| LED Digest 2239: The Search Guru |
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In a field without walls, secrets, insider information or special privilege,
why and how has the search guru become such an important figure online? ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration 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 ............................................. September 5, 2006 Issue no. 2239 ............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== The Search Guru ==-- ~ Nathan Holley "...how has the search guru become such an important, even ennobled figure online?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Small Business Sites ==-- ~ Rick Gortatowsky "There are no 'secrets' to doing well in search engines." --== Income from Affiliate Marketing? ==-- ~ Brett Simpson "I'm looking for a way to bring in a few extra dollars by branching out..." ~ John "Zeke" Brumage "This was what I saw when I woke up this morning..." --== Browsers & Security ==-- ~ Tom Aman "Personally, for the way I work and the sites I visit, I still prefer IE." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Satellite Internet & Bandwidth ==-- ~ Sherry Shefaro --== MetroHorse ==-- ~ Chuck Hiatt ~ Bob Sheridan From: Nathan Holley Subject: New Topic - The Search Guru Something's been on my mind for awhile now, and I've been meaning to write this post. A lot has changed throughout the 8 years or so I've been working online. We went from a revolution, to a bubble, to a burst, and now to a "settlement" of sorts. So much has happened on the Internet in the last decade - the medium has evolved and so has the cultures that depend on it. The search engine optimization (SEO) culture is of special interest to me. I am fascinated how this industry has taken shape, grown, morphed, and become the driving force behind Internet marketing, promotions, visibility and traffic. To a large extent, search rules the 'Net, and with Google, MSN and Yahoo ruling search (mostly Google) it's understandable why so many spend so much time trying to figure out search rankings. In a field without walls, secrets, insider information or special privilege, why and how has the search guru become such an important, even ennobled figure online? The search expert is depended upon by the Internet community and forums like this, but also by large Fortune 500 companies and smaller upstarts hoping to increase visibility and generate traffic. But there are no real secrets in SEO! Everything you ever wanted to know is available online. It's fairly basic, really, and with a little common sense quite easy to generate quality content that ranks well by following simple procedures. But still, the search guru lives on - thrives even - in an atmosphere of bewildered neophytes and lesser professors and initiates. There seems to be so much astonishment at rankings. I'm just wondering, why? It's all right here - online. I'm not trying to denigrate SEOs, really. I appreciate that many very sharp minds are active in the field. But I also see SEO experts helping to foster this climate of intellectualism, that can take on an air of the pedantic at times, when they pontificate about linkage, keyword research and the "long tail of search." I have no answers or even questions. Just an insight that the search guru, being a product of the evolution of the 'Net, will also eventually become a product of the past. Even though we don't see it now, someday search too will evolve, and yes, Google will give way to another giant. Not necessarily in the search realm. It's fun to watch. How interesting it will be in 40 years to sit down and re-read this post. And then to post an update to the LED Digest, which no doubt will still be published! Hope to hear more, Nathan Holley ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Rick Gortatowsky Subject: Small biz sites > As to your statement about small businesses > not being able to create sites that are useful and > hit high in the search engines - that's utter nonsense. - Eva Rosenberg, LED 2237 In regards to Mark Whitman's statements [issue 2234] some of what he states is true, some is simply balderdash. I am sorry Eva to hear that you have spent oodles of money on so-called professionals to help build your web presence. As with any type of contractor work there are good ones, bad ones and well... ones who just don't seem to ever follow through. I've cited such things before in LED, there are Web Designers and Web Developers. One thing that is needed in big fashion these days is some form of certification. A Designer can make webs, use Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop... Use Dreamweaver, Namo, Front Page web editors. They might be able to install scripts, swipe others javascripts and insert them... they may even know HTML and cascading style sheets. BUT this DOES NOT qualify them as developers. A developer is a software engineer and or perhaps member of an engineering firm / business. Sit a web designer down with say PHP. C++, Microsoft Visual Studio to create you a eCommerce site using Active Server Pages and watch the designer look silly. This is NOT to belittle them, heck, I am an engineer and when it comes to pretty graphics with Paintshop or Photoshop I am a complete boob. Mr. Whitman is right in the regard that many small business webs go after certain spam factors to obtain better search results things such as multiple domains, copycat type arrangements where they see others webs that perform and decide, "If I do what my competitor(s) do then I should get results too!". Sleezy, perhaps even illegal in some regards but hard to defend against all too often. Mr. Whitman is not right as far as search engines go. A WYSIWYG editor can do just fine making pages that rank well. However, what none seem to discuss is that no matter WHAT search engine if you do very well in ranking especially against the "big guys" you will see your ranking go buh-bye. On three seperate occassions a software site we had was blasted from Google, MSN, Lycos and others as the items did too well in search engine ranking. We were not paid ranks and others were so buh bye. In any event, good ranking is not magic... simply read how it's done, millions of sites out there to assist free of charge. Make some test pages within your web. Use them to better your results. Everytime your site gets spidered take a look at those test page results. As the test pages do better apply the results to the entire web. There are no "secrets" to doing well in search engines. Read how to make effective pages, what to do and not to do. Test different forms of your content and wait for the results. Then when you have things refined now if you want more results set up other domains and apply what you have learned specializing the content. What do I mean? Well let's say you sell Kitchen Products. You have your Kitchen store. When you have learned to refine it so it does well in search context you may now set up a plates and dinnerware store applying what you have learned to it. Next perhaps a cookware store, next perhaps a kitchen appliance store. Next perhaps you want create a web mall that encompasses all your stores. Next maybe add in affiliate abilities. It's not rocket science. But I want even more traffic!!!! Ok, using Mambo or Joomla what-all (content management system) you set up a site that allows people to put up recipes, international cuisine, link things into items your stores vend and if you do not vend the items like say cookbooks you affiliate and link with Amazon. Meanwhile you have created a portal that's useful and drives traffic. Let members help manage the portal content. As it grows do the nice thing, sell advertising space to your competitors! Do not trust in ANY firm to make success happen for you. Uh uh. Make yourself a plan with a word processor. As new ideas come forth, insert them as applicable. Follow your plan, revise, enhance and make it the best. Set your goals, your general timelines etc. Before you know it you'll have quite the presence and then maybe you will want to take another step, building successful webs for others! Do not let ANYONE tell you that it's secret this or that, guru mumbo jumbo. As I said, I am an engineer, PHP, Perl, ASP, Visual Basic, C++, C#, Assembly Language and then some. ANYONE can succeed on the web IF they follow a plan, read, learn, experiment and work to grow it's that simple. Rick Gortatowsky -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Brett Simpson Subject: Affiliate marketing Hi Steve, > ... it should earn a few hundred dollars over > 12 months. It doesn't sound like much, I know, > but to the club every dollar counts... - Steve Pronger, LED 2238 Yeah, that's great, good for you ; ) > To do that, of course, we need content. I've given the > club members a list of keywords which would be good > prospects to target and said "Go forth..." Great idea, let us know how that goes, I'd be curious what you can push the monthly totals too with additional content. > No, the members certainly aren't bothered by the ads... They > see it as a fundraising exercise, just like any other activity. Yeah, I never thought of it that way, that's a brilliant idea, helping out the club! So, if the users never click on Adsense, who is? Are that many coming from Google searches to amount to $200/month? > But let me stress that XSitePro does not > AUTOMATE building multiple sites. Sure, I understand that part of it, I never expected XSitePro to scrape content... just wondered how good it did at layout, etc... and it sounds like it's excellent at that? I thought I went to your site earlier, perhaps 5-6 months ago when you posted, and it was very, very slow, maybe that was because your images at the time were not compressed, not sure? > I'm not familiar with HyperVRE, but looking at the sales page it > appears to be a multiple page generator using scraped content. Yes, I see the point here... I'm quite tired of visiting a site to find out it's nothing but duplicated content... but then again, I usually notice it right away, the sample (Golf site) at HyperVRE doesn't appear to be a 'scraped site' at first glance, in fact it looks quite well done... ok - everyone chime in with the 'bottom-feeders' / polluters replies here! I've looked at this differently, I don't want to 'scrape sites' and that's it, but rather scrape sites to create a 'skeleton website', then I develop my own product that fits the niche and feature it on the home page and throughout - what do others feel about this? One thing to note, I've been an LED reader for almost 10 years now, and I've been through a lot on the internet, but always working my 'tail off' on my main website, I'm looking for a way to bring in a few extra dollars by branching out, and setting up some other content geared niche websites... and yes I know all about Ken Evoy (read most of his ebooks), and I agree with that, but still, looking to branch out... and find other profitable niches. > Yes, I'm an XSitePro affiliate. But I don't promote > it with spam or other dodgy methods. I bought it. > I built a couple of sites with it. Ok, in light of what I've said, how would you see building up my own niche site using HyperVRE compared to XSitePro, I believe you can download a free demo over at HyperVRE website... curious on your thoughts... how well it does? > You may not realize it, but we actually have someone on this list > who is the real deal when it comes to affiliate marketing. I'm > referring of course to Allan Gardyne [see issue 2236]. Yeah, I've seen/read Allan's material for years, I would appreciate hearing what he thinks of all of this? Let's hope we're all on a track to reduce 'internet pollution' ; ) Brett Simpson http://www.thedreamtime.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: John "Zeke" Brumage Subject: Affiliate marketing - other rambling I covered up the numbers to preserve non-disclosure. This was what I saw when I woke up this morning: AdSense for search top channels Queries: xxx Clicks: xxx CTR: 200.00% CPM: $1,585.46 Earnings: xxx If only my 50,000 pages a month would convert like that. Wishing everyone a great holiday selling season. On another note. I have begun renaming photos and captioning each with the search terms I want. It helps a lot! Pole-A-Palooza is a pole dancing contest here in vegas, I posted a gallery on the 20th of August. in about 4 days I achieved #6 for Pole-A-Palooza (of 5,700) #1 for Pole-A-Palooza 2006 (of 4,800) I am guessing that keywords in PHOTO CAPTIONS and Image file names are NOT penalized for multiple appearances on a page. I have also begun googling topics from my sites, then visiting blogs and reading online magazines and making honest, interesting, comments and replies to content, (with links where possible) always signing in as Disco-Legend-Zeke. I hold #1 -- #37 out of 15,300 for disco legend zeke #2 --#5 out of 484,000 for disco legend Hope this helps! John Brumage Disco Legend Zeke <---see? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Browser security > All software has vulnerabilities. I could also > quote numerous security vulnerabilities regarding IE... - Charles Oertel, LED 2238 Charles, you missed my point entirely. I agree, all software has vulnerabilities. The point I was trying to make was that, no matter what operating system, browser, email client, etc. you may run, it will potentially have vulnerabilities and you should run good quality virus and adware protection to be as safe as possible. The original post on which I was commenting [see issue 2235] tended to convey the impression that the person had never had a virus infection because he ran Firefox. My point was that I ran IE and I, also, had never had a virus infection so the fact the he had none running Firefox really proved nothing. The quotes I used were intended to show that Firefox vulnerabilities have existed from day one. For more up to date numbers, see http://secunia.com/product/4227/?task=advisories_2006. According to this site, Firefox still has 4 unpatched problems (out of 35). 6 of those 35 and 2 of the unpatched 4 were reported in 2006. The other thing one should think about is the Firefox extensions, if you use them, because one or more of these may contain potential problems. One was reported in July 2005 regarding an extension called Greasemonkey. I believe this has since been fixed, but a comment on the original problem is revealing: ---------------------- "An attacker doesn't even need to know the exact filename, since 'GET'ting a URL like 'file:///c:/' will return a parseable directory listing. (And Mac users don't get to gloat either; you're just as vulnerable, starting with a different root URL.)" ---------------------- Another vulnerability, reported July 2006, is associated with an extension called "numberedlinks" and I quote from http://numberedlinks.mozdev.org/: ---------------------- "If you are here because you have noticed an extension called "Numbered Links 0.9" in your Firefox which you did not install, please read this. "Malware authors have written a Firefox extension to steal sensitive information and spoofed its name to look like numberedlinks. Downloads from this website should not have been affected, but you can still see the above page on how to ensure you are running the real version." ---------------------- It does not matter what browser you use or what operating system you use, do not depend on that alone for protection. > ... your assertion that Open Source software is more vulnerable > because hackers can see the source code is just plain wrong. I stand by my original comment. > The other aspect of Open Source that most non-developers > don't realise is that a developer codes differently when they > know that others will see their work. That may be a bad thing rather than a good thing. I have been involved in software development for well over 30 years and have *always* coded on the assumption that others will see my work at some point, whether to vet the code or, in a team environment, to look at the code to ensure their portion fits, or to perform maintenance or debugging at some later time, possibly when I am no longer available. Changing your approach to coding because someone else may examine it is dangerous because you can easily introduce errors when, as I have actually seen happen, the temptation is there to emulate the kind of coding a more experienced / knowledgeable programmer might do. > But all that aside - Firefox is a better browser just from > a usability, standards and features point of view... I gave Firefox a fair test (meaning I used it as my primary browser for over 2 months) and never really liked it. "Better browser" is a personal preference thing. Personally, for the way I work and the sites I visit, I still prefer IE. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Sherry Shefaro Subject: Bandwidth and Satellite Internet? I am not sure if I am laboring under a misconception, but I believe that if I get satellite internet service, if I exceed a certain amount of bandwidth allotted by the plan I choose, then my connection speeds go back to those of dialup until the next month? I am not sure I understand how satellite internet bandwidth refreshes itself? I have a webpage and that's why I want faster internet than dialup. I cannot get cable, wireless or DSL. None are available in my area. I am told by the installer that WildBlue, which is offered through my phone company ATT, isn't very good and that HughesNet is better. But, that if I am uploading my webpage often (which I do), then I can use up the allotted bandwidth and go right back to dialup speed until I roll over to the next month of paid service. I hope I am making myself clear in my questions. I need clarification. Thanks. Sherry Shefaro -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Chuck Hiatt Subject: MetroHorse > According to a PRWeb release, [metrohorse.com] is the > "Next Big Thing"... Since LEDers are excellent at seeing > through the hype, I'm offering this up for review and discussion. - Jim Berry, LED 2238 I checked out the MetroHorse site - it seems to be based on a portal template that can be purchased from templatemonster.com for $45. Chuck Hiatt Promogear.com, Inc. www.promogear.com chuck, promogear.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Bob Sheridan Subject: MetroHorse I took a quick look at MetroHorse website and was not impressed. I did not particularly like their search methodology and had some difficulty exiting the search function when I was not able to find anything useful after searching for "restaurant software". Also, I didn't like being forced to enter my Zip Code before using the search function. I am wondering if Jim Berry is connected to the website in some way and wants LEDer's to provide free feedback. I don't think I would re-visit the site again. Bob Sheridan RestaurantPlus www.restaurantplus.com
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