LED Digest 2243: The New Face of Internet Promotions

Couple of new topics today: are AdSense infractions tied to Google search
penalties? Also, sub-domains and rankings: who can answer this definitively?

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List Moderator:                     Published by:
Adam Audette                          LED Digest
adam, led-digest.com     http://www.led-digest.com
.............................................
September 11, 2006                  Issue no. 2243
.............................................

            .....IN THIS DIGEST.....

====== NEW ======================

        --== AdSense Infraction Causing Search Penalty? ==--

                ~ Mo Douglas
"Is Google penalizing us in their search results
due to an infraction with AdSense?"

        --== Sub-domains and Rankings ==--

                ~ Brad Waller
"I have never heard that there was a penalty for
using a sub-domain, but it might exist."

==== CONTINUING =================

        --== The Search Guru ==--

                ~ Eva Rosenberg
"...in taxes as with SEO, all the information is out
there...A whole treasure trove - of overload."

                ~ Barb Sybal
"SEO would be a difficult field to teach in universities."

                ~ Mike Banks Valentine
"...SEO will evolve with the gurus continuing to
move in-house at substantial Web companies..."

        --== Small Business Sites ==--

                ~ Renee Kennedy
"...the face of Internet promotion has changed."

                ~ Joel Anderson
"So take heart all small business owners."

        --== Getting Traffic ==--

                ~ Reg Charie
"Your use of your keyword phrases seems excellent."

==== BILLBOARD ===================

        --== Google Indexing Pages ==--
                ~ Ralph Spence

        --== Changing Domains ==--
                ~ Donald Nelson
                ~ Val Waldeck

========== NEW ===================================

From: Mo Douglas
Subject: AdSense infraction causing Google search penalty?

Hi,

Is Google penalizing us in their search results due to an infraction
with AdSense?

Our site, www.thailandstories.com, has been live for about 7 months
now and for the first 3 months of that Google was sending us the
most traffic of the search engines. Then in May Google told us we
were in violation of their terms and conditions with regards to
AdSense (we were); the issue was resolved and our account was
reinstated.

However, since then the traffic we are getting from Google is
abysmal. The amount of pages indexed dropped from ~120 to 2 and has
yet to go up again (Yahoo and MSN have 944 and 249 pages indexed
respectively according to Marketleap.com).

We do not rank at all (well, not within the first 100 listings
anyway) on Google for 'thailand stories', while we are 1 on Yahoo!,
MSN and several of the smaller search engines.

So, while I can't figure out why being penalized with AdSense should
affect your ranking, it is the only explanation I have been able to
come up with. I can understand that we are still a young website
with few inbound links, but that hasn't stopped MSN and Yahoo from
ranking us very highly, and I cannot imagine Google's engine being
that radically different than those of MSN and Yahoo.

Looking forward to comments.

Mo Douglas

PS I am aware that we have no keywords in our title. I have yet to
figure out how and where to change this in the software we use.

-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Brad Waller
Subject: Sub-domains and Rankings

> We did some digging around regarding sub-domains...
> From what I've read these little guys don't tend to do well
> in Search Engine Rankings as some search engines
> tend to ignore them.
        - Stephen Mareches, LED 2236

I've been on vacation and did not see anyone reply to this, so I
figured I may as well take a stab at it from my observations. I
have never heard that there was a penalty for using a sub-domain,
but it might exist. That said, I can search for things and find our
clients' sites with sub-domains without too much trouble. Are they
penalized? Hard to say. But they do show up.

When I search Google for "early broncos for sale" (no quotes)
http://tinyurl.com/fmchp [google.com]
I see our Bronco Graveyard customer as the number two result.

When I search for "Ford Explorer Falmouth" (no quotes)
http://tinyurl.com/fz94d [google.com]
I see the first result is clients' ww1.classroomclassifieds.com
listing followed by links to maine.craigslist.org, so this seems to
work pretty well.

I cannot say from an SEO experts position if there is a problem with
sub-domains, but I can find content easily from my own use and have
never had a complaint from a customer.

Brad Waller

Free Classifieds since 1994 - Custom classifieds for your site
http://epage.com
waller, epage.com

======== CONTINUING ===============================

From: Eva Rosenberg
Subject: Secrets & Gurus

> Nathan [Holley's] points are basically that SEO
> techniques are straightforward, but that many
> industry insiders perpetuate an air of complexity
> to the process.
        - Moderator Comment, LED 2242

> In the business wor[l]d, the tax advisor has become such an
> important figure. Why? It's all written there - in the law ;).
        - Michael Motherwell, LED 2242

Cloaking everything in an aura of mysticism and controlling the
information precipitated the Dark Ages in Europe, in the Middle Ages.

When I started in the accounting profession, Michael was spot on
about the same type of "We are wise, you know nothing" aura
permeating the accounting industry.

Fees were astronomical for even simple tax returns - and service and
communication with clients nearly non-existent. If you weren't a
major client, giving the firm tens of thousands of dollars a year,
you'd be lucky to get a call back in a month, if at all.

As I got deeper into the profession, I kept meeting more and more
people who were in deep trouble with IRS, because they had made
simple mistakes that often cost them 5 or 10 years of their lives,
fighting their way through increasingly nasty and frightening
collections actions, wage garnishments, seizures of their homes or
assets.

And this pissed me off.

That's why I started TaxMama.com back in 1997,
http://www.taxmama.com/Articles-Pro/96law_summary.htm

and finally published the first issue of Ask TaxMama in 1999,
http://www.taxmama.com/AskTaxMama/asktm_1.htm

To educate anyone who wanted to stop being afraid of IRS, or
intimidated by their accountants - and to take control of their
lives and finances. (The pages are left intact, as I originally hand
coded them or lifted my articles from other places, to remind me...)

Michael is right - in taxes as with SEO, all the information is out
there - for free. A whole treasure trove - of overload. If you don't
have a good sifter, to find just the right bit or bits of
information, you can get lost in the morass of data.

And the rules are changing constantly, without warning. That's why
tax professionals and accountants are legally required to take at
least 24-30 hours of continuing education. (Many take 30-60 hours.)
That's why SEO experts devote 50-150+ hours a year to keeping up
with the changes.

Isaac Asimov put it really well in one of his monthly columns in
Fantasy and Science Fiction, talking about taxes (and it applies to
SEO as well):

"I am at least as intelligent as my tax advisor. So, I should have
no trouble understanding the tax laws. But if I were to concentrate
my energies towards learning everything I needed to know, the world
would be deprived of many of my books."

Doesn't that just say it all?

Best wishes,

Eva Rosenberg

TaxMama.com - A daily cure for your tax blues
http://www.taxmama.com/taxquips

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Barb Sybal
Subject: Search guru

> 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?
        - Nathan Holley, LED 2239

> In the business word, the tax advisor has become such an
> important figure. Why? It's all written there - in the law ;). Not
> trying to be fascetious, but the best answer is often to change
> one or two words, and see if the argument holds.
        - Michael Motherwell, LED 2242

Very long-time lurker, infrequent poster, here ... so long, in fact,
I remember when LED had a newsgroup and we discussed how to make
banners less than 7K ... so long, I remember Shari Thurow (I think
it's her) when she was a young web designer announcing her
engagement on the newsgroup. We were all so new back in the early to
mid-1990s that I'm sure those of us that are still around online are
quite opinionated (not necessarily more knowledgeable).

As a small business owner with 13 years of online experience, I
perhaps have a little more insight than the average brick & mortar
business owner and just wanted to comment on Michael Motherwell's
above statement regarding professionals vs. SEOs.

Using a tax advisor as an example is where the waters can get very
muddy: tax advisors, lawyers, and other professionals or
tradespeople require academic training. SEOs, on the other hand,
learn in the trenches. How does a business owner separate training
from experience and how does one know which experience will work for
their business. Without bona fide credentials, it's all guesswork.

Graphic designers, programmers and other technicians also have,
typically, an education in their field.

Web designers and SEOs typically don't. Having learned to do both
myself, I definitely don't consider being proficient in either area
.. and having tried to outsource SEO a few years ago, I found the
majority of companies I contacted knew less or about the same as
myself.

SEO, I feel, would be a difficult field to teach in universities:
courses would require copywriting / journalism, marketing, library
sciences and computer sciences. A very heavy course load indeed.

Not to diminish the need for a search guru, but if businesses (any
size, any sector) would _plan_ to have a well-written site that's
easy to navigate might just negate the need for SEO altogether.

I don't think SEOs will disappear in the near future, but once
businesses become more savvy, they will demand more, and that likely
includes credentials. It's happening in other areas already such as
consumables and home renovation -- we no longer pick up the phone,
believe what we're told on the other end, and buy the product or
service without further research. Certainly not the people and
businesses I know, both with and without online experience.

SEO will likely go the way of the banner exchange which pollutes web
sites with non-essential information and graphics.

Barb Sybal, GFX Printing

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Mike Valentine
Subject: Search guru

Shari Thurow and Detlev Johnson attempted to calm the storm over
"Search Guru" a bit with their thoughts [issue 2240]. I'm convinced
that not everyone on the LED list knows enough about SEO to realize
that those two are experts that could be called Gurus (whether or
not they actually want the title). Bruce Clay (another SEO Guru
worthy of veneration) commented in LED about three weeks ago to
respond to posts complaining about the same speakers appearing at
search conferences over and over again.

Why are people apparently up in arms when recognized and established
names in a very well established industry speak regularly at
conferences or post knowledgeable advice and commentary?

Let's look at an interesting question posed to us by someone worth
listening to:

Shari Thurow asked:

> ... I wonder how SEO as a discipline is going to evolve. I think
> it's chaos right now, with black-hat techniques dominating....

I'll take a shot at that one Shari.

Black hat techniques are never practiced by those worthy of
Guru-like veneration and those techniques can be left for the
Tricksters (dare I say Satans?) of SEO. (Shari is definitely an SEO
angel.) SEO's only use black-hat techniques if they want clients to
abandon and hate them after the client sites are banned from the
search engines. They'll die off and disappear as those techniques
are weeded out with search engine algorithm updates.

I'm convinced that SEO will evolve well, with the gurus of SEO
continuing to move in-house at substantial web companies and it will
become a more firmly entrenched corporate job as it has over the
past couple of years - thus lending legitimacy and cementing best
practices of SEO.

With the New York Times listening to (in-house) Guru Marshall
Simmonds, IBM listening to Guru Bill Hunt (both or whom regularly
speak at conferences too) - we can be certain that evil-doers will
prey only on the truly naive and ignorant - those who don't study up
on SEO.

So the mom and pop web businesses need to continue to talk about and
attempt to learn SEO - probably from search Gurus at conferences or
from SEO articles, discussion forums and blog posts - so they don't
get taken by those bad guys in black hats. Five to six thousand
people per event will still listen to a learn from those Gurus at
conferences. The gurus can be trusted.

Endless talk about search engine fluff will continue and many will
go on and on about the pros and cons of tiny single attributes of
SEO (like linking), but smart business owners highly value search
engine authorities (er, Gurus), and want to see them speak at
conferences, read their blogs, and should pay attention to their
posts here and elsewhere.

Mike Banks Valentine
http://realityseo.com

-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Renee Kennedy
Subject: Small biz sites

> ... anyone can create a website... but creating a highly
> effective commercial website is a whole different story.
        - Mark Whitman, LED 2241

I have to agree with Mark on this one - sure a small business owner
can try and learn web design, web development, SEO and other web
marketing strategies, but the field has become so technical and so
diverse that it is nearly impossible to do well at all things.

After 10 years of working for small businesses, I now work for a
large international company. The large company hired me for one
function and one function only - web marketing - even though I have
skills in web design, web development, and a myriad of other fields.
The reason they hired me for this one purpose is because I can
concentrate and develop marketing skills even further. They have a
whole team of web developers and another team of designers.

8 years ago, we could hop on the web, throw a site up, and see
instant results in Alta Vista. It's time to face the facts that
those days are long, long gone. Now, it's not just about reading a
bunch of information, following a few tips, crossing your fingers
and hoping for the best. Because of the increase in dynamic sites
with complex programming, the use of complex statistical analysis
programs, and the increase in individualized skills - the face of
internet promotion has changed.

Renee Kennedy

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Joel Anderson
Subject: Small biz sites

I must agree with John Smart (LED 2238) that Mark Whitman thinks far
too highly of himself and his services.

I run a 'Ma & Pa" person business that sells on Internet and by
mail. I have never taken a course on HTML or SEO. I create my own
web pages and do my own SEO. I learn such skills by reading forums
such as this one and by studying the code of web pages that I like.
I may use a professional to help set up something new, but after
that, I maintain it myself. It is not that hard. Without the
benefit of professionals such as Mr. Whitman I usually rank in the
top five Google listings (and often the top listing) for most of the
pages that I have tried to optimize (eg World Coins, Iraq coins,
WWII coins, German coins, Brothel Tokens, Pope coins, etc.).

Why do I do everything myself? Because I enjoy it and the
professionals I have employed rarely seem to be able to get the job
done right and on time.

So take heart all small business owners. You can rank high in Google
searches and have a successful website without the benefit of
expensive professionals.

Joel Anderson

Interesting World Coins & Paper Money
http://www.joelscoins.com
joel, joelscoins.com

-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Reg Charie
Subject: Getting traffic

> I long for that Google and Yahoo traffic back as I believe
> that is what would get the business going full throttle.
        - Aline Huntly, LED 2241

Hi Aline,

I took a look at your page and the only thing I can see that is
"wrong" is the double keywords and description tags. Your use of
your keyword phrases seems excellent.

You might want to end the first portion of your body text with an
anchor link to the rental page.

I would probably shorten the main page's content by removing what is
below the double row of images.

Thank You,

Reg Charie
http://dotcom-productions.com/cms/index.php?cPath=69
SEO in a nutshell.

==== BILLBOARD ===================================

From: Ralph Spence
Subject: What is Google doing here?

What are Google doing here?

I created a 200 plus page website of 100% content using only
FrontPage and word processing skills. Pages appeared on the front
page of all the major search engines results for relevant searches
without a penny being spent on promotion. The field is highly
competitive with searches reporting millions of results. I put my
success down to being a good-boy in doing what Google, Yahoo and MSN
tell me to do in their free webmaster pages.

My national directors took the site over and have left it dead in
the water since the last week in July.

I've been searching 'site:url' on Google to keep an eye on how many
pages they're indexing. Predictably the number has deteriorated as
pages are not updated and ageing.

Yesterday, the 8th August Google were only reporting 37 of 180
pages. And only showed 41 pages when asked for omissions to be
included.

I thought this interesting because when it gets down to 10 pages I
could look up the page dates to find out how long Google index a
page, which has not been updated. In other words, how long does it
take for a page to die? I'm given to understand it's 70 to 80 days.

This morning I searched 'site:url' to find all 180 reported with no
omissions.

What's that all about?

Regards

Ralph Spence
ralphspenceuk, yahoo.co.uk

-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Donald Nelson
Subject: Domain change

Dear All,

In LED 2241 Daniel Curtis asked for advice in moving his hobby site
to a new server.

There are lots of good hosting firms out there. My suggestion is to
find one that has good contact and support facilities: a 24 hour
help line , live chat on the site, and general ease of use. You can
easily get hosting services for around $100 per year.

Regarding your search engine positioning: you are going to have to
bite the bullet and expect a loss of traffic in the beginning (which
is a pity because you are ranked number 4 in Google for a simple
search for "Don Mattingly"). One thing you should do is make a check
on yahoo, msn and google with this search :
link:http://www.daemen.edu/pages/dcurtis/mattingly/dmatt23.html and
see where your links are coming from. Contact these sites and see if
you can get them to link to the new website on the new server.

Participate in blogs where baseball fans congregate, send out a
press release on www.prweb.com announcing your new URL: it is in
fact newsworthy when one of the major fan sites for a well known
baseball player shifts its URL, and do whatever else you can to get
out the word. Hopefully you will regain your position after some
time.

I have one more thought, maybe it is off-the-wall but I would like
to share it: It would be great if you could just contact Google and
explain what is happening and see if they can give your new site the
ranking that it deserves.

Sincerely,

Donald Nelson
www.a1-optimization.com

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Val Waldeck
Subject: Domain change

I have used the hosting services of www.ipowerweb.com for years now
and found them reliable, user-friendly and reasonably priced. Highly
recommend them.

Val Waldeck
www.valwaldeck.com
reaching our generation one book at a time

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