| LED Digest 2567: Online Shopping Tricks |
|
|
|
==================================================
The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.WillMaster.com/Master : the LED's Key Sponsor Master Series Software - Get Connected with Your WebSite www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. January 10, 2007 Issue no. 2567 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ===== NEW ======================= --== Network Solutions Being Crooked ==-- ~ GJ Berg "Network Solutions is pre-registering all domains that a person may check..." <Moderator Comment> --== How I Shop Online ==-- ~ Rod Aries "...how does your site compete against this strategy?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The Paid Links Scam ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "Yahoo! does indeed sell links..." ~ Chris Nielsen "...I thought I was addressing the more important issue..." ========= NEW ===================================== From: GJ Berg Subject: Network Solutions front-running domains from whois searches Network Solutions is pre-registering (AKA front running) all domains that a person may check (for availability) or "whois" searches so those domains can only be purchased via Network Solutions. http://www.domainnamenews.com/featured/domain-registrar-network-solutions... This front running essentially locks up the domain for five days. GJ Berg <Moderator Comment> It's an interesting issue, thanks GJ. It's gotten quite a bit of coverage lately on several high-profile sites, here are some additional links: Story on Digg referencing this: http://digg.com/tech_news/Network_Solutions_Front_Running_Whois_Domain_Searches Story on Digg from NetSol doing damage control: http://digg.com/tech_news/Network_Solutions_Responds_to_Front_Running_Accusations -adam ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= Grab your Visitor's Attention In Two Seconds Flat Attention Ticker makes them notice! Scrolling text banner is perfect for Special offers...News feeds...Syndication to other sites ... $49 one-time purchase--and use it forever http://bontragercgi.com/programs/AttentionTicker/ ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic -------- <Moderator Comment> Rod sent in this post before the holidays, but there hasn't been an opening to publish it until now. Great info for online retailers on how shopping is becoming much more of a social exercise - mostly in looking for feedback on product quality - but also in rating potential merchants and searching low price. -adam --------------- From: Rod Aries Subject: Hints from Experience Shopping Online 'Tis the season for shopping and I was discussing how I buy online with a friend who has an online store. She sells an item that people know, they just don't know her or her brand. I told her that the way I shop online the same way her customers may be looking to find her store. For my last purchase I knew what I wanted, but I didn't know what brand or model to buy. Thanksgiving reminded me that we haven't had a sharp knife in our kitchen for a decade, so I just decided to go out and buy a very good knife sharpener, not knowing anything about them. I quickly found they run from $15 to $500 and many different brands. She asked where did I begin. 1) I go to Amazon.com and search my keywords and see which models and brands USERS have ranked the highest (just look for the stars in the results listing). 2) As I start to click on the top user brands I use the Amazon feature that shows what visitors either bought or looked at after visiting that page. 3) Next as I start to narrow down the model/brand I glance at the professional reviews but I focus on reading the user comments. As I was narrowing in on one model that was around $70-80, I then went and clicked on what visitors also looked at, which was two models up. The first thing I noticed was that compared to other models, it had a lot of reviews (66) and 95%+ were 5 star reviews rather than a typical bell distribution of some good reviews and some bad. 4) The users reviews were very interesting - they were talking about knives that were higher end than I use, but I knew nothing about: "When I bought my Henckels (not the el cheapo Henckels International, mind you), I was doubtful... but this sharpener works." "I am an Executive Chef and have worked in a kitchen for over 25 years. I purchased this sharpener about a month ago and so far I am very satisfied. " "I bought this knife sharpener because it is Cooking Illustrated's highest rated power sharpener." "My 10 year old Henckel Knives are now the way there were the first day I bought them" One person even wrote that while most people test for sharpness on a tomato, he always tests on an arm hair, to see if he can cut the hair without touching the skin, because if the edge is sharp enough, you don't have to push down to the skin. He did include a disclaimer "don't try this at home." 5) I was sold on this higher brand/model so I next go to a couple of the price comparison sites and ebay. 6) The comparison sites had prices similar to Amazon. At ebay I sort and quickly glance at the buy-it-now pricing and compare that to the Amazon and price comparison sites. I found about a $40 savings. 7) Next I went to the ebay feature that shows CLOSED auctions and looked at the buy-it-now and auction final bids to decide if it is worth it to set up my ebay snipe program for this model or just buy it on the spot. I found that most of the final auction prices were within $5-10 of the lowest buy-it-now price, so I just found the lowest buy-it-now including shipping cost and bought from that supplier. 8) At ebay I always buy from someone who has over 100 feedbacks. This seller had about 900 sales and I received an email and tracking number a couple of hours later. Was this the absolute correct buy for me and my household - probably, but possibly not. I am sure many people would know a better or cheaper option. But for my limited knowledge, and for the 15 minutes of research at my computer, it was probably a very good choice. So, I told my friend, this is one type of strategy that customers are using to try and find "her store." If you have a product that can be easily price compared and price is the main decision, you need recognize that people are shopping you this way. If you have a unique product (Christmas ornaments with pictures of your kids) you still need to be found by being listed in Amazon and ebay. As an aside, over the years, I notice many "regular price" retailers also sell the exact same item on ebay for less. I am sure they do it just for the incremental income, but it is interesting that they will discount their item 10-30% on ebay versus their site price. Yeah, yeah, I hear all those "but we have (pick one) service, history, competency, overhead" at our store people. That is surely important, but for many commodity type items (4GB flash drive, the latest DVD movie release) that isn't enough to beat sheer price. So, my question is to her was - how does your site compete against this strategy? I told her I did all that in less time that it took me to drive to her store. It actually took me longer to write this than to find and buy the sharpener... I suggested that for her products she utilize both ebay and Amazon. And that even after selling fees and the like, additional sales would be a welcomed outcome. Rod Aries ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Michael Martinez Subject: Paid links > My comment about Yahoo was extreme, but > "straw man"? I admit while I have heard > that expression, I had to look that up: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man. - Chris Nielsen, LED Digest 2565 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1980/190/ Yahoo! does indeed sell links and even Google employee Matt Cutts has confirmed that Google doesn't mind the buying and selling of links as long as there is a good chance that some applications for links will be rejected (they call this "editorial review"). Other Google-approved link sellers besides Yahoo! presently include ThomasNet, YellowPages, SmartPages, and similar major business Web site directories. People have been buying and selling links since before Google existed for a variety of reasons. SEO blogger Michael Gray claims that Google has been selling undisclosed value-passing links from its own domain in violation of its own policies http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/01/... I cannot confirm whether any of those links do or have passed value in the past, but Google recently acquired Doubleclick with owns SEO firm Performics. A number of people have alleged that Performics buys links (I have no personal knowledge of their business practices) and even Danny Sullivan has suggested that the relationship itself raises some ethical questions regardless of whether any link buying is happening. Matt Cutts used to argue (and may still do so) that the Federal Trade Commission internal memo regarding full disclosure of endorsement should be extended to paid links, since Google regards links to be endorsements. However, the United States government states that links are NOT endorsements (see http://www.seo-theory.com/wordpress/2007/09/16/the... for more information). There is a medley of voices being raised in this debate that have given it shrill attention but no one has really fully explained what they hope to gain from it. Some SEO firms are striking out to claim new turf by disavowing the buying and selling of links. Some link brokerages are fighting back against allegations that their networks have been ruined.b Google may only have the best of intentions but its apparent conflicts of interest really are not helping the situation. The truth is that there has always been turnover in the linking services sector and I doubt that will stop any time soon. Link sellers, advertising networks, and directories come and go. Google has falsely alleged that the only intent in the buying and selling of links is to manipulate PageRank and search results. The history behind link brokering shows that is not always the case, although clearly the purchasing of links for PageRank has increased over the past year or two. Google made this problem and Google alone can resolve it, but not by bullying and threatening people. I don't mean that Google is required to include sites in its index that buy or sell links. I just mean that Google's rhetoric is way out of line and anyone who parrots that rhetoric just looks like a damn fool for not acknowledging the facts. Google needs to make some changes in its algorithm, the sooner the better, because the relevance of Google's search results has diminished considerably over the past year. But people who want to continue buying and/or selling links need to understand and accept that there is no moral or legal compulsion for Google to leave their sites in its index. Google may not have all their facts straight but they do get to decide what to do with their search index. If that means penalizing or banning sites that buy and/or sell links, then let the buyers and sellers beware. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: Paid links > ... instead of addressing my actual > position, you argue about the definition of > a paid link... The guidelines are certainly > more clear than some want to admit. I > suspect that you actually could tell the > difference between real editorial > directories like Yahoo vs. straight-up text > link ads or made- for-PageRank directories, > if you really wanted to. - Dan Thies, LED Digest 2566 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1981/190/ Perhaps I digressed into an area better directed to Google than Dan, but it seemed that he was saying one kind of paid link was better or valid over another one. But to clarify yes, I can tell the difference between "real editorial directories like Yahoo vs. straight-up text link ads". But my point is that while there are some differences, there are many things that are the same with the most important being that they are both paid for. Now you may say that the Yahoo links have more "value" than a $15 a month paid link, but that's subjective. I may get more traffic from a link on a good topical site than one buried in the Yahoo directory. Any statement that the paid text link ads are a "scam" or worthless is just not true in general terms. Another sign that they are more alike may be found by looking at a page I just found: http://tinyurl.com/25fu5a [dir.yahoo.com] Google does not seem to assign any value to this page. So this would tend to confirm in my mind that there is really not much difference in the value of a paid link, at least those in some parts of Yahoo, over a link on a nice little PR3 web page somewhere. Well, except for the cost. Sorry I seemed to be skirting the issue, but I thought I was addressing the more important issue, that which calls into question the validity of the TL industry and Google's deciding what should be allowed and what should not, after assigning value to links. The paid link industry has not collapsed at this point. This is because the TLA vendors are NOT YET selling a worthless service. If paid links cannot be determined for certain in all cases, then they cannot all be discounted and may still provide value to those that purchase them. When the value is taken away because the vendors are using code that can easily be spotted, those vendors will change that code or go out of business as clients see no further benefit. The smart and nimble link vendors will continue as long as links can be shown to provide value to the sites that get them. I've been predicting for several years now that the ability of people to use and abuse links to gain advantage will go away. I'm about ready to stop saying that at this point, because Google seems to be unable or unwilling to kick the "link habit". In my opinion it's no longer a good measure of a site's worth and should be removed from the equation or only given a small measure of notice. I'm sure this is becoming tiresome for Adam if no one else. SEOs can debate things endlessly since most of what we have to go on is speculation and opinion. I will say that in my opinion I feel linking is NOT SEO. That does not mean linking does not have value in generating increased traffic to a web site directly or in the search engines. And if linking has value, it's something site owners can and will consider for their sites, whether paid or unpaid. Thank you, Chris Nielsen sknil-links.com (c) Copyright 1995-2008 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. We all have to take defeats in life." - Muhammad Ali |
