Entries Tagged 'Text Links' ↓

We can all agree that the past year of link building, well SEO in general, has been quite the hot topic. Damn near ‘everyone’ participated in link building in some form or fashion. If you read someone that says they have never participated in link building, you can bet most of your money that they’re not telling you the whole truth. It was just part of the landscape and you had to do it to compete. A good analogy is like trying to compete in a marathon but not working out, you can still participate but you probably won’t finish.

All this rambling leads me to my point. Since the ’so called’ hammer was thrown down, a lot of people have either turned their heads towards link building or have continued on as under the table as possible. Those that have turned their heads have found it impossible to compete, once again. Why? It’s because linking is still alive and well. The truth of the matter is it will always be alive and well unless the engines change the way they rank websites, a point that I’ve said over and over. Sure, they can try and slap people’s wrists, but if you knock 10 down, there’s 10 more waiting to take their place.

A great example of how well the text linking business still works, I bring to you exhibit A. If you look at the page source, you’ll find that it is nothing more than a frameset page with absolutely zero content. Only a title and meta description. It is currently ranked #1 for the term “Text Link Ads“, which is pretty competitive. I first thought our pals over at TLA were back on track but then realized it was just an affiliate page. Either way, I was thrilled to see what I was looking at. That gives even more proof that you can rank a page with nothing but a pure linking campaign. All you have to do is look at the back links listed and you’ll find their text links. It’s a beautiful thing.

If you have become a non-believer, what more proof do you need that we can help!

When you come across a SEO agency, their main motto is, “We’ll get you listed naturally in the search engine results.” The goal is to eliminate the need for PPC because you’ll be listed in the natural results. That is even the motto in our niche market. The idea is you get search engines to read your site, then your site will be listed well for your target keywords. Plain and simple, right?

If that is the case, wouldn’t it make sense that the SEO company you find ranks well for their own keywords and do not have to attract people by using AdWords? Should it make more of an impact to the customer if that company doesn’t spend a dime on AdWords and only gets their customers by way of natural search traffic or through non-search related advertising?

I think it is quite humorous when I see SEO or SEM companies that don’t rank well for a single keyword in their own industry, but they tell potential customers that they can do it for them. You could definitely point the finger towards the fact customers aren’t hip enough to do the research on SEO companies before they spend a dime with them, however, I know of situations first hand where people in our industry put certain companies in a high regard even though they are nowhere to be found when it comes to natural search.

I’m definitely not here to point anyone out, this post is more about asking the question regarding this subject. I’ve always wondered how a customer feels when searching for this type of service. I know I’ve read new SEO sites that talk a big game, yet they’re nowhere to be found on simple keywords related to them, which always makes me think they’re a bit full of it and I’ve always wondered how the actual customer feels about it. With that being said, some of the smartest cats out there could not rank for the easiest of words, but it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t get amazing results for their customers.

If you have a second, give me your thoughts. I’d like to hear what everyone else thinks.

Reading studies about online advertising is something I always enjoy to dig in to. It really gives you an insight of how companies are spending their money and what they feel is the best bang for their buck. Running an online business and actually being in the marketing industry makes it even more beneficial to understand our target market.

Today I read MarketingSherpa’s Study on the Best & Worst Online Tactics & Budget Plans. I was very happy to see how well the SEO market is doing with the highest Search ROI percentage (57%), trumping paid search ads by almost 25%! No wonder Google is trying to take the feet out from under SEO companies.

What do I mean by that last comment? There is no secret that a main staple of any SEO campaign is link building. Or maybe it is a secret to some, but an SEO firm can optimize the hell out of your site but it’s really nothing without a solid linking campaign. (INSERT LINKWORTH) There is a reason so many agencies use LinkWorth as part of their process; it’s effective and it simplifies their jobs. How much of what we do actually works? According to this study, quite a bit. Here’s a graph showing the emergence of text link ads into the marketplace:

What a pleasant sight to see. We had the largest increase from ‘06-’07 and we’re in the top 3 of outperforming tactics. What’s even more impressive is the fact link building campaigns are tough to work into conversion systems. I think we do a great job of educating our customers in how they’ll see the benefit, but if you come across someone that lives and dies by the analytics conversion system, it might be a tough sell.

One more thing about this study that interested me was the expectations of emerging tactics. See the image below:

It appears viral video is an area where marketers are looking to increase their budgets. They list Youtube.com, but there are loads of sites videos can be uploaded to. One example of the viral video tactic is the girl Kina Grannis who entered a contest with Doritos to win a music contract with Interscope Records. She used the social network Digg.com and wrote a song “Gotta Digg” for that community. Long story short, it was a hit and so was she, along with getting a contract with Interscope.

Have an agency and interested in using LinkWorth? Call 866.LNK.WRTH and we’ll get you started. Know what you’re doing and ready to go? Or have your own site to promote and want to do it on your own? Then go signup and create your account. You can be on the ground running in just a few minutes.

Earlier today we put our new ad checking spider into production. The much needed upgrade is using up to date technologies along with verifying code and text of the ad. What this means is, if you publish an ad using the wrong anchor text or the wrong code, the ad is not going to be validated until it is published correctly.

Another advantage to our new spider is the advanced level of communication. Rather than just telling you the ad is not found, we’ll be communicating the reason why our spider was unable to validate the ad. We do expect a period of a few weeks to get the communication feature completely finished.

We do encourage you to let us know if you notice any unusual activity or messages being sent. What I mean by this is if we’re sending incorrect information or something repetitive, or just out of the ordinary, then contact support. This doesn’t relate to messages about ads not being found. If you are receiving an ad not found message, we request that you hold off contacting us until you have received more than one consecutive messages regarding the same ad.

Here we are, the office has skipped out a little early to prepare for their big night to welcome in the New Year, Matt and I are still working and 2007 is about to be gone in the blink of an eye. Something tells me that in my mind, I’ll be making another post just like this in what will seem like a couple months, asking, “what happened to 2008?”

Overall, 2007 was a great year for LinkWorth. Sure there were bumps in the road here and there, but what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. Luckily the business of online marketing is going nowhere, so that means we’ll continue to morph into a better marketplace for our advertisers and for our partners. We definitely want to thank “ALL” of our customers that continue to make LinkWorth one of the biggest and best ad networks in our industry.

To keep this interesting and not so sappy, because that is so not my style, I wanted to send a few 2007 farewell’s in bullet style:

• Farewell to: All of the conferences we attended: SES, SMX, Pubcon and Affiliate Summit. . .
• Farewell to: All of the cities that put up with us: Seattle, San Jose, Vegas, New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, D.C. . .
• Farewell to: American Airlines and their HORRIBLE delays, the special emergency landing, decent 1st class and pitiful coach seats. . .
• Farewell to: Our departed staff: the good, the bad and the greedy. . .
• Farewell to: The almost $2mm in payouts our partners earned!!. . .
• A special thanks to: All of our wonderful advertisers who helped LinkWorth continue on. . .
• Farewell to: Greg “The Hammer” Williams, aka Motorcycle Greggo, aka Sweet Greggo, aka Robot Greggo, aka Common Man. . .
• Farewell to: The horrible scoring system known as PageRank. . .

As we send 2007 out the door, let us welcome 2008 in along with a few bullets for what to expect here at LinkWorth:

• 08 Outlook: More blogging with tips, tricks and secrets to making LinkWorth work even better for you. . .
• 08 Outlook: Create new ways for partners to gain more exposure to Advertisers. . .
• 08 Outlook: Improve our daily spider check to cut down on “not found” messages (already in progress). . .
• 08 Outlook: Introduce new advertising products with a focus on vintage methods. . .
• 08 Outlook: New contests with new prizes. . .
• 08 Outlook: The purchase of Google and Yahoo with my next few saved paychecks. . .
• 08 Outlook: Growing the LinkWorth staff with new smart and exciting people. . .
• 08 Outlook: Spread the LinkWorth brand to new markets attracting new advertisers. . .
• 08 Outlook: Making 2008 better than 2007 and having a great time doing it. . .

Obviously, both lists can have loads more bullets, but this is what came to me before I walk out the door for the evening. 2007 was such a great and big year for our customers and our company, anything short of what we’ve already experienced isn’t really an option.

Directly from the LinkWorth crew, we wish everyone a very safe and happy new year!

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about Google selling links for a cheap annual price of $1,995. It was a story that I read some time ago but could not find the real owner, until today when Rustybrick sphunn what I had just sphunn and provided a link to the original story. I appreciate someone finally telling me who I could credit because I don’t like duplicating stories without giving kudos.

As I’m reading the comments on sphinn today, I see where people are saying the backlinks are not showing up. I would suggest they are not looking very hard. I researched several when I was blogging a couple of weeks ago and found the google backlinks on several of the domains. This made me want to do even more research today and I happened across even more google links that are essentially links that were bought. Oddly enough, the nofollow tag is absent on all of these. Something Google is forcing everyone to do if it is paid for in some fashion.

Now the original link farm style page was a hit and miss for finding google on their backlinks. Lucky for me, I stumbled on a gold mine of hard evidence they are nothing but hypocrites over at Google. Let me introduce the enterprise superstars!

http://www.google.com/enterprise/superstars/index.html

These people are Google customers who have paid for the Google Mini and because they paid, were recognized and highlighted. The first page is a list of the “Current Winners”. Each person from the respective company is highlighted and given a Pay for Post style write up on a Google blog. (example)

Now let us move on to the real gold, the success stories page. If there were doubts about passing juice before, this page should seal the deal with proof.

I did the daunting task of checking all 187 links on this page (umm..link farm?) and the results paint the picture:

• 171 of the domains have google.com appearing in their google backlinks.
• 10 of the domains do not have google.com in their google backlinks.
• 5 of the domains have no cache and/or no website present.
• 1 of the domains has a typo and the link does not work.

In summary, if you want a good solid backlink or even a backlink and a blog review on the google blog, then pay for the google mini and become one of their superstars.

I have put the entire list with results in this PDF called Google Link Selling if anyone wishes to check my work.

Their new motto should be, “Do As I Say, Not As I Do!”

There’s definitely no doubt that the eWar of 2007 between Google and Bloggers has taken a new turn. It appears that Google has targeted the bloggers who are part of the loud and proud company of payperpost. It sucks for the bloggers because their system offers work based on their PR and now Goog has taken that away, but I’m sure they’ll dig their way out of it. This move definitely gives the goog troops the false apparent upper hand. But the word is they’ve hit others too.

What does this mean for you? Well it’s no secret that people who use them more than likely use LinkWorth and many other money making networks, other than Google. Since Goog is trying to perform a public abortion to other ad networks and taking the bloggers with them, I figured the bloggers should go into their battle well prepared. I’ll come back towards the end of this post and give my two cents on those who wave the white flag, but first, here’s my checklist for anyone who uses any of these networks Goog is trying to bully into a slow death:

• Clean Your Tracks
  Search engines, although they have huge amounts of resources, still have to use their algo’s to spot issues. Or they rely on the brown nosers to squeal on others and report their fellow competition. That means you must do your best to clean your tracks. What does this mean? Remove all of the outbound links pointing to ad networks you are using that Google probably isn’t that fond of. Consolidate them to point to a single redirection script that resides on your site. Let that script send your affiliate code and block the bots from indexing that redirection file.

  Also, make sure you are not so flamboyant with your promotions. A lot of bloggers I come across have badges thrown across their site promoting a handful of ad networks, which just makes it very easy to spot when a human review is performed by the pesky opposing enemy. Try to move your promotions to their own page. For example, write a post about whoever you’re promoting and on your sidebar where you list affiliate links, link your sidebar to the individual pages rather than directly to the affiliate site. Even on these pages, use the redirection script mentioned above to prevent bots from following the links. Here is a redirection script and I would name the jump.php to a unique name you create, then each link sent to that file, add the rel=”nofollow” so bots will not follow. You can go even further to add the meta noindex,nofollow underneath the script.

• Disclose On Your Terms
  Disclosure is usually something you want to lean towards, but since the enemy is attacking people who do disclose, it might be best to not disclose at all. For this example, I’ll give suggestions for both ways. It is always good to let your readers know when you are giving a live spot and when you’re speaking from the heart. Most readers are smart enough to figure this out on their own, but the “know-it-all’s” who make the most noise feel it’s polluting the net when bloggers do not disclose paid vs non paid. I would like to see them be in the shoes of the common blogger that works their asses off to write clever and great selling points for advertisers, only to get bitch slapped because of someone else’s agenda. I’ve actually read some of the best blog posts from bloggers doing it for money.

  Anyhow, do what you need to do to cover your expenses and bills, but if you can do it and disclose, more power to you. But when you disclose, keep each disclosure unique from others. This eliminates patterns, which is what the enemybot looks for. For each post, make the title unique, but with the same message. For example: “Today Company X has paid me to review Product Y“; or… “A quick Review by Company X who paid for it“. The more unique you make each post, the better chance you have to make your readers trust you and keep the enemy off your ass. If you choose to disclose using an image, make it an image you pull from YOUR site, not from the ad network. I would download the image, save it to your desktop, rename it to something unique, then put it in the images folder of your host. If using the ALT tags, use keywords related to the post rather than calling it “disclosure” or the adnetwork you’re using. Make sure they don’t all use the same, as well. Otherwise, don’t use images for disclosure.

• Refuse Public Mugshots
  A lot of ad networks like to showcase who is part of their inventory. They’ll use your name, company or url to plaster all over their site in hopes of bringing in new business. In a normal happy world, this is an awesome way for both sides to get more pub. The problem is, with Goog going after anyone who participates in these networks, it just isn’t the best thing to do. If you give a testimonial, ask to be anonymous. The ad network isn’t out to wrong you, it just makes you a sitting target.

  Also make sure the ad network doesn’t reveal all of your information to any visitor that stops by. Someone pointed out the reason PPPost was popped is because their entire inventory is available to the public on their site. In their defense, they’re catering towards potential advertisers and had no idea it would be used against them. If you make it easy to spot, the self appointed net god will do what they want to penetrate the opposing side. If you are part of a network that makes everyone public knowledge without your consent, make a strong case to remove that feature or at least remove your listing.

• Host Your Affiliate Images
  Most affiliate programs will serve up affiliate banners/images from the suppliers website. The advantage to this is if images change, you’ll always have the most current version. The disadvantages would be slow load times if there is a connectivity issue, the image being removed from host and you are not told, size of image changing and I’m sure there are other little issues with it. The most important disadvantage is you’re telling the bots where you are pulling the image from. So if you are pulling an image from adnetwork.com/images/img21.jpg, they know you’re probably part of that site. It’s easy to spot it and you’re busted. The way to bypass this is to right click the image and save it to your computer. Then upload to your own site and pull the image from your own site. Don’t add the ALT tags with the network name either. Throw a good keyword that relates to your site.
• Try Acronyms Instead
  It’s probably safe to say that reading a blog that uses the name BLOGPIMP (made up name) more than 10 times, is probably part of the BLOGPIMP network. With this in mind, knowing its an easy pattern to spot, how easy can it be for G00G to add this to their algo and spot sites/blogs that mention “NAME” more than X times? I’d say very easy. Use your own acronyms to reference the network you’re talking about and maybe provide a legend somewhere visible. You can also link the acronym to your affiliate page mentioned above. There are other options like using a mouseover for the acronym and bury the answer into some javascript. Then when someone places their mouse over the acronym, a pop up window or tooltip message appears showing the affiliate name. The main goal is to not mention these ad networks in every to every other post. Here is an example tooltip script. Using #6 and placing your function call in a .js file separate of your page would be optimal. But there are many great scripts to use.
• More Bang For The Buck Over Ads That Just Suck
  2-3 years ago, everyone wanted Pagerank because it mattered in search results. If you had a PR 7 or above, you were damn near guaranteed to be the top player in your market. Things have changed, so we must also change and get over the PR thing. It’s like going to the music store and demanding a Van Halen cassette, they probably exist somewhere, but it’s so outdated and who has a cassette player!

  Do you want to attract advertisers? Then give them more bang for their buck! Don’t shove their ad over in the sidebar or foot with your blogroll or list of 10 other advertisers. Stick them in your content so your readers actually see the ads. Footer and sidebar ads pretty much suck if you want to give value to your real estate. Let’s say a huge parade was coming down your street and a street vendor asked to lease a small spot in your yard to solicit to people walking by. Would you offer them up a tiny space in the middle of your backyard? No. And they probably will not be interested. Show potential advertisers that you want people to click their link and put ads inside your content and you’ll see people will want to spend money with you. (Like our LinkInTxt product - quick plug)

• NEVER Let ‘Em See You Sweat!
  I’m amazed at all of the noise bloggers are making over this. Obviously bloggers are writers and it’s a way to speak their minds, but all you’re doing is bringing attention to yourself. The enemy’s goal is to create Google FUD (< --Great Article to Read). The craziest thing is people that are giving up thousands of dollars and waving the white flag. And for what? "Hope"? Hoping their PR comes back? And what happens if it never does? Think of all the important green (moola) thrown away for some meaningless green (PR).

  Ok, back to this point. All of these blog posts you're making on your site is letting them know you're sweating. If you're sweating, you're probably guilty. Today I came across someone that not only made a post about how they would get their PR back, but they pointed out ways to spot paid ads. My suggestion is to keep things on the happy and positive note. Don't let the enemy or potential advertisers see you sweating. You'll lose the fight and you'll lose the sale. Keep your path and act as if nothing has happened. Make necessary changes but keep them to yourself. And if you are part of a network that has a possible flaw, send that network a direct message and let them know about it. See if they have any plans to correct it. Don't give the enemy the gun to shoot you.

To sum things up, just be smart, think ahead and don’t overreact because everyone else is. Pick your poison and learn to co-exist. No one owns the internet which means no one can dictate how you monetize your website. If you have suggestions to add to our list, post them below and we’ll include them.

Just want to remind everyone that you have until November 30th 12:00 Midnight CST (-6:00 GMT) to submit your blog entries for the contest. Remember, send it to scarlett@linkworth.com with the subject “LinkWorth Contest Entry.” As of now, I only have TWELVE submitted! That is one more than the amount of prizes we are giving out. We need some competition going. Come on people!

Also, with turkey day coming up, I just want to say have a safe and happy holiday to everyone.

Gobble Gobble

Isn’t it fun when people don’t practice what they preach? Google offers a link to anyone who spends at least $1,995.00. Most have seen this page before, but I read it over on Sphinn the other day and had to bring it up again.

Basically, Google will give anyone who spends a minimum of $1,995.00 per year for one of their Google Mini’s, a free customer testimonial and a link back to their site. Oddly enough, they aren’t playing fair in their rel=nofollow game they’ve been pushing on everyone else. Maybe we should start selling text links on Google for $2k per month and use the Google Mini for our own needs. I would imagine most companies would happily pay 2k per year for a solid link on Google. That’s only $166.67 per month or $38.46 per week or $5.48 per day! That’s EASY money. And for those taking notes, their links DO pass PageRank and they do appear as valid backlinks for the sites they link to. Shame, shame spammers.

**UPDATE**
I couldn’t remember where I originally read this, but as I’m making the topic public again, others are riding my wave and pointed out where it was brought up originally.

**STICKY: We’ve bumped this post to the top until the contest has ended.**

Well, I’d first like to start off by saying thanks to everyone for suggesting their ideas on the contest. Great job. That kind of just sounded like the beginning of an acceptance speech huh?

The contest is to write a new blog post about LinkWorth. It can be a tutorial on how to publish our products, how to sell them, how to purchase them, how LinkWorth has helped monetize your blog, how great our customer service is, who your favorite LinkWorth contact is, how LinkWorth can benefit others and so on. I think you get the idea, the blog post can be about anything related to LinkWorth. You’re welcome to provide a link back to us, but it is not required. Screen shots of our website are also acceptable. All entries will be saved and the top eleven (11) entries will be selected and receive a prize.

Rules and Regulations…don’t you hate these things?

• Must be signed up as a LinkWorth customer(can be advertiser, partner or combo)
• All entries must be a new, original post and not something written prior to November 1st.
• Only 1 entry per person
• The entry must be a minimum of 250 words (not including the title: Just in case someone were to put something like “LinkWorth has helped me very,very,very,very,very,very,very much!”…I know none of you would ever do that though)
• When you have finished writing your blog entry, please send the link to scarlett@linkworth.com. In the subject line, you can put “LinkWorth Contest Entry”
• Each customer has from November 1st thru November 30^th 12:00 Midnight CST (-6:00 GMT) to submit their entry to me. After that-no más!
• –UPDATED RULES NOVEMBER 4th–
• Anyone and Everyone can participate regardless of location.
• All costs of shipping will be paid for by LinkWorth, LLC., regardless of location.
• Prizes cannot be replaced with cash. Prizes have already been purchased and will be sent to the winners as we select them. Be sure that your address in your account information is correct.
• All prize winners will be contacted prior to prizes being sent. If prize winners do not respond within 10 business days, we will forfeit that winner and replace him or her with a new winner, so be sure to respond to our winning message.

Rules and Regulations are subject to change with prior written notice.

Prizes

After much contemplating, we have decided that the best blog entry will receive a Wii! For those of you who don’t know, it is the coolest video game player Nintendo has come out with. It’s completely virtual and can be a great workout if you don’t feel like hitting the gym one night!

The next five winners(2-6) will receive a hip Ipod shuffle. You could upload anything from Bee Gee’s-Stayin Alive to your favorite SEO podcast. Whatever floats your boat.

Finally, our last five winners(7-11) will recieve $50 of LinkWorth credit to their account.

So all in all, it is some pretty neat prizes. We will announce the winners Friday, December 14th. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Good luck and may the best blogger(s) win!