn't endorsing. Jill's statement below, regurgitates the precise message I was putting forth in an LED post in issue 1815. Any references made regarding "PageRank" were merely incidental and not intended to be germane to the central point being advanced -- OUT BOUND LINKS IMPROVE RANKINGS ON GOOGLE. Jill stated: ----------------- "What you did prove, was much more important than whether PageRank leaks, however. You proved that even if you do leak PageRank, it makes no difference to your site, and that the benefits of linking out far outweigh any PR leakage that may occur (if indeed it even does). This is because PageRank plays such a minor role in how sites rank in the search results." ----------------- Jill has had a peculiar way of chastising LED posts from others, and yet endorsing them in her words as well.??? Best Regards, Karl L. Baldwin, President/Webmaster Websites Online Inc. www.websites-online.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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love on another." - Jonathan Swift |
