| LED Digest 2402: Recommended Spam Filters? |
|
|
|
================================================== 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 .............................................. May 3, 2007 Issue no. 2402 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Recommended Spam Filters ==-- ~ John Smart "...do you use any 3rd party spam filters? Can you name a good one? Please?" --== A Google Shuffle? ==-- ~ Gillian Fernandez "...I can't help being worried that this drop in results is going to stick for a while." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Google Supplemental Hell ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "...be prepared to do the solid, ongoing work to build a long-term, viable presence on the Web." ~ Donald Nelson "...I have never read anything...we could be penalized if 'bad' sites link to us." ~ Michael Martinez "Get value-passing links from pages that are in the Main Index." ~ Dirk Lutzweiler "I don't completely understand how someone could 'whore your site's URL'..." --== Internet Marketing Conferences ==-- ~ Brad Waller "...you will find more top notch talent and innovation at Affiliate Summit." --== Why Linux? ==-- ~ Veronica Yuill "I agree Linux isn't for everyone, but as a web developer it suits my needs perfectly." ~ Charles Oertel "In my world it is definitely due to cost." --== Essential Biz Software ==-- ~ Reid Neubert "Having just purchased and installed ACT 2006, I can attest to it being bloated." =========== NEW ================================== From: John Smart Subject: Spam Filters I hate spam. I am guessing you do also. I am an OpenSRS reseller, and my relationship with them is coming to an end. They had a spam filter service that was phenomenal - the best thing ever - hardly any false negatives, very few false positives, just cool, clean e-Mail. Until it stopped working. They now offer the same service with no quarantine - I do not trust them enough for that. But my wonderful clients hate spam too, and are going to be disappointed that they are being spammed again. Oh what is a host to do? So LED'ers - do you use any 3rd party spam filters? Can you name a good one? Please? Thanks, John Smart InternetDesign.com A Human Touch in a Digital world. Comment? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Gillian Fernandez Subject: A Google Shuffle? Can anyone tell me if I need to worry long term? My site (only just over 6 months old) ever-so-sexy.com had achieved PR2 on Google and three page one search results which were resulting in a moderate level of business. At the end of last week my PR went to PR3 and then my three good search results disappeared. Then they came back again but then disappeared again with the subsequent loss of traffic and business. I know that SEO is a lengthy process and perhaps I have been extremely lucky to have progressed so quickly but I can't help being worried that this drop in results is going to stick for a while. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for any helpful advice. Gillian Fernandez Comment? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Michael Linehan Subject: Google Hell > Forbes has up an article on the consequences of being dumped > into a claimed 'supplemental index', also known as 'Google Hell'... > So, should the SEO be liable for causing the mess, and > shouldn't this industry have some form of standards? - John Smart, LED Digest 2401 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1804/55/ For me this article doesn't really point at the need for standards. What I conclude from it is something else... [all quotes from the article at Forbes: http://snipurl.com/1izjp] -------------- "But even after he reversed the consultant's changes, he couldn't get Skyfacet's pages out of Google Hell, where they remain today." -------------- Partly because, as with most sites, he doesn't even have the basics of optimization taken care of. The question, for me, isn't why his rank plummeted. I'm actually somewhat puzzled how he making any money from a good search engine rank in the first place. -------------- "So many of the rules are vague," Jhalani says. -------------- Many things you must NOT do are very clearly spelled out by Google, and are well known to any SEO-type person who is up-to-date. -------------- "But he admits that he tried gray-area tactics..." -------------- (I'd like to know what they all were.) Sorry, but given that, I don't think he should be complaining about getting dumped to the supplemental! It's very unfortunate when it happens accidentally. But I don't think Forbes should be publishing these comments as if there's something wrong with Google's computers doing this, when a business owner knowingly tries shady tactics. -------------- "For a small site like ours, you have to stay right on the edge to compete with sites with bigger budgets," he confesses. -------------- This is a dangerous myth that can lead, in desperation, to using questionable tactics. No, you don't need to stay right on the edge. You just have to find someone who actually knows what they are doing --- implement the basics really, really well --- and be prepared to do the solid, ongoing work to build a long-term, viable presence on the Web. -------------- "Bartow believes that some identical content on 90 of his site's property listing pages caused Google to mistake them for plagiarized spam sites." -------------- Well... uhhh... ninety pages with content that could be regarded as identical! Again, something that is a very understandable reason for pages dropping to the supplemental index - and not something to criticize Google for. The main thing, I think, that this article points to is that people need to become educated consumers, they need to realize that there is no magic quick-fix to be bought, they need to go nowhere near anything that is remotely "tricky" or "gray", and they need to be careful about researching and finding reputable providers - as is (unfortunately) true in every field, be it plumbing, car mechanics, professional photography, or the Web. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: Google hell Dear All, Adam brought up a discussion on another site in which someone complained that Google makes it possible for a competitor to sabatoge another site using campaigns that place a lot of links to the victim site originating from disreputable sites. Indeed in Google's literature and in Matt Cutt's blog we have been warned not to link to "bad neighborhoods" but I have never read anything from Google that would suggest that we could be penalized if "bad" sites link to us. As far as I know, it is wise not to link back to sites if we suspect that they are spammers or if they have been penalized by Google for any reason. I just delete requests for links coming from such sites, but I doubt that I or anyone else would be penalized if a site, proposing a reciprocal link exchange for example, continued to link to me. If anyone else can shed more light on this matter, then please do so. Best Wishes, Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Google hell I read the Forbes article. The jeweller wrongly assumes the (apparently bad, unethical) SEO work was what got his site dumped into the Supplemental Results Index. Your pages go Supplemental for one reason and one reason only: insufficient INTERNAL PageRank to justify their being included in the Main Web Index. This has nothing to do with duplicate content. Matt Cutts, Vanessa Fox, and Adam Lasnik of Google have all repeatedly stated over the past few months that the determining factor is INTERNAL PageRank. That's it. You want out of the Supplemental Index? Get value-passing links from pages that are in the Main Index. Duplicate content is handled by FILTERS, not by the Supplemental Index. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Dirk Lutzweiler Subject: Google hell In response to Google Hell -- I don't completely understand how someone could "whore your site's URL all over the place, on tons of spamblogs and Viagra pages." Don't you need to be the site owner or at least be privy to username and password to pull this off? Maybe I don't understand what whoring (submitting) a site URL at Google entails? Maybe I just don't understand how spamlogs and Viagra pages work? Is this the case? Please enlighten me more on this! Or are you talking about submitting URLs at other search engine submission services and if this is the extent of it, does Google really recognize indexing of sites at other listing services other than itself? It troubles me to think that competitors could detriment your Google ranking. Please advise! Dirk Lutzweiler dentalquarters.com Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== Ever wonder why Presidents and board chairmen hire professional writers to craft their speeches? Because they're usually trying to sell something, be it a new federal program or a lame excuse for a lousy fourth quarter. You're in sales, too. Online sales. Your site needs words that sell, power words. http://GetWebContent.com/LED words. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Brad Waller Subject: Conferences (and more) > I was wondering if there were any good yearly > conventions specifically for Internet Marketing? - Chris Edwards, LED Digest 2399 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1802/55/ The two big ones I would suggest are ad:tech http://ad-tech.com/ - many across the country, but San Francisco is the grand daddy, with New York a close second; and Affiliate Summit http://affiliatesummit.com/ - Has been Las Vegas and Florida, and they are trying out London. I've been going to both for longer than most of you have been online, and I can say that you will find more top notch talent and innovation at Affiliate Summit. The ad:tech conferences are geared towards BIG business and they really don't go in-depth into topics, and because of this you will not mee the players and innovators face to face. Look at the descriptions of who should go and what you learn about at ad:tech and you can see it tries to cover quite a lot. The exhibit floors are different, with ad:tech much larger, but for this group here I'm not sure how many of the exhibitors are looking for smaller businesses. If you register in advance, the ad:tech exhibit hall is free. If you live nearby, it is a no brainer just to show up and get some free tchockes and see who is doing what. I was an official blogger for ad:tech San Francisco for the third year in a row: http://adtechblog.com In fact, I was at a session with Bruce Clay and Aaron D'Souza (engineer at Google) when someone asked about valid W3C code. The Google engineer first said that browsers and clawlers are very robust and can handle bad code. Bruce said that it can only hurt you, and that his entire site is valid. Aaron added that bad code can hurt your rankings, particularly because it can impact accessibilty. They pretty much concluded that valid code was a good idea. All that said, the fact that so many sites have errors implies that there is a difference between perfectly valid code and really messed up code. If you have minor attributes missing, I doubt the effect is much at all, but if you have messed up tables, then it could cause you to drop. I'd say that if you can fix the errors you really should. After all, you are looking to get every fraction of a percent help to outrank the other sites. The bottom line is that you need to have a real reason for your site to be above the results that show up if you want to be ranked higher. Finally, since I was out last week I didn't reply, but we have been using Network Solutions for our SSL certificates since Verisign and Thawte got so expensive. http://www.networksolutions.com/SSL-certificates/index.jsp Brad Waller Manage and Sell your own site advertising http://adjungle.com waller, adjungle.com Comment? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Veronica Yuill Subject: Linux > Why would some besides a geek go > with Linux instead of OS X? - Michael Linehan, LED Digest 2401 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1804/55/ You haven't looked at Linux for a while, have you Michael? :-) I went with Linux rather than OSX because I knew I didn't want Windows and I had a perfectly good PC. Why would I buy more hardware? The distribution I went with was Xandros. It took about four mouse-clicks and ten minutes to install, and everything worked out of the box, even sharing drives with my Windows PCs. It truly was easier and quicker than installing Windows. All updates to operating system, drivers, and programs are downloaded and installed using one simple interface. From this same place I can choose from hundreds of programs that will help me do my job. Flavour-of-the-month Ubuntu works the same way. I'm not evangelising; I agree Linux isn't for everyone, but as a web developer it suits my needs perfectly. For the relatively small amount of word processing and spreadsheet work I do, Open Office is fine, and I regularly exchange documents with MS Office users without problems. I have a superb text editor, browser, and email client, a time-tracking application, and a calendar / to-do list. I can run a test environment on my local PC (Apache, MySQL, PHP) with ease and be confident that it's virtually identical to the live servers I develop for. Oh, and no need for a bloated anti-virus app, slowing my PC to a crawl :-) I suspect a lot of business owners (and home users) with fairly basic computing needs would find that Linux was a good solution for them, and if they already have PCs it will run on their existing hardware (and use less resources than an "upgrade" to Vista would!); no need to buy new. PS have you noticed that Dell are now offering desktop PCs with Ubuntu pre-installed? I think this could be a smart move as dissatisfaction with Vista rises. Veronica Yuill www.larecettedujour.org Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Charles Oertel Subject: Linux > I don't understand all these people writing in about > Linux. Yes, there are some great programs. But there > are major players who have no intention of porting to Linux. - Michael Linehan Hi Michael You are right - OSX is very usable, and OpenOffice is not 100% compatible. But, in South Africa, the Apple software is far too expensive (given our weak currency). In the developing world in general, the cost of Windows exceeds the average monthly income, and Apple is even worse. Then, you still need to buy all the software to make the machine productive. > And, I tried Open Office. Yes, it's Word compatible - sort > of. Even for the simplest documents, there are glitches. > Whereas Apple's Pages imports from and exports to Word > flawlessly... As for OpenOffice - the only time I have had difficulty is when a company has use a ridiculous template that was done by a rank beginner. This inconvenience is far outweighed by the improved ease of use of OpenOffice compared to the newer versions of Word. At my current customer I have use of Word and am now downloading OpenOffice because Word is too clever (turning numbered lists into headings and failing to stick to my defined styles etc). > With Linux, you get a lot of "potential" power at a great price, > but that there are severe limitations that have to be solved. This sounds like you last touched linux a long time ago. The latest version of Ubuntu does not require even geek status. My 15-year old nephew from the country installed Ubuntu on his PC last year totally unaided. > The couple of times I so-called installed (i.e. compiled) a > program, compared to just installing in OS X! What a hassle! Aha - now you have given yourself away. I am a geek and I compile programs as part of my job as a programmer - but I last installed software on a linux machine by compiling over 2 years ago. Ubuntu uses an extremely effective software packaging mechanism that literally allows me to search by name, function or category, select the programs I want, and click one button to have them all installed via the internet without any further input from me. It is even more efficient than Windows or OSX, because I do not have to put disks into the CDROM, then find and type in license keys. > (Gartner Group report: Mac equals several thousand > dollars per person increased profit.) Oertel Report: Linux equals several thousand dollars per person reduced expenses. ;-) > Why would some besides a geek go with > Linux instead of OS X? In my world it is definitely due to cost. kind regards, Charles Oertel Comment? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Reid Neubert Subject: Software > What are the essential programs you use > every day for work? I still use ACT 2000 > because I've heard the recent versions are > bloated. - Adam Audette, LED Digest 2398 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1801/55/ Having just purchased and installed ACT 2006, I can attest to it being bloated. It takes about 4 times as long to launch as PhotoShop does! And it remains a less-than-intuitive (ahem!), buggy product. A word of caution, if you don't install it in its default directory (I'm on Windows XP), it doesn't run properly! After uninstalling it and re-installing, it still has some weirdness to it. And don't get me started about the wait times for tech support! An application I find essential, altho I don't use it everyday, is SnagIt, for screen captures (www.techsmith.com) -- full screen, one window -- even scrolling -- or just an area. Great program. I'm a few versions behind (v6) which works fine for me. I fear it is becoming bloated, because they keep adding more features -- they are now on v8.2. Best, Reid Neubert www.neubertweb.com Comment? ------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Nothing endures but change." - Heraclitus |
