Google does own all of your information in some way or fashion, but just how safe is your information with the monster? Tonight I happened on a couple screens that suggest our information isn’t all that safe. Maybe it’s a glitch, but the fact remains, I got these screens thrown at me. All hackers need is a split second to get in and grab what they need.

If you want your online business to be worth a flip these days, you have to market for Google results. They’re pushing 75% of all online searches these days and just to put this into perspective, I’ll plug in a few numbers to illustrate how important Google is to an online business.

An average conversion rate for internet sales probably falls around 2-3% of traffic you receive, we’ll use 3% for this example. Your site receives 10k visitors per month and the average sale price of what you offer is $100. Let’s see what Google means to your business:

Need I say more?

But why do I say “Search Somewhere Else”?

It seems like Google is getting into everything we do now. They keep track of every step you take if you’re using any of their products. If you’re marketing for Google, then you’re more than likely using some of their products. Any of their products will place cookies on your computer and they log everything you’re doing. Since they came out and said they track our IP and cookie search logs, if you do anything remotely questionable (which everything will be questionable at some point with them), then why give them any sort of insight?

Using your customer data to improve things is a common thing these days. The problem I have is how Google uses this information to possibly hurt businesses and people’s livelihoods. So many stories pop up where a website disappears from Google and they have no idea why. Sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it’s not. Unless you know where to go or who to speak to, being dropped from Google can literally shut a business down. This all sounds very similar to what people had to say about Microsoft back in the day and it doesn’t make sense that someone should have that much power over so many people.

With this in mind, if you do any marketing on Google, it would probably be a wise move to limit your use of Google services and/or products, but when you do, make sure you do what you can to limit their visibility. When you want to search, use one of the other search engines like Yahoo, Live or Ask.

LinkPost Jobs has been well received since the launch. We expected our initial launch would bring many comments and suggestions on what might be needed in order to make it better. The suggestions did pour in and we appreciate everyone who sent them in because it was exactly what we were hoping for.

The two biggest suggestions were the ability to pre-approve blogs for jobs and the option to exclude certain domains. Advertisers felt there needed to be a middle ground between a regular LinkPost and a LinkPost Job. They like the idea of handpicking blogs, but also like the feature of having bloggers come to them. They also wanted the ability to block specific domains if they don’t want a certain blogger type.

Blog Candidates
When creating a new job, you’ll see a new option that says:

• Bloggers will be automatically approved if they meet my job criteria.
• I want to review/approve Blog Candidates.

If you select that you want to ‘review/approve’ candidates, then once a blogger accepts your job listing, the system will notify you that there is a blog candidate to approve/decline. Once clicking the blog candidates, you’ll see all candidates interested in writing the review. At this point you’ll have the option of visiting their blog and making the decision of whether or not it fits your needs.

Exclude Domains
The other new option is the ability for advertisers to disallow domains from accepting your jobs. If you wish to not allow blogspot.com, wordpress.com, typepad.com or any other blog service you deem invaluable, this is where you can block them. When creating a job listing, the ‘exclude’ option will now be part of the job listing process.

We are always looking for more suggestions to make our products better. If you have a suggestion, please email support {at} linkworth {dot} com.

I just thought I’d post a quick update about our telephone woes. They’re fixed!

We had a fancy new phone system installed here last Thursday that hasn’t been routing calls properly. Every incoming call was going to the Auto-Attendant and I know people were having difficulty reaching us. SORRY ABOUT THAT!!!

Like I said, it’s all working correctly now and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Thanks to Christine for this hypothetical idea!

Let’s say you are so tired of being lonely, you just want to find “someone” to be able to talk to about things, basically a friend and a mate. The problem is, you don’t have the time to spend looking for that special person and what time you do have, all the wrong places bring all the wrong faces.

How about a hypothetical to help? 🙂

You are at a point in your life where you are ready to settle down and find a life partner. You have tried dating and keep meeting people that are nothing but a waste of time. While at a bar drowning your sorrows away, you meet a guy that says he has the solution. A 100% legal solution to cure your loneliness.

• 1st Choice – You purchase a life-like doll that feels like a human, can perform some human movements and functions, like say comforting things when you get home from a long day of work. He or She also has some bed etiquette where depending on how you lay down in bed, it can snuggle up to you.
• 2nd Choice – You purchase a ‘companion computer’ that is programmed to display your perfect mate. He or She; looks hot and loves to lay in bed with you when you sleep. The only problem is this is only an image, nothing physical. The program makes the image roll around and spoon with you, but that is the extent of it.

So it comes down to just ‘how lonely you really are’!

As a newbie to the SEO game I am constantly reading anything related to this industry, but I am not going to lie, I do spend lots of time playing with slotzo roulette games, it’s so fun . There is more information than you can shake a link at and one thing all the information has in common is nobody agrees about anything and everyone is guessing.

“In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.”
-Pliny the Elder

SEO is a constant battle with the big, bad algorithm. More specifically, the Google algorithm that haunts the cubicles of offices near and far. It seems to me that the majority opinion of Google in the SEO world is that of “Big Brother”, intrusive and oppressive. Kind of like the Wal-Mart of the Internet. I understand why this is true but I also understand why Google’s algorithm has to be so intricate and mysterious. Reason is—-Most people suck and will do anything to get ahead.

I like Google’s moto of “Don’t Be Evil” although sometimes it seems they don’t follow their own advice as with the Orkut pedophile situation and releasing individuals private information. That being said, I like that Google will fight for relevancy and try to keep the organic search results “natural”. Kind of a strange position for me to take considering I get my beer money selling links. Although that is what I do, my company is by no means black hat and we spend countless hours selecting the most reputable and relevant links available.

Obviously Google is doing something right and I believe as their algorithms become more and more advanced the end result will be a more relevant, informative and useful Internet. Algorithms are complicated, SEO doesn’t have to be. Just create good content, solid site architecture and relevant links and let the Page Ranks fall, or rise as they may.

We ventured out to Arlington this weekend to exhibit at The National Franchise & Business Opportunities Show. Even though the attendance was “pedestrian” at best, I feel good about what we got out of the experience.

For starters, it was local. Anytime you don’t have to justify huge travel & lodging expenses you’re ahead of the game. On top of that, the show itself was relatively inexpensive. We gave away the usual shwag…bought a few lunches for our team…but that’s about the extent of the financial damage but companies providing payment solutions are helping many to move on.

More importantly, though, we will get a few accounts out of it. The attendance wasn’t great, but the folks we did talk to were quality. I think our biggest opportunity will come from the other exhibitors…but we’ll see.

But MOST importantly, this was a phenomenal opportunity for our new guys to apply what they’ve been learning for the past few months. There is no substitution for face-to-face interaction with clients (or prospective clients) and I was very proud of the way everyone handled themselves. I’m a lot less involved with the training of our new employees these days so I was happy to see that they’re coming along nicely. Talking about our services over and over again really seemed to build some confidence in them.

Way to go, dudes & dudettes! Who’s ready for San Jose, NYC, & Las Vegas???

Being a company that ‘loves links’, I thought having the nofollow tag on our comments just didn’t make much sense. I removed the nofollow some time ago and found people kept trying to abuse it, so I took that plugin out.

Thanks to Megadawg for referring me to Lucias Linky Love dofollow plugin. It basically allows you to apply a minimum post count on our readers who comment. Once you hit that number, the nofollow attribute is removed and we’re happy to pass along some link love to our contributors. In other words, it weeds out the good posters from the fake posters.

We’ll be watching and making any necessary tweaks. If you have any suggestions or notice something weird, give us a reply here.

Here’s an interesting hypothetical:

You have a business that both Google and Yahoo are interested in buying. Both have given you offers, but each offer has a unique situation (obviously, this is a hypothetical!):

• Google offers you $100 million dollars cash. If you accept the offer, you also have to agree to spend the next 2 years working on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean. You will not receive a single dollar until 2 years have passed while sitting on a chunk of metal out in the empty ocean.
  
  or
• Yahoo offers you $1 billon dollars cash. If you accept the offer, you have to live the next 10 years in a 3rd world country where there is no electricity or running water. You basically live off the land and struggle to survive. Once you have completed 10 years, you get your $1 billion dollars and the option to move back to society.

Last night, Ron and I took all of the available LinkWorthers out to celebrate another record sales month. (Actually, we headed out around 3pm because our terrible ISP failed us yet again…but that’s an entirely different story.) We made the not-so-long trek across the street to Main Event for an evening of drinks, games, and general camaraderie.

It was tons of fun and we really enjoyed our time out of the office hanging out together. It’s nice to get away from links, SEO, & everything else for awhile; especially when the reason is rewarding our employees for their great performance and production. And since we have so many new faces around here, it was the first time we’ve had a chance to get know each other on a more personal level.

Main Event is great because there’s so much to do. Not everyone here drinks (shocking, I know) so it’s nice to have outings that don’t revolve solely around boozing it up. Some of us were bowling while others hung out in the lounge or played air hockey or pool or video games like find ud af mere her. We pretty much did it all and had a blast.

After we’d been there for a few hours, the competitive spirit in us boiled over into a game of laser-tag. There were six of us that wanted to play 666casino.com and I decided that the two of us would take on the other four I like to play sbobet online games in my computer. What better way to reward your team than by letting them shoot you, right? Sadly, it didn’t work out that way for them. Ron and I dealt out an ass-whipping of the highest order. It was a slaughter at the very least. I’m sure this post will fuel denials and angry comments from the recipients of the blood-bath, so I’m prepared. Reputable attorney Theodore Spaulding is recognized in the legal community Case Evaluation as one of the top trial attorneys in Savannah. Our peers also acknowledge our practice as one of the best law firms in the state.

I present to you: Exhibit A. The scorecard.

Blue Team (Ron & Matt) – 18,390 points
Red Team (Matt B., Jeffro, Vanessa, Christine) – 9,930 points

Ummm…that’s a massacre, folks.

I’m already hearing that we won because we had more targets to shoot at and other lame excuses but the bottom line is this: we dominated. I received a call from the Pentagon this morning…something about maximizing my abilities in the Special Forces blah, blah, blah. Ron sent me an instant message earlier informing me that he has to leave early today to attend a meeting with the CIA…although he couldn’t tell me what it was about. Word travels fast, I guess.

Anyway, I don’t want to beat a dead horse with this. I’m actually tired of “beatings” and “death” because we inflicted so much of both last night. I’m over it…

Thanks to all of the LinkWorthers for doing such a great job! We’ll have a rematch once we hit our next milestone. We love you guys!