There is nothing harder than to sit back and read a blog or forum that contains criticism or your product and/or service. It is only the nature of our human brains to get our own points across to debate the negative publicity being plastered for all to read. Of course, you have to be passionate about what you are doing to really get the fire burning. Speaking from my own experiences, I thought I would give a few examples and suggestions in case you ever stumble across this situation in the future.

I’m sure you have heard the old cliché, “Any publicity is good publicity”. To a certain point, this is true. If the majority of your publicity is “damn them”, “burn in hell”, “die, die die” . . . then I would challenge the words of that cliché. What people have to understand is, no matter what product you might have, what service you might provide, there will always be critics. It is part of life in the business world. Successful people will always have people that dislike them due to their success, much like successful businesses have people that dislike them for how well the business is doing. Then there are a percentage of people that dislike whatever it is they offer, for whatever reasons.

It comes down to how that person or that business handles the criticism. More than 90% of the time the person or company being criticized should learn the art of silence. Let people have their comments about you, good or bad. Usually, the criticisms are way off the truth and the writers are just looking for attention, but there are also many times where it can be true. If it is on a website or any other type of documented media, just remember, anything you respond with will also be up for all to read. So “IF” you are going to respond, do so in the most generic and apathetic way you can. Consider being apologetic, not too much, but enough to show there was no ill harm intended.

Once a response happens, try and end the conversation at that point. Getting involved in a full fledged conversation with the critic that is documented on their website, could be a complete disaster that gets you saying things you will later regret. Keep your response very brief and stay away from the hot topic at hand.

A couple of examples, including one of my own, will show you how to not handle things. I will go ahead and throw myself under the bus first.

• My first example dates back to 2004 when LinkWorth first hit the marketplace. Our system was still fighting through bugs and growing through overall design issues. A guy named Philipp Lenssen had created an account and was getting a good feel for it. Philipp and I had spoken a time or two on really good terms and he had nice things to say. Well during an upgrade of PHP, it caused problems with our support software and Philipp already was hot under the collar, so the support issue was the boiling point. He decided to post his issues on his pretty popular blog.When I first came across his post, I was shocked that something that he should have known was a glitch that could happen to anyone would cause such negativity, but as you will see there were a few other things that he was not happy with either. He claims he is fully aware we are new and will work the bugs out and even speaks of our new upgrade to the site, but at that point, he was ready to move on. So then follows my response. It was meant to be explanatory but to say I’m ok with him leaving if he’s unhappy. Well, it didn’t come across too well. Then it turned into what I hoped it wouldn’t be. I became too involved and let my passion for our service get the best of me. “How could anyone not like what I was doing!” 😀 Now this lovely discussion will appear when you search LinkWorth. Lesson learned. I’ve read other critics since that period and no longer respond. Our service and support speaks for itself these days.
• The next example is one I happened across just recently. It is regarding a guy named Jarrod who is the owner of text link brokers dot com. Seems he stumbled across a website, which I’m familiar with, that called his service greedy and a few other hot opinions. This site has many posts about LinkWorth as well; it is a blog about buying and selling links. Anyhow, Jarrod made a very shocking first response to the webmaster who wrote that. After the fact, he claimed it was someone else that posted it and asked to have it removed. Thankfully it was not removed because if I can’t get my mistake removed, no one else should either. 😀 Later I found another site which seems to be tied into the other where the webmaster spoke of the bashing by Jarrod and then the guilty party chimed in and apologized for his remarks previously (I thought he said it was someone else that posted it?) and the two resolved their issues.

So this just proves to you, letting your passion and emotions take over can really backfire. Take it from me and Jarrod. I’m sure we both wish things would have just disappeared, but speaking for myself, it keeps me humbled and more responsive to our customer’s needs. I will admit that it taught me a big lesson and had I known the art of silence then, I wouldn’t have been able to write this article. 😀

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Posted on March 14, 2006March 14, 2006

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).

For those of you who have been around since 2004, you might remember a guy that tried to build a copy of LinkWorth, then talk smack on our service on other forums and on ours. He claimed to eventually crush LinkWorth and dominate the text linking market.

It’s been a common punch line around our office and with our long time customers since then because the other site seemed to die rather quickly. Well one of our long time customers emailed me a very funny picture he put together and I had to publish it here for those of you that know the situation to get a good laugh. Special thanks to MDawg!!

Anyone that runs a website is familiar with AdSense. The thought of earning some of Google’s billions is appetizing to anyone, which is why Google makes their billions. Oddly enough from text ads, which makes them who they are.

What strikes me as humorous is the webmaster that decides to make a keyword happy website, a gateway site so to speak, that is made up of hundreds of thousands of pages, each page targeted for a keyword or key phrase, all interlinked quite well, with an outbound link on each page to their main website. Some even outbound link on each page to numerous websites. The other very important part of “every” page is the existence of Google AdSense Ads which are plastered all over the pages in hopes of earning thousands of dollars from Google each month.

Well here is my little bit of advice to those of you who either have this already or plan on building something similar in the future:

DO NOT USE ADSENSE ON QUESTIONABLE SITES!!!!

What people fail to realize is, if Google is paying anyone a remotely high amount of money, they have a team of employees who will review each and every AdSense partner website to see if there is any evidence of breaking their terms of service and/or webmaster guidelines. Especially if they are paying you several hundreds to several thousands of dollars each month. If they find you breaking their terms, DING, and your site is not only penalized and removed from their search results, but your money is gone.

So be smart. Don’t bring attention to yourself if you plan on trying to fool the search results with any type of black hat schemes.

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.