| LED Digest 2444: A Whole Ton of Stuff |
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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. www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== Guest Moderator: Published by: John Audette LED Digest john, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. July 4, 2007 Issue no. 2444 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ===== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ A Bunch of News ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Offline Action: Print Catalogs? ==-- ~ Joel Anderson "I found that doing both a website and a paper catalog is very worthwhile." ~ Bob Cavanagh "...there is a company called mBase Systems that provides an integrated web / print service." --== Sketchy Incoming Links ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "A lot of spammers scrape RSS feeds for content." ~ Steve Pronger "...these types of links aren't hurting you." ~ Chris Nielsen "...most domain registrars are starting to become more active in suspending domains..." --== Virus Preventing Google Access ==-- ~ Bill Pavone "I obtained that virus by clicking on a search result in google a few weeks ago." --== Image Protection "Curtain" ==-- ~ Lorelle Smith "...check out the technology being used at TattooFinder.com and TattooJohnny.com." ~ Bev Hanna "...the way I've protected my images is this..." ======== NEW ====================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, Thanks to my Dad for taking over here, it was cool to see him back in the saddle doing his thing. He had some great insights to share, too. Even though I was on a break, I still read every issue and even had a few email exchanges with LEDers. It was nice to focus on client work exclusively for a couple weeks, and I was able to get ahead on several projects. I like the guest moderator model for the list. If you're interested in standing in here for a week or two, let me know. In the meantime, though, I have more news and things of interest here than you can shake a stick at. So start shaking those sticks, 'cuz here it comes: AROUND THE WEB The big news last week was Threadwatch.org closing its doors. Yup, the tin foil hat community hub is dead and gone (we think). Aaron Wall outlines the reasons why in this post, and it's hard to argue with him: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/15907. I'll still miss it quite a bit, it was a fun place with plenty of entertainment and insight. For now it's still online, but you can't login or post comments anymore. Feedburner is a great service and a great company, no wonder Google bought them. Of course now that they're owned by the G a bunch of cool stuff they do is free. The Pro stats package costs nothing now, and the MyBrand service is also free. Super cool action: http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/07/freeburner... MARKETINGEXPERIMENTS SLIDES Speaking of Threadwatch, I wrote an article there recently about a recent MarketingExperiments.com report on social media marketing. They've put together a really poor article with plenty of holes. You can read my review of it here: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/15823. It's noteworthy to take them to task because MarketingExperiments usually does quality work and is frequently cited by marketers. HATE TO BRING IT UP - RECIPROCAL LINKING Yes I DO hate to bring this up again, but reciprocal linking is a hot topic right now. It appears from reports around the web that Google has been rolling out widescale penalties for sites with excessive, unrelated reciprocal links pages. The crew over at SEOmoz reports on it here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-it-looks-like-to-be-lost... and provides a good example of the potential consequences. Anyone else seeing this penalty in action? Anyone else still using recip linking to good effect? HATING ON LINKING Eric Ward's one of my favorite authors over at SearchEngineLand (and he always posts great stuff here too). His recent article titled, "5 Things I Hate About Linking" is not only humorous it's true: http://searchengineland.com/070702-093748.php KEYWORDS IN THE DOMAIN We recently had a discussion here about keyword-laden domains for SEO. Aaron takes it all a step further with his unique insight http://www.seobook.com/archives/002323.shtml outlining the synergy between domain names and keyword-based SEO. Quality, detailed, and brilliant stuff again from Aaron. It also covers the wider picture in regards to anchor text, filters, and evolving algorithms at Google. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF Finally, a pick-me-up kinda post that's well worth a read. Daniel Schawbel writes how, if you believe in yourself, you help others believe in your brand. Marketing = confidence and this article sums that up nicely; it also encourages you to believe in what you're doing and seize opportunities: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/12773 We had an onslaught of posts from the last issue, so bear with me while I work through the backlog. Have a great week, Adam Comment? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Joel Anderson Subject: Print catalogs > To open a new topic, I'm interested in folks' > experience with paper catalogs... we consistently > get catalog requests from customers... - Chris Allen, LED Digest 2443 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1849/190/ I found that doing both a website and a paper catalog is very worthwhile. There are a LOT of potential customers out there that do not have good internet access, or prefer to read a paper catalog. The two re-enforce also tend each other. I send a paper catalog that is made up of a subset of the items on the website about 4 times a year. When I send out the paper catalog, traffic on the website jumps. I use a different prefix to my stock numbers for the website and paper catalog to track responses from each. Often I get orders on the website that were generated from the paper catalog, and I get mail orders that use the order form in the catalog that are for items that are only listed on the website. I have not found an automatic of converting the website to a catalog that produces a decent looking catalog, but doing it manually is not very difficult. I cut and paste the items I want from the website into Microsoft Word or Publisher, then remove all links, change the low resolution but fast loading images I use on the website into high resolution images (not really a necessary step, but the finished product looks much nicer). The hardest and most time consuming part is to tweak the listing, descriptions, image sizes, etc. so everything fits properly on a page and the pages look reasonably attractive. I e-mail the files to my printer and a few days later the catalog is in the mail. Joel Anderson Interesting World Coins & Paper Money http://www.joelscoins.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Bob Cavanagh Subject: Print catalogs Chris, I assume you already have your website in an electronic storefront system and probably don't want to switch at this point. But there is a company called mBase Systems (http://mbase.com) that provides an integrated web / print service. They can both host your web store and produce flyers and catalogues from the same database. We have no experience with their flyer / catalogue service but we do host a small storefront with them. I do receive catalogs from companies who do use the service which look very good. Bob Cavanagh Director of Technology Queen's School of Business 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: Michael Martinez Subject: Incoming links > ... someone is putting [our] links at the bottom > of link farm pages... I'm afraid this will hurt our > site with search engines because of the low quality links. - Sandra Combs, LED Digest 2443 It appears you are publishing an RSS feed for your newsletter. A lot of spammers scrape RSS feeds for content. This generally doesn't cause a problem for legitimate sites. Your site is well-indexed in Google. I would not be concerned for the time being unless you lose rankings for search results. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Incoming links Hi Sandra, It's not worth your time and effort. Annoying they may be, but these types of links aren't hurting you. It looks like they're using your RSS feed to put content on the page. Have a look at the source code to see what's really going on. It's a scraper / spam site with zero value for sure, but these types of sites are usually here today, gone tomorrow. There is software available which will convert RSS feeds into HTML and display it on a web page. There is nothing sinister in this when used appropriately. I've used it myself to display feeds related to the content on my site. Generally it's win-win. I get to display regularly updated, relevant content which is of interest to my visitors and the publisher gets increased exposure of their feed (usually a blog) and direct links back to their site. I've never had anyone complain, but if they did I'd be quite happy to remove the feed. Cheers Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: Incoming links I doubt the links help them, and Google says that no one can hurt you by linking to you. That makes sense since you have no real control over who links to you. You could contact them and copy their ISP and their domain registrar and ask them to stop. They won't like getting that kind of attention since hosting companies don't want trouble-makers and most domain registrars are starting to become more active in suspending domains of spammers. Yes, I was surprised that a registrar would do anything, but it happened to me once (mistaken report) and my domain was suspended for a short while. Now I include the domain registrar in my spam reports. Thank you, Chris Nielsen big-zoo.us Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Bill Pavone Subject: Virus > ... my computer got hit with a virus... It > completely hijacked my access to the > Google search engine. I cannot access > it, or Adsense, at all. - Eva Rosenberg, LED Digest 2443 Eva, I am no an expert on this but I had the same thing. I had to download a tool called FixWareOut and run it but I had to do several other steps as well. The 3 links to spyware forums I have provided are all excellent and very helpful. http://forums.spywareinfo.com/ www.forums.majorgeeks.com www.tomcoyote.com I obtained that virus by clicking on a search result in google a few weeks ago. Then I could no longer go to google anymore, it took me to another search engine. Be patient, do what they tell you, and your computer should be fine. Bill Pavone http://www.EsgDirect.com Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Lorelle Smith Subject: Image protection If you want a really sophisticated way of preventing someone from stealing an image, check out the technology being used at TattooFinder.com and TattooJohnny.com. It's a continuously scrolling curtain in front of an image. These websites have to protect thousands of images so they can sell them to people planning to get a tattoo (you buy the stencil, which you bring to the tattooist of your choice). Although one tattooist told me they regularly steal screen shots, it's like taping a song on a radio station that doesn't come in very well. Not much of a copy, more of an annoyance. Pieter, you might try contacting those 2 site owners to find out what the software program they're using is, and if you do, please let us know. Lorelle Smith, The Keywordsmith Professional Keyword Research & Analysis Consultant http://www.Keywordsmith.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Bev Hanna Subject: Image protection Hi Pieter: I'm not sure if this is what you want, but the way I've protected my images is this: Firstly, all my images are in their own table or table cell. I size the cell to two pixels smaller in either dimension than the actual image size. Then, I place the image as a background image in the cell. Finally, I center a transparent gif the same size as the image minus one pixel on all four sides, over top of the background image. Then I name the transparent gif the same name as the image in its alt tag. This way the alt tag shows up when people think they are stealing my images, but all they are getting is the gif. If you really want to get fancy, you can put a ghosted copyright image into the transparent gif. Of course, anyone who REALLY wants to steal an image can do so by taking a screen-shot of it, but most people don't bother. No doubt there are more sophisticated methods of image protection out there, but I've been pretty satisfied with this. It may be a bit more work, but I think it's worth it. Bev Hanna, S.C.A. http://www.bevhanna.com Comment? ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by: GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. 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