| LED Digest 2375: Competitive Intelligence |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.GetWebContent.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. March 26, 2007 Issue no. 2375 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ===================== --== Google Alerts for Competitive Intelligence ==-- ~ Rod Aries "...information on how to use Google to perform free competitive intelligence..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== iFrame Exploit to Run Hidden Adverts ==-- ~ Mike Podanoffsky "There are a couple of ways you are open to hackers..." --== 301 Redirects ==-- ~ Tim Blackwell "...we used a simple php script to catch pages that would have 404'd..." --== Marketing with Press Releases ==-- ~ Bill Rice "...our use of targeted press releases...was a leading factor to [high rankings]." --== HTML Standards and Search Rankings ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "There is no compelling reason for search engines to penalize non-compliant pages..." ========== NEW =================================== From: Rod Aries Subject: Using Google Alerts for Free Competitive Intelligence My sister runs an online herb store, http://www.1stchineseherbs.com, and was curious if people were "talking" about it on the net. I sent her this information on how to use Google to perform free competitive intelligence for her. Google offers a free service called Google Alerts ( http://www.google.com/alerts ). Essentially this service works by having Google exam their own database for new entries or additions for the keywords or topic you specify. It essentially is a free competitive intelligence service. Google Alerts has five variations of alerts that they offer: News, Web, Blogs, Groups, and Comprehensive. The categories are pretty self explanatory. I use the comprehensive option. Here are ways you can use it: * Monitor your company name. If your company was the LED Digest and wanted to do this you would add the following to be monitored. I use quotes around almost everything in my alerts... "http://www.led-digest.com" "www.led-digest.com" "led-digest.com" "LED DIGEST" * Monitor your competitors. * Monitor your own name. Be sure to do variations, ie "Rob Tankpozik" "Robert Tankpozik" "Bob Tankpozik" "Rob Tankpozik, Jr" * Monitor stocks that you watch. Be sure to use Boolean logic as appropriate. In example, if you are monitoring something that can be confused, such as if you wanted information on how to lead, but not lead ore or lead mining... Lead -ore -mining ... or even... Lead +"how to" -ore -mining You can select various options as when to receive the alert; I use the once a day choice. You can also create up to 1,000 alerts. Rod Aries http://www.innetwetrust.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Mike Podanoffsky Subject: iFrame Exploit to Run Hidden Adverts > Just discovered that someone has hijacked an > index page at a client's site with a zero-iframe... > If anyone has seen / heard of this happening on > other sites, I sure would be appreciative... - Kevin Houston, LED Digest 2374 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1777/55/ Kevin, If the pages on the server have been altered then you have been hacked. There are a couple of ways you are open to hackers - most commonly exploiting an IIS hole or exploiting a web form on your site. Mike Podanoffsky sunnybeachrentals.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tim Blackwell Subject: 301 redirects > ... we redesigned and re-architected an existing site... > the primary domain is staying the same... individual > page URLs will change as the client is moving from > a static to a CMS driven site. - Jeff Patrick, LED Digest 2374 Hi Jeff, We recently went through the exact situation. To combat this we used a simple php script to catch pages that would have 404'd. It is a slightly manual process. But, our page ranking didn't appear to be affected much. We use Apache, so we pointed our 404 errordocument line in the httpd.conf file to file: url_not_found.php and ran some checks to see if we could do a proper redirect. Here's the simple script we used. I also wrote the date, ip, 404 page and referrer to a .txt file to make sure that we would capture anything missed. I'm not sure if it's the most efficient way of doing things, but, it certainly beats a 404 :)
Tim Blackwell -------- new post - new topic --------- From: William Rice Subject: PR services > People all have their own preferred method for consuming news, > and while many folks do prefer a shorter blog ready format or > abstract, that does not mean the press release is dead. Far from > it. It just means recognizing how your particular news should be > distributed / shared and why. - Eric Ward, LED Digest 2371 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1773/55/ The Web Marketing Association uses press releases extremely effectively to promote the call for entries for our annual WebAward competition for Website development. Our award program recognized the best Websites in 96 industry categories. A headline "The Web Marketing Association Names Best Automotive Website" is more likely to be picked up than one the reads "The Web Marketing Association Names Best Website" if you are only interested in the auto industry. We use PRWeb to distribute our releases to specific industry groups, which gives us the ability to target the text of the release to a specific industry. We customize the headline, opening paragraph, quote and past winners data to the specific industry we are targeting. This allows our releases to be picked up on the thousands of sites, blogs and reporters who are focused on a specific industry. These releases has resulted in us being picked up in many trade publications and industry specific websites, but more importantly, it has created highly targeted pages within the search engines that point to our site. If you Google "Best Automobile Website", Best Bank Website" or even "Best Non-Profit Website" you'll get one of our pages and I feel strongly that our use of targeted press releases distributed through PRWeb was a leading factor to those pages high ranking. We also track the traffic generated by this strategy and these releases generate more traffic to our site that all of the other advertising we do during our call for entry period. Bill Rice, President Web Marketing Association www.07webaward.org ============ Sponsor Message =========== Why pay more for less? Some content providers charge extra to search-engine optimize copy. And some are so clueless, they don't offer SEO at all. A lot of good that'll do your site. At GetWebContent.com, we SEO everything we write without any additional charge whatsoever. Get it all, http://www.GetWebContent.com/LED ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Standards > Most people aren't aware that the W3 is the result > of the work by CERN (European Council on Nuclear > Research) and the United States government.... - Lee Roberts, LED Digest 2374 Yes. That agrees with what I said. Most people are NOT AWARE of the W3C. It doesn't matter where it came from. Most Web content is being produced by people who don't follow those standards. Web browsers and search engines maintain backwards compatibility for that reason alone. > Just because one might think they don't need to know the > standards doesn't mean the standards are arbitrary and useless.... The standards will always be arbitrary as long as backwards compatibility is maintained by the tools we use to access Web content. In your zeal to proselytize for W3C standards, I'll appreciate that you don't put words like "useless" in my mouth. > The wild west of Web design is going away. Government regulations > such as those found in the UK, Australia, Italy, and the European > Union are demanding closer compliance with (x)HTML and > accessibility. You failed to mention the United States, Canada, and India (nor all the non-compliant content that is still out there and won't change). I'm not ready to hold my breath on W3C standards or "the wild west of Web design". > Search engines as companies are getting smarter. I expect > that by 2010 we will see the end days of non-standards > compliant Web pages showing up in the search results. There is no compelling reason for search engines to penalize non-compliant pages in that fashion. Wishful thinking won't change the world. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ http://www.woundedwarriors.org/ ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. Free no-obligation proposal: http://GetWebContent.com/LED The Archives: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/126/120/ Subscribe: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/77/ Unsubscribe, Change Email, or Hold / Resume Delivery: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/4/17/86/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "There are two ways to spread happiness; either be the light who shines it or be the mirror who reflects it." - Edith Wharton |



