| LED Digest 1902: Most Popular International SEs? |
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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 ............................................... November 30, 2004 Issue #1902 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Most Popular Search Engines Outside US? ==-- ~ Beth Earle "...we don't know what search engines people in other parts of the world use." --== New ICANN Transfer Policy ==-- ~ Dejan Bizinger "For all of you who don't know about this new ICANN decision..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Getting Started with Blogs ==-- ~ Sandy Galvin "When advertising on blogs, it's useful to think of customers like starlings." --== The PayPal vs Merchant Accounts Debate ==-- ~ Lennart Svanberg "You need both!" ~ Mary Lee "PayPal has a great Buyer Protection program..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Link Farm Problem ==-- ~ Craig Fifield ~ Shari Thurow --== Why Firefox? ==-- ~ Theresa Mesa ======== NEW ==================================== From: Beth Ann Earle Subject: Which search engines are used outside the U.S.? Hello, fellow LED'ers. We have a number of clients who do business outside the U.S. and are interested in reaching potential clients in these regions via the search engines, which we'd love to help them with. The only problem is... we don't know what search engines people in other parts of the world use. We're particularly interested in the habits of business people outside the U.S., because our own clients are all B2B and would be targeting other business owners, engineers, purchasing agents, etc. I've tried doing some on-line research, with no real luck. Any input or advice from the LED community would be greatly appreciated. Wishing you all the best the Internet has to offer, Beth Earle Polysort LLC ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Dejan Bizinger Subject: ICANN Transfer Policy Hey, LEDers! I'm a little bit surprised that no one started a thread regarding the new ICANN Transfer Policy which is effective from November, 12. For all of you who don't know about this new ICANN decision, I will say that from now on if you have a domain name, and you don't lock it someone could transfer it without your approval! I will repeat, someone could transfer it without your approval! Before this transfer policy, if someone requested domain transfer you would have to give your permission by visiting certain link. If you would do nothing, after several days transfer request would be declined. Now, the situation is opposite. If someone requests a domain transfer you will have to approve or decline it within 5 days. Even, if you don't decline it, domain will be transferred. It means that if your domain name isn't locked and you go to a one week vacation that you could find out that your domain name is transferred! Other thing that can happen is that you don't get a transfer request email because of your spam filter. There are some positive things in all of this. Now, it is easier to transfer your domain name if you have some domain names at domain registrar who don't let you to transfer your domain names or if you have to pay for that. Imagine this: If someone wants to get your house he or she has to call you. If he don't get any answer from you within 5 days he will get your house. In offline world you have to give your approval with your signature and it seems that in online world it doesn't apply. So, I would suggest you to lock all of your domain names. It is free. The only thing that it can be time-consuming if you have many domains. Best regards, Dejan Bizinger, Web Producer and Consultant http://www.emarketingblog.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Sandy Galvin Subject: Blogs > I am an ancient old guy and I can prove it. I still don't > know what exactly a "blog" is! How do they differ from > a forum, chat room or just a web site? How much work > is involved in administering one? Dangers? Pitfalls? Cost? - Peter D'Aprix, LED 1899 Weblogs (blogs) are a growing list of personal diaries, gossip, and information links put forward by persons with special interests -- many times, but not always, political. We are not an SEO company or web design outfit -- but we advertise heavily at Christmas and have been using blogs for a couple of months. We get most of our traffic from free search placement and from PPC. (We've been lurking in this newsletter for a few years to snitch hints -- and very good hints they are, too!) and do pretty well, but we are always on the lookout for additional ways to extend our range within the limits of our advertising budget. Political blogs seemed to offer opportunities this year. We've used "blogads.com" to sign onto about 20 different blogs with sidebar ads ranging in price from $10 to $900 per week. Here's what we've experienced: - Wildly inaccurate suggestions as to a blogs typical traffic (compounded by the slump after the election). - Widely differing click rates given the traffic. - But a pretty good return. When advertising on blogs, it's useful to think of customers like starlings. They flock to a tree, make a racket for a while, and then startled... rise up in the air with a squawk and land in a different tree. The problem is to figure out what tree they are in and where they are headed next. The political blogs range from mildly bizarre to plain scary -- offering a forum for buzz heads, the mildly paranoid, vulgarians, malaprops, and exaggerators. ("As CD said to BF with his Xza, 'when he's not beaming radio messages into my head, GW is the worst !#$%^%$#! President since Genghis Kahn!!!' But don't quote me because Ashcroft is watching this blog very carefully!") There is a wonderful "this is how it used to be" atmosphere, and demographics, in some cases, from the Internet's Wild West Days (1999). For the SEO company headed in the direction of an advertising brokerage, learning the players and finding the nexus is where the problem lies - and this probably requires reading a lot of rubbish while asking "who comes here?" Sandy Galvin Barclay Blocks http://www.barclaywoods.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Lennart Svanberg Subject: PayPal vs other Dear Led-ers, > What are you using or setting up for clients? Merchant > Accounts to accept credit cards, PayPal, or both? > Personally, I see PayPal only as the sign of an online > merchant too cheap to get a merchant account and it > doesn't give me a good feeling about the site. - Brian Rideout, LED 1899 I've had a Paypal account for several years and merchant accounts for an even longer time. You need both! The advantages of Paypal are several: easy to use (once you've become a member), easy to set-up (for the merchant) and very reliable (Paypal offers one of the markets best control mechanism for both the seller and the buyer). The downside of Paypal are just as you say; some think it looks cheap but that's not really a problem. What is a problem with Paypal is the requirement of membership. Many buyers don't want to become members just in order to leave their credit card numbers. The hassle that Paypal requires from someone the first time they want to use them is not good for those that aren't as Internet-savvy as maybe you & I. Another big dis-advantage with Paypal is that I as a seller can't do a transaction on behalf of the buyer. Many times you'll get a credit card number for the customer by phone, by fax or by some other means just in order to do the transaction on behalf of the customer. Paypal requires a password protection which only the customer has so Paypal requires that the customer do their transactions themselves. More problems with Paypal are: American Express Corporate cards can't, at least until a year ago, be processed by Paypal. There are a purchase limit for new Paypal members (probably not a big problem as the limit is somewhere around 2,500 $ but anyway). And not to forget, not everyone in the world can become a Paypal member. For example people from the Czech republic can't be members, so if you're an international merchant like myself, you definitely can't only go with Paypal. All the problems aside Paypal is a great tool for those that are members. It's absolutely the quickest way of both sending and receiving money on the Internet (once you're a member). It's also both cheap & highly reliable. The advantages of having a merchant account are many: * The money comes straight into your bank account (with Paypal you need separate transfers, not a big hassle but anyway) * You can do transactions on your customers behalf (as there are no member requirements as with Paypal you "only" need your customers credit card numbers to do a transaction) * You can accept any credit card on the market * You can use any kind of shopping cart / e-commerce system on the market * Anyone in the world with a credit card can be your customer * A higher status as a seller (as mentioned by Brian) * Lower fees on Visa, MasterCard etc available than with Paypal (but with smaller sales volume not a big difference than with Paypal) The disadvantages of having a merchant account compared to Paypal are: * There are set up costs with having a merchant account, Paypal is free * A bit more hassle in getting started as a merchant than compared with Paypal (Paypal is very easy) * You need to have a business bank-account in order to have a merchant account, Paypal doesn't require that * There are usually monthly costs associated with merchant accounts, Paypal only charges you when there is a transaction in their system I hope that these experiences can be of value to you, Best regards, Lennart Svanberg, Executive Producer IMC Gothenburg 2004 - November 29-30th http://www.internetmarketingconference.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Mary Lee Subject: PayPal vs other In my first year of business I used only PayPal. It wasn't that I was too cheap or unprofessional, it was just that I didn't have the history to qualify for an internet merchant account, I was a new business etc... It is not always easy to qualify for an internet merchant account immediately. Many times people use Paypal because their sales don't justify the expense of opening and maintaining a merchant account. Many of these businesses are stay at home moms, retired mom & pop operations etc... & they are hoping to make enough to keep their heads above water. Not every business on the web is a big money maker. I now have 2 merchant accounts and use 2 different processors, because of the recent problems with DNS attacks against merchant gateways. I also still use Paypal. Why? Because there are a HUGE number of people out there that love Paypal & ebay. When I added a merchant account my sales doubled, but I still have 25% of my customers that prefer Paypal as their payment processor. I believe for optimal success you need both, but I don't disdain a seller because they only offer Paypal. PayPal has a great Buyer Protection program & in my many years of using Paypal I have only had 1 seller that did not ship the product and Paypal got my money back so it was no problem. (And to let you know I do hundreds of Paypal buys a year!) Mary Lee Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games http://www.dinnerandamurder.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Craig Fifield Subject: Link farm > A large link farm is linking to my site and I can't figure > out how to track them down to send a cease and desist > letter. I have sent a letter to ServiceMagic (the link recipient), > but they deny any involvement - Peggy Deras, LED 1899 Hi Everyone, In regards to Peggy Deras post in issue #1899 about the link farm problem, my advice would be not to worry about it. You only need to worry about link farms if you link back to the farm itself. Why? Simply because if having a farm link to you could get you penalized people would rush to create their own farms simply to knock their competitors off the search engines. Search engines don't want that to happen, so they won't penalize you for those incoming links. For what it's worth, I personally know about 30 different sites this is happening to right now almost exactly as it is to Peggy and it has never created a problem. While it's not comforting to see these links in my backlinks it's not worth my effort to try and get them removed, and actually until the farm gets caught it's probably helping these sites get spidered. If you must track them down try the Domain Explorer at http://www.whois.sc/ . If you sign up (free), you get access to some cool tools to check out who is behind the scenes at these sites assuming they haven't blocked access to, or falsified their whois info, which many of these sites do. Hope this helps! Craig Fifield Microsoft Small Business Directory http://sbd.bcentral.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: Link farm Hi all- This is in response to Peggy Deras' post in LED #1899 regarding link farms. I would go one step further in the process that Willie Crawford recommended in LED #1900 - I would let the search engines know about the link farms as a gesture of good faith. You can report search engine spam at the following places: - http://www.google.com/spamreport.html or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it - This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it - This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it MSN Search is still in beta. I'm sure that email address will change. But you can still turn in spam to that address in the meantime. Some search engine marketers (SEMs) might not recommend this because they think, "Why not keep that link popularity? My site is not being penalized." To be honest, I dislike that attitude because it is a "red flag" that the SEM might be a link farm practitioner. Search engines want to make sure their target audience is happy. If their target audience were not happy, then they wouldn't be able to sell all of those ads. By helping the search engines eliminate irritating link farms, you are helping search engines attain their goal. I don't think that is such a bad thing. Other SEMs might not agree with me. If I find a link farm, I always report it. Best wishes, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director ~ See us at the Search Engine Marketing Road Show http://www.semroadshow.com/ ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Theresa Mesa Subject: Firefox and alternative browsers Why design for anything else besides IE? Because the business magazines and computer magazines and even the tech columns in the newspapers are recommending that people check out Mozilla and Firefox (yes, I'm aware they are from the same development group). Because Linux users out there are growing in number and don't use IE. Because Mac users are growing in number (thank you, iPod), and because Microsoft will not be upgrading the current Mac version of Internet Explorer 5.2.3. Safari is a wonderful browser to use. Because we now have not only IE, but Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, etc. that don't have the security holes that Microsoft seems unable to completely plug. Because the other browsers' developers are not recommending that you turn OFF scripting in order to safely use them. Theresa Mesa Mesa Design House http://mesadesignhouse.com (a little broken, being redesigned, almost done) ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "The more laws, the less justice." - Marcus Tullius |
