Diversify Your Portfolio

One thing we tend to pass on to all of our customers, advertisers and partners, is to diversify their linking portfolio. While we would love to take all of the business, the truth of the matter is it’s not what’s best for you, the customer. There is no doubt most advertisers can find more than enough partner websites to fit their needs, but we feel spreading it out through a few networks would serve your goals better. It is just very important that the other networks used are reliable and trustworthy.

Partners as well should consider offering their real estate in other networks similar to LinkWorth, This guide to what is IDX and how to use it derived from showcase idx best practices (click for details). There is nothing we enjoy more than to see our publishers making lots of money off of text ads, so we will do what we can to help all of our partners achieve this. The best way is to make your website real estate available on multiple services like LinkWorth. It’s a numbers game and the more eye’s that can see your offering, the better percentage you’ll get more interested parties. IMPORTANT NOTE! Before joining any other service, make sure you read the terms of use. Pay close attention to what you can and cannot do, namely, can you participate in other similar websites while participating in theirs.

As an example, we typically always suggest one of our competitors “Text Link Ads” as a great alternate source. Those guys have a great service and a nice inventory, plus we’ve had a few dealings with them and appreciate their professionalism. Just recently we referred a partner to them and just to make a long story short, they came back telling us they were told they could not use LinkWorth while participating with them. After a quick check of their terms and we found the following clause,

EXCLUSIVITY PROVISIONS.
A. If Customer is a publisher, it agrees that it will use the Company’s Services exclusively for its needs relative to placing static HTML links designed to drive traffic and increase popularity. This exclusivity provision does not apply to contextually driven ad programs (for example, Google???? Adsense program, Yahoo???? Search Marketing Ads) or to any other non static HTML link ads (for example, AdBrite????).
B. If Customer is an advertising client, this Agreement imposes no restrictions on its right to use any advertising services it deems appropriate.
C. Regardless of whether Customer is an advertising client or a publisher, it understands that other users will have access to the Company’s Services and Site, including competitors of Customer.

LinkWorth obviously does not have any clause preventing you from supplementing your income with other services remotely similar to ours. Our stance is it’s your site and you can do what you want. So while Text Link Ads is a great service, if you’re a LinkWorth partner, I would suggest sending a support ticket into those boys and asking if they have a problem with you selling links through our system and their system. It’s very possible they are ok with it, but we’re not sure.

There are plenty of similar link selling services these days. Not many as extensive and advanced as LinkWorth, but all you need is a meeting ground with real potential link buyers. Of course, a reliable payment solutions is a plus, but you should catch my drift.

If you ever have questions on other services like LinkWorth, let us know and we’ll be happy to research and give you our honest and unbiased response. Look at Shravan Gupta website this is a business and there’s no hidden agenda’s here. The big difference between LinkWorth and other certain companies is our main goal is helping our customers become successful on the web. We would much rather help someone find another service that might fit their needs better and make a friend than filling them full of empty promises about a service we do not have and in due time having that person leave hating us. That newly made friend we referred to someone else will usually send us new leads for years to come. We should make up a name for this, using “Karma” and “Business” . . .

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Get Closer to Matt Cutt’s

As if Mr. Cutt’s didn’t have enough say in the seo industry, looks like he’s started to make video’s and publish them on Google Video’s. He goes through several seo tutorials and some of these can be pretty helpful. Obviously, he’s going to say everything that most people know about, but even the well rounded seo individuals can learn a thing or two at any given time.

Notice the constant eye twitching. Most people I’ve seen that do this, typically do it because they are not telling the truth. More than likely it’s from reading his blog too much, but it made me laugh out loud watching it thinking of the lying nervous twitch idea.

The first video is a disclaimer, the you can click on the listed one’s to the right for more tutorials.

Example Matt Cutt’s Video

============================== Added 8.9.06

Ok, so I was mentioning these video’s to a colleague and we started watching a couple of “Matt’s Cutt’s” (rock me), when we stumbled across a video with Mr. Cutt’s and his cat. Ok, we have a cat and I love the p#@ssy as much as the next guy, but the general concensus between those of us that have watched this particular video is. . . CREEPY! I hate to judge people without knowing them personally as I’m sure this guy is a super nice guy, but maybe he should have someone reviewing these clips before they’re uploaded for all to see. Take a peek at what we’re referring to and give us your take:
Matt Cutt’s and Cat

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Google AdSense Reporting Click Fraud

I found this by way of WMW, then on Google’s site. Seems AdSense is letting customers run reports showing “invalid clicks”, or as most of us know it, “click fraud”. While this may give some of us a ‘sense’ of security, many others will find fault after fault in the reporting. Here is a clip from Google’s site:

Today, we’re announcing the launch of a new AdWords feature enabling advertisers to have a much more detailed picture of invalid click activity in their account. The metrics of “invalid clicks” and “invalid clicks rate” will show virtually all the invalid clicks affecting an account.

These clicks are filtered in real-time by our systems before advertisers are charged for them. The resulting data will of course differ from one advertiser to the next. In addition, a much smaller number of invalid clicks may also be credited to advertisers’ accounts after-the-fact, as the result of a publisher being terminated from the AdSense program for invalid click activity. These will appear as account-level credits.

One of the most controversial issues related to the topic of click fraud has been estimating how big the problem is. Estimates from third-parties (usually from consultants who have a financial incentive to make the problem seem very large) have been both inconsistent and greatly exaggerated due to their methodologies. Advertisers have always been able to compare their log data with their AdWords charges to calculate an estimate of the number of invalid clicks in their own account. This new tool will make estimating invalid click activity much easier.

Notice the bold print part above. So what they’re saying is, even if you use a 3rd party solution, they won’t believe it. They’re not going to trust the advertiser and they’re not going to trust the 3rd party service, so you’re screwed! I have an idea, offer a neutral 3rd party solution that both sides trust. One that has no financial gain or benefit to pump one side or the other up. Not sure how that would work, but in my honest opinion, this new reporting means nothing. They say “consultants who have a financial incentive to make the problem seem very large”, yet, isn’t it a financial incentive for Google to make the problem seem very small? Hi Pot, meet Kettle.

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SES San Jose Around The Corner

If conventions that are only related to search engine marketing excite you, consider making travel arrangements to San Jose between August 7-10. It is one of the premier search engine expo’s in general and one of the top actual SES shows that happens during the year. Conveniently located near Silicon Valley, all of the search engine giants will be in attendance, along with many other well known names in the industry. LinkWorth will also be in attendance meeting with business affiliates and potential clients. If you would like to meet with LinkWorth, please send an email to SES@LINKWORTH.COM providing your name, company, contact info and a reply-to email. Our schedule is filling up, but we will try and meet with all interested parties.

The list of exhibitors and/or sponsors is quite extensive. The list includes: 7Search.com, 24/7 Real Media, 360i, 888.com, ABCSearch, AdBrite, Acxiom Digital, AdGooroo, Affinity, Ask.com, Atlas, Become.com, Best of the Web, BetterPPC, BeyondROI, BlackFoot Inc., Bruce Clay, Inc., Business.com, CentricSource, Click Forensics, ClickTracks, Commission Junction, comScore Networks, Coremetrics, CPAEmpire.com, Did-It, Digital Grit, Direct Response Technologies, DoubleClick, Efficient Frontier, Elixir Systems, Engine Ready, EngineWorks, Eurekster, Fathom SEO, Findology, GenieKnows.com, Google, Hitwise, icrossing, IMPAQT, Inceptor, Inc., IndexTools, Info.com, InfoSearch Media, Ingenio Pay Per Call, Intellicontact, Interchange Corporation, iProspect Search Engine Marketing, isedn.org, JoeBucks.com Herbal Affiliate Program, Kanoodle, The Karcher Group, Kontera, LifeTips.com, LinkConnector, LivePerson, Localeze, LookSmart, Mamma Media Solutions, Marchex, Marqui, Inc., Memetrics, Mercent, MIVA, Moniker.com, MonsterCommerce, MSN Search, Netopia, Inc., Netramind, Net Visibility, Offermatica, Omniture, Inc., Optimost, Outrider, Performics, Position Technologies, Inc., PRESSfeed Co., PRWeb, Quigo, RevenueGateway.com, Revenue Science, ScanAlert, The Search Agency, Search Engine Optimization, Inc., SearchForce, Inc., SearchRev Inc, SendTec, SiteTuners.com, SLI Systems, SmartSearch Marketing, Snap.com, Submit Express, Teragram Corporation, Text Link Ads, Trellian, Trexy.com, TrueLocal, Tyloon Yellow Pages, Unica Corporation, Verizon Superpages.com, Vivisimo, WebmasterRadio.FM, WebSideStory, WebsiteServicesMagazine.com, WeRLive, Yahoo! Search, YELLOWPAGES.COM and YourAmigo.

As you can see, there is a little bit of everything at this expo. On top of the many companies, there are also several days of classes. Anything you want to learn, learn it from the leaders in the market. Here are some links of reference for the expo:
SES Website
SES San Jose Home
SES San Jose Agenda

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A New Way to Publish Rotating Ads

For those of you not taking advantage of our rotating ads product, do yourself a favor and activate the option on all sites that are capable of running them. Sales of rotating ads have been climbing quickly over the past few months and advertisers are really taking to them.

If you are already publishing rotating ads and have experienced slow response times, first we want to apologize. We’ve been increasing the number of servers that are serving our ads and there have been a few growing pains. Currently we have extremely fast response times and monitor it constantly. With our server numbers growing, downtime should eventually be eliminated from the equation making slow response times a thing of the past. Again, we do apologize for any dragging that has been experienced recently.

What we have done to eliminate slow response times is offer a new method of publishing rotating ads called “local file inclusion”. This new option will allow partners to install the entire rotating ad on their own site. This takes LinkWorth servers completely out of the equation, along with making response times a non-factor. This option is already available in the publish options for rotating ads with instructions of how to set it up on your site.

Currently the only language we have it available for is PHP, since it is the most widely used. If you use ASP, Cold Fusion or Perl and would like this option, or have any other questions, please submit a support ticket.

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Strategical and Mental Planning WILL WIN!

Being a Dallas Mavericks fan, I was thinking of the Mavs and their preparation for the NBA Finals. I realized their strategical and mental planning was not complete and well thought through. Had they continued their hard work even when the winning was happening, when the tough times popped up, they could have easily gotten through and eventually taken home the championship.

The biggest task to in building a text link advertising campaign is strategical and mental planning. Our client services department analyzes your keywords/phrases, builds traditional text link ads, rotating text link ads and even billboard page ads. Once these items are developed, and the monthly budget is acquired, the client services dept. will begin completing and launching your text ad campaign. We continue to research and plan these campaigns for the future, even if they are performing at high levels.

I know this is a bit goofy, but I was just thinking of how our NBA team flopped in the finals and started realizing LinkWorth operates like a true NBA champion. Go Mavs and Go LinkWorth!

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Two Must Have Firefox Extensions

If you read anything on another post regarding Internet Explorer, you might understand that I do not use IE much anymore. Obviously there are some things that I just can’t get around without IE, but for the most part, I’ve converted to Firefox. Firefox flexibility is one that just cannot be overlooked and the ease of adding extensions puts it far above all others in my book.

I like to try new extensions from time to time, especially if they are in the world of seo and/or development, so I would like to share two must have Firefox extensions if you are into search engine marketing or search engine optimization. These two extensions can help in link building research to spot sneaky coding and also quick site stats.

SearchStatus

The first one is called SearchStatus. It is offered by a company called Quirk which appears to have three offices around the world. Once this extension is installed, you will, by default, see three items in your lower right browser window; Alexa ranking scale, PageRank ranking scale & Quirk’s logo, which is a blue “Q” with a circle around it. The features on this extension are probably the best I’ve seen for this type of industry and I give high regards to the makers for a job well done. Feel free to visit their website to get the latest info on this extension, but I will go through and highlight many features here.

The Q icon offers several options when right-clicking on it.

The “options” selection will provide the ability to place the icon/images in various places of your browser. Don’t worry…if there is a particular place you want to put it, they’ll give you the option!

Enable PageRank‘ is the next option. Check this and the PageRank status will appear. Uncheck it and it will not show. (Simple enough). If the PageRank status image is active, you can right-click on it to get additional Google features:

Show as Text‘ – This is the google command to show a website as only text. It will remove all images, css, scripts and so on. It will show you the basics of the page revealing hidden text and hidden links.

Show Cache‘ – This will give you Google’s cache of the page you are sitting on. Pay attention to the cache date to see if it was indexed recently. If it’s been over 45 days, the site could be penalized.

Show Related Links‘ – This is Google’s list of sites they feel is related to your site in one way or another. Some have said it’s best to have links on these sites back to you, but most of the time it’s a time wasting view.

Show Backlinks‘ – This will give you a list of sites Google knows about that link to the website you are viewing. Most of you know this is ‘link popularity’, one of the most important factors in doing well within your respective search results.

Enable Alexa‘ – Just like PageRank, check to see, uncheck to remove. This is the first scale for Alexa I’ve come across. It is just like PageRank, except blue (like our LinkRank). You can mouseover the scale to get the exact Alexa ranking. Right-click on the Alexa ranking and get these addition features:

Show as Text‘ – The same feature as on the PageRank. Shows the page and text only.

Show Traffic Details‘ – This will give you in-depth traffic info for the requested domain. The Alexa traffic numbers have always been a topic of controversy, but people still like to see their own and others. Especially if it is good. Don’t read too much into anything that is not in the top 20k. It’s just impossible for any one source to know exact traffic details of every site.

Show Incoming Links‘ – This is like Google backlinks, except it is all links that Alexa is aware of. These numbers are usually pretty low.

Contact Info‘ – This can be a useful tool if you want to see who owns the domain quickly.

Categories‘ – Just a show of what category the requested domain falls into. Might help determine if a publisher site is within your own realm.

Related Links‘ – similar to Google’s, just gives you sites it feels are somehow related.

Highlight NOFOLLOW Links‘ – This is a great option that will show you which links on a page are set by the webmaster to not be indexed. Saves the trouble of having to sift through code to see if the tag is added on a given link.

Meta Tags‘ – Opens a new window and details all of the META information on that page.

Show in Archive.org‘ – it shows what archive.org has on the site. You can see the progression of the site..if any.

Show Whois‘ – similar to the contact info, it will show you the listing in whois database.

Show robots.txt‘ – want to see if a site is blocking pages from being indexed? Use this option. It will tell you how a site allows information to be read by the search engines. Not everyone will have this file, so don’t be surprised to get a 404.

Show Keyword Density‘ – this is a simple breakdown, like our own density tool, of keywords on a page and the rate at which they’re shown.

Highlight Keyword‘ – just like a CTRL-F. (Page Find)

Show Indexed Pages‘ – Nice option that will show you the indexed pages by each engine or all at once. Rather than having to go to each engine and type the command or run a tool for each engine, the “All” selection does is a great time saver!

Show Backward Links‘ – Again, see backward links by engine or all once.

So this is the breakdown of SearchStatus. I guess I went ahead and detailed everything currently on it. Just be sure to check the owner’s site for the latest build and features. Thanks Quirk for such a great tool!
Web Developer

The second extension is called Web Developer. It was developed by Chris Pederick and he has done a great job. This is a toolbar extension that has ‘many’ options available. The idea of the toolbar and its features is to give the web surfer power to enable and disable different parts of a website/webpage. Cookies, CSS, Forms, Images, View Source, Tag Information, Outline Abilities, Browser Resizing, Validation Options and flexibility. One of the best features is in the “Options” tab where you can add your own or other tools to the ‘TOOLS’ tab. There are too many options to go through on this toolbar, so the best thing to do is visit Chris Pederick’s Web Developer page and read his published info. Another great extension to add to your Firefox browser.

Have a Firefox extension that would rival these? Let us know.

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Google’s NOFOLLOW proves to be a failure

Seems like search engine experts are finally admitting that the Google idea to add a tag of “nofollow” to certain links has proven to be a big failure. This is an excerpt from here:

I think it’s time we all agreed that the “nofollow” tag has been a complete failure.

For those of you new to the concept, nofollow is a tag that blogs can add to hyperlinks in blog comments. The tag tells Google not to use that link in calculating the PageRank for the linked site.

In other words, if I post a comment on your blog, and my comment includes a link to my site, people can click on that link to see my site as usual. Ordinarily Google would see that link and view it — as it views most hyperlinks — as an implicit endorsement of my site. This would ever so slightly boost my site’s ranking in Google search results. But if your blog software adds the nofollow tag, Google won’t give my site any added weight at all.

The half-baked idea was that if everyone adopted nofollow, it would quickly make comment spam pointless. The thinking was that comment spam is aimed at creating lots of links to a certain site, thereby boosting that site’s rankings in Google searches. Example: If I fill your comment pages with links to haiku, then maybe Google will start to believe that my haiku site really does have something to do with haiku.

Since its enthusiastic adoption a year and a half ago, by Google, Six Apart, WordPress, and of course the eminent Dave Winer, I think we can all agree that nofollow has done … nothing. Comment spam? Thicker than ever. It’s had absolutely no effect on the volume of spam. That’s probably because comment spammers don’t give a crap, because the marginal cost of spamming is so low. Also, nofollow-tagged links are still links, which means that humans can still click on them–and if humans can click, there’s a chance somebody might visit the linked sites after all. Heck, if we really wanted to eliminate comment spam, why don’t we just get rid of hyperlinks altogether?

Worse, nofollow has another, more pernicious effect, which is that it reduces the value of legitimate comments. Here’s how:

Why should I bother entering a comment on your blog, after all? Well, I might comment because you’re my friend. But I might also want some tiny little reward for participating in a discussion, contributing to the content on your site, and generally enhancing the value of the conversational Web. That reward? PageRank, baby. But if your blog uses the nofollow tag, you’ve just eliminated that tiny little bit of reciprocity. Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather just comment on my own blog. And maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll link back to you.

This blog entry was referenced by a Yahoo search expert which had his own words of wisdom regarding this train of thought:

Look. Linking is part of what makes the web work. If you’re actually concerned about every link you make being counted in some global database of site endorsements, you’re probably over-thinking just a bit. Life’s too short for that, ya know? Link and be linked to. Let the search engines sort it out.

I think the line “Let the search engines sort it out” is the most educated thing I’ve heard any search employee ever say! The most ironic part of the Zawodny post is how his Google AdSense is displaying a banner from Txt Lnk Ads. Good for those guys getting prime pub.

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Beware of IE 7 Beta – Don’t Do It!

As a person that likes to test and try out new software versions, curiosity got the best of me on this one. I read that a new beta version of Internet Explorer was available for download and install, so when I had the time I quickly downloaded a copy and ran the installation. As you might imagine, with it being a Microsoft product that tangles itself with Windows, it takes a while to setup. It almost felt like a brand new version of Windows was being installed.

Finally everything finished and it was time to give it a go. At first glance I instantly noticed the new tabs feature obviously taken from Firefox. I also noticed that the visual aspect of everything in the browser window seemed to be very smooth. This gave me a quick “false” feeling about my new install. Then the fun started. I navigated to one of our support pages and was given an IE template page telling me that I was trying to access a “phishing” website!! That led to 15 minutes I will never get back filling out a report with Microsoft explaining why our website is not what they say it is. This meant that anyone that had the new version of IE would be falsely told that our site is a site that runs in an illegal form, which is complete and utter slander. Luckily they were quick to respond and supposedly remove it from whatever list it was on.

The next issue I found was the relationship between IE and Outlook. Just like everyone else, every other email consists of hyperlinks that I must click to do whatever function necessary or visit a website that can download free invoice tools for my business. Prior to the upgrade, I click the link and a new browser window opens to the url. After the upgrade, I click a link and everything is put on hold (frozen) unless I either end the process or I get a windows error. If the windows error pops up, it is followed by a “Save As” windows explorer window like I’m trying to save something. After wasted time looking for a way to change the default browser, I have finally succumbed to highlighting the url, copying it to my clipboard and pasting it in a Firefox address bar. It has completely ruined my simplicity of email link clicking.

As if I didn’t have enough issues, the next day I was doing some accounting work in Quickbooks until I attempted to do one of our very vital weekly duties only to be told I was using an incorrect version of Internet Explorer. I thought it must have been a mistake, so I tried again and received the same message. So I tried restarting my computer and again, the same error message. This new IE version has now limited my abilities in our accounting software to where I have to move to another computer to complete them.

There have been other small issues I have come across that don’t warrant anymore time spent on them, but they are annoying enough to make the IE 7 Beta version a complete bust. I’m sure this time next year it will be updated with a lot of kinks worked out, but at this time in the ballgame, heed my warning. . .DON’T DO IT! There are many nice things that I see potential in, but the negatives far out weight the positives at this point and for someone that used IE more than any other browser, I have been forced to use it only if I have to. The uninstall might sound like a logical move, however, if you have ever uninstalled major Windows programs before, you might be familiar with the hell it “might” cause.

Microsoft software engineers. . .PLEASE release a more stable version quickly!

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Nothing better than getting the last word on a common cliche

Cliche’s are a staple in normal every day business chatter. Once in a while a phenomenon will come out of nowhere that leaves the cliche violator speechless.

The cliche in question is occurs when you are requested to carry more than you can physically hold or you are given too much work that would be considered work required by more than one person,

I ONLY HAVE TWO ARMS!

The child below has been given the gift of 3 fully functional arms:

3arms.jpg

The amazing thing about this child is the discussion of removing the extra appendage. The most important part of the child is it’s health. If his health is great, then it moves into a moral standard. Some have discussed the advantage one might have with an extra arm versus someone with only two arms. This might be a gift to this poor child and the doctors want to remove it based on making him blend in with everyone else. Again, this all falls on the health risks involved, but if there are absolutely no health risks with his extra arm, this could be something that makes him stand out and be something extraordinary. You need to Check this out for top doctor’s suggestions and their reviews.

We wish the child and his family the best and hope the right decision is made.

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