Due to reasons beyond our control Saturday morning, we had a severe power outage that affected LinkWorth servers. While we definitely apologize for any partner sites that were affected using the file inclusion method, we are glad it has forced us to make this update our file linclusion code. A special thanks to “formmail, joeychcgo and noppid” for giving examples and their own versions of replacement code. It’s customers like this that make LinkWorth stronger in times of weakness.

We are in the process of updating all of our file inclusion code snippets with a timeout variable which partners can change to fit their needs. This will prevent any dragging or timing out on the partner websites. In addition, we have a new formatting option for file inclusion which allows one to format how the ads are displayed with a pre-canned setting or customize it with your own code/text that will separate each text ad.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and business! LinkWorth is currently experiencing our largest month on the books since we first began. With our larger, and still growing, sales staff and a partnership soon to be announced, 2006 proves to be a wonderful year for all involved.

I’ve developed a new style of internet marketing and was able to give it a name rather quickly. The results from this type of marketing can be out of this world if you know people who know people, especially if any of these people are part of the Soprano family. Their methods are known as “hard hat” SEO, and a late payment could result a few broken bones.

Anyhow, one of Television’s *BEST* HBO Series is coming back with a new season. My marketing technique during this hour each week will be …. kicked back on our couch waiting for who the next main character of the casts is going to get whacked.

Go Tony Soprano!

Just a quick little FYI . . . we upgraded our blog theme and you can now select from 7 different color styles which are saved on your computer when you revist the blog. In the top right corner you will see “Select Style” with an icon next to it. . .click the icon and it will provide a color selector. Pick the color of your choice and it will update the blog in your color and each time you come back it will default to your selected color.

Nothing fancy, just a little personalization.

Run a blog? Cuss at comment spammers? Learn how to fight comment spam and make it a positive and worthwhile comment. There are many types of comment spam we see, some you can work to your advantage, some it’s just better to delete. The majority of comment spam is done with automated software. Some of the software is smart enough to use keywords in a given blog entry and use it in the comment spam. Usually the comment spam to delete involves a few to many hyperlinks within the subject. The other spam, especially the comments that try to provide a very thoughtful reply but it’s obvious they are just trying to slip their website url into your blog, can be used to your advantage. Here are a few suggestions how to fight your comment spam:

• Edit and remove the url and contact info, then save the comment. Today one of the spammy comments I moderated was:
  “Pretty good advice. I try to keep my adsense respectable. Plus it just looks real bad on a page with a ton of adsense.”
  See this kind of goes along with the blog they commented on. It really doesn’t say much at all, but it had their website url planted in the url field and some email that probably didn’t work. Well, I simply edited the comment, removed their email and removed their website address, then approved it. Now ilt’s a comment that isn’t spammy! 😀
• Another tip is to get spam catching plugins for your blog software. We use WordPress, which many do, but we have a really good spam filter plugin that is great at filtering out all of the spam full of url’s and nonesense talk. You still get the final approval to delete all or say any one of the comments is not spam.
• Customize the commenting form to use a security code image that the poster must enter before submitting their reply. This is a fool proof way to make sure all comments are made by a real human being. There is no way around this method, that I’m aware of.

Most blog software programs automatically use the “rel=nofollow” tags, but that really does nothing if these automated programs are filling up our sites with crap about sbobet88 online or prescription meds. So you really need to make sure nothing is automatically published without moderation. It’s the only way to make sure your blog stays clean.

Eventually there will be firing squads with a waiting list to pull the trigger on the culprits spamming. Until then, use one of these techniques. 😉

Today I stumbled across a comment made by someone I thought was well educated in the SEO industry. After reading this comment, I might need to re-think my opinion on this guy due to his biased suggestions. It appears that LinkWorth is “unknown” and “untrustworthy”. Hmmm. . .I wonder why we have so many customers and why no one complains of our untrusting business. I do want to thank him for the good chuckle I got after reading it.

It all boils down to the “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch my back” system. He says this because they all know each other. So it gave me the idea of educating people in how to differentiate between a biased and an unbiased referral. If you really want to know how to trust suggestions made by anyone in any industry, here are a few tips and tricks to use:

• First check for an affiliate link. If you put your mouse over a link where a webmaster is suggesting another service, look in the status bar in the lower left corner of your browser. Some webmasters get tricky and even make the status say something different, so I usually put my mouse over the link and click my mouse button and hold it down. That usually shows you exactly where you are going. If the link is a simple static link without all kinds of tricky variables (Ex: /?afid=2342&page=34&product=2523422) on the end, then it’s a good link. If it has variables, then it’s an affiliate link and they are suggesting it because they’ll make some cash if you buy or signup.
• Once you visit the referenced site, do a little research and see if you can find a link on the site that points back to the site that referred you. A simple little site search will tell you all you want to know. Just search for the site name or url that referred you. If you find any reference, then it’s a biased suggestion. The comments I spoke of above fall into this bullet point. The guy that said we’re unknown is chum’s with the places he suggested. There is always the possibility of a genuine reference, but when it’s this over the top, highly unlikely.
• Always check for similarities on both sites. There is always the possibility that both sites are owned by the same person. It’s a common practice these days where people create many websites that rate or rank services in their market and put their own on the top as the best ranked to drive business their way. It’s a pretty effective method, but it’s unfair to the customer. Usually you can find similar content on both sites and very familiar grammar.

These are 3 techniques I use on a daily basis. It’s surprising how few true unbiased referrals there really are. These days people don’t like to link unless there is something in it for them. Oddly enough, if you look at our links in our blogroll to the right, the first link is simply to our homepage and the “Need A Good Laugh” link is to a fun blog I’m involved in. The rest of the links are to sites we have zero relationship with. You will find no advertisements on their sites for LinkWorth, nor will you find any reciprocated links. These are examples of good referral links. The “Need a Good Laugh” you will find a reciprocated link, which makes this a biased referral link.

Just be sure to not believe everything you read. Especially if someone says we are unknown and/or untrustworthy!! HA 😀

If you are in the business world at all, this phenomenon should rear it’s ugly head on a daily basis. Any sort of sales pitch or presentation almost cannot be done effectively without it. It’s the art of “generic business talk“.

• Let’s move our best foot forward.
• We need to implement innovative action-items.
• Brainstorm and maximize synergies.
• Target our out-of-the-box core competencies.

And the list goes on and on. This subject is one discussed on another blog I am part of where I included a generic business talk joke email sent to a LinkWorth customer/friend of ours. Once you are made aware of this unusual way of speaking, it’s impossible to not hold back laughter when it happens around you.

There’s no doubt that Facebook’s paid advertising feature is one of the best ways to advertise a business today along with professional packaging design services. Over the past several years the paid advert model has evolved to help businesses target exactly the audience they want so if you hire employees to run your advertising knowing about this can be helpful, and you can also use a software like paystub to manage the payroll as well.

With Facebook’s paid advertising, it’s possible for business to choose who they want to market to, as you can understand if you go to the website, based on demographics, behaviors, and location. According to most reports, an ad will cost somewhere between $0.31 to $0.61 per click. This will help businesses generate valuable traffic to their website at an affordable price, you can also promote your business on TikTok. We recommend using InventHelp which include researchers, illustrators, writers as well as customer service representatives and other staff that can help you at anytime.

Do you have any good generic business talk or business cliche’s? Leave us a comment with your favorite(s).

Ever since Google realized that people are smarter than they think and began helping their SERP rankings by building their link popularity, the debate has been on about how dedicated they are to controlling it. It’s also a question we deal with quite a bit with people wondering, “Will it affect my relationship with the search engines?”. As you might expect, here at LinkWorth, we are constantly monitoring the topic and making sure everything we do is as effective for the Advertiser as possible, but staying within the guidelines set forth by the search companies.

As I was thinking about the topic today and doing a little net searching, I happened across the main story that broke Google’s ranking system out to the public. The story that bred the term “Google Bombing“. . .Miserable Failure. In case you have yet to hear about this story, bloggers began sharing the same blogroll links which included a link to George W’s bio on whitehouse.gov’s website, with the anchor text of “Miserable Failure”. As more and more bloggers added it to their sites, people began to notice if you searched for the phrase “miserable failure“, the top listing was in fact George W’s bio page. The very page people were linking to. Once people caught on to the trick, the Google Bombing era took off. Here are a few other popular Google bombing campaigns and see where they fair today:

• Internet Rock Star – The true original found Google bomb for Ben Barnes site.
• Talentless Hack – A guy named Mathes tried to make his friends site, Andy Pressman, number one.
• More Evil Than Satan – When searched, Microsoft was number one.

One BIG difference between Google Bombing and text link advertising is relevance. Google bombing happens when there is an indiscriminate number of non-relevant websites with relation to the target site that links to it. Text link advertising is on topic and in some way relevant to the target site linked to. In addition, it’s done to assist advertisers in promoting their website on other similar, relevant websites.

Now back to the question at hand, just how worried is Google about linking? The reason I prefaced the answer with the miserable failure example is, it was one of the first examples of someone manipulating the Google results with links. The search term is completely non-relevant to the top listing, yet, look at the first listing in the Google results for “miserable failure“. If this was such a concern to Google, don’t you think they would have taken care of the single most important leak to their algorithm in their history? So my response is, Google has more important fish to fry in their world. “Sure” they talk about changing algorithm’s to spot paid links, but I think text link advertising is the least of their worries right now.

The Science Channel has been running a show from 2005 through the beginning of 2006 called “Survivorman“. This show first grabbed my attention because of his (Les Stroud) knowledge of living off of the land for up to seven (7) days. It’s a great educational show that teaches anyone watching how to survive with only the natural things our Earth has to provide. The show has actually taught me many neat tricks I’ve used that really do work.

You may ask what this has to do with LinkWorth. It’s a goofy comparison, but it makes me think of the internet and search survival. Just like Les resorts to surviving off of the most basic forms of survival, online marketers must resort to the basic forms of the internet and search; text links as per digital marketing agency in Sydney. Text links are what makes the internet what it is, which is why search portals make their ranking systems so dependent on them.

As the internet advances into the future, users of the internet have become smarter and have trained their minds to rarely notice typical advertising mediums. This is why advertisers have retracted to text link advertising. It is the most basic form of the internet and internet users will still follow text links. So if you are looking to better your online marketing presence, become your own Survivorman and resort back to the basic form of the internet and get on board with text link advertising.

Anyone that runs a message forum can understand the pain in the ass fun of forum spam. There is nothing worse than going through your forum to only to find one or a few “new” users that have littered your forum with posts that contain links back to whatever it is they are promoting. Used to, people did this to acquire inbound links. Now I have no idea why people do it, other than maybe to get traffic. So I thought I would blog all the reasons forum spam is a waste of your time.

My TOP TEN REASONS why forum spam is not good:

10. It does absolutely no good at all to build your link popularity. Think of it this way, a link counts for 1, a forum link counts for 1 MILLIONth of 1. (Join LinkWorth 😀 )

9. All it does is piss people off. Even the forum users can spot spam and they hate it as much as the forum owners.

8. If it’s a forum that has any activity and moderation at all, the spam will not last for more than 24-48 hours.

7. Very few people will follow the link and those who do, have zero thoughts of giving you a penny.

6. You run the risk of getting reported to spam reporting services which could really backfire on you.

5. If reported to your registrar, 99.99% of registrars prohibit any type of spam and can rip your domain out from underneath you. Then you sit with no site, no business and no friends.

4. If you are spamming your ability to offer SEO services or marketing services, all it does is tell people that the only thing you know how to do is SPAM, therefore resulting in zero sales. Along with making you look like a clown.

3. Your hosting provider will drop you quicker than a bad habit to prevent their own company from getting in trouble.

2. Since you are promoting one of your url’s, those who are having to put up with your crap can easily visit your website, acquire any and all email addresses pertaining to your company, then submit them to lots of opt-in porn, gambling and pharmacy mailing lists. 😀

1. If you are stupid enough to have a picture of yourself on your website, the end result could turn into a big laugh for others at your expense.

So the point of this post is . . . DON’T SPAM OUR FORUM OR ANY OTHER FORUM ! ! ! (our blog either. We have filters that sort out spam. Blog spam comments are never even seen by us)

As I’ve mentioned in previous entries, the SES is currently underway in New York City. My previous entry discussed the art of not putting a target on your forehead if attending and how to ask questions smartly.

Upon reading about our industry reps giving a session, it made me wonder about another thought. These sessions involve many search engine employees talking about what is good and what is not so good, including the business of buying and selling text ads. Is it a good idea for certain companies to get up and talk about exactly what they are saying not to do in the next room? I am all for spreading the word of our industry, but it seems like you would bring undue attention to your business. Chances are, they know all about us. . .well I know they know about LinkWorth, but it just makes sense to run low key and focus on helping your customers rather than networking yourself within the search community.

I need to follow up the paragraph above with our stance with the buying and selling of text ads. No matter what search employees say at conferences, blogs and/or forums, it is your choice to monetize your website or promote it. Search engines say “don’t buy or sell links”, but then they tell you to do so in their terms. If you market online, you have to do what you have to do to get a leg up on your competition. The buying and selling of links is not against their terms of service . . . read them here. It says not to participate in “schemes” or “trickery”, but what LinkWorth offers is not a scheme or trickery. We place text ads for apples on an apple website. Everything is relevant and all about improving your name recognition and traffic. Just so happens, the buying and selling of links helps this.

The last thing I’ll say about this is search engines themselves live off of text ads. It’s a little different model, but there is a common denominator in all of these methods, to make money. They do it, we do it and we help you do it. As long as you do it the right way, which LinkWorth does, everything will be fine. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years and are professionals about it.

Off that rant :D, the point of this entry is to give props to Patrick, Eric and the others who represented the text linking community well today at the SES NYC.