Search Engines E-marketing Metrix

Google Site Map Generator

2005-07-08T15:34:00.000+03:00

http://www.site-map.co.uk/

Why use a Site map?
Site maps serve two vital functions:

They help surfers navigate!
They encourage search engine spiders.
Site Map Synonyms:
crawler-pages, gateway-pages, hallway-pages, spider-pages

Increasing Visibility using a Site Map
Visibility is very important. The more pages of a site you have indexed, the more likely one of them is to appear in a search engine results page. Because:

Someone, somewhere is searching for content that appears on one of your web pages.
Search engines deliver results based on pages they know.
Therefore make sure that search engines know about all of your pages

Pay-Per-Click Tips for Attracting Traffic

2005-07-06T14:48:00.000+03:00

By Cory Rudl - Entrepreneur.com

Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines can be a powerful, instant source of qualified traffic for your website?provided you do your homework and invest a bit of time in managing your campaign. In fact, many website owners who've mastered keyword targeting and know the "insider" bidding strategies tell me that more than 90 percent of their traffic comes straight from the PPC search engines!

So I'm going to show you the strategies and tools these folks are using?so you can duplicate their success. I'm going to explain hot new targeting options and bid-management tools being offered by the PPC search engines that you can use to increase your traffic while keeping bidding costs low.

A lot of people think the only way to develop a successful pay-per-click campaign is to get the highest ranking with a popular keyword in the top two PPC search engines, Overture and Google AdWords.

Now it's true that a top-ranked ad with either of these two industry giants will guarantee your site a lot of exposure?as long as you're bidding on keywords that a substantial number of people are searching for. The problem is, you often have to pay more for these No. 1 spots. And in the case of the more competitive keywords, this can means bids of $1.50 to $5.00 (or more!) per click.

If you want to be successful with the PPC search engines, you need to bid on keywords that attract clicks from "qualified" buyers (as opposed to "tire kickers" who'll drive your costs up) while keeping your bids as low as possible.

Here are seven tips that will help you accomplish that:

1. Figure out what you can afford to bid. This might sound obvious, but it needs to be said: Don't bid more than you can afford! A lot of businesses make this mistake.

Before you pay for advertising of any sort, calculate the value of a single visitor to your site. Once you know what one visitor is worth, you'll know the maximum amount you can afford to pay per click.

2. Being "No. 1" isn't always best. You don't always need to be ranked No. 1 for certain keywords to attract visitors. Sure, it helps if your ad appears in the top 10 results. But people click on listings featured on the second and even third page of results for competitive keywords.

So run some tests. Vary your bids so that your listing appears higher and lower on the page and see what effect the ranking has on your profits. You may actually find that for more costly keywords, a slightly lower ranking is more profitable.

3. Bid on low-cost variations and common misspellings of particular keywords. Frequently, you'll see businesses bidding as much as $5.00 per click for popular keywords?while nobody is bidding on common misspellings and similar keywords that cost just pennies per click. Use Wordtracker to locate keywords that relate to your business and are frequently searched by your market, but that none of your competitors are bidding on.

4. Bid on highly targeted phrases with less traffic. Rather than bid on a handful of "general" keywords, which tend to be more expensive because they get the highest number of searches, bid on dozens?or even hundreds?of highly "targeted" keywords, which tend to be cheap. For example, instead of bidding on "pet supplies," you might bid on "red dog leash," "oversize dog kennel," and "cat toys with bells." You're sure to see better sales conversions on the more targeted keywords because they attract more qualified buyers. And since no one is bidding on these keywords, your advertising costs associated with this traffic are extremely low.

Another benefit of this strategy is that you can direct these qualified visitors to a page that gives them exactly what they're looking for. In the above example, your listing for the keyword, "oversize dog kennel" could link directly to your dog kennel catalog page, rather than to just the home page of your pet supply store.

5. Bid on keywords in the lesser-known PPC search engines. Overture and Google are the PPC industry leaders, but some of the smaller PPC search engines are worth checking out as well. The most popular ones are:

Espotting (for the UK & Europe)

These engines won't get you the same exposure you might get with Overture and Google AdWords, but you can still generate a respectable amount of traffic with them. And best of all, they're much cheaper.

6. Create separate ads for each product or service you sell. This is an extremely effective strategy, but very few businesses are using it: Write ads specific to each keyword and phrase you bid on. For example, instead of writing an ad for "sporting goods," write one for "quality leather soccer balls," another for "discount ladies' tennis shoes," and so on.

These customized ads will attract more attention (and clicks!) from qualified buyers. And of course, you'll be able to convert more of these visitors to buyers if you direct them to a page on your site with the exact product or service they're searching for.

7. Get listed in relevant specialty PPC search engines. Did you know that there are specialty PPC search engines that target different markets such as brides, pet owners, antique collectors, car owners and so on?

Check out PayPerClickSearchEngines.com to see if there are any relevant to your business that might be worth getting listed in.

Targeting Your Campaigns

PPC search engines are constantly looking for new ways to improve their services?and your results. After all, they want you to keep purchasing advertising from them and not their competitors.

Here's an overview of some great tools they're offering to help you better target your ads and keep your campaign costs down:

1. Keyword Matching Options (offered by Overture and Google AdWords). Both of these search engines offer options that allow you to fine-tune the way your keyword is matched to the phrases people type into their engines. Their options differ slightly, but here's a rough breakdown:

Exact match. A listing is triggered by the exact keyword phrase and nothing else. Example: "fishing rods" will match "fishing rods" but not "fancy fishing rods."

Phrase match. A listing is triggered by the keyword phrase as it's written, though it might be included with other terms as well. Example: "fishing rods" will match "antique fishing rods and reels" but not "rods fishing."

Broad match. A listing is triggered by the keyword phrase or slight variations of it, even if the words are out of order or separated by other words. Example: "fishing rods" will match "Rod's Alaskan Fishing Adventure" and possibly even "Rod's Fish & Chips." Warning: The broad match option can work well for highly specific queries, such as brand names or serial numbers, but can result in a lot of poorly targeted click-throughs for general terms, especially terms that have more than one meaning, such as "dolly," "tackle" or "nails."

Negative match. When words identified as "negatives" are typed into the search engine along with the keyword phrase, the listing will not appear. Example: "fishing rods - cheap" will match "fishing rods and tackle" but not "cheap fishing rods."

2. Contextual Targeting (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, Kanoodle and Enhance Interactive). Contextual targeting places your PPC listing on websites where the content somehow relates to your ad. Obviously, this can be a great way to increase the exposure of your ad.

If you decide to try contextual targeting, however, be sure to monitor where your ads are being placed because the effectiveness of contextual targeting can vary widely. Your ads may end up featured on websites that have little to do with your advertisement?and therefore attract unqualified click-throughs.

For example, a recent USnews.com article about starting a business had a series of "Hermosa Beach Vacation" Google Ads listed beside it?because the first person interviewed in the story happened to live in Hermosa Beach! These wasted clicks can quickly drain your bank account if you aren't careful.

3. Geotargeting (offered by Overture and Google AdWords). Geotargeting allows you to choose which countries or geographic regions your ads appear in. This feature is best suited for businesses that offer local services or products that are useful only in specific regions.

For example, if you're a landscaper who lives in Washington state, you probably don't want to pay for click-throughs from out-of-area visitors. After all, Texas-area residents aren't likely to request your services.

4. Day Parting (offered by Kanoodle). Right now, Kanoodle is the only search engine we know that offers this option. "Day parting" allows you to choose the time of day your ads will appear in different regions, so they're only available during "prime viewing times."

For example, if your market testing shows that most people click on your ads to make a purchase in the early evening, you can make sure your ads appear only at that time in the different regions where your potential customers live.

5. Keyword Research Tools (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, FindWhat, Kanoodle, LookSmart and Enhance Interactive). The most popular keyword phrases are always the most expensive. Keyword research tools help you find common variations and misspellings of the more popular keywords so you can keep costs down while still generating traffic.

More sophisticated keyword research tools let you see how much you need to bid to achieve a particular ranking (for example, the No. 1 spot, the No. 7 spot and so on) prior to finalizing your bid. They may also provide you with traffic estimates for the different keywords and phrases you bid on.

6. Multiple Ads for the Same Keyword (offered by Google AdWords). Google AdWords allows you to "split test" different ads for the same keyword so you can see which ad attracts the most paying customers. This can save you a lot of time, and enables you to make sure your ads will yield the highest possible return on your investment.

7. "Autobid" Software (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, FindWhat, Kanoodle, LookSmart and Enhance Interactive). Autobid software is a bid management program that tracks the bidding activity on your different keywords and automatically adjusts your bidding amount so you can maintain your ranking. The more sophisticated bid management programs allow you to "cap" your bids so you never spend more than you want.

They also eliminate "bid gaps" that occur when the bidder below your listing drops their bid?your bid is automatically reduced so you maintain your position without spending more per click than necessary.

Final Thoughts

If you haven't tried a PPC search engine campaign yet, I'd recommend doing it soon. There are still tons of cheap, targeted keywords waiting for your bids?but they may not be around much longer. More and more online businesses are realizing that?done right?a PPC campaign can be a fabulous source of cheap, instant, highly qualified traffic.

The best advice I can give you is this:

Bid on lots of cheap, targeted keywords and phrases, including misspellings, and avoid the expensive general words that everyone is bidding on.

Never bid more per click than what a single visitor is worth to your site?it's the best way to make sure your ads remain profitable.

Get listed in the "other" PPC search engines. You may be able to bid on popular terms you can't afford in Overture and Google AdWords.

Whenever possible, get ranked in the top 3 listings in Overture and Google AdWords. These ads appear on an extensive network of sites (including Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, Excite and more) and can reach up to 80 percent of all active internet users, so you get more bang for your buck.

Target your ads as much as possible. Write "custom" ads for each keyword and use the various bid management and targeting tools offered by the different PPC search engines to reduce your costs and increase your clicks.

Design your landing pages so they convert qualified visitors to buyers. If your ads promise "cat toys with bells," make sure they actually direct visitors to a page where it's easy for them to buy these items.

Corey Rudl, author of Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet and founder of www.marketingtips.com, is widely recognized as an Internet marketing expert because what he teaches are not theoretical approaches to online marketing but real examples of what works.

Get expert advice and tips generating sales and marketing your business at Entrepreneur.com's Sales & Marketing center.

Distinguishing Features of E-Commerce

2005-07-01T13:54:00.000+03:00

By Adil Waseem

E-commerce offers customers the chance to eliminate many stages in the sales/distribution chain. The mark-ups that occur between manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and consumers can add the cost of goods purchased by consumers. In contrast, when consumers deal directly with manufacturers on the internet, the process whereby intermediaries between the manufacturer and the final consumer are eliminated from the supply chain is known as "disintermediation".

E-commerce differs from mail order and telephone solicitation, the two most traditional forms of business using remote sellers, because these involve the delivery of goods by common carrier to and from a specific physical location. In short, there is still a physical delivery of property from an identifiable seller to an identifiable buyer. E-commerce presents an unprecedented challenge to federal and state tax authorities. States and local jurisdictions have wrestled with the issue of collecting taxes from out-of-state mail order sellers and telephone solicitors for decades; e-commerce enables almost any business large or small to sell to customers in different states and countries.

Out-of-state vendors engaged in e-commerce do not have an obligation to collect sales taxes if traditional remote sellers, such as mail-order and telephone solicitation vendors, do not collect sales taxes. Sales tax cannot be levied on a transaction just because the purchaser uses e-commerce to access the seller's computer to acquire property, goods or service. Also, states cannot use an "agency nexus" theory to claim that a purchaser's ISP is an in-state agent for the seller.

Commerce Defies Traditional Tax Jurisdictions

Using the internet, a company can, in theory, move its e-commerce business to a tax-haven country and conduct e-commerce outside the jurisdiction of any country that would otherwise tax the transaction.

Also, because of the speed in which transactions occur and the frequent absence of a traditional paper trail, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to apply traditional notions of tax jurisdiction. This is especially true with intangible property transmitted by computer such as software, digital music or electronic books and services.

While governments which depend on an income tax might have difficulty taxing e-commerce, states and local jurisdictions that rely on sales and property taxes to fund their operations could be in deeper trouble .

Lack of a Paper Trail

Unless a tangible product is delivered by common carrier, it is impossible for a taxing jurisdiction to determine that an e-commerce transaction occurred. For instance, if a consumer downloaded a computer game from a computer located in a foreign country for $19.95, paying by credit card, how would a taxing jurisdiction discover that such a transaction occurred? How would it determine the physical location of the seller? What if the purchaser had an internet service provider (ISP) in a foreign country as well?

Transmitting Property from Tangible to Intangible

Consider the following issues: Would the receipt of a computer game in electronic form convert the game into a non-taxable intangible item, whereas the purchase of the same game at a local computer store would be taxable because it is a tangible product? Also, if a newspaper has an exemption from sales tax will a newspaper that is downloaded in electronic form receives the same exemption? If not, would the tax levied on the electronic version of the newspaper be a discriminatory tax in violation of the commerce clause?

E-cash Issues

Electronic money is a type of debit card similar to a telephone calling card where the card itself keeps track of the remaining balance, rather than a third party bank. This could emerge as the preferred medium of exchange for e-commerce. E-cash will have the same anonymity as cash does in the current "underground" economy. Use of e-cash will further frustrate states and local jurisdictions on taxing e-commerce.

Multiple Taxes

Multiple taxes on the same transaction or service, either in the same taxing jurisdiction or two or more taxing jurisdictions, are prohibited. This could occur if a state-taxed internet access services as telecommunications and then taxed located telephone services as well. Unless a credit is given to eliminate any double-taxation, such a tax would violate the prohibition against multiple taxes.

The writer is an advocate of High Court and practicing immigration and corporate laws in Pakistan since September 2001. He is a self employed and pioneer in research on electronic commerce taxation in Pakistan. His articles were published widely in the critical areas of cyber crimes, electronic commerce, e-taxation and various other topics. He wrote LL.M thesis on titled “Legislation of electronic commerce taxation in Pakistan” in which he provided comprehensive legal proposals for statutory reconstruction of tax laws for purpose of imposition of taxation on e-business in Pakistan. Currently he is conducting is research on topic ‘Electronic commerce taxation: emerging legal issues of digital evidence’.

Author can be contacted by adil.waseem@lawyer.com.

Website Promotion – The Power of Writing Article

2005-07-01T13:51:00.000+03:00

By Charles Essmeier

I’ve been operating two small retail Websites for several years with modest success. Recently, I decided to branch out into a different area of e-commerce. I set up five different Websites at once and I wanted to find a way to obtain a lot of links to my Websites in a hurry. I wasn’t interested in paying for promotion, and I don’t care for the tedious process of exchanging links. On a lark, I typed the phrase “unusual Website promotion techniques” into Google, just to see what sort of search results came up.

That search yielded mostly Websites for companies that were offering to promote Websites for a fee, but one link did catch my eye – a site that mentioned writing articles to provide free content for Websites. I read the article on the Website and realized that I had found what I was looking for. This seemed to promise inexpensive, useful, fast results. I would write articles about topics that were relevant to my Websites and submit them to sites that would provide them to other sites that needed content. In exchange for this, I would receive a link back to my site. I decided to give it a try.

I did a search for “free content” on the Web, and made a list of sites that accepted articles and offered “live” links to the author’s Websites. I wrote an article of 400 words or so, submitted it to several different free content sites and waited. In order to accurately judge the effectiveness of this technique, I used a version of my name that I generally do not use as my author name. That way, I could do searches for my name in search engines and be certain that all results related to articles I had written. I submitted my first article in the afternoon and I I did a search for my author name in Google the next morning. I was astonished to see that not only had my article been published by several sites, but my author name turned up in search results just fourteen hours after I had submitted the article!

Clearly, I was on to something. I began writing articles in earnest. It wasn’t hard; as I am promoting seven different Websties, I had seven different topics to choose from. In the six weeks or so since I published my first article, I have written 60 more on topics relating to seven of my Websites. In that six weeks’ time, the total number of links from external sites to my own sites has increased from 765 to 11302. The growth in the number of external links to my sites has been explosive, and I’m now getting daily traffic to each of my sites. In just six weeks, I have managed to obtain a level of traffic that previously took me more than a year to obtain through traditional Website promotion methods. If you have a knack for writing, submitting free content articles is a great, fast, effective Website promotion tool. I highly recommend it.

©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing.

Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including End-Your-Debt.com, a site devoted to debt consolidation and credit counseling, and HomeEquityHelp.com, a site devoted to information regarding home equity loans.

Do We Need Web Directories?

2005-07-01T13:46:00.000+03:00

By Stuart McHenry

WEB DIRECTORIES

Directories play an important role in aiding a site’s web visibility. Crawler-based search engines will, upon finding your site on a directory, or series of directories, consider these directories as one-way links. This will then add importance to your site’s relevance in the “eyes” of these search engines and will most likely increase the chances of your site being added to their listings.

Relevant reciprocal link exchanges are given some importance by search engines but the most valued links, those which are most likely to boost a sites rankings in the major SES are one-way links - sites that accept your link without requiring a reciprocal link from you. These links are highly regarded due to the reasoning that other sites must hold your site in high enough esteem that having your link on their site is acceptable without an exchange requirement. Consequently, the more one-way links, the better!

Few, if any, sites today will agree to a one-way link favoring your site. The only way to achieve this is thru submitting to web directories.

Web directories and search engines have made a conscious effort to exclude bulk submitters. You’ve seen the ads - “We submit to 1,500 search engines and directories for $10.00, etc.” For this reason, many directories require your registration and possibly entering a security code. Practically all of these directories require you provide an email address. Although hot mail or gmail is usually accepted, some directories will require an email corresponding to your domain name and will allow you to submit your site only after verification so it is best to establish an email specifically for web submissions.

An important consideration in submitting is to be sure the directory has a page rank of no less than three. Four or more is better - the reason being that the big search engines like Google and Yahoo will attach more relevance to the link if the directory is well rated. In fact, submitting to a directory with a low or no page rank can - if done frequently - lower your own site’s page rank.

One of the best sites in which to find relevant web directories is Vile Silencer (www.vilesilencer.com). This site will guide you to appropriate directories and even displays the page rank of each directory.

Since directories are search engines edited by humans, detailed preparation must be made by the site owner or webmaster prior to submission. Be sure to offer a concise description of the sites offering, staying within the word allowance limits of the directories. In addition, the description should not include such self-promotional terms as “the best”, “the largest” or “best prices”. Directory editors consider this marketing hype and will undoubtably reject the submission.

Regarding cost, many directories offer the option of free as well as paid submissions. Many older directories with a large database may no longer accept free submissions - although some still allow freebies despite their size. Newer directories almost always allow free submissions in order to more quickly increase their database. The larger these directories grow, the more their importance on the web becomes and the more likely they are to charge for submission.

Stuart McHenry is President of Site Sift Media, Inc. which owns an operates http://www.site-site.com/

Google to Compete with PayPal?

2005-07-01T13:32:00.000+03:00

By Ross MacIver

PayPal is secure in its domination over the electronic payment industry, at least for now.

Following reports that Google planned to launch a new Internet payment service (nicknamed Google Wallet), Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, denied that Google would be directly competing with PayPal. He did, however, acknowledge that Google has plans for some type of electronic payment service.

Without revealing any details, Schmidt emphasized that the Google payment service will not offer the same sort of “person to person, store-valued payments system” as PayPal provides.

The Internet commerce industry was rampant with rumours of the new Google service following an e-commerce conference hosted by securities firm Piper Jaffray. Speculation that Google Wallet would encroach on PayPal territory was reinforced by the appearance of a June 20th article in the Wall Street Journal which stated that Google was planning an online payment service to compete with PayPal.

PayPal is a unit of eBay and generates almost 25% of total eBay revenue. It is used by consumers for making a wide variety of Internet purchases. It allows purchasers to use their credit cards without divulging their credit card numbers to merchants. PayPal takes a percentage of each transaction and had revenues of $233.1 million in the first quarter of this year.

Most of Google’s revenue comes from online advertising and this expansion into online payments was seen by many in the industry as yet another example of the rivalry between the two companies.

Google is a giant in Internet commerce with revenues of $3.2 billion last year. A payment service that competed directly with PayPal would be a serious blow to both PayPal and eBay.

Google maintained silence about the rumours until Schmidt’s comments last Tuesday. Without elaborating, he stated that Google’s payment service would be an extension of its existing advertising programs.

Copyright 2005 by Ross MacIver

This article may be redistributed freely on the Internet or in ezines as long as the resource box and hyperlinks remain intact.

Ross MacIver is the director of Best Online Content. We provide quality content for your web site and offer a full range of design and SEO services.

How to Generate Cash from Your Web Site

2005-07-01T13:27:00.000+03:00

By Entjik Jeffrie

The Internet has changed the way people do business today. Most business owners don't have to rent an office in order to run their business. For example, if you're good in making art works and crafts, you can sell your works through your own online store! It will cost you around $45 to $200/month to operate and an e-commerce store. If you are good in computers, you can start your own computer repair business web site! If you like making chocolate candy, you can sell them through your web site!

Maybe you don’t have products to sell, but you have information about health, insurance, real estate and other information. You can sell the information that you have on your web site! That’s the great thing about the information age!

If you don't have any products, skills, or information to sell, you can help promote other people's products on your web site through affiliation program.

EBAY is one of the great sites to generate an extra income. You can now sell the stuff that you don’t want anymore on EBAY. I met people who actually do EBAY business full time selling real estate. If you don’t know anything about it, I recommend you buy the education tools that you need to learn more about it.

Most Internet business owners today spend between $100 to $290/year to pay for the operation cost of their business web site! It’s a lot cheaper than renting a space in the local mall that can cost you $1500 to $10,000/month to run! Isn't the internet amazing? We no longer have to spend the overhead cost that is required to run a traditional type of business.

What I am trying to say is, the Internet has given you the power to have your own business. It's up to you now to do what ever it takes to make it happen. I want you to see how much power the Internet has in order to set you financially free!

The difference with people who are successful and people who are not is people who are successful will pay the price of their success! They don’t just sit around waiting for a fortune to come! They are willing to pay the price of educating themselves in order to become more successful! If you think the price of educating yourself is expensive, try ignorance. Being ignorant will be cost you a lot! You have to be willing to take your time to educate yourself, buy the necessary books, and business education system to make you become a better person and business owner!

One of the biggest reasons why people are not trying to build their own business is "FEAR." To cure your fear simple to educate yourself. Don't sell yourself short, if your car is worth $30 to $70 of gas, so is your brain. You must invest in yourself by educating yourself.

We wish you the best and have the courage to reach your goal and dream! Go to pebden.com business ideas section for more information and educational tools.

© Copyright 2005 Pebden.com, All Rights Reserved.

Entjik Jeffrie

Google PageRank, & How to Get It:

2005-07-01T13:24:00.000+03:00

First Published: June 2004

Last Update: June 2004

Author: Bob Wakfer

PageRank: The Background

Google's PageRank (PR) is one of the most sought after, and yet misunderstood, web page attributes. PageRank, named
after one of the founders of the Google search engine, Larry Page, was the innovative foundation that the Google search engine was built on.

The theory was that a link from one web page to a web page of another site was in essence a vote for that page. The reasoning was that webmasters would only link to pages that they thought were interesting and of value to their viewers. Google used the number of inbound links (IBL) to a page to judge the importance and relevance of that page, and based on this calculation,
and other factors, decided where to place that page
on the search engine results page (SERP).

They devised a scale of measurement for PageRank from 1 to 10. Then for the information of webmasters and interested people they produced a
toolbar that can be deployed in Internet Explorer that will indicate the PageRank value of any page being viewed in the browser. These values have become known as PR0 to PR10.
Note: A reader has pointed out an apparent contradiction between a scale of 1
to 10 and a reporting of PR0 to PR10. In fact PR0 indicates no PageRank. One
cannot be said to have PageRank until the site achieves a PR1 ranking.

Since PR values are a result of IBLs, Google decided to give them their own name and refers to inbound links as backlinks. As part of the toolbar
there is a quick lookup of the number of backlinks that Google reports for the page that is currently being viewed in the browser. This search can also be done without the aid of the toolbar by simply typing "link:http://www.yourURL.com" into the Google search box.

The one trick to this link search is that Google does not display all backlinks.
At one time it was thought that they only listed pages with a value of PR4 or greater.
Today however, you will find backlinks reported from pages of lower PR values. So,
at best, Google's backlink search seems to present some sample of pages
linking to the site. Suffice it to say that this search is not a reliable measure of all IBLs to a page.

How is PageRank calculated?

In simplest terms PR is calculated by the sharing of PR from all the IBL links to your page. This is not strictly accurate because Google also uses the internal links within a site in the calculation of PR. Each link to a page carries with
it and passes PR value to the target page. The PR points or value passed depend on
the PR value of the page they come from, and the total outbound links from the page. It is generally agreed that a page will only pass about 85% of
its value to the page it links to. So a PR5 page with a single outbound link
will pass 85% of the value of a PR5 page to the page it links to.

But virtually no page has only a single link -- remember internal links are also used in the total outbound link count -- so the value passed to any page is 85%
of the PR, divided by the total number of outbound links.

The question now becomes what is the PR point value of the different PR levels. Most observers
believe that the relationship between PR levels is logarithmic rather than linear. In other words PR5 is not worth
25% more than a PR4, but may be worth 4 to 6 times more.

It is also understood that a PR value is not a single number, but is in fact a range of values. So not all
PR6 ranked pages are equal. As the chart
below shows a PR6 maybe just on the upper boundary of a PR5 or it maybe just short of the entry point for a PR7.

The chart that follows shows the range for each PR value. It also shows how much PR value or PR points a page with 50 outbound links will pass depending on of
its own PR
rank. From this I have calculated the number of links required from each value of PageRank necessary
for a page to attain a desired page rank.

Here is the PageRank Calculation Chart.

Page Rank Calculation

PR	Start	End	Median	Median	Links	Links	Links	Links
PR	Range	Range	Value	PR Passed	for PR5	for PR6	for PR7	for PR8

1	6	30	18	0.30	16,803	92,414	508,277	2,795,522
2	30	164	97	1.65	3,055	16,803	92,414	508,277
3	166	900	533	9.06	555	3,055	16,803	92,414
4	915	4,948	2,931	49.83	101	555	3,055	16,803
5	5,033	27,213	16,123	274	18.362	101	555	3,055
6	27,681	149,670	88,675	1,507	3.339	18.362	100.992	555.456
7	152,244	823,186	487,715	8,291	0.607	3.339	18.362	100.992
8	837,339	4,527,522	2,682,431	45,601	0.110	0.607	3.339	18.362
9	4,605,367	24,901,372	14,753,369	250,807	0.0201	0.110	0.607	3.339
10	25,329,516	136,957,543	81,143,530	1,379,440	0.0036	0.020	0.110	0.607

Assumption: 85% of median value passed
Assumption: 50 links per page average

The assumptions and the mathematics:

For those who are interested I have used logarithmic values of base 5.5. In other words the value range
for a PR1 lies between 5.5 to the power of 1 and 5.5 to the power of 1.99, and
PR2 lies between the value of 5.5 to the power of 2 and 5.5 to the power of 2.99 etc. The rest of the chart is fairly
straight forward. It assumes that there are 50 links per page and that 85% of the PR value is
passed to the recipient page.

The number of links required to attain any ranking is based on the median value of the donor page and the entry threshold of the desired PR value. In other words to achieve a PR5 you need 5,033 points and the average points available from a PR6 page with 50 links is 1507.

The chart was calculated with an Excel spreadsheet and it can be downloaded if anyone wants to
play with the calculations and assumptions. It might be interesting to work with
a different base number for the logarithmic calculation. And it is also
interesting to see the impact of more or less outbound links from a page.

Are these findings valid?

Nobody knows for sure how Google calculates PR. I have shown this chart to a number of knowledgeable people and they have all agreed that my calculations look reasonable. One
search engine optimization (SEO) guru from a major firm said
the results were very similar to independent research that his firm had
conducted.

So take it or leave it. It is probably a fair reflection of how PR is passed and accumulated.

The lesson that can be drawn from this explanation and chart is that if you
want to increase your PR you need a few links from pages with equivalent or
higher PR, or a great many links from sites with lower PR.

For more information on methods for actually accumulating
links see part 2 of this article.

About the Author

Bob Wakfer is the owner of Computer Partners and a long time student and practitioner of SEO. Computer Partners offers web site design, hosting and search engine optimization for its clients. If you would like to discuss any of these services with Bob you can email him at bob@compar.com.

Using Newsletters to Market Your Home Based Business

2005-06-30T07:59:00.000+03:00

By Chris Stirling

Most business people on the web subscribe to at least one newsletter, if not more, that focus on different aspects and markets they are interested in. Because of this, it is important for your company to also have a newsletter that provides viable, relevant, and current information and that also markets your product or service. You might be a bit intimidated when it comes to writing a newsletter, but really all you need is a couple hours and a few good ideas. This should not be difficult if you are keeping up with the constant changes and improvements in your niche market. You will want to be always one step ahead of the rest of the newsletters in order to maintain and build a larger subscriber base quicker.

One of the most important things for your newsletter is not only to be relevant, but also to look professional. People see the newsletter before they actually read it and if it looks unprofessional, subscribers could easily unsubscribe without ever reading it and you will lose a subscriber. There are many software programs you can buy that will help you build a newsletter that is not only professional, but has additional design features and the like. This is important because appearances can often mean everything so far as getting people to actually read what you have written. There are plenty of programs available online and web sites that cross compare programs features and prices. This will help you make a good choice in the program best for you.

Next, you will want to have a reason for people to sign up for your newsletter. People do not subscribe to newsletters without good reason and interest, so you will want to make sure that not only does your letter look professional but that it provides professional information or other items your subscribers want like access to e-books, toolkits, advice for marketing, business or other things.

Additionally, make sure you have an automated program that initiates newsletter requests and processes newsletter remove requests. IF not, you might find yourself spending hours adding new e-mail addresses and removing others. Most people would rather spend this time on their business rather than upkeep of email addresses. This program will certainly be worth whatever it costs.

Also, you should know that over 70% of sales are made after at least the third contact with a potential customer, so marketing your products in a newsletter to weekly subscribers will mean increasing your sales and revenues. This is important for a successful business, so make sure you are providing cutting edge information for your subscribers and giving them a reason to stay a subscriber. Once you have your professional newsletter in place, watch as the subscribers increase day after day and watch how your sales are affected as well as traffic to your site. Marketing via a newsletter can only help your web page and revenues.

Copyright 2005 Chris Stirling

Chris Stirling is the owner of Stirls.com and his Internet Marketing website is designed to help other people achieve their goal of having their own work at home business.

http://www.stirls.com

Six Powerful Places to Advertise Your Autoresponder!

2005-06-30T07:50:00.000+03:00

By Max Weber

Once you set up your autoresponder account, now you need to start promoting it! There are tons of places and ways you can do that... But let me give you at least six to start with.

These six places are...

On websites,
In newsletters,
In classified ads,
In "signature files,"
On business stationery
And in digital goods.
On Websites

The most popular place for advertising an autoresponder is on the web. You can post your email link or set up a form that triggers your autoresponder on your own website.

It works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you use your autoresponder for providing more information on a product, your website becomes a 24-hour customer service person...

Working around the clock for you, even while you sleep!

One of the most useful ways of using smart autoresponders is to offer a brief synopsis of your website via autoresponder, particularly for those visitors who may be in a hurry.

But there are many others. In fact, autoresponders have innumerable uses and advantages. For example (and this is just a partial list), autoresponders are great for offering...

"Digital" catalogues
Specific product information
Answers to frequently asked questions (F.A.Q.)
Free stuff, such as courses, ezines or reports
Special offers or (printable) "coupons"
Samples, demos or previews
Agreements, contracts or proposals
Transcripts and manuscripts
Etc, etc, etc.

You can also add attachments to your autoresponses. So, if you sell, say, digital products like software, then once a person buys on your website they get instant delivery!

But that's not all... You can advertise your autoresponder not only on web pages but also on pop-ups (i.e., those small windows that pop-up when you enter or leave a website).

Admittedly, pop-ups are annoying for some people. But when used for building an opt-in list (as discussed in lesson #3), such as offering a newsletter, they can be very productive!

Do you practice reciprocal linking? In other words, do you exchange links with other webmasters? If so, why not use your autoresponder instead of a plain link to your website?

People will seldom stay or buy the first time when clicking on a link. But if your link is for an autoresponder that offers a free report, a free newsletter or a free email course, you...

... Kill two birds with one stone!

In other words, unlike a URL that people click and visit only once, people who get your autoresponder emails are exposed to your website, business, product or offer more than once!

There are other places to promote your autoresponder. For example, you can use it with banners, some pay-per-click search engines or even with your own affiliate program!

If you have an affiliate program, you can offer your affiliates a web form they can use to promote you — one that inserts and tracks their affiliate ID into their visitors' autoresponses!

In Newsletters/Op-in Lists

We discussed the benefits of creating an opt-in list, building your database and publishing your own ezine quite at length in lesson #3. In here, I'll discuss other people's ezines.

First, realize that promoting your product in front of targeted, eager prospects is probably one of the most effective and productive form of online marketing currently available.

Very simply, "opt-in" email is made up of people who have asked to receive information on specific topics. By its very nature, opt-in email marketing is highly targeted.

But what about other people's ezines or opt-in lists?

In fact, there is a vast array of ezines and opt-in lists now available. The beauty of advertising in other people's lists is that you know, in advance, what type of audience they are.

There are ezines on pretty much every topic imaginable out there. For example, you can target magazine collectors, pet owners, French cuisine lovers, businesspeople... You name it!

By the way, while I'll return to this in a future lesson, keep in mind that you must avoid SPAM... Spam is NOT opt-in email. You can lose your account, your website and your business!

Sending opt-in email is also called "permission marketing," since people are giving you the permission to promote to them. Stick with permission marketing at all times!

Nevertheless, find those newsletters or opt-in lists that target people that fit YOUR target market. Check out online ezine directories or buy a list from a reputable opt-in list broker.

Nevertheless, you can do a little research and find websites that publish ezines (or maintain opt-in lists) where you can:

Buy classified ads in,
Write articles for,
Send press releases to
Or purchase "solo" mailings with.
Just make sure to include your autoresponder's email link or web form URL either in their content or in the "signature file" section at the end (I'll return to "signature files" later).

Classified ads vary in terms of size and length, depending on where they're published. Online, most ads are 65 characters in length, and about four to five lines deep.

You can promote your autoresponder in a classified ad like the one above... But often, your ad will appear among many other ads. So, being clear, highly visible and compelling is critical!

Having a top spot is one important step. But another is to have great copy. Your ad must beg people to click it. Your choice of words can make the crucial difference...

... Between a winner and a dud!

First, find ezines and opt-in lists that target your audience. They should be #1. Find them through search engines and directories whose topics would appeal to your market.

Then, seek out the major online services, like Prodigy, Juno, AOL, Compuserve and so on. They have popular classified ad boards. Many online "malls" have classified ad sections, too.

And finally, some portals, communities and directories (not to be confused with directories like search engines) will publish your "listing," which can also be a classified ad.

In "Signature Files"

A signature file is what you add at the end of every email message you send — basically, a few lines to advertise you, your website

Depending on your email software, you can have a signature added to each message with your software directly, or as a separate file (text or HTML) — hence a "signature file."

You can add a signature file (also called a "signature tag") to all your emails, newsgroup posts, message board postings and discussion lists contributions... It goes wherever you go!

Place your autoresponder email address (or website address that carries your web form) in your signature file. Typically, they are between three to five lines long... But no more!

Why? By keeping your signature short and sweet it doesn't look like an outright ad. It should identify you, your business and your link. Also, keep it under 60 characters in length.

But you can use it to briefly and subtly promote a special offer, a free report, a website address, a free newsletter and so on. Like classified ads, the copy is VERY important.

Once you've created a signature file with your autoresponder address, add it to all your emails, newsgroup and message forum posts, and article and discussion list contributions.

On Business Stationery

Add your autoresponder address on all of your offline printed materials: on everything, from business cards, letterhead, yellow page ads, brochures, you name it!

If you have collateral materials such as brochures, if you advertise in print publications such as trade journals, and if you do direct mail marketing such as with postcards...

Then maximize your autoresponder's visibility in them!

Don't forget that some people don't usually respond to online ads during company time for a variety of reasons. But if you promote your autoresponder offline, many will respond!

For example, I know of a few offline manufacturers who use print catalogues and brochures, but supply more detailed product and technical specifications via autoresponders.

I also know of an "elder law" attorney who offers a free report on estate planning tips through autoresponders... But he advertises mainly in senior citizen print publications.

The possibilities are endless!

Nevertheless, don't forget to promote something for free (like a free ezine, a free report, a free course or a free ebook) in order to encourage your "offline" prospects to email you.

Remember, since they're offline they have to go through the extra effort in emailing you. So, a plain email address won't cut it! (If it were the case, they would call you instead!)

Finally, Digital Products (or "Viral Marketing")

One of the biggest trends right now is a process called "viral marketing." It's not complicated... All it is, is a message that spreads from email to email, or email to web, like a virus.

If you create a certain "buzz," your message will be passed around from person to person like wildfire. But you can make it even easier by incorporating your message into a digital file.

Why? Because with computers, it's so easy to simply copy and paste! For example, you can create an electronic book (or "ebook"), or a piece of software (also called "freeware").

The goal is to get the people who read the book to visit his website. He barely does any advertising at all, and from the book alone manages to receive thousands of unique visitors.

Whether you use an ebook or software file, hopefully your message will contain your website address. So, when it's passed around, people know where to go to get more!

Learn more about internet marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing go to http://www.sharehobby.com

Content Ever be Profitable?

2005-06-27T13:36:00.000+03:00

By Sam Vaknin

THE CURRENT WORRIES

1. Content Suppliers

The Ethos of Free Content

Content Suppliers is the underprivileged sector of the Internet. They all lose money (even sites which offer basic, standardized goods - books, CDs), with the exception of sites profering sex or tourism. No user seems to be grateful for the effort and resources invested in creating and distributing content. The recent breakdown of traditional roles (between publisher and author, record company and singer, etc.) and the direct access the creative artist is gaining to its paying public may change this attitude of ingratitude but hitherto there are scarce signs of that. Moreover, it is either quality of presentation (which only a publisher can afford) or ownership and (often shoddy) dissemination of content by the author. A really qualitative, fully commerce enabled site costs up to 5,000,000 USD, excluding site maintenance and customer and visitor services. Despite these heavy outlays, site designers are constantly criticized for lack of creativity or for too much creativity. More and more is asked of content purveyors and creators. They are exploited by intermediaries, hitch hiker sand other parasites. This is all an off-shoot of the ethos of the Internet as a free content area.

Most of the users like to surf (browse, visit sites) the net without reason or goal in mind. This makes it difficult to apply to the web traditional marketing techniques.

What is the meaning of "targeted audiences" or "market shares" in this context? If a surfer visits sites which deal with aberrant sex and nuclear physics in the same session - what to make of it?

Moreover, the public and legislative backlash against the gathering of surfer's data by Internet ad agencies and other web sites - has led to growing ignorance regarding the profile of Internet users, their demography, habits, preferences and dislikes.

"Free" is a key word on the Internet: it used to belong to the US Government and to a bunch of universities. Users like information, with emphasis on news and data about new products. But they do not like to shop on the net - yet. Only 38% of all surfers made a purchase during 1998.

It would seem that users will not pay for content unless it is unavailable elsewhere or qualitatively rare or made rare. One way to "rarefy" content is to review and rate it.

2. Quality-Rated Content

There is a long term trend of clutter-breaking website-rating and critique. It may have a limited influence on the consumption decisions of some users and on their willingness to pay for content. Browsers already sport "What's New" and "What's Hot" buttons. Most Search Engines and directories recommend specific sites. But users are still cautious. Studies discovered that nouser, no matter how heavy, has consistently re-visited more than 200 sites, a minuscule number. Some recommendation services often produce random - at times, wrong - selections for their users. There are also concerns regarding privacy issues. The backlash against Amazon's "readers circles" is an example. Web Critics, who work today mainly for the printed press, publish their wares on the net and collaborate with intelligent software which hyperlinks to web sites, recommends them and refers users to them. Some web critics (guides) became identified with specific applications - really, expert systems -which incorporate their knowledge and experience. Most volunteer-based directories (such as the "Open Directory" and the late "Go" directory) work this way.

The flip side of the coin of content consumption is investment in content creation, marketing, distribution and maintenance.

3. The Money

Where is the capital needed to finance content likely to come from?

Again, there are two schools:

According to the first, sites will be financed through advertising - and so will search engines and other applications accessed by users.

Certain ASPs (Application Service Providers which rent out access to application software which resides on their servers) are considering this model.

The recent collapse in online advertising rates and click-through rates raised serious doubts regarding the validity and viability of this model. Marketing gurus, such as Seth Godin went as far as declaring "interruption marketing" (=ads and banners) dead.

The second approach is simpler and allows for the existence of non-commercial content.

It proposes to collect negligible sums (cents or fractions of cents) from every user for every visit ("micro-payments"). These accumulated cents will enable the site-owners to update and to maintain them and encourage entrepreneurs to develop new content and invest in it. Certain content aggregators (especially of digital textbooks) have adopted this model (Questia, Fathom).

The adherents of the first school point to the 5 million USD invested in advertising during 1995 and to the 60 million or so invested during 1996.

Its opponents point exactly at the same numbers: ridiculously small when contrasted with more conventional advertising modes. The potential of advertising on the net is limited to 1.5 billion USD annually in 1998, thundered the pessimists. The actual figure was double the prediction but still woefully small and inadequate to support the internet's content development. Compare these figures to the sale of Internet software (4 billion), Internet hardware (3 billion), Internet access provision (4.2 billion in 1995 alone!).

Even if online advertising were to be restored to its erstwhile glory days, other bottlenecks remain. Advertising encourages the consumer to interact and to initiate the delivery of a product to him. This - the delivery phase - is a slow and enervating epilogue to the exciting affair of ordering online. Too many consumers still complain of late delivery of the wrong or defective products.

The solution may lie in the integration of advertising and content. The late Pointcast, for instance, integrated advertising into its news broadcasts, continuously streamed to the user's screen, even when inactive (it had an active screen saver and ticker in a "push technology"). Downloading of digital music, video and text (e-books) leads to the immediate gratification of consumers and increases the efficacy of advertising.

Whatever the case may be, a uniform, agreed upon system of rating as a basis for charging advertisers, is sorely needed. There is also the question of what does the advertiser pay for? The rates of many advertisers (Procter and Gamble, for instance) are based not on the number of hits or impressions (=entries, visits to a site). - but on the number of the times that their advertisement was hit (page views), or clicked through.

Finally, there is the paid subscription model - a flop to judge by the experience of the meagre number of sites of venerable and leading newspapers that are on a subscription basis. Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal) and The Economist. Only two.

All this is not very promising. But one should never forget that the Internet is probably the closest thing we have to an efficient market. As consumers refuse to pay for content, investment will dry up and content will become scarce (through closures of web sites). As scarcity sets in, consumer may reconsider.

Your article deals with the future of the Internet as a medium. Will it be able to support its content creation and distribution operations economically?

If the Internet is a budding medium - then we should derive great benefit from a study of the history of its predecessors.

The Future History of the Internet as a Medium

The internet is simply the latest in a series of networks which revolutionized our lives. A century before the internet, the telegraph, the railways, the radio and the telephone have been similarly heralded as "global" and transforming. Every medium of communications goes through the same evolutionary cycle:

Anarchy

The Public Phase

At this stage, the medium and the resources attached to it are very cheap, accessible, under no regulatory constraints. The public sector steps in : higher education institutions, religious institutions, government, not for profit organizations, non governmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, etc. Be deviled by limited financial resources, they regard the new medium as a cost effective way of disseminating their messages.

The Internet was not exempt from this phase which ended only a few years ago. It started with a complete computer anarchy manifested in ad hoc networks, local networks, networks of organizations (mainly universities and organs of the government such as DARPA, a part of the defence establishment, in the USA). Non commercial entities jumped on the bandwagon and started sewing these networks together (an activity fully subsidized by government funds). The result was a globe encompassing network of academic institutions. The American Pentagon established the network of all networks, the ARPANET. Other government departments joined the fray, headed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which withdrew only lately from the Internet.

The Internet (with a different name) became semi-public property - with access granted to the chosen few.

Radio took precisely this course. Radio transmissions started in the USA in 1920. Those were anarchic broadcasts with no discernible regularity. Non commercial organizations and not for profit organizations began their own broadcasts and even created radio broadcasting infrastructure (albeit of the cheap and local kind) dedicated to their audiences. Trade unions, certain educational institution sand religious groups commenced "public radio" broadcasts.

The Commercial Phase

When the users (e.g., listeners in the case of the radio, or owners of PCs and modems in the case of the Internet) reach a critical mass - the business sector is alerted. In the name of capitalist ideology (another religion, really) it demands "privatization" of the medium. This harps on very sensitive strings in every Western soul: the efficient allocation of resources which is the result of competition. Corruption and inefficiency are intuitively associated with the public sector ("Other People's Money" - OPM). This, together with the ulterior motives of members of the ruling political echelons (the infamous American Paranoia), a lack of variety and of catering to the tastes and interests of certain audiences and the automatic equation of private enterprise with democracy lead to a privatization of the young medium.

The end result is the same: the private sector takes over the medium from "below" (makes offers to the owners or operators of the medium that they cannot possibly refuse) - or from "above" (successful lobbying in the corridors of power leads to the appropriate legislation and the medium is "privatized"). Every privatization - especially that of a medium - provokes public opposition. There are (usually founded) suspicions that the interests of the public are compromised and sacrificed on the altar of commercialization and rating. Fears of monopolization and cartelization of the medium are evoked - and proven correct in due course. Otherwise, there is fear of the concentration of control of the medium in a few hands. All these things do happen - but the pace is so slow that the initial fears are forgotten and public attention reverts to fresher issues.

A new Communications Act was enacted in the USA in 1934. It was meant to transform radio frequencies into a national resource to be sold to the private sector which was supposed to use it to transmit radio signals to receivers. In other words: the radio was passed on to private and commercial hands. Public radio was doomed to be marginalized.

The American administration withdrew from its last major involvement in the Internet in April 1995, when the NSF ceased to finance some of the networks and, thus, privatized its hitherto heavy involvement in the net.

A new Communications Act was legislated in 1996. It permitted "organized anarchy". It allowed media operators to invade each other's territories. Phone companies were allowed to transmit video and cable companies were allowed to transmit telephony, for instance. This was all phased over a long period of time - still, it was a revolution whose magnitude is difficult to gauge and whose consequences defy imagination. It carries an equally momentous price tag - official censorship. "Voluntary censorship", to be sure, somewhat toothless standardization and enforcement authorities, to be sure - still, a censorship with its own institutions to boot. The private sector reacted by threatening litigation - but, beneath the surface it is caving in to pressure and temptation, constructing its own censorship codes both in the cable and in the internet media.

Institutionalization

This phase is the next in the Internet's history, though, it seems, few realize it.

It is characterized by enhanced activities of legislation. Legislators, on all levels, discover the medium and lurch at it passionately. Resources which were considered "free", suddenly are transformed to "national treasures not to be dispensed with cheaply, casually and with frivolity".

It is conceivable that certain parts of the Internet will be "nationalized" (for instance, in the form of a licensing requirement) and tendered to the private sector. Legislation will be enacted which will deal with permitted and disallowed content (obscenity ? incitement ? racial or gender bias ?) No medium in the USA (not to mention the wide world) has eschewed such legislation. There are sure to be demands to allocate time (or space, or software, or content, or hardware) to "minorities", to "public affairs", to "community business". This is a tax that the business sector will have to pay to fend off the eager legislator and his nuisance value.

All this is bound to lead to a monopolization of hosts and servers. The important broadcast channels will diminish in number and be subjected to severe content restrictions. Sites which will refuse to succumb to these requirements - will be deleted or neutralized. Content guidelines (euphemism for censorship) exist, even as we write, in all major content providers (CompuServe, AOL, Yahoo!-Geocities, Tripod, Prodigy).

The Bloodbath

This is the phase of consolidation. The number of players is severely reduced. The number of browser types will settle on 2-3 (Netscape, Microsoft and Opera?). Networks will merge to form privately owned mega-networks. Servers will merge to form hyper-servers run on supercomputers in "server farms". The number of ISPs will be considerably cut. 50 companies ruled the greater part of the media markets in the USA in 1983. The number in 1995 was 18. At the end of the century they will number 6.

This is the stage when companies - fighting for financial survival - strive to acquire as many users/listeners/viewers as possible. The programming is shall owed to the lowest (and widest) common denominator. Shallow programming dominates as long as the bloodbath proceeds.

From Rags to Riches

Tough competition produces four processes:

1. A Major Drop in Hardware Prices

This happens in every medium but it doubly applies to a computer-dependent medium, such as the Internet.

Computer technology seems to abide by "Moore's Law" which says that the number of transistors which can be put on a chip doubles every 18 months. As a result of this miniaturization, computing power quadruples every 18 months and an exponential series ensues. Organic-biological-DNA computers, quantum computers, chaos computers - prompted by vast profits and spawned by inventive genius will ensure the continued applicability of Moore's Law.

The Internet is also subject to "Metcalf's Law".

It says that when we connect N computers to a network - we get an increase of N to the second power in its computing processing power. And these N computers are more powerful every year, according to Moore's Law. The growth of computing powers in networks is a multiple of the effects of the two laws. More and more computers with ever increasing computing power get connected and create an exponential 16 times growth in the network's computing power every 18 months.

2. Content Related Fees

This was prevalent in the Net until recently. Even potentially commercial software can still be downloaded for free. In many countries television viewers still pay for television broadcasts - but in the USA and many other countries in the West, the basic package of television channels comes free of charge.

As users / consumers form a habit of using (or consuming) the software - it is commercialized and begins to carry a price tag. This is what happened with the advent of cable television: contents are sold for subscription or per usage (Pay Per View - PPV) fees.

Gradually, this is what will happen to most of the sites and software on the Net. Those which survive will begin to collect usage fees, access fees, subscription fees, downloading fees and other, appropriately named, fees. These fees are bound to be low - but it is the principle that counts. Even a few cents per transaction may accumulate to hefty sums with the traffic which characterizes some web sites on the Net (or, at least its more popular locales).

3. Increased User Friendliness

As long as the computer is less user friendly and less reliable (predictable) than television - less of a black box - its potential (and its future) is limited. Television attracts 3.5 billion users daily. The Internet stands to attract - under the most exuberant scenario - less than one tenth of this number of people. The only reasons for this disparity are (the lack of) user friendliness and reliability. Even browsers, among the most user friendly applications ever -are not sufficiently so. The user still needs to know how to use a keyboard and must possess some basic acquaintance with the operating system. The more mature the medium, the more friendly it becomes. Finally, it will be operated using speech or common language. There will be room left for user "hunches" and built in flexible responses.

4. Social Taxes

Sooner or later, the business sector has to mollify the God of public opinion with offerings of political and social nature. The Internet is an affluent, educated, yuppie medium. It requires literacy and numeracy, live interest in information and its various uses (scientific, commercial, other), a lot of resources (free time, money to invest in hardware, software and connect time). It empowers - and thus deepens the divide between the haves and have-nots, the developed and the developing world, the knowing and the ignorant, the computer illiterate.

In short: the Internet is an elitist medium. Publicly, this is an unhealthy posture. "Internetophobia" is already discernible. People (and politicians) talk about how unsafe the Internet is and about its possible uses for racial, sexist and pornographic purposes. The wider public is in a state of awe.

So, site builders and owners will do well to begin to improve their image: provide free access to schools and community centres, bankroll internet literacy classes, freely distribute contents and software to educational institutions, collaborate with researchers and social scientists and engineers. In short: encourage the view that the Internet is a medium catering to the needs of the community and the underprivileged, a mostly altruist endeavour. This also happens to make good business sense by educating and conditioning a future generation of users. He who visited a site when a student, free of charge - will pay to do so when made an executive. Such a user will also pass on the information within and without his organization. This is called media exposure. The future will, no doubt, will be witness to public Internet terminals, subsidized ISP accounts, free Internet classes and an alternative "non-commercial, public" approach to the Net. This may prove to be one more source of revenue to content creator sand distributors.

About The Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East". He is a columnist in "Central Europe Review", United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com

Leading eCommerce Consultant Admits You Should Only Listen to One Real Expert! (And it's not him!)

2005-06-27T13:35:00.000+03:00

By Eric Graham

Let me share with you a secret that most marketing experts and consultants don’t want you to know… (many of them don’t even understand this secret themselves.)

The secret is… There is only one true expert who can show you how to drastically improve the effectiveness of your website and your marketing. With dozens of so-called guru’s, consultants and experts ready and willing to give you (or charge you for) their advice, there is actually only one person you should listen to on a regular basis. Only one! And his name is Eric Graham… No, no… just kidding…

The only “experts” that you should listen to and trust are your visitors. The visitors that come to your website or view your ads are the only true experts. They will share their expert opinions with you by the actions they take while on your website.

Not sure what headline to use at the top of your page… You have a couple of options:

Pay an “expert” consultant like me to look it over for you and give you copywriting recommendations, for a few hundred dollars an hour.

Or…

“Ask” your visitors which one is best, by split testing each element of your headlines and letting your visitors vote with their credit cards… The one that converts to sales best wins!

Trying to figure out how much to charge for you new ebook? You can hire an expert… I can talk to you all day about advanced pricing theory and explain to you how prices with a “7” in them (such as $17, $97, $777) usually convert better. I can walk you through an analysis of the price points of competing/similar products…

Or…

Simply test 3 or 4 different prices to see which one is most profitable. Often the greater perceived value of a higher price actually converts better than a lower price. But you won’t know if that’s true for your product and your visitors until you test it. Again your visitors will teach you more about pricing than any consultant ever could. You just need to “ask” these experts by testing.

If done properly, the questions you can get your “visitor experts” to answer about your website by simply testing, is endless.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you should never hire a consultant or expert -- after all my clients happily pay me a lot of money to help them improve their conversion rates. And I am worth every penny! ;-)

But what you need to understand here is that the best experts, became experts by studying and testing, testing and testing different elements over and over until they developed a set of “best practices”. So, by hiring someone who has been in the trenches you can save time and money in the long run.

However, every website, business, product and visitor demographic is different. Just because something works at one website, doesn’t automatically mean it will work at yours. The best consultants will tell you that you still need to test everything. So in the end it’s still your visitor who’s the true expert.

Just imagine the results you could achieve over the next year, if you took the time to test only one new element every week. Even if half of the tests were failures and didn’t produce improvements in your conversion rates, you would still discover 26 ways to improve your sales. Even if each improvement only boosts your conversion rate by 1/10th of 1%, you would have improved your conversion rate by over 2.6% (and probably much more!)

Look over your current sales statistics, and ask yourself, “How much more profit would I be making if my conversion rate jumped by 2.6%?”

With most sites currently converting at an appalling 1% to 2%, a 2.6% improvement could triple your sales…

Let me ask you a question: Imagine you have a website selling information on how to learn to play the guitar, getting 1,000 visitors per day. And I came to you and showed you how I can change a few things about your page, improve your search engine positioning and triple your traffic? Would you be excited? Sure.

Then, why not get equally excited about optimizing your website for maximum conversion rates?

Many online businesses will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars optimizing their sites for the search engines. But then they waste 99 out of every 100 visitors that they spent so much time and effort getting, simply because they failed to invest in “asking the experts” (their visitors) first. Had they taken the time to optimize their site for conversion rate, before driving the traffic their results would be 10x more profitable.

The great news for you is, so few online businesses are currently testing anything! This means that you are in a position to absolutely dominate your competition by simply listening to the true experts… Your visitors!

Copyright 2004 Eric Graham

About The Author

Want to improve your conversion rates? Eric Graham is the CEO of several successful online companies. A top authority on eCommerce & Internet Marketing, he's an in-demand speaker & consultant. Visit www.web-site-evaluations.com today for an in-depth evaluation to boost YOUR websites conversion rate!

Website Marketing: 10 Resourceful Things You Can Do With A Product That Doesn't Sell

2005-06-27T13:34:00.000+03:00

By I-key Benney

Do you have any product that has not been moving well?

Would you like to learn what to do with it?

Here are website marketing secrets to help you:

1. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to the product. You could make money selling other people the rights to reproduce and sell the product. People are always looking for new products to sell.

2. Giveaway the product for free from your web site. Just because it won't sell doesn't mean people won't visit your web site to get it for free. They may see another product you sell and buy that one.

3. Try auctioning off the product at an online auction. You may make part of your investment back. If you're lucky, you may even make a profit because people sometimes get into bidding wars and will bid a higher price than the product is worth.

4. Use the product as a free bonus for another product you sell. This will increase the perceived value of the product you're selling. People will feel they're receiving more for less.

5. Contact businesses with the same target market and see if they would be interested in using your product as a free bonus for their product. You could place your ad on the product and get free advertising.

6. Sell your product to businesses at wholesale cost as a promotional product. Businesses are always looking for products they can giveaway to their customers with their advertising on the product. You could make part of your investment back.

7. Barter your product to other businesses for things you need for your own business. You could trade for their products or services. This will save you money and help make up for your profit loss.

8. You could create an online contest so people could win your product. This will attract traffic to your web site. You also could get free advertising by listing it on online contest directories.

9. If you decide to giveaway the product for free, allow other people to giveaway the product for free. Place your web site ad on the product. This will spread your advertising and attract even more people to your site.

10. Ask businesses with the same target audience if they would be interested in combining your product with their product. You could then sell them together as a package deal and split the profits. You may have better results selling your product this way.

May these website marketing secrets help you to make a lot of money and succeed.

Warmly,

I-key Benney, CEO

I-key, a Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of "Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System", (online trading), program which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs.

Mscsrrr Millionaire Secret Cash System helps you to generate $1,500+/Week for life, from home or office, part time or full time. No large investment or hassles. Win $1000-$2000 free “cash”…

Top 10 Internet Marketing Tips For Your Home Based Business

2005-06-25T13:54:00.000+03:00

By Martin Franzen

This article can determine the success or failure of your internet marketing strategy. You see, there is ONE question anyone getting started with a home based business opportunity NEEDS to have the answer to:

"How do I make money on the internet in the fastest, easiest and most effective way? How can I do this while working with what I love and helping the people I like to be associated with?"

The answer is simple. You follow these 10 steps:

1. You must focus on a specific target market that you love and want to work with for life.

This makes it easy for you to stay motivated, it brings you more fulfillment in life, and it lets you make a very nice living in the process. Target a market that you would love to work with, even if you didn't get paid for it. Pick a group of people you can relate to.

2. The purpose of your home based business should be to help your customers, not take their hard-earned money and run.

That's useless in the long term, and if you've been thinking about it you might as well drop the project. Please make sure that you understand this universal truth deeply enough. If you do have a sincere desire to help your customers, everybody wins and you'll be a lot more successful.

3. Your main goal is to build a big database of lifetime customers from your market who trust you, feel grateful to you and value your recommendation.

A one-time sale is worthless. A good relationship with loyal customers is worth a fortune in your internet marketing strategy. That's the most valuable thing any business can have. The key here is to build your large list of "lifetime customers who trust you." Achieve this and you're set for life.

4. You do this by selling your prospects something that solves their common problems and helps them achieve their dreams.

It doesn't have to be a full-length book, it doesn't have to be complicated, but you must have your own product to build this relationship. Reselling someone else's stuff is not enough. Giving something away is not enough. By having your customers pay YOU for the solution, you will gain their trust right away and they will listen to you from there on. Your front-end product must make your customers extremely satisfied.

5. You need to create a proven, optimized sales process and automate as much as possible.

You need a powerful sales letter that converts the maximum number of prospect to paying customers. If you don't want to lose money, it's vitally important that you test each step of your sales process to reach the best results. You need to test the effectiveness of your sales letter, your ads, your price and your back-end strategy. Once you know which ones are winners you can easily optimize your results and pyramid your profits.

6. You should start a reseller program and let other business owners recommend your product to their lists.

Many have a great relationship with a lot of people, and you can tap into that relationship. All you have to do is contact these business owners personally and offer to make a joint venture deal where you split the profits. Many will be thrilled to accept your offer, and it will bring you a ton of new customers in a very short time.

7. You want to build your valuable lifetime customer database fast and free.

You can do this in several ways, but there are a few easy methods that you should combine: free publicity, viral marketing, joint venture deals and advertising on a large scale. The key here is that as long as you break even or make a profit on the first sale, you can basically build your database of loyal customers as large as you want instantly and for free. From there on it's all profits.

8. From here on you simply continue to build your relationship with your customer list by helping them solve their problems and achieve their goals.

Do this by recommending information, products and services that will help your customers. All you have to do is create joint ventures and reseller agreements with other business owners to make money in the process - you split the profits. This is your back-end strategy, and this is where you make the REAL money.

9. Always, always over-deliver on your promises. Take extremely good care of your clients and subscribers.

Treat them like you would treat your best friend. Again, your main goal here is not just to "make money" but to actually HELP your clients. Never recommend a product to them that you wouldn't recommend to your best friend. Keep their interests in mind always and satisfy their needs and wants. Do this and you must succeed.

10. Continue with this process from here on and you'll make a fortune.

Keep selling your front-end product to add new lifetime customers to your list for free. Keep helping them reach their ultimate goals by recommending additional good, related products. You'll make a very nice living and enjoy life to the fullest, all while doing what you love. And you'll make a lot of new friends in the process.

That's it.

Do you realize how powerful this system really is? Follow it, and you cannot fail. Take your time to think about it. It may sound simple, but that's really all there is to it.

A lot of people try to complicate things too much, only to end up confused and frustrated. Don't let the simplicity fool you - When you have all these steps in place, you MUST succeed.

Now, it does take work to set everything up. No business is easy to start. However, if you follow this plan you will have a great time in the process. And the rewards are MORE than worth it.

Remember my friend, the hardest thing is always getting started. So do it now! You'll remember this day for a long, long time.

Think big.

A great future filled with freedom and a richer life lies ahead... Go for it!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

© 2005. Reprint freely, with this resource box included. Martin Franzen is the author of The Internet Marketing Master Plan: How To Turn Your Hobby Into $100,000 A Year Online. If you're interested in making a lot of money from your home based business while doing what you love, read his exciting FREE report now at: http://SiteSelling.com

Top 3 Online Business Success Needs

2005-06-25T13:52:00.000+03:00

By Ispas Marin

1) Web Site

This is for sure the most important part of your online business, this is how you create your presence on the Internet. Being in business online and not having a web site means you have no place where your customers can find you. After getting your web site up, you also need to make sure that it's as easy to navigate as possible and that the information provided is well written so the visitor won't lose time trying to figure it out. If your web site is hard to understand it's a fact that you will lose customers. In order to establish a web site you need to get your own domain name, http://www.godaddy.com is a very good registrar and at an affordable price. The second step is getting the hosting for your web site, http://www.hostexcellence.com/ is a good choice.

2) Business Plan

The second most important need is a business plan. The business plan will help give a direction to your business and will help you plan your strategies. If the business plan is missing, losing sight of where your business is going or you want it to go. Once the business plan has been established do your best to stick to it. There is software that helps you create a plan for your business, you just need to search for it.

3) Advertising/Marketing

In order to have customers, people first need to know that you exist. So, even if it's the third need, the marketing is one of the most important. No marketing usually means nobody knows about your product/service. Even if you have an online business it doesn't mean that you should advertise only online, you can do offline advertising as well. A good low cost offline advertising method is using flyers. You can create them on your computer, and print at you local print shop. There are many online advertising methods too, some are very cheap and some are more expensive, a lot of research should be made in order to chose the best.

Keep these three needs in mind and you will have the base to start you online business and make it a very profitable one.

Check out http://www.30daysinjuly.com/ if you are interested in having a 'coach' that will guid you to Internet Succeesss and will show you how to create a profitable online business.

Sell Your Product Online

2005-06-25T13:51:00.000+03:00

By Marsh Uele

In today's business world, if you're not selling your product online, you're losing sales. If you have a product, make money online by selling online. There are simple ways to make money online.

Make sure your site is professional and easily navigable if you want to make money online. If you have a lot of product, a search feature is a necessity in order for you to make money online. If you have only one or two products, you can use a payment method such as PayPal to make money online. However, if you showcase more product in order to make money online, you'll want to open a merchant account to handle credit card payments. Some merchant accounts will also offer free features, all helping you to make money online. To keep from violating credit card rules, make sure that for Internet sales, you have an Internet account.

Consider paying affiliates to help you make money online. Affiliates are online "word of mouth" referrals and can increase the amount of money you make online. They link to your site from theirs, and all of their traffic becomes your traffic, increasing the likelihood of making money online. When it comes to making money online, affiliate marketing is a no-lose for the merchant, because commission is paid only on sales.

Consider making money online by selling your product through an eBay storefront. Bidding on items has become a hot way to make money online. Having your own storefront ensures that buyers can find you easily because your product is in one place. Through your storefront, you can make reports, track traffic and sales, and receive advertising through eBay. You can try a storefront for 30 days free, making it an attractive offer to make money online.

Copyright 2005 Marsh Uele

Marsh Uele is the editor of http://www.homebizsucces.com. Everything you need to make money online from home including opportunities, tips, ideas and resources visit http://www.homebizsucces.com

Boost Your Web Site Sales

2005-06-25T13:50:00.000+03:00

By Mike Linley

The following strategies are used every day to boost sales from any commercial website. Most are simply common sense whilst others may take some time to master. All will help your site to start generating the income you expect from your online ventures.

When your customers are at your order page they’re interest is already primed so they are open to other offers, this is an ideal time to up-sell to them. Tell them about a few extra related products you believe they would be interested in, they could simply add to their existing order.

To turn one sale into three you could tell your customer if they refer four friends to your web site, and if they buy from you, they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price, therefore turning one sale into three.

When you sell a product, give your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions of their own selling your product. Their belief in the product is unshakeable because they bought it! It is far easier for anyone to sell something they believe in than someone selling ‘cold.’

After making your first sale, follow-up with the customer. It makes sense to follow-up with a "thank you" email which includes an advertisement for another product you sell. Backend marketing is the blue print to your business’s success. It costs dearly to harness each customer but following up with further offers is completely free, so why not follow-up every few months?

Sell the reprint or reproduction rights to your products and include an ad on or with the product for other products you sell, therefore making sales for the reproduction rights and sales on the back end product. A win, win situation!

Cross promote your product with other businesses' products in a package deal (joint venture). Include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and have other businesses selling for you.

When shipping out or delivering your product, include a coupon for other related products you sell in the package, persuading them to buy more products from you.

Send your customers a catalogue of add-on products for the original product they purchased. This could be upgrades, special services, attachments, etc. If they enjoy your product and find it useful they will buy the extra add-ons.

Sell gift certificates for your products. You'll make sales from the purchase of the gift certificate, when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site.

Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball caps, t-shirts etc. This will allow other people to see your ad and order.

You may not see results immediately but don’t let this put you off. If you persist you will make more sales and lift your business to the next stage.

Mike Linley is the webmaster of http://www.worldmoneymarket.com and publishes an ezine. If you want to receive tips, tricks and strategies to help you succeed online just visit; http://www.worldmoneymarket.com and sign up for free!

Software marketing articles by Dave Collins

2005-06-23T08:48:00.000+03:00

Software marketing articles by Dave Collins

2005-06-23T08:45:00.000+03:00

Selling software on the web is no simple task, and the past few years have seen many programmers and developers trying their hand at it. Many of them walk away disappointed a few months or years later, but some manage to significantly subsidise their income. The lucky few are those who are successful enough to leave their old jobs, and follow their dreams.

The reality is that having the perfect software to sell just isn't enough. If you're a one wo/man show, then chances are that you're not capable of writing your software, managing technical support and development, setting up a good website, running the day to day aspects of your business, handling all the email and phone calls... and that's before you even think about getting the software "out there" and doing some serious marketing! There is good news, though - you've come to the right place!

This website is a comprehensive source of free advice for shareware authors. Whether you're looking for shareware marketing strategies or general small business management advice, we have what you're looking for. Covering everything from search engine optimisation to website navigation and the product life cycle, DaveTalks now includes more than thirty articles written especially for the independent software developer.

This site includes articles that were written for the Association of Shareware Professional's Newsletter, ASPects, as well as summaries of some of the presentations made by Dave at the Shareware Industry Conference, the European Shareware Conference and ISDEF.

Interested in hearing Dave "talk" on a daily basis? Don't miss the SharewarePromotions Blog - daily musings on software news and marketing!

Source: http://www.davetalks.com/

Bringing New Meaning To The Phrase "Google Cash"

2005-06-21T11:41:00.000+03:00

By Andrew Goodman

Loose lips have leaked the rumor that Google is planning to offer an online payment service. I guess when you're planning something as big as taking PayPal on, word tends to get out.

No one is confirming this yet.

The timing of this is interesting in light of a possible short-term drop in (or at least slowing of) the revenues Google reaps from the content targeting side of its ad program. I've been convinced for some time that Google would eventually pick an opportune moment to atone for its flawed implementation of the AdSense program, by severely cutting back on the revenues paid to low-quality publisher partners.

A revenue hit wouldn't be welcome on Wall Street. And for all of their IPO bravado to the effect that they wouldn't pay attention to short-term market fluctuations, Google management have no doubt come to understand the value of inflated or at least steady stock valuations when they're playing for keeps against fewer, larger, competitors -- primarily Microsoft and Yahoo, but also eBay and Amazon. Pulling the plug on AdSense revenues would be too drastic.

So Google at some point decided to change their approach to how AdSense worked. From a certain angle it looks like a series of incremental steps: "smart pricing," better policing of low-quality partners, a beta test of a publisher exclude feature, etc.

Now, however, with the release of Site Targeting, Google has a whole new approach to content targeting, one that will, at least for awhile, run concurrently with the old approach. The old approach limited control by advertisers over the locations of their ads, but the benefit was relevancy and paying only when someone clicked. The drawback was that clicks were often low-quality or fraudulent.

The new program is CPM-based and allows publishers and advertisers to make a marketplace. From the advertiser standpoint, if you play with the interface, you'll be allowed to pore over big lists of potential sites to show your ads on. I'm sure more than a few long-suffering advertisers are experiencing a perverse glee at seeing lists of their "old friends" -- all those terrible sites that didn't convert -- mixed with lists of high-quality sites they would love to show up on.

I predict that a large number of advertisers will vote with their mouse clicks, and really put a dent in those unrecognizable, contentless sites' pocketbooks.

Once the program seems to work, I doubt Google will keep the old one around for too long.

Danny Sullivan and others have long argued that search and content are different, so there is no need or logical sense to having them priced the same or run from the same interface. I tend to agree. Clients who want broader media buying are looking for different things than those who just want search. Those who want both can hire a qualified agency to manage each side appropriately.

Other than trying not to antagonize webmasters who have been making a living off AdSense, I can't think of very many reasons for Google keeping the old version of content targeting around. I think that very soon it will become evident that the old content program is merely being grandfathered for a set amount of time so as not to confuse or upset publishers and advertisers.

Phasing out the old program will perhaps lead to a slackening of revenues, as with any painful economic transition. In this case, the transition can be boiled down to moving advertisers dollars from bad publishers to good ones. In the long run, that should strengthen the fundamentals of online advertising and attract more advertisers to the party.

By way of keeping the markets interested in Google's growth story, and eventually finding a potentially huge revenue vein to reinvigorate growth as advertising revenue growth slows, this Google payment processing initiative comes at an opportune time indeed.

Google Introduces “Significant Enhancements” To AdWords

2005-06-20T08:11:00.000+03:00

By Chris Richardson

Search engine-based PPC advertising is probably the hottest technique of advertising in the marketing available, largely because it is the most employed method on the Internet. With an estimated 40% of online advertising revenue being spent on search engine ad, the numbers bear this out.

So, when Google or Yahoo (the two biggest PPC search ad suppliers) add or subtract something to their respective services, everyone in the industry looks up and takes notice. Such is the case with Google and the introduction of some enhancements to AdWords, specifically the ability to target users by site, or Site Targeting, as it's being called.

As the name implies, Site Targeting gives members the ability to just that: target their ads to specific sites by selecting the appropriate sites using the AdWords control panel. A feature such as Site Targeting gives vast amounts of control to the advertisers and their campaigns. By controlling which sites your ads appear on, targeting a campaign becomes much easier.

According to Google, however, site-targeted ads will not by appearing in search results. These are reserved for ads targeting keywords. As the service name and option it provides disclose, site-targeted ads will only appear on the sites selected by the user.

Google's Site Targeting service makes use of the recently introduced CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) advertising model. After users select the sites they are interested in targeting, they then have to select the maximum price they are willing to pay for every thousand impressions, or the ad's max CPM. Unlike keyword campaigns, CPM means you'll pay even if your ads aren't clicked; of course, you'll only pay once every thousand impressions.

For more on Google's approach to CPM, click here.

Interesting tidbit: on Google's ‘about site targeting page', they indicate this tool is still in beta and not available to everyone right now:

Site targeting isn't available yet. We're currently running a beta test of site-targeted campaigns with just a few advertisers. We expect to make site targeting available to all AdWords advertisers in the near future.

Google also anticipated what to do if a CPM site targeted ad and a keyword-targeted ad is competing for the same spot. In cases like these, Google has the following measures in place to ensure members are treated fairly (and to promote competitive bidding):

…they compete equally for ranking. The AdWords ranking system takes into account the max CPM prices of all site-targeted ads, compares them to the combined cost-per-click prices and clickthrough rate of keyword-targeted ads, and then displays the highest-ranked ads.

The obvious benefit of site targeting is controlling which audience your ad is exposed to. If you kick off an AdWords campaign for digital music player, targeting music-related sites that are part of the Google Content network can be extremely beneficial to your bottom-line.

To further assist in a successful campaign, site targeted ads can be in multiple formats, not just a PPC text ad. Site Targeting supports both text and image-based advertisements. AdWord members also have 5 ad sizes they can choose from:

banner (468x60 pixels)

leaderboard (728x90)

inline rectangle (300x250)

skyscraper (120x600)

wide skyscraper (160x600) New!

The final "significant enhancement" has to do with a tweak to the CPM bidding. To fully support Site Targeting, Google introduced new max CPM bidding options. Google describes this as:

With site-targeted advertising, advertisers simply set a max CPM-that is, the maximum price they're willing to pay for every thousand impressions their ad receives on a particular site. Their ad, along with other site-targeted ads and keyword ads, compete for advertising space.

Google's technology ensures that advertisers pay no more than the minimum price needed to run an ad on the site. In many cases, they pay a price lower than their max CPM. This model is different from other CPM models, where advertisers must pay a fixed CPM.

If you are an AdWords member, be sure to check their new site targeting options. However, Google's wording indicates the service may still be in testing mode, and therefore, not available to all members just yet.

Update:

More of an oversight, really; Google has set a minimum CPM bid amount, for those interested in targeting ads. From their FAQ:

What is the minimum allowable max CPM for site-targeted ads?

$2.00 USD, or the local currency equivalent, is the lowest max CPM that advertisers can set

Ten Reasons Why Blogging is Good For Your Career

2005-06-08T06:50:00.000+03:00

By Serif / Sans-Serif

I have given several press interviews in recent days, all more or less
along the same lines: someone’s been assigned to write a story about
people being fired for blogging. Recent pieces from AP and CNET are pushing
this spin, going on and on and on about the risks.
Except for, it’s all a bunch of BS.
For most people, blogging is a career-booster, both in
your current job and when you’re looking for your next one.
This fragment includes, among other things, Ten Reasons Why Blogging Is Good
For Your Career.

Assumptions
Let’s assume that you’re reasonably competent, reasonably coherent, and
reasonably mature.
Cynicism aside, a substantial majority of the people in the workplace
qualify.

Blogging clearly isn’t going to help that proportion of people who aren’t
really up to their job, or who are prone to inarticulate flaming, or
both.
But then, those people tend to have career problems anyhow.
Put it another way: not blogging won’t protect you from career-limiting
moves, and if blogging provokes one, well, you were probably going
to do it anyhow.

Ten Reasons Why Blogging is Good For Your Career

You have to get noticed to get promoted.

You have to get noticed to get hired.

It really impresses people when you say “Oh, I’ve written about that,
just google for XXX and I’m on the top page” or “Oh, just google my
name.”

No matter how great you are, your career depends on communicating.
The way to get better at anything, including communication, is by practicing.
Blogging is good practice.

Bloggers are better-informed than non-bloggers.
Knowing more is a career advantage.

Knowing more also means you’re more likely to hear about interesting
jobs coming open.

Networking is good for your career. Blogging is a good way to meet
people.

If you’re an engineer, blogging puts you in intimate contact with a
worse-is-better 80/20 success story. Understanding this mode of
technology adoption can only help you.

If you’re in marketing, you’ll need to understand how its rules are
changing as a result of the current whirlwind, which nobody does, but
bloggers are at least somewhat less baffled.

It’s a lot harder to fire someone who has a public voice, because
it will be noticed.

Policy
I’ve written about
Sun’s Policy and
how we got it.
I’ve repeated to every journo—and most of them have picked this up—that now,
almost a year later, I’m increasingly convinced that it’s a good idea to let
your employees blog, and if you’re doing that, a real good idea to
write a policy.
Because there are a lot of things you can say in a policy that will
genuinely be helpful to your people.

And, not having one suggests you don’t care about doing a good job.

Why?
Uh, why is the mainstream press so incredibly interested in this
people-fired-for-blogging story?
Is this happening to a lot of people? No. Are a lot of people blogging? Yes.
Has it happened to anyone senior enough to impact the company involved? No.
Are senior people blogging? Yes.

If I were cynical and paranoid, I’d suspect that the media running these
stories were frightened of something.

Are You In The Mindset For Yahoo?

2005-06-06T10:10:00.000+03:00

by John Stith

The world of search engines always has something new to offer; whether it's GooglePrint or MSN's Virtual Earth or in this case Yahoo's Mindset. The new Mindset feature adds a new relevance dimension to one's search based on a research facet or a shopping facet.

The intent for this is an intent-driven search. It will allow users to decide the type of information they need. The SEO folks have been fooling around with this idea but Yahoo is the first to go live with this beta. I think it's nice offering because most search engines base their listings at least in part on the number of hits a website gets and the volume of sites out there. Whether it will sell is still up in the air.

Mindset seems fairly simple to maneuver through. The big feature on this over much of the other stuff is a slide to adjust the levels of research versus a commercial or shopping side.

So, ones picks a topic, say dual core processors. With the slide set in the middle, the first thing that comes up is a story about the topic in InfoWorld, then a PCWorld story and then a reference in Wikipedia.

When I adjust the slide to the left or the commercial side, the first thing to come up is a story I wrote on duel core processors back in April. Next is a link directly to processors manufacturer AMD on what multi core processors are and their function.

If the slide moves to the right or the research side, stories from 3DBuzz and ITFreaks Internet magazines come up. The other thing is if I click on the links, then it rearranges the order of things. My story, mentioned above with the bar back on the left, moves to 4th place and reference to Dealtime comes up showing the pricing for the various processors.

As far as application goes, meaning how will it be useful in the real world, it's purely speculation at this point. I think I'd like to see more intellectual pieces come up on the research side of things in some cases. If one types in Henry II of England, all you get are encyclopedia references for the first page.

Skimming through the pages, I also noticed a few hit to Henry Ford II too. If you go with the hot topic you get mostly newsmagazine and newspaper articles about what's happening 25 years later or in some cases 30 years later. It would be nice to see more academic listings for these topics. If you go to the shopping side, the first thing to come up under Watergate is a link to the Watergate Hotel. With Henry II, Amazon got the first hit with a book about the English monarch. I think the shopping side is pretty obvious, but if this is to be an intent driven search, I think for the research side, more detail should be given.

The real limitation would seem to be the limitation of any search engine and that would be the pages already existing which in some cases are almost non-existent. Recent studies attempted to document the size of the Internet based on search engine data and the biggest telling fact were the pages that weren't there and I think that could be relevant in something like the Mindset search engine feature. Overall, I think this is a great idea but I think it needs some room to grow. I think others might go this direction, depending on the success of feature.

A lot of its success, particularly with the research side, will depend not just on how much information can be picked up but on how much unique, relevant information from even academic resources can be picked up.

RSS turtorials

2005-06-04T17:39:00.000+03:00

Introducing RSS

Choosing Content for RSS Feeds

Publishing RSS

Telling People About Your Feed

RSS Versions and Modules

Tips for Generating Good RSS Feeds

RSS Tools and Validators

Aggregators and other RSS Clients

More Information about RSS

About this Document

Introducing RSS

Think about all of the information that you access on the Web on a
day-to-day basis; news headlines, search results, "What's New", job
vacancies, and so forth. A large amount of this content can be thought of as
a list; although it probably isn't in HTML <li> elements,
the information is list-oriented.

Most people need to track a number of these lists, but it becomes
difficult once there are more than a handful of sources. This is because they
have to go to each page, load it, remember how it's formatted, and find where
they last left off in the list.

RSS is an XML-based format that allows the syndication
of lists of hyperlinks, along with other information, or metadata,
that helps viewers decide whether they want to follow the link.

RSS allows peoples' computers to fetch and understand the information, so
that all of the lists they're interested in can be tracked and personalized
for them. It is a format that's intended for use by computers on behalf of
people, rather than being directly presented to them (like HTML).

To enable this, a Web site will make an RSS feed, or channel,
available, just like any other file or resource on the server. Once a feed is
available, computers can regularly fetch the file to get the most recent
items on the list. Most often, people will do this with an
aggregator, a program that manages a number of lists and presents
them in a single interface.

RSS can also be used for other kinds of list-oriented information, such as
syndicating the content itself (often weblogs) along with the links.
However, this tutorial focuses on the use of RSS for syndication of links.

What's in a RSS feed?

A feed contains a list of items, each of which is identified by a link.
Each item can have any amount of metadata associated with it.

The most basic metadata supported by RSS includes a title for the link and
a description of it; when syndicating news headlines, these fields might be
used for the story title and the first paragraph or a summary, for example.
For example, an simple item might look like;

<item>
  <title>Earth Invaded</title>
  <link>http://news.example.com/2004/12/17/invasion</link>
  <description>The earth was attacked by an invasion fleet 
  from halfway across the galaxy; luckily, a fatal 
  miscalculation of scale resulted in the entire armada 
  being eaten by a small dog.</description>
</item>

Additionally, the feed itself can have metadata associated with it, so
that it can be given a title (e.g., "Bob's news headlines"), description, and
other fields like publisher and copyright terms.

For an idea of what full feeds look like, see 'RSS
Versions and Modules'.

How do people use feeds?

Aggregators are the most common use of RSS feeds, and there are several
types. Web aggregators (sometimes called portals) make this view available in
a Web page; my Yahoo is a well-known
example of this. Aggregators have also been integrated into e-mail clients,
users' desktops, or standalone, dedicated software. See 'href="#Aggregators">Aggregators and other RSS Clients' for more
information.

Aggregators can offer a variety of special features, including combining
several related feeds into a single view, hiding items that the viewer has
already seen, and categorizing feeds and items.

Other uses of RSS feeds include site tracking by search engines and other
software; because the feed is machine-readable, the search software doesn't
have to figure out which parts of the site are important and which parts are
just the navigation and presentation. You may also choose to allow people to
republish your feeds on their Web sites, giving them the ability to represent
your content as they require.

Why should I make an RSS feed available?

Your viewers will thank you, and there will be more of them, because RSS
allows them to see your site without going out of their way to visit it.

While this seems bad at first glance, it actually improves your site's
visibility; by making it easier for your users to keep up with your site -
allowing them to see it the way they want to - it's more likely that they'll
know when something that interests them is available on your site.

For example, imagine that your company announces a new product or feature
every month or two. Without a feed, your viewers have to remember to come to
your site and see if they find anything new - if they have time. If you
provide a feed for them, they can point their aggregator or other software at
it, and it will give them a link and a description of developments at your
site almost as soon as they happen.

News is similar; because there are so many sources of news on the
Internet, most of your viewers won't come to your site every day. By
providing an RSS feed, you are in front of them constantly, improving the
chances that they'll click through to an article that catches their eye.

But isn't that giving away my content?

No! You still retain copyright on your content if you wish to.

By supplying an RSS feed, you can control what information is syndicated
in the feed, whether it's a full article or just a teaser. Your content can
still be protected by your current access control mechanisms; only the links
and metadata are distributed. You can also protect the RSS feed itself with
SSL encryption and HTTP username/password authentication too, if you'd
like.

In many ways, RSS is similar to the subscription newsletters that many
sites offer to keep viewers up-to-date. The big difference is that they don't
have to supply an e-mail address, lowering the barrier of privacy concerns,
while still giving you a direct channel to your viewers. Also, they get to
see the content in the manner that's most convenient to them, which means
that you get more eyes looking at your content.

Choosing Content for RSS Feeds

Any list-oriented information on your site that your viewers might be
interested in tracking or reusing is a good candidate for an RSS feed. This
can encompass news headlines and press releases, job listings, conference
calendars and rankings (like 'top 10' lists).

For example;

News & Announcements - headlines, notices and any
list of announcements that are added to over time

Document listings - lists of added or changed pages,
so that people don't need to constantly check for different content

Bookmarks and other external links - while most people
use RSS for sharing links from their own sites, it's a natural fit for
sharing lists of external links

Calendars - listings of past or upcoming events,
deadlines or holidays

Mailing lists - to compliment a Web-based archive of
public or private e-mail lists

Search results - to let people track changing or new
results to their searches

Databases - job listings, software releases, etc.

While it's a good start to have a 'master feed' for your site that lists
recent news and events, don't stop there. Generally, each area of your site
that features a changing list of information should have a corresponding
feed; this allows viewers to precisely target their interests.

For example, if your news site has pages for World news, national news,
local news, business, sports, etc., there should be a feed for each of these
sections.

If your site offers a personalized view of data (e.g., people can choose
categories of information that will show up on their home page), offer this
as a feed, so that the viewers' Web pages match the content of their
feeds.

A great example of this is Apple's
iTunes
Music Store RSS feed generator; you can customize it based on your
preferences, and the views it allows match those provided in the Music
Store itself.

Finally, remember that feeds are just as - if not more - useful on an
Intranet as they are on the Internet. RSS can be a powerful tool for sharing
and integrating information inside a company.

Publishing RSS

There are a number of ways to generate a feed from your content. First of
all, explore your content management system - it might already have an option
to generate an RSS feed.

If that option isn't available, you have a number of choices;

Self-scraping - The easiest way to publish a feed from
existing content. Scraping tools fetch your Web page and pull
out the relevant parts for the feed, so that you don't have to change
your publishing system. Some use regular expressions or XPath
expressions, while others require you to mark up your page with minimal
hints (usually using <div> or <span> tags) that help it
decide what should be put into the feed.

Feed integration - If your site is dynamically
generated (using languages like Perl, Python or PHP), it may have a RSS
library available, so that you can integrate the feed into your
publishing process.

Starting with the feed - Alternatively, you can manage
the list-oriented parts of your content in the RSS feed itself, and
generate your Web pages (as well as other content, like e-mail lists)
from the feed. This has the advantage of always having the correct
information in the feed, and tools like XSLT make this option easy,
especially if you're starting from scratch.

Third party scraping - If none of these options work
for you, some people on the Web will scrape your site for you and make
the feed available. Be warned, however, that this is never as reliable or
accurate as doing it yourself, because they don't know the details of
your content or your system. Also, using third parties introduces another
point of failure in the delivery process; problems there (network, server
or business) will cause your feed to be unavailable.

For more information about all of these options, see "href="#Tools">Tools for generating and validating RSS feeds" and "href="#Related">More Information about RSS".

Telling People About Your Feed

An important step after publishing a feed is letting your viewers know
that it exists; there are a lot of feeds available on the Web now, but it's
hard to find them, making it difficult for viewers to utilize them.

Pages that have an associated RSS feed should clearly indicate this to
viewers by using a link containing like 'RSS feed'. For example,

<a type="application/rss+xml" href="feed.rss">RSS feed for this page</a>

where 'feed.rss' is the URL for the feed. the 'type' attribute tells
browsers that this is a link to an RSS feed in a way that they understand.

Additionally, some programs look for a link in the <head> section of
your HTML. To support this, include a <link> tag;

<head>
  <title>My Page</title>
  <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" 
   href="feed.rss" title="RSS feed for My Page">
</head>

These links should be placed on the Web page that is most similar to the
feed content; this enables people to find them as the browse.

Finally, there are a number of guides and registries for RSS feeds that
people can search and browse through, much like the Yahoo directory for Web
sites; it's a good idea to register your feed. See "Related Resources" for
more information.

RSS Versions and Modules

There are two main versions of the RSS format in use today; RSS 0.9x and
RSS 1.0. Although the numbers might lead you to believe that 1.0 replaces
0.9x, both are being actively used and developed. Each version has its
benefits and drawbacks; RSS 0.9x is known for its simplicity, while RSS 1.0
is more extensible and fully specified. Both formats are XML-based and have
the same basic structure.

People tend to get into heated discussions about the better format.
Ultimately, it's a choice you shouldn't worry too much over; good RSS tools
and aggregators will understand both formats. This section presents a quick
overview of each; for more information, see their specifications and
supporting materials.

RSS 0.9x

RSS 0.9x (the 'x' is for the last digit; as of writing, RSS 0.94 is in
development) was designed by Netscape Communications and UserLand software,
and is championed by UserLand's Dave
Winer. In this version, RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication," and
simplicity is its focus.

This branch of RSS is based on RSS 0.91, which was first href="http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-spec-0.91.html">documented
at Netscape and later href="http://backend.userland.com/stories/rss091">refined by Userland.

Included in 0.92 - the
latest stable version - are channel metadata like link,
title, description; image, which
allows you to specify a thumbnail image to display with the feed);
webMaster and managingEditor, to identify who's
responsible for the feed, and lastBuildDate, which shows when
the feed was last updated. Items have the standard link,
title and description metadata, as
well as other, more experimental facilities like enclosure,
which allows attachments to be automatically downloaded (don't expect these
features to be supported by all aggregators, however).

RSS 0.9x takes a versioned approach to extensibility; new features are
added by declaring a new version of RSS in the 0.9 series. Winer controls the
release of new versions, so if you have suggestions about the future of RSS
0.9x, it's best to talk to him.

Here's an example of a minimal RSS 0.9x feed:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="0.91">
  <channel>
    <title>Example Channel</title>
    <link>http://example.com/</link>
    <description>My example channel</description>
    <item>
       <title>News for September the Second</title>
       <link>http://example.com/2002/09/01</link>
       <description>other things happened today</description>
    </item>
    <item>
       <title>News for September the First</title>
       <link>http://example.com/2002/09/02</link>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

RSS 1.0

RSS 1.0 stands for "RDF Site Summary." This flavor of RSS incorporates
RDF, a Web standard for
metadata. Because RSS 1.0 uses RDF, any RDF processor can understand RSS
without knowing anything about it in particular.

RSS 1.0 also uses XML
Namespaces to allow extensions - called RSS Modules - to be
added without worrying about conflicts. This is because RSS 1.0 doesn't use a
central person for extending the format; instead, namespaces are used to
describe a space for your own extensions. For example, if you had an ISBN
module to track books, it might look like this;

<item xmlns:book="http://namespace.example.com/book/1.0"
 rdf:about="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553575376">
  <title>Excession</link>
  <link>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553575376</link>
  <book:isbn>0553575376</book:isbn>
</item>

Generally, though, you should look for available RSS Modules, rather than
defining your own, unless you're sure that what you need doesn't exist.

RSS 1.0 feeds look very similar to RSS 0.9x feeds, with a few key
differences;

The entire feed is wrapped in <rdf:RDF> ...
</rdf:RDF> elements (so that processors know that it's
RDF)

Each <item> has an rdf:about attribute
that usually, but not always, matches the <link>; this
assigns an identifier to each item

There's an <items> element in the channel metadata
that contains a list of items in the channel, so that RDF processors can
keep track of the relationship between the items

Some metadata uses the rdf:resource attribute to carry
links, instead of putting it inside the element.

RSS 1.0 is developed and maintained by an ad hoc group of interested
people; see their Web site for more
information about RSS 1.0 and RSS Modules. See below for an example of an
RSS 1.0 feed.

Dublin Core Module

The most well-known example of an RSS Module is the href="http://www.purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/dc/">Dublin Core Module. The
Dublin Core is a set of metadata developed by librarians and
information scientists that standardizes a set of common metadata that is
useful for describing documents, among other things. The Dublin Core Module
uses these metadata to attach information to both feeds (in the channel
metadata) and to individual items.

This module includes useful elements like dc:date, for
associating dates with items, dc:subject, which can be useful
for categorizing items or feeds, and dc:rights, for dictating
the intellectual property rights associated with an item or a feed.

Here's an example of a minimal RSS 1.0 feed that uses the Dublin Core
Module:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rdf:RDF 
 xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
 xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
 xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
>
  <channel rdf:about="http://example.com/news.rss">
    <title>Example Channel</title>
    <link>http://example.com/</link>
    <description>My example channel</description>
    <items>
      <rdf:Seq>
        <rdf:li resource="http://example.com/2002/09/01/"/>
        <rdf:li resource="http://example.com/2002/09/02/"/>
      </rdf:Seq>
    </items>
  </channel>
  <item rdf:about="http://example.com/2002/09/01/">
     <title>News for September the First</title>
     <link>http://example.com/2002/09/01/</link>
     <description>other things happened today</description>
     <dc:date>2002-09-01</dc:date>
  </item>
  <item rdf:about="http://example.com/2002/09/02/">
     <title>News for September the Second</title>
     <link>http://example.com/2002/09/02/</link>
     <dc:date>2002-09-02</dc:date>
  </item>
</rdf:RDF>

As you can see, RSS 1.0 is a bit more verbose than 0.9x, mostly because it
needs to be compatible with other versions of RSS while containing the markup
that RDF processors need.

Tips for Generating Good RSS Feeds

RSS is easy to work with, but like any new format, you may encounter some
problems in using it. This section attempts to address the most common issues
that arise when generating a feed.

Meaningful Links - Give every item in your feed a
distinct URL in the <link> tag, so that software can
tell the difference between items, and recognize items that it's already
seen. If two items really point at the same page, you can use different
fragment identifiers;
e.g.,http://www.example.com/#x2002-09-01 and
http://www.example.com/#x2002-09-02.

Meaningful Metadata - Try to make the metadata useful
on its own; for example, if you only include a short
<title>, people may not know what the link is about.
By the same token, if you shove an entire article into
<description>, it'll crowd people's view of the feed,
and they're less likely to stay interested in what you have to say.
Generally, you want to put enough into the feed to help someone decide
whether they should follow the link.

Encoding HTML - Although it's tempting, refrain from
including HTML markup (like <a href="...">,
<b> or <p>) in your RSS feed;
because you don't know how it will be presented, doing so can prevent
your feed from being displayed correctly. If you need to include a a tag
in the text of the feed (e.g., the title of an item is "Ode to
<title>"), make sure you escape ampersands and angle brackets (so
that it would be "Ode to <title>").

XML Entities - Remember that XML doesn't predefine
entities like HTML does; therefore, you won't have
  © and other common entities
available. You can define them in the XML, or alternatively just use an
character encoding that makes what you need available.

Character Encoding - Some software generates feeds
using Windows character sets, and sometimes mislabels them. The safest
thing to do is to encode your feed as UTF-8 and check it by parsing it
with an XML parser.

Version Compatibility - RSS 1.0 generators need to
take special steps to ensure compatibility with 0.9x parsers; most
importantly, use the default namespace for RSS. See the 1.0 spec for more
information.

Communicating with Viewers - Don't use items in your
feed to communicate to your users; for example, some feeds have been
known to use the <description> to dictate copyright
terms. Use the appropriate element or module.

Communicating with Machines - Likewise, use the
appropriate HTTP status codes if your feed has relocated (usually,
301 Moved Permanently) or is no longer available (410 Gone or 404 Not Found).

Making your Feed Cache-Friendly - Successful RSS feeds
see a fair amount of traffic because clients poll them often to see if
they've changed. To support the load, Web Caching can help; see the href="http://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/">caching tutorial.

RSS Tools and Validators

This is an incomplete list of tools for creating RSS feeds, and checking
them to make sure that you've done so correctly. Note that there are many
more libraries that help parsing RSS; these haven't been included here
because this tutorial focuses on the Webmaster, not consumers of RSS.

xpath2rss
- A tool for scraping Web sites using XPath expressions (a method of
selecting parts of HTML and XML documents).

RSS.py
- A Python library for generating and parsing RSS.

href="http://search.cpan.org/author/EISEN/XML-RSS/">XML::RSS
- A Perl module for generating and parsing RSS.

Orchard
RSS - Work with feeds as a collection of nodes; support for
Python, Perl and C.

Site Summaries
in XHTML - An online service (also available as an XSLT
stylesheet) that uses hints in your HTML to generate a feed.

myRSS - An online,
third-party automated scraping service. Doesn't require any special
markup.

Online RSS
0.9x Validator - Check your 0.9x feeds; from UserLand.

href="http://www.ldodds.com/rss_validator/1.0/validator.html">Online
RSS 1.0 Validator - Check your 1.0 RSS feeds; includes
module support. From Leigh Dodds.

Online RSS
1.0 Validator - Another 1.0 validator, from Dave
Beckett.

Aggregators and Other RSS Clients

This is an incomplete listing of aggregators and other consumers of RSS
content. For more, see "More Information about
RSS."

Headline
Viewer - The original desktop aggregator. For most versions
of Windows.

SharpReader
- Windows-based desktop aggregator; many features.

href="http://ranchero.com/software/netnewswire/">NetNewsWire
- A newer, standalone desktop aggregator for MacOS X.

Radio
UserLand - Hybrid desktop/Web aggregator and weblogging
tool. Windows and Macintosh (7.5.5+ and OSX).

href="http://www.oreillynet.com/meerkat/">Meerkat - A
Web-based aggregator by O'Reilly.

News is Free -
Another Web-based aggregator which also does some third-party
scraping.

Apache
JetSpeed - An Enterprise-class Java Portal that supports
RSS.

Daypop - A search
engine for RSS-based news.

Syndicated content -
Good list of best practices for creating an RSS feed.

Syndic8 - A
community effort to gather, validate and search feeds with lots of other
information.

RSS Workshop -
A well-regarded introduction to publishing RSS feeds, from the state of
Utah Online Services division.

Content Syndication
with XML and RSS - RSS information and a forthcoming book by
Ben Hammersley.

RSSInfo -
Lists aggregators, toolsets and RSS-related news.

RSS
Devcenter - O'reilly's Web portal for all things RSS.

About this Document

This document is Copyright © 2002-2005 Mark Nottingham <href="mailto:mnot@pobox.com">mnot@pobox.com>.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Google Sitemaps: RSS For The Entire Website?

2005-06-04T14:05:00.000+03:00

by Chris Richardson

Well, not really. But Google Sitemaps does employ XML technology in order to provide its program members the opportunity to have their site crawled after they make updates or alterations.

Before we get ahead of ourselves and in case you haven't heard, yesterday, Google launched Sitemaps, a "collaborative crawling" service designed to keep Google informed of modifications to your web site so their search index can reflect these changes… or as Rusty call it, a free pay-for-inclusion program.

Sitemaps works by taking advantage of XML and RSS capabilities. By placing XML code on the web server, you inform Google of when changes occur, and they respond by crawling the updated pages and making the necessary updates to the search index. Over at the Google Blog, Engineering Director Shiva Shivakumar indicated why Google launched Sitemaps:

"Initially, we plan to use the URL information webmasters supply to further improve the coverage and freshness of our index. Over time that will lead to our doing an even better job of delivering more search results from more websites."

Shiva also gave an extensive interview to Danny Sullivan over at the SearchEngineWatch Blog. In it, Shiva iterates that the Sitemaps program's current beta state; he won't guarantee each submitted URL would be crawled. He did indicate that this was something they were working toward, however.

As mentioned, in order to participate in Sitemaps, you have to have a Google account and you have to place an XML file on the webserver being used by your site. This is done in order to inform Google's crawlers of what URLs to look for and how often these pages change. As pointed out by Rusty, over at SocialPatterns.com, SEM Michael Nguyen broke down an example of his Sitemaps' XML code, line-by-line; in order to shed some light on what's actually being done.

The XML file must also the URL of each page you want to be in the Sitemaps program. If you have four pages that undergo frequent change, all 4 page URLs should be listed, if you have an entire site that you want included, you have to include the URL of each page. By employing the changefreq and priority XML tags, you can also indicate how important each page is and how frequently the page changes.

After the XML is complete, you must submit it to the Sitemaps program. This is where the Google account comes in. Once the URL of the sitemap is submitted, your task is complete.

There are a couple of methods you can use in order to get an XML sitemap. A sitemap generator can be downloaded from Google or you can develop one. The generator is an open-source Python file that has to be uploaded to the webserver. According to their FAQ the sitemap generator "can create sitemaps from URL lists, webserver directories, or from access logs.

" You can also develop your own XML sitemap if you so choose. This will have to be submitted as well. The final method Google accepts is a text file containing the URLs you want in the program. Obviously, this method is saved for those who have little-to-no experience dealing with webservers or structural web alterations. It also seems like the text files will be given the lowest priority, at least until the program is off and running.

As to whether or not you should be taking part in the Google Sitemaps program is quite simple: if search engines play any role in your business whatsoever, you should be apart of the program. Having Google's (or any other search engine for that matter) index reflect changes in your site quickly will only benefit your search engine presence. Or as Nathan Weinberg says, it'd be stupid not to.

An additional area of interest is that Google made Sitemaps as open-source as possible… at least on the XML end. By making the sitemap generator in Python and releasing it under the Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons license, Google is only furthering their embrace of open-source. This also allows the program to be adapted in order to support other search engines.

Update: Someone who emailed me installed the sitemap generator on his webserver, and evidently the server went boom... or it at least was overtaxed. Here's a quote from his post discussing the event: "Running it brought down my 3200MHz Pentium 4 running Debian Linux and 2 GB of RAM." Read Theo's report and see for yourselves.

Search engines go mobile

2005-06-03T14:56:00.000+03:00

Source: Mobile Internet

Web search is cutting the computer cord, as the major engines increasingly introduce new ways of retrieving search results through mobile phones and devices. Yahoo Inc. expanded its mobile search offerings recently with a local search feature for sending business-listing information to mobile phones. Meanwhile, Ask Jeeves Inc. has confirmed that it plans to offer wireless search capabilities later this year.

Yahoo's latest offering follows its introduction in October of Yahoo Search for Mobile, a service for accessing Web, image, and local search results from browser-enabled mobile devices. Now, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo is letting Web users send information from Yahoo Local results to their mobile devices as text messages.

The SMS (Short Message Service) message includes the business name, phone number, address, and cross street from search results. In some cases, the message also provides a link that will initiate a call to the business.

The SMS feature is available across major U.S. wireless carriers such as Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS and T-Mobile, Yahoo announced.

"Users really want it both ways," said Paul Levine, general manager of Yahoo Local. "So, when folks are on the Web site and are looking for phone numbers and browsing for restaurants, rather than scribbling something on a piece of paper, they want something on their device when they're on the go."

Search-engine executives credit the rapid rise in mobile-phone usage for the growing interest in making search results more accessible through wireless devices.

So far, the approaches from search engines have either integrated search-engine interfaces into mobile browsers or used text messaging to retrieve targeted results.

Search leader Google Inc. last year launched an SMS service for sending specialized search queries as text messages and retrieving answers such as phone-book listings, dictionary definitions or product prices.
While Ask Jeeves is offering few details about its wireless plans for this year, it is working on figuring out which types of search results make the most sense for mobile access, said Daniel Read, vice president of product management at the Emeryville, California-based search company.

The search engines largely have introduced their wireless search services for free and without the sponsored-link ads that make them money on the Web. Yahoo's SMS feature is free of ads, but Levine said that is mainly because of limitations in the format of text messages. "Certainly as we go to richer formats, then they'll probably be room for advertising of some sort," Levine said.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Information Gatekeepers, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group

Anchor Text Tips That Rocket Your Rankings

2005-06-02T08:00:00.000+03:00

By Garrett French

Google/Yahoo bombing is the practice of placing terms you want a given page to rank for in anchor text that links to that page. Huh? Ok, here's an example: if I wanted this page to rank highly for the term "President of the Internet" I'd create a link like this: President of the Internet and have all my friends and friendly readers post that link and text on their sites.

Discuss anchor text optimization in WebProWorld.
With enough pages carrying that same text and link I'd knock the current president from his perch. (He's also governing in Yahoo, by the way...)

Google bombing is also effective on pages that don't want to rank for certain terms - Miserable Failure is one example.

The ability to manipulate search results this way indicates the weight that the two most searched engines give to the text webpages use to link to other web pages.

Matt Bailey of The Karcher Group believes search engines attribute this value to the anchor text because it, "is very important to the user; it should describe the content of the target page and the subject matter."

Joe Griffin of SubmitAWebSite described the way text link works this way: "by identifying your pages through relevant keyword links you are "telling" the search engine which keywords the linked pages represent. The rule applies for both internal and external anchor text."

"Proper use of anchor text," said Joe, "can help you show the relevancy of your web pages to key search engines to help rank for desired keywords."

I wrote to Joe, Matt, and two other SEO experts recently and asked them about their thoughts on anchor text and anchor text best practices.

"Anchor text is extremely important to rankings, especially in Google. I've seen some evidence in Yahoo, but not to the extent that Google rankings can be influenced," said Matt. Jim Hedger of Stepforth said, "I believe in the value of anchor text."

Anchor Text Best Practices

Matt's anchor text best practices include excellent general guidelines for you to follow:

1. Do what's best for the user.

2. Make it easily understood by the user.

3. Don't try to hide your intentions.

4. Be honest about the anchor text. What it says is what you should get.

Jim's anchor text best practices offer some specific advice that will help you make anchor text decisions on your site:

Use Judiciously

1/ Navigation maps (the text-links at the bottom of each page) Nav Maps are a great place to put keyword enriched anchor text. These text-links tend to be found at the bottom of each page in a site. An important note is that these links WILL be used by site visitors and MUST be created and phrased with live-visitors and SE Spiders in mind.

2/ Links on the INDEX page

The INDEX page of a site is the most powerful real estate found that URL. Again, all work on the INDEX page MUST consider live-visitors before SE Spiders. When keyword-enriching text on the INDEX page, there are often ways to link into internal pages. This is a good thing as it pushes spider traffic while associating the keyword (anchor text) with the specific page

linked to. An important consideration is that the INDEX page often has a higher page rank than internal pages.

3/ Links on Internal Pages

Links on internal pages are not as important to search engine rankings as on the INDEX page. Nevertheless, each internal page is terribly important to the clients and can add to a good internal linking strategy.

4/ External Links

Links coming from other URLs should use effective anchor text. With larger campaigns we can mix and match the keyword phrases targeted through anchor links in order to associate keyword phrases with specific internal pages.

Fathom, a moderator from WebProWorld, offered these six suggestions to those who want their anchor text to work well for them:

1. Important link positioning top left to bottom right. (throwing tons of links at bottom helps little).

2. Exact anchors that best support the content on the link to page It's great to use tons of links where the anchor text suggest importance to "web design" however if the page is specific to "web development" then the use of "web design" link anchors will be less effective.

3. The use of "broad" has the benefit of aiding "broadly" e.g. using links to a website about "college degrees" where the link indicates "degrees" has the benefit of gaining associate degrees, bachelor degrees, masters degrees, as well as the specific subject matter for the degree itself link computer science degrees.

A link anchor however about "masters degrees" dilutes the value to other degrees e.g. bachelor degrees - so it is a game of tradeoffs.

4. If attempting to do item #3 for "web" to capture "web design", "website design", "web development", "website development", a text link anchor looks quite inappropriate. Thus the value of image links e.g. <a title="web" href=""><img alt="Web" src="web.gif"></a> where the broad term is less apparent and the image actually reads "web design".

5. Avoid "stop words" such as and, with, by, from etc.

6. Internal site linking structure has a significant impact of supporting and propagating weight, relevancy, and PageRank to similar topical pages... e.g. Google's indented secondary results for a specific query helps show this. If you are listed (ranked) with only a single results listing - your internal linking structure is likely the cause, and fixing this can help improve overall results.

Joe of SubmitaWebSite contradicted some of what Fathom said, however. "In terms of anchor text being found on relevant vs. irrelevant sites I have yet to see any substantial proof supporting the claim that relevant websites will yield a better return in the natural rankings." From a purely pragmatic perspective though, if you've got links on a page that's more relevant to your site you're more likely to get foot traffic in that way rather than if you've got your text links up on unrelated/irrelevant sites.

Well, I imagine you're ready to start optimizing your text links. Remember to focus on those within your site as well as those your link partners use to mention you. Anchor text is an important way of showing the search engines, as well as your visitors, just what they're getting when they land on the page. And, for now, it's a powerful way to raise your ranking for particular terms.

And don't forget to cast your vote (on all your Page Rank 10 pages) for the new President of the Internet!

What's the difference between blogs and RSS?

2005-05-31T07:57:00.000+03:00

What's the difference between blogs and RSS?

By Bob Stepno

That question about subscribing to "RSS feeds" landed in my e-mail box just when I was writing some blogging how-to pages. This page is an expanded and hyperlinked version of my e-mail reply. The actual question was:

> ... read an article about RSS, and I gotta say, I don't understand the
> difference between the two. Blog provides headlines and links to
> stories. RSS provides headlines and links to stories.

First: The delivery difference:

* You go to blogs.

* RSS "feeds" come to you.

Next, the content difference:

Weblogs/blogs (short
definition) are just Web pages that are updated frequently, with the most recent item on top. No matter what
you've heard, relatively few blogs are just "headlines and links." Bloggers put a lot of themselves into what they do.

Some blogs are like newspaper news,
opinion or gossip columns. Some are personal diaries. Most have
recommendations or commentary on the things they link to. Some are like a stack of essays or classroom handouts, which is how mine began.

RSS feeds are generated by blogs, but also by publishers like The New York Times, the BBC, PC World or Apple's iTunes website. They can deliver headlines, story summaries, or the full contents of an original source, along with links to the Web version.

Third, the reader-tool
difference:

You read RSS feeds with an "aggregator" or "newsfeed reader," just as you read Web pages with a browser or e-mail with a mail client.

You don't "go to" RSS items any more than you "go to" e-mail. You subscribe
to
an RSS feed and it "comes to you" as often as your aggregator retrieves
the updated contents. The
aggregator can be built into a Web browser like Firefox or Safari. It
also can be a stand-alone program, or a service that does the
aggregating for you at a website like Yahoo. Here are some spring 2004 reviews I wrote for PC World, plus a few more, and here's an even longer (and possibly more up-to-date) list of RSS aggregators.

Q: Why bother with an RSS aggregator if you can read the same content through the browser? Why have the same wine in two bottles?

A: Wine is the wrong metaphor. Wine improves with age. News is more like fish. RSS syndication is a matter of getting the freshest news.

Extreme example:

I know a guy named Jay who subscribes to literally one thousand and one RSS feeds. He
checks them DAILY. Rather than spend all his waking hours making the
rounds of 1,001 websites
to see
if they have anything new, he lets an aggregator tell him which ones
are updated. He skims those.
Somehow he also finds time to read Dante, study French, go to college,
sleep a little, hold down a job and report on things in his own weblog.
He also showed great marketing instinct when he named his blog makeoutcity.com

Presentation: Some blogs put the entire content of each new item into the RSS feed, others just do an exerpt. RSS isn't restricted to headlines or summaries,
although some people say the last S stands for "Summary." Others say it
stands for Syndication,
which seems more accurate. Either way, you can click on items in your
aggregator to launch your browser and see each full story, complete
with whatever illustrations, advertising and other context provided by
its full Web presentation. For example, I put a some effort into using
bold text, subheadings and indentations to organize this page.
Aggregators generally strip out that page-formatting.

An RSS feed is a type of XML document,
but without a style sheet or HTML coding to make it look attractive in
a browser. XML, Extensible Markup Language, is used
to build special-purpose document markup systems. You can peek at an
RSS XML file with a browser to
see
what the coding looks like. Here's the RSS
XML file for my older example blog: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/stepno/xml/rss.xml

Although I don't blog every day, that XML file is the RSS feed I'm "offering to subscribers."
A visitor to my page (and most blogs) can get the address by clicking
on a small orange XML or RSS icon at the bottom or side of the page,
then copying the address to an aggregator. (An orange XML icon with
a coffee mug is a special shortcut for owners of Radio Userland, the combination weblog program and aggregator I used for this page.)

Finding feeds: You can collect
RSS feeds from pages you visit regularly, or pages that bloggers like
Jay point you to. As syndication has grown, so have services that point
to interesting RSS feeds, including Feedster.com, an "RSS Search Engine" and Web-based aggregator service. The last time I looked, it had seven million feeds. Here's its top 100 list.

Some weblog services also provide a built-in aggregator. Here's one showing some sites I subscribe to:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/stepno/aggregator/

That collection of "clippings" comes from only
a dozen RSS feeds. It is updated by the aggregator every hour with the
latest items -- whether I read them or not. There are no
comments from me, just the contributing sites' feeds.

The
Poynter Institute is another organization that offers
aggregator pages to users of its Web site. To prove that I
know "information overload" when I see it, and to demonstrate some
differences (and glitches) in the aggregators, I subscribe to a few
feeds
there, too: http://poynter.org/profile/profile.asp?user=12365

More technical info and abbreviations than you need...

Back to that "Summary" versus "Syndication" business:

Just to confuse matters, the RSS "standard" split into two
camps a few years ago, complete with different definitions of the
abbreviation! But clever programmers have come up with RSS-reader
programs
that handle all versions, so you probably don't need to worry about the difference.

RSS 0.92 was called "Really Simple Syndication" by Dave Winer, blogger and founder of Userland Software, who picked up the ball when RSS's co-originator, Netscape, dropped it.

A committee favoring a more detailed XML standard called RDF (Resource Description
Framework, if you need to know) created something it called RSS 1.0,
spelling it out as "Rich Site Summary" or "RDF Site Summary."

Winer
and company didn't agree that "rich" was better than "really
simple," and kept developing what is now called RSS 2.0, still calling
it "Really Simple Syndication." As the names suggest, some RSS feeds
offer summaries of the contents of a site (such as the headlines of
news stories), while others "syndicate" the full contents of a site,
something like a syndicated newspaper column that other places are
allowed to republish.

Winer became a Fellow at Harvard Law
School's Berkman Center for the Internet & Society in 2003, and decided to turn over ownership of the specification to the university: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

Disclaimer: Dave
also launched Harvard's weblog server and blogging discussion group,
which I joined for the 2003-2004 school year.

If you do a Google search for "RSS," you'll find pages about
"2.0" that
don't mention the existence of "1.0" and vice versa. Sigh. (You might
even find a page about my father, whose initials were RSS. And then
there's a political group called RSS in India that I know nothing about.)

For the geek-friendly details on the great RSS/RDF bifurcation, see these pages by:

Dave

Mark

and more

This directory from Google may have even more aggregators by now...

Although Google puts the list in an
RDF subdirectory, it includes readers that handle both RSS 1.0 and 2.0.
Coincidentally, in January 2004 the Google-owned Blogger.com blog engine began offering yet another syndication format
called Atom. That's why you need a
weblog and an aggregator or two: To keep track of the news about weblogs and aggregators.

I hope this page of explanation helps... Let me know if I'm off base on any of it. I'm not an expert; I just play one on the Internet.

... mostly written in 2004; minor updates in 2005

The Search Engine Marketing Kit - Chapter 1

2005-05-28T09:09:00.000+03:00

SitePoint's Search Engine Marketing Column

The Search Engine Marketing Kit - Chapter 1

By Dan Thies

April 6th 2005

Reader Rating: 9.4

Every day, millions of people turn to their computers and look for information on the Web. And, more often than not, they use a search engine to find that information. It's estimated that more than 350 million English language Web searches are conducted every day!

The Search Engine Marketing Kit

This article is part of SitePoint's The Search Engine Marketing Kit.

The kit comprises 300 pages of bleeding-edge insight, strategy, research, and tactics to help Website owners and developers get ahead in the search game. A CD-ROM provides easy-to-use tools to help you streamline your SEM strategies. And each kit comes with US$150-worth of advertising credits for the three major PPC players: Google Adwords, Overture, and Findwhat.

Each of the kit's eight detailed chapters goes into considerable depth, explaining the complexities of such topics as basic keyword strategy, link building and page optimization, search engine friendly design issues, search marketing strategy, avoiding search engine spam and other underhanded techniques, pay-per-click and other paid inclusion services, and much more.

The kit also includes candid interviews with top industry experts, and a reference that provides information on the quality resources available -- both online and off -- for use by search engine marketers. The CD-ROM that accompanies the kit offers a range of tools that will prove invaluable to the serious search marketer or SEM service provider, from keyword ranking tools, to business documentation. The Google Adwords, Overture and FindWhat advertising credits will get beginners started, and give those already in the game a little more room to manoeuvre.

Obviously, this chapter provides only a snapshot of all the information that's available in the kit. If you'd prefer to read this information offline, please feel free to download Chapter 1 in PDF format.

Are you ready to take your first steps toward search engine marketing success? Let's get started!

Chapter 1 - Understanding Search Engines

In this chapter, I'll offer a brief history of search engines, explaining the different components of search portals, and how people use them. We'll dive into the inner workings of the major crawling search engines. Finally, we'll conclude with a review of today's search engine landscape, and some thoughts on the future of search engine technology.

You may be tempted to skip right past this chapter to the nitty gritty, but, trust me: this is required reading. Understanding where search results come from, how search engines work, and where the industry is headed is essential if you're to make successful search engine marketing decisions now and in the future.

Note: In the search engine optimization business, one of the key distinctions between amateurs and professionals is that a professional truly understands how the system works, and why. An amateur might learn to tweak a page's content and call it "optimized," but a professional is capable of explaining the rationale behind their every action, and adapting to changing industry conditions without radically altering their methods.

A Brief History of the Search Engine

The World Wide Web was born in November, 1990, with the launch of the first Web server (and Web page) hosted at the CERN research facility in Switzerland. Not surprisingly, the purpose of the first Web page was to describe the World Wide Web project. At the time, no search engine was needed—you could literally read the entire contents of the World Wide Web in less than an hour.

By early 1993, the stage was set for the Web explosion. In February of that year, the first (alpha) release of the NCSA Mosaic graphical browser provided a client application that, by the end of the year, was available on all major desktop computing platforms. The Netscape browser, based on Mosaic, was released in 1994. By this time, dial-up Internet access had become readily available and was cheap. The Web was taking off!

The Early Days of Web Search

Even though the combination of cheap dial-up access and the Mosaic browser had made the Web semi-popular, there was still no way to search the growing collection of hypertext documents available online. Most Web pages were basically collections of links, and a popular pastime of Web users was to share their bookmark files.

This isn't to say that attempts weren't made to bring order to the swiftly growing chaos. The first automated Web crawler, or robot, was the World Wide Web Wanderer created by MIT student Mathew Gray. This crawler did little more than collect URLs, and was largely seen as a nuisance by the operators of Web servers. Martjin Koster created the first Web directory, ALIWeb, in late 1993, but it, like the Wanderer, met with limited success.

In February 1993, six Stanford graduate students began work on a research project called Architext, using word relationships to search collections of documents. By the middle of that year, their software was available for site search. More robots had appeared on the scene by late 1993, but it wasn't until early 1994 that searching really came into its own.

The Great Search Engine Explosion

1994 was a big year in the history of Web search. The first hierarchical directory, Galaxy, was launched in January and, in April, Stanford students David Filo and Jerry Yang created Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, better known as Yahoo!.

During that same month, Brian Pinkerton at the University of Washington released WebCrawler. This, the first true Web search engine, indexed the entire contents of Web pages, where previous crawlers had indexed little more than page titles, headings, and URLs. Lycos was launched a few months later.

By the end of 1995, nearly a dozen major search engines were online. Names like MetaCrawler (the first metasearch engine), Magellan, Infoseek, and Excite (born out of the Architext project) were released into cyberspace throughout the year. AltaVista arrived on the scene in December with a stunningly large database and many advanced features, and Inktomi debuted the following year.

Over the next few years, new search engines would appear every few months, but many of these differed only slightly from their competitors. Yet the occasional handy innovation would find its way into practical use. Here are a few of the most successful ideas from that time:

GoTo (now Overture) introduced the concept of pay-per-click (PPC) listings in 1997. Instead of ranking sites based on some arcane formula, GoTo allowed open bidding for keywords, with the top position going to the highest bidder. All major search portals now rely on PPC listings for the bulk of their revenues.

Metasearch engines, which combine results from several other search engines, proliferated for a time, driven by the rise of pay-per-click systems and the inconsistency of results among the major search engines. Today, new metasearch engines are rarely if ever seen, but those that remain possess a loyal following. The current crop of metasearch engines display mostly pay-per-click listings.

The Mining Company (now About) launched in February 1997, using human experts to create a more exclusive directory. Many topic-specific (vertical) directories and resource sites have been created since, but About remains a leading resource.

DirectHit introduced the concept of user feedback in 1998, allocating a higher ranking to sites whose listings were clicked by users. DirectHit's data influenced the search results on many portals for a long time, but, because of the system's susceptibility to manipulation, none of today's search portals openly use this form of feedback. DirectHit was later acquired by Ask Jeeves (now Ask), and user behavior may well be factored into the Ask/Teoma search results we see today.

Pay-to-play was introduced, as search engines and directories sought to capitalize on the value of their editorial listings. The LookSmart and Yahoo! directories began to charge fees for the review and inclusion of business Websites. Inktomi launched "paid inclusion" and "trusted feed," allowing site owners to ensure their inclusion (subject to editorial standards) in the Inktomi search engine.

The examination of linking relationships between pages began in earnest, with AltaVista and other search engines adding "link popularity" to their ranking algorithms. At Stanford University, a research project created the Backrub search engine, which took a novel approach to ranking Web pages.

Google Dominates, the Field Narrows

The Backrub search engine eventually found its way into the public consciousness as Google. By the time the search engine was officially launched as Google in September 1998, it had already become a very popular player.

The development of search engines since that time has been heavily influenced by Google's rise to dominance. More than any other search portal, Google has focused on the user experience and quality of search results. Even at the time of its launch, Google offered users several major improvements, some of which had nothing to do with the search results offered.

One of the most appealing aspects of Google was its ultra-simple user interface. Advertising was conspicuously absent from Google's homepage—a great advantage in a market whose key players typically adorned their pages with multiple banners—and the portal took only a few seconds to load even on a slow dial-up connection. Users had the option to search normally, but a second option, called "I'm Feeling Lucky," took users directly to the page that ranked at the top of the results for their search.

Like its homepage, Google's search results took little time to appear and carried no advertising. By the time Google began to show a few paid listings through the AdWords service in late 2000, users didn't mind: Google had successfully established itself as the leading search portal and, unlike many other search engines, it didn't attempt to hide paid advertising among regular Web search results.

Many other search portals recognized the superiority of Google's search results, and the loyalty that quality generated. AOL and Yahoo! made arrangements to display Google's results on their own pages, as did many minor search portals. By the end of 2003, it was estimated that three-quarters of all Web searches returned Google-powered results.

Within a few years, the near-monopoly that Google achieved in 2003 will be recognized as a high water mark, but the development of this search engine is by no means finished.

The years 2001–2003 saw a series of acquisitions that rapidly consolidated the search industry into a handful of major players. Yahoo! acquired the Inktomi search engine in March 2003; Overture acquired AltaVista and AllTheWeb a month later; Yahoo! announced the acquisition of Overture in August 2003.

In 2004, a new balance of power took shape:

Yahoo! released its own search engine powered by a fusion of the AltaVista, Inktomi, and AllTheWeb technology they acquired in 2003. Yahoo! stopped returning Google search results in January 2004.

Google's AdWords and AdSense systems, which deliver pay-per-click listings to search portals and Websites respectively, grew dramatically. Google filed for an initial public offering (IPO).

The popularity of the Ask search portal, powered by the innovative Teoma search engine, steadily increased. Like most portals that Yahoo! doesn't own, Ask uses Google's AdWords for paid listings.

The 800-lb gorilla of the computing world, Microsoft, announced plans for its own search engine, releasing beta versions for public use in January and June of 2004, and formally launching the service in February 2005. Microsoft now offers MSN search results on the MSN portal.

That's enough history for now. We'll take a closer look at the current search engine landscape a little later in this chapter, when I'll introduce you to the major players, and explain how all this will affect your search engine strategy.

Anatomy of a Web Search Portal

Today, what we call a search engine is usually a much more complex Web search portal. Search portals are designed as starting points for users who need to find information on the Web. On a search portal, a single site offers many different search options and services:

AOL's user interface gives users access to a wide variety of services, including email, online shopping, chat rooms, and more. Searching the Web is just one of many choices available.

MSN features Web search, but also shows news, weather, links to dozens of sites on the MSN network, and offers from affiliated sites like Expedia, ESPN, and others.

Yahoo! still features Web search prominently on its homepage, but also offers a dazzling array of other services, from news and stock quotes to personal email and interactive games.

Even Google, the most search-focused portal, offers links to breaking news, Usenet discussion groups, Froogle shopping search, a proprietary image search system, and many other options.

In this section, we'll examine the makeup of a typical search engine results page (SERP). Every portal delivers search results from different data sources. The ways in which these sources are combined and presented to the user is what gives each Web search portal its own unique flavor.

Changes to the way a major portal presents its search results can have a significant impact on the search engine strategy you craft for your Website. As we look at the different sources of search results, and the ways in which those results are handled by individual portals, I'll offer examples to illustrate this point.

A typical search engine results page has three major components: crawler-based listings, sponsored listings, and directory listings. Not all SERPs contain all three elements; some portals incorporate additional data sources depending on the search term used. Figure 1.1, from Yahoo!, shows a typical SERP:

Figure 1.1. A typical SERP.

Promote Your eBay Business - Publish Articles on the Web

2005-05-28T09:05:00.000+03:00

Promote Your eBay Business - Publish Articles on the Web

As the Web, Tivo, Google AdWords/Adsense and subscription radio throw the advertising world into a funk, there's a tried and true method for promotion that's cheap, relatively easy and still highly effective when compared to "traditional" advertising... Some call it PR. Some call it editorial promotion. Most serious businesses deem it a critical component to their overall marketing plan. As an eBay seller, you should be utilizing editorial promotion to position yourself as an expert and position your products within the marketplace.

The basic idea is to get articles about your business, products or services published...anywhere. You can spend a lot of time and money dancing with print newspaper, magazine and trade publishers, however it's much easier to publish on the Web. Not only is it easier, but media trends show that people are consuming news differently on the Web, and they're going to the Web more often for news and product information. People look for targeted information on the Web. You don't need to be all over the nightly news for people to find you. What you're interested in are the people who are searching for exactly what you offer and are writing/editorializing about.

So, how do you do this? How do you publish articles about your products, services and business on the Web? Fortunately, Brett Krkosska, managing editor of Home Biz Tools, has written an excellent article on the subject. This article shows you how to syndicate your work so that multiple outlets will pick it up. This is basically free advertising for you and your eBay business. What's more, you have the opportunity to truly educate prospects when you publish journalistic articles about your business. That's important, because the mor

Why Blogs Rank High In Search Engines

2005-05-23T08:36:00.000+03:00

Fredrik Wacka

To me blogs are a strategic business communication tool. I usually consider the fact that blogs rank high in search engines to be a positive side effect. But I also recognize that for some people search engine optimization, SEO, is a major reason for blogging - and I have found it to be a good reason for others to start thinking about blogging at all. Here's a list of explanations to why your blog probably will rank high in search engines. And it's more to it than just the links.

Blogs are continuing to become a standard for Internet users. Readership continues to climb. However, what causes them to rank well in search engines? Discuss at WebProWorld.

The links are important, though. Especially to Google. Yahoo and the MSN Beta seems to give content related factors more weight in my experience. But even with Google the key to your success doesn't lie in links alone. If you want traffic through search engines you must get the basics right too.

So, here's my take on why blogs rank high in search engines.

Keywords,
key phrases Straight to the point
Each post's page structure
Coding
One subject per post
The blog site's information structure
Links then...?

Keywords, key phrases
If I wanted to pick one single reason I would actually choose this one: In a blog you talk. You engage in conversations. You think out loud, in a way. The things you say are (hopefully) everything but the standard corporate bullxxxx. This means you are filling the engines' databases with relevant keywords - relevant because most of us search for the words or phrases we use daily. The same words you use in the blog because you talk instead of sending messages to the target audience.

Straight to the point

How many blog posts have you seen with this kind of headline: "Our software system solution for world-wide data quality"? How many corporate sites have you seen...? This point is related to the first one but it adds one extra dimension. Not only do we in blogs speak like real, living people in the words we use - we say it directly. Straight to the point. There are certainly exceptions to this, I admit that. But generally speaking I have found it to be true in many business blogs. To say what you want to say as fast as possible is important, which leads me to my next reason.

Each post's page structure

It's more or less standard in blog design to use the post's title/headline as the page's title (together with the blog name). With my two previous reasons in mind you now see how the html title is filled with tasty keywords. And that's the most important place to have them. That's where search engines expect to find the best clue to what your page is about, and they rank the words there high in comparison to other positions in the code. Speaking about code...

Coding

If you use blog templates they will probably be an example of good coding. Most I've seen has been at least. It's often a table-less design, an extensive use of style sheets, correct coding where headlines not only are larger and bold but actual H1's, H2's and so on. It's a clean code - good for browser compability, good for visitors with disabilities. Good for search engine spiders. Here you have a potential risk. If you just use the old CMS templates for your regular site, you may loose this advantage. The solution is of course to redesign all of it in line with this "modern" web design.

Finally, some reasons relating to information structure.

One subject per post

This is all about keyword density, which is the ratio of the word someone searches for against the total numbers of words on the web page. Most blog posts are rather short, and they're often about one subject. That means a good chance of a high keyword density - especially if you compare it to a standard corporate web site where you try to tell about all your products on one page, or very few pages.

The blog site's information structure

Blogs are "flat" sites. They have a first page (level 1), current posts (level 2), about page (level 2), archive pages (level 2) and archived posts (level 3). That's it. It's not clear exactly how important this is. Some claim spiders don't regularly index very deep sites and that low-level pages are given lower ranking, others say this is not a factor to care about.

Links then?Well, they will do you good too. A high Google PageRank is obviously better than a low. But if you don't get the above things right, the PageRank won't mean as much to you as it otherwise would have.

A Brief History Of Google In Time

2005-05-23T08:17:00.000+03:00

David Utter

Googlites everywhere benefit from the Mountain View-based company's ongoing search engine development. This is a quick review of Google and some products it has brought to the masses.

First, there was the search form, a clean page of modest elegance. A logo, an input box, a submit query button, and an extra button to whisk you to the first result returned by Google's search, assuming you were feeling lucky and that first result would be relevant to your search.

And most often, it would be. But seeing pages of results return, sorted by relevance, made Google the killer application for Internet users. More than web browsing, more than e-mail, and even more than instant messaging. The long-held theory that information is power seemed to be proven fact.

Google introduced AdWords, a self-service ad program; if you had a credit card, you could be an Internet advertiser. The Google Toolbar for web browsers followed.

Then Google acquired Deja.com, and its massive Usenet archive. The wild and wooly land of Internet news was tamed a bit, at least in user functionality. They also published the Google Zeitgeist, a snapshot of the collective searches performed by visitors.

A Niche For Searches

Specialized searches for images and through catalogs appeared on the Google homepage next. And later on, Google picked up Pyra Labs and its Blogger software; thousands of users with all sorts of interests post their thoughts on Blogger now.

Google News emerged from the labs, and it has become an almost essential destination for those who want to stay informed. A computer algorithm sifts through the published news of the day, and continually updates the News site with the most active topics (including ones from WebProNews!)

Recently, the latest inventions emerged from the Google Labs, and some speculate the search engine company may be on the verge of becoming more like the many portal companies. Desktop Search for Enterprise debuted, well ahead of Microsoft's schedule for introducing a beta version of a similar offering.

And then the Google Personalized Homepage, also known as Fusion, was dropped onto the Internet. It's a modest bit of software personalization, just as the original home page was a modest bit of code fronting a growing Internet powerhouse.

Google's Future?

Who can say, really? Besides Larry and Sergey, of course. Some believe the homepage customization is the first step Google takes toward becoming the next Yahoo or MSN. Others think it's just a cool bit of work, a little something extra for the Googlites out there to try. We'll wait and see.

Google’s Personal Evolution

2005-05-23T08:10:00.000+03:00

John Stith

Google took another step yesterday in their personal evolution by offering an easy-to-use personalized homepage called Fusion for its users. The new service marks the latest offering in Google's ever-expanding catalog of products to help users find information quickly and easily.

The new offering, similar to other personalized portal pages from Yahoo, MSN and others, is the next logical step for Google in their development. They feature news, email, weather, stocks, etc. This allows Googlites to put all their features into one simple website.

In all honesty, it is a portal website but it's something that works well for Google's direction. Critics have different things to say, some good some not so good. They will comment that this is a weak form of My Yahoo! and My MSN and in some ways they may be correct.

The other two have many more choices both for content and aesthetics and layout and to be honest this may be a weakness in this beta version of the product. Google did say other features like RSS would be added in the future. After all though, this is a new Google tool and Googlites should enjoy it and it should pick up some new users along the way.

Features include story feeds from the New York Times and the BBC. Google sets up a portal section to their GoogleNews feed for a variet of topics and interest as well. Also in the mix are movie listings, weather, and feeds from Slashdot and WiredNews for the tech side of things. One customization feature might allow Googlites to pull from the broad pool of newssources available in Google News. WebProNews would look really keen on the personalized page. They could certainly add some more features like sports or other news features but with the link to Google News and being able to review some headlines, it could make the need for that minimal and perhaps other content could be added to give Googlites some other toys to play with.

Google's Natural Selection
Google continues to offer a number of personalization oriented products in addition to things like AdSense and AdWords on the business side to help advance their logical evolution.

Google Fusion marks the latest in a variety of products the "Google Factory" has pumped out for its growing legions of Googlites. Google Labs has a lot of projects in various stages of development too. Some of these products include a Google Web Accelerator, Google Ride Finder, Google Maps and lot of others. Already existing products include the desktop search, Google news alerts and the Google glossary. Google's evolution is a logical progression. When examining what they've developed and what they have in the oven, Google's corporate philosophy of developing new features and technology for their customers, wherever they may be.

In the end, Google is a customer service company. They offer products and services for their customers geared around finding information quickly and advertising help for those who want their information to be found. Google's personal evolution continues.

Google Launches AdSense for RSS Feeds

2005-05-20T10:43:00.000+03:00

Google Launches AdSense for RSS Feeds
Andy Beal

Just received from Google HQ...

Today, Google continued its efforts to support the creation and distribution of quality content, by announcing a beta test of AdSense for feeds via the Google Blog. AdSense for feeds enables publishers distributing content through Really Simple Syndication (RSS) or Atom feeds to include relevant text ads in their feeds and receive a share of the revenue generated by ad clicks.

Benefits of the program include:
*Providing an additional revenue opportunity for publishers
*Helping make content creation and distribution financially viable for
publishers
*Offering users relevant information about products and services
*Extending the reach for AdWords advertisers

Publishers simply apply for AdSense for feeds and, once approved for the new program and, they simply insert a few lines of code into their feeds and relevant text-based AdWords ads start appearing. More information about
AdSense for feeds can be found at www.google.com/adsenseforfeeds or on the Google Blog.

2005-05-20T10:42:00.000+03:00

AdSense For RSS Feeds Launched

Chris Richardson

For those who would rather see RSS feeds go without advertising, today will probably be remembered as a tragic one.

The reason for the tragic reaction is today, Google officially announced the beta launch of AdSense for RSS feeds. Google's method of placing ads within feeds will work just like normal AdWords ads do: they are placed in the most contextually relevant area and when clicked, the person responsible for the feed receives money.

In order to make the decision of feed advertising an easier one, Google is providing a "Best Practices" page. This page should help alleviate confusion surrounding feed advertising.

According to Andy Beal, AdSense for Feeds offers the following benefits:

Providing an additional revenue opportunity for publishers

Helping make content creation and distribution financially viable for publishers

Offering users relevant information about products and services

Extending the reach for AdWords advertisers

If you are interested in adding Google AdSense to your feed, apply here.

2005-05-20T10:34:00.000+03:00

AdSense For RSS Feeds Launched

Providing an additional revenue opportunity for publishers

Helping make content creation and distribution financially viable for publishers

Offering users relevant information about products and services

Extending the reach for AdWords advertisers

If you are interested in adding Google AdSense to your feed, apply here.

2005-05-19T12:00:00.000+03:00

Yahoo's FUSE

John Battelle writes about a discussion with Jeff Weiner, point man at Yahoo for all things search:

The vision statement for Yahoo Search is pretty damn good, if you're into that kind of thing (I'll admit, I am). Here it is, in its entirety:

To enable people to find, use, share, and expand all human knowledge.

Yahoo Search also has a mission:

To provide the world's most valued and trusted search service.

When you think about Yahoo's search mission as an organizing principle, a lot of what Yahoo is doing - 360, MyWeb, Y!Q, the purchase of Flickr - start to fall into place. Weiner calls his vision FUSE (for Find, Use, Share, and Expand) and it's an apt metaphor - using search to fuse a myriad of services and applications, all of which center on knowledge and its application.

As Jeff pointed out to me, at the center of the idea of FUSE is what's happening to media - how every single medium - music, TV, print, telecom, even our first versions of the web - is being remixed and reordered by Web 2.0. It's an old saw, but mass media really is becoming my media - through RSS, podcasting, iTunes, Tivo, blogs, and many innovations to come. And central to navigating a my media world is search. Hence, the FUSE vision holds water for me - search is not just about a web index. It's about my interface to the world.

2005-05-19T11:59:00.000+03:00

Google's Power

Jeff Jarvis offers some comments to ponder over:

Media depend on Google. Without the search engine, no one would be found. Without GoogleNews, they'd all get less traffic. Without the ad programs, advertisers wouldn't be advertising on plain old home pages; bloggers owe gratitude to Google for taking the cooties off citizens' media. With the ad programs, big media sites and bloggers alike are getting checks from Google. All that is wonderful.

So is heroin. At first.

...Imagine where Google can go next, challenging not just media but media's challengers: Watch out Monster... eBay... CraigsList....

Now ask whether Google is friend or foe... or both.

The answer, inevitably, must be both: Google helped explode the internet. Without its search, no one would find our content. Without the ads, Google wouldn't make money. But then, that's Google's problem, isn't it? And a not-very-big-problem it is.

It's not a love/hate thing. I love Google; we all should. I don't hate Google. But I think it's time to consider fearing Google. Just to be safe.

So what should media sites be doing? And I don't just mean the big guys. I mean you, humble blogger with your humble ads:

Will Google maximize your value? Will Google undersell you? Is Google being transparent with you and revealing what the ads on your pages are selling for and what share you're getting? Will Google compete with you? Can Google put the stranglehold of a monopoly on you? Should you be making Google bigger or helping to create competitors to Google? Can you afford to? Can you afford not to?

2005-05-19T09:50:00.000+03:00

Subsahran African Countries Search Engines

2005-05-19T09:47:00.000+03:00

Role of Link Popularity in getting Top Google Rankings

Link popularity has assumed tremendous importance for getting good ranks in Google now a days. In fact, what started as a friendly reciprocal link exchange program among various webmasters has now become a sub-industry within the SEO industry itself, with thousands of link farms popping up every day, claiming to provide 100s of "quality industry-related links/trade leads" for huge sum of money! Yes, if you are interested in getting top ranks in Google, then you must pay effort in building up links for your site. But, first the basics.

How many sites link to your site? In other words, state the link popularity health of your site. Have you ever been asked this question? And, did not know what to say?

Go to Google. Type in link:www.cnn.com in the search box. The number that Google throws up, namely, 115,000 (on the blue-colored bar present on top of the page) at the time of writing this article, is the total number of sites that are currently linking to http://www.cnn.com/, and which have been indexed by Google. In other words, this number can be greater than 115,000, or more than 115,000 sites may have currently linked to http://www.cnn.com/, but it won't show up with the (link: http://www.cnn.com/), because those sites are not in the Google's Database.

Methodology for building link popularity through Reciprocal Link Exchange Programs
1. Create a html page, preferably named as "Resources/Links/Partners" and place a link of this page from Index Page of your site. This page should never be more than 1 click away from the index page of your site, else webmasters won't be interested in participating in the reciprocal link exchange program.

2. Target both "industry-related" and "non-industry-related" websites as your link exchange partners. For example, if you are providing SEO services, then try getting links from "industry-related websites (i.e. websites dealing with SEO, maybe your business rivals). This is important, because if 10 of your rival (here SEO) sites give link to your site, then Google will surely pay importance to your site, because getting links from rival companies are difficult. Your site MUST be of some high caliber, else the other 10 sites won't have linked! Also, try procuring general links as well.

3. Always exchange links with websites which have high PageRank (PR) (at least 4, the more the better!) (both Index Page as well as Resources/Links Page of the Link Partner's site should have PRs of >=4)

4. Have a link code ready for participating in link exchange program. Here is a sample link code for a SEO company.
http://www.blogger.com/ title = "search engine optimization ranking placement services">Search Engine Optimization, Ranking, Placement Services - Offers Search Engine Optimization, Ranking, Placement Services to get top ranks in various Search Engines.
Always prefer a text link (as given above) in comparison to a banner link, where your chance of Google spiders, i.e. Googlebot finding the potential keywords is limited only to the "alt tag" of the banner. Also, Google pays importance to the text of the incoming link/anchor text (i.e. the incoming link text must contain high potential, relevant keywords), so develop a link text with title ("search engine optimization ranking placement services") which will help you in Google Ranking.

5. Refrain from java script link code because Google spiders find it difficult to index.

6. There are various ways of approaching and procuring potential link partners. Firstly, how to get industry related websites to link to yours? Suppose, "search engine optimization", "search engine promotion" and "search engine ranking" are 3 of your core keywords. Go to Google. Type in each of the three keywords, and find the top 10 sites for each keyword. Now, you have 10 * 3 = 30 websites. Visit the links page (if applicable, since some sites refrain from participating in link exchange programs) of each of the 30 sites, and note down all the sites that are linking to these sites. For example, if each of these 30 sites have 10 sites linking to it, you have 10 * 30 = 300 potential websites to exchange links with. (Please note that our experience shows that conversion rate of successful link exchange is 1 in 4-5, i.e. if you approach 4-5 websites, 1 site will ultimately provide you with reciprocal link, so in order to get high incoming links, you must research extensively and find more potential link partners. Also, as mentioned above, always try to exchange links with websites having PR >=4).

7. If you request a link to a top-level page or the homepage of your site, this will have a positive effect on this page. If the PageRank™ of this page increases, then the page below it will increase (if the internal linking structure is correct), but it will still be one PageRank™ number below the page above it that was linked to.

8. Manually submit the page to Google where your link partner has placed the link of your site.
For example, if your link partner's website is http://www.abc.com/ and he has placed your website in his resources page, namely, www.abc.com/resources.html, then go to http://www.google.com/addurl.html and submit www.abc.com/resources.html. It is very essential for getting good ranks in Google that you submit the page where your site has been placed by your link partners.

Importance of Messageboards, General Forums and Guestbooks
Of late, you will find that some websites belonging to the "most-highly-competitive" industries (e.g. casino gambling industry, domain registration and web hosting industry) that have achieved top ranks through links from messageboards, general public forums and guestbooks. These techniques are sometimes highly profitable for Google Ranking and hence, it is wise to do some research in Google and find some popular messageboards/forums/guestbooks which are already in Google's Index. Here also the target should always be to get messageboards/forums/guestbooks which have a minimum PR of 4. After finding the potential messageboards/forums/guestbooks, submit your site's information, containing a description and URL in those messageboards/forums/guestbooks.

For example, let's say http://www.messageboard.com/ is a popular messageboard
After you have submitted your site's information in http://www.messageboard.com/, it will generate a URL, say, www.messageboard.com/msgboard/1.html where your site has been placed. Here also, you need to submit this newly-generated URL (i.e. www.messageboard.com/msgboard/1.html) which contains information and links to your site to Google (http://www.google.com/addurl.html) for achieving good ranks in Google.
Note : Try targeting messageboards of educational (.edu)/governmental (.gov) institutions since they usually have high PRs and receive huge amount of traffic every day.

Source: http://www.searchengine-optimization-guru.com/

2005-05-17T11:06:00.000+03:00

Search Engines News

2005-05-13T13:20:00.000+03:00

Two Great Tips To Increase Your AdSense Revenue

by Chet Brzezinski

If you are involved in affiliate programs then you most likely know about and are using Google Adsense. If used right, you can earn great revenue with the use of AdSense ads when strategically placed throughout your web pages. Over the past 2 months I have literally doubled my AdSense revenue by following two simple steps which I am about to share with you.

Other than general knowledge of using meta tags and keywords, here are two great tips on how to increase your revenue through the use of Google AdSense:

Multiple Adsense Ads
Google now allows up to 3 ad units per page. This means that you can stategically place adsense ads throughout your site. I like to use one wide skyscraper ad (160x600) on the right or left side of the page. Then I like to add two banner type ads (468x60) within the content of my page. It has seemed to work best placing the banner ads far enough apart but not to far where the user never loses sight of one while scrolling down the page.

Ad Design
What I have found that works best when it comes to how your adsense ad looks is not making it stand out from the rest of your pages. Try to blend the ads in with the rest of your pages. The ads should look like text links within your page. I feel that giving them fancy backgrounds, borders, text colors, etc will draw attention away from your ads. This is because they start to look like banner ads and most people have become immune to seeing banner ads. But if the ads look like they are a part of your site then visitors will not ignore them.

2005-05-13T13:11:00.000+03:00

8 ways to boost your Google Adsense earnings.

1. Check your site’s keyword density:

Adsense displays ads based on your sites actual content and density of keywords, not through

meta tags. Too check to see how rich in keywords your site check out

this free tool.

2. Find the high paying keyword:

If you have a tech blog, a post or two about new technology such as TiVo, Replay TV, etc., will display relevant ads to these keywords, which are proven to be some of the highest paid per click ads in the adsense program. Also, check out the top 100 keywords at 7search here. Overture, who runs ads on Yahoo, has a service to see how much advertisers are paying for certain keywords. Check it out here.

3. Don’t just rely on Adsense:

Adsense is great, but bundling adsense with other affiliate programs such as LinkShare

or BlogAds which allow you to sign up with differnet advertisers, such as Apple, Dell, or Walmart, who give you text links and banners to put on your site. When someone clicks these links and buys something, you get a cut of the profit.

4. Location:

Place ads in the white spaces of your site. Also place ads relatively high up on the page as they are easily seen. Upper left hand side works very well. Wrapping your content around the adsense ads also works extremely well as they are also very easily seen. Blend the ad into the page by removing the border by setting the border color to the color of the backround of wherever on the page you will be placing the adsense ad box.

5. Traffic:

Adsense revenue all comes down to how much traffic your site is getting. If you have a blog, submit it to the following sites so that they will be updated everytime you post someting new, resulting in almost instant increase in traffic:

www.a2b.cc

bblog.com

coreblog.org

ping.blo.gs

www.snipsnap.org

topicexchange.com

www.newsisfree.com

www.lasermemory.com

blogbot.dk

Also submit your blog to the following directories:

http://www.globeofblogs.com/

http://www.blogshares.com/

http://www.blogstreet.com/bin/add.cg

http://www.blogtree.com/

http://blogdex.net/

http://www.daypop.com/blogrank/

6. Use the google search:

Adsense gives you the ability to put a google search box on your website. Why is this so great? Because when a user chooses to use that search box, your Adsense ID is embeded in any sponsered link that user may click. That means any sponsered link that use clicks on during his 1st search or his 30th search, you get the money. That’s right, you get credited with the click and the earnings. You can get the code for your Google search box here.

7. Choose an alternate ad:

If Adsense can’t find any relevant ads for your site, then it displays Pulic Service Ads, which result in no profit. Therefore it’s a good idea to use a banner from one of your affiliate programs as an alternate so you don’t have wasted space on your site. Set your alternate ad here.

8. Stop Words:

There are certain words that trigger the Adsense ads to stop tracking and display Public Service Ads. Since I dont’t want this to happen to me, instead of typing out these words, I’ll just inlcude an image.

Source: http://thetechdomain.com/?p=9

2005-05-03T10:46:00.000+03:00

Online Consumers Window Shop More than Impulse Buy

According to the report on Internet shopping habits, online merchants need to shift their focus from why shoppers abort shopping carts to why they leave Web sites without buying. This digital window shopping activity is clearly revealed in sales data gathered by ScanAlert between June 2004 and March 2005 from retailers such as GSI Commerce, Ritz Camera, Tiger Direct and other online merchants.

The Internet might be turning into the ultimate window shopping experience for online shoppers. Greater sophistication with browsing is making consumers more prone to comparison shop online before actually buying.

Internet shoppers are more prone to visiting 10 or more Web sites before returning to a favored location hours or days later to make a purchase. This new trend of leaving a Web site before completing a sale suggests that Internet merchants need to rethink their marketing strategy and Web site design, says the author of an exhaustive study.

According to the report on Internet shopping habits, online merchants need to shift their focus from why shoppers abort shopping carts to why they leave Web sites without buying
Report Strategy This digital window shopping activity is clearly revealed in sales data gathered by ScanAlert between June 2004 and March 2005 from retailers such as GSI Commerce, Ritz Camera, Tiger Direct and other online merchants.

Titled "A New Era of Digital Window Shopping: From Shopping Cart Abandonment to Purchase," the report was scheduled for release yesterday.

The participating companies use security firm ScanAlert's Hacker Safe certification, a system that certifies Web sites as secure from hackers. It audits e-commerce Web sites and maintains daily remote security sweeps to make sure hackers and other Internet intrusions are locked out.
ScanAlert tracks the relationship of sales from Web sites that display the Hacker Safe seal and those that do not. The security firm conducted its study of buying habits by using persistent cookies to track Web visitors.

A permanent cookie is a text file containing an expiration date stored on a Web site visitor's hard drive until it expires or until the user deletes it.

Buying Habits Changing Online consumers are no longer rushing to click the shopping cart button on Web sites. Instead, they spend days digitally window-shopping before buying, abandoning shopping carts with an ease that frustrates and often confuses online retailers.
"The shopping cart abandonment issue is the most important thing that we uncovered," Ken Leonard, CEO of ScanAlert, told the E-Commerce Times. "Most merchants think that shopping cart abandonment is just part of the online shopping process."

His study showed the average time delay between a consumer's first visit to a Web site and the first purchase was just over 19 hours. About 35 percent of all tracked shoppers took more than 12 hours to make a buy decision, while 21 percent took more than three days, with 14 percent taking more than one week to decide where to buy.

According to Leonard, the abandonment issue and the delay in completing the shopping cart purchase shows behavior that is radically different from two years ago.

Shopping Cart Redesign "The implication to merchants is that the shopping cart is not just a convenience factor. It must be a comfort zone to shoppers," Leonard said. "These results were not expected."

The length of time from initial visit to actual purchase varies from site to site depending on customer demographics, brand recognition, the number of competitors online and average product price. The data suggests that shopping cart abandonment is actually an habitual part of many consumers' shopping behavior prior to purchasing.

Even more telling, noted the study, is that the shoppers spending the longest time shopping are also the most concerned about the safety of the sites where they shop. The trust factor can become both a strong motivator and a strong barrier to completing a sale.

The report offers two recommendations for converting shoppers into buyers. One is for merchants to create a comfort zone for comparison shoppers. The other is for merchants to move the focus of the Web site from shopping cart abandonment to Web site abandonment.
Thus, site designers must make the shopping experience more informative and the sense of safety more memorable. Otherwise, those who abandon their shopping carts will also abandon the Web site later when it comes to deciding where to buy.

Comparison a New Factor According to the report, much of the observed increase in shopping cart abandonment over the past two years results from an increase in comparison shopping. As consumers learned to use the shopping cart as a comparison shopping tool, they also learned to leave the Web site as a natural characteristic of electronic window shopping.

"It is very easier to comparison shop online today. Consumers have many new tools," Leonard said. "There is also a connection with the change in shopping patterns and the more widespread use of broadband."

The consumer's ability to make product comparisons online is a factor in site abandonment as well. The study shows that the shortest buying delays involve shopping for the most unique products, while the longest delays occur for more common items.

Web shoppers are now using the Internet as a "catalog of catalogs." This means that Web site operators need new Web site designs to better accommodate digital window shopping and to encourage visitors to return.

Changing the Rules A common thread is present in all of the consumer tracking observed by the ScanAlert study. Consumers are using the Web tools differently than merchants planned in designing them.

For instance, merchants built trust and security into the concept of the shopping cart. However, consumers want to see trust in the Web site itself. Consumers assess an Internet storefront in much the same way as they view brick and mortar stores. Site appearance, convenience and service all matter.

Shopping cart use is different as well. At each site, shoppers typically load the same or similar items into the shopping cart as a convenient way to compare total costs, including shipping charges.

The shoppers' intent is not to complete a purchase unless they have returned to the site to buy. However, price is not the ultimate determiner.

ScanAlert's data shows that safety and trust often trump price and availability in the online consumers' value calculation.

18-Hour Surprise John Halliburton, e-commerce marketing manager for Martel Brothers Performance, didn't expect to learn that his customers often take 18 hours to make a purchase from his company's Web site.

In business for 17 years, Martel Brothers Performance sells racing and high-performance parts through both its brick-and-mortar and online stores. Halliburton uses pay-per-click keyword purchases at the major search engines to acquire new customers and uses a mailing list to market to the existing customer base. He also runs co-op print ads in a few national magazines from time to time.

"Our online business now accounts for about 75 percent of total sales. We learned from the tracking report that the average time to conversion for our site was about 18 hours. That surprised us," Halliburton told the E-Commerce Times. "We expected much lower, and frankly it raises more questions than provides answers."

Halliburton is concerned about the implications of the trend report. Prior to the release of the trend report, he was experimenting with loading his pay-per-click campaigns for certain hours when customers are actively researching and price shopping.

"In the short term, we're testing methods that make it easier for the customer to come back and buy from us after the initial visit. We're also tweaking our pay-per-click landing pages in an effort to close the sale on the initial visit," Halliburton said.

"It is critical that we nail this. We know the waiting times will vary depending on the cost and complexity of the product, but we'd like to reduce the average," he said. "I'm fairly certain there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for us."

Another Vendor Reaction For Kevin Beresford, president and CEO of Shari's Berries, the shopping trend results left him looking for more information. Shari's Berries sells gourmet chocolate-dipped strawberries in a variety of designs.

Beresford learned from the trend report that the average waiting time for customers to return for a purchase is 15 hours.

"The report certainly piqued my curiosity as it was not what I expected," Beresford told the E-Commerce Times. "I have to dig deeper. I want more data on how many people are buying on first visit. I need to understand why they come back and why they didn't buy the first time."

During peak buying seasons, 88 percent of Shari's sales volume comes through the Internet. The non-holiday traffic is about 70 percent.

Beresford said he was particularly interested in the report's implications. He will focus on seeing where changes are needed on the Web site.

"Knowing how to serve up the information better would increase our sales. This would very much determine how we do business," he said.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/42761.html

2005-03-08T11:01:00.000+02:00

The Western India Automobile Association (WIAA)

The Western India Automobile Association (WIAA) was founded on October 15th 1919 and today is the largest and the oldest motoring body with over forty-eight thousand members and a network of 7 branches in 4 states of Western India. The WIAA - Castrol Institute of Motoring at Ahmedabad is equipped with state of art equipment and aims at carrying out research on Road Safety and giving training on road safety to all users of the road.

The Western India Automobile Association is the largest Automobile Association in South Asia. It’s current membership is to the tune of 48,000 members today and the scope of its activities extends to cover major cities in Western India. The Association has its headquarters in Mumbai, and offers its services in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Goa. It has 6 branch offices apart from the HO in Mumbai, and offers to all its members a wide variety of services ranging from issuing of learners' licenses to legal advice on motoring issues.
The Association also undertakes to promote tourism within the country. In its very first decade of existence, the Association built up over 1400 routes covering nearly half a million miles. The WIAA is actively in touch with its counterparts in other countries, giving them the necessary travel information as a part of its program to attract tourists in India. The WIAA also has reciprocal service arrangements with other Automobile Associations and Clubs all over the world. The Association is recognized as India's major authority on motoring issues and represents its members and motorists interests to the Government and other sector and industry groups.

MUMBAI
Western India Automobile AssociationLalji Naranji Memorial Building (IMC Building) 76, Veer Nariman Road Churchgate, Mumbai 400 020 Tel: 91-22-2041085, 2047032, 2041293, 2880407, 2041271Fax: 91-22-2041382

WIAA's Andheri Collection Centre 6,Kapoor Building, opp. Punjabi Ghasitaram J.P. Road,Andheri (W), Mumbai 400 058 Tel: 91-22-6280204

2005-03-08T10:56:00.000+02:00

Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM)

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) is the apex national association representing the Auto Industry. Incorporated as AIAM over 39 years ago¸ it has given the industry a social face, with increasing emphasis on environment and safety related issues. SIAM was formed in 1998, and all the members of AIAM have now become its members, in addition to 3 new members.

SIAM is an important channel of communication for the Automobile Industry with the Government and National and International organizations.. The Society also aims to play a pro-active role in creating awareness on important matters like Road Safety and Environment Protection. SIAM is also committed to the advancement of vehicular technology in India.

Registered Office:
Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM)Core 4B, 5th FloorIndia Habitat CenterLodi RoadNew Delhi - 110 003Ph :+91 11 464 7810-12/464 8555Fax : +91 11 464 8222E-mail : siam@nda.vsnl.net.in

2005-03-08T10:52:00.000+02:00

The Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA)

The Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), with a membership of over 365 companies, has been the Indian auto component industry's spokesman for the last 38 years. ACMA has a membership of over 365 companies that contribute 90% of the total output in the organized sector. The Association's active involvement in trade promotion, technology upgradation, quality enhancement, and collection and dissemination of information has made it a vital catalyst for the progress of the industry. ACMA is represented on a number of panels, committees and councils of the Government of India through which it helps in the formulation of policies pertaining to the Indian automotive industry.

Headquarters 203-205, Kirti Deep Building,Nangal Raya Business Centre,New Delhi 110 046. INDIATel : +91-11-550 1669, 550 3101, 559 3190Fax: +91-11-559 3189Email : acma@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in

Regional Offices :
Mumbai80, Dr. Annie Besant Road, Worli, Mumbai - 400 018 INDIAPhone: +91-22-493 3507, Fax: +91-22-493 6527Email: acma.mumbai@sm3.sprintrpg.ems.vsnl.net.in
Chennai 1-B, " Crystal Lawn", 20, Haddows Road, First Street,Chennai 600 006, Tamil Nadu (INDIA)Tel.: +91 44 822 99 68, Fax: +91 44 826 0590Email: acma.madras@sm3.sprintrpg.ems.vsnl.net.in

2004-02-06T12:01:00.000+02:00

Search Engine Wars
Innovate to survive in 2004

After being blind-sided by the Google Florida update, many webmasters and SEOs were reeling from the results. The message is clear: you can't rely on just one search engine for all of your traffic. You must use all your wits to emerge victorious from the search engine wars. Google is important, but it is not everything. Keep your eyes and ears open to new opportunities and old standbys: other search engines and directories, paid placement and pay-per-click, newsletters, and even more traditional channels.

Wait to change
So were you an innocent bystander caught in the onslaught of sites dumped in the Google Florida update? Many people lost their hard-earned ranking, even though they did nothing "wrong." Many websites that follow Google's rules for optimization to the letter were still caught up in the carnage. Unfortunately, many businesses were devastated by these changes, especially heading into the holiday months.

What to do? As difficult as it may have been to make sense of Google's changes, for many, the simplest course of action was to simply do nothing. While perhaps contrary to a normal "it's broken so I need to fix it" approach, for many webmasters "do nothing" has proven to be the correct course of action. Since the update, many sites that were exiled to search engine Siberia have returned to nearly their former ranking, shaken but intact. From all appearances, Google simply changed their algorithm and may not have gotten it quite right. Additional "tweaks" subsequent to the Florida update seem to have brought some sanity back to their results.

Who will stay tops in the search engines?
You never know who will become the leader in search engines. It was only a few years ago that directories were the major force - until the upstart search engine Google came along. Google got its start about five years ago and hasn't looked back. As long as Google provides good results for its users, it is in a good position to stay on top. However, with MSN working on the creation of its own search engine and Yahoo!'s acquisition of Overture (which includes AllTheWeb and AltaVista), things could get interesting in 2004. Microsoft is always a force to be reckoned with, and Yahoo! certainly has the tools to become a major competitor to Google.

Inktomi's new role
Inktomi may play an important role in this growth since it is now owned by Yahoo!. Keep an eye on this engine: it provides secondary results for MSN and will probably replace Google in supplying primary results in Yahoo!. Inktomi's importance may also increase in MSN once the Microsoft property stops using LookSmart for its primary results.

To see which pages you have listed in Inktomi, use the Inktomi Pure Search function from Positiontech (http://search.positiontech.com/InktomiSearch/PositionTechSearch.jsp). Inktomi often adds a few free pages to its databases. Check first to see which pages you may already have in their database for free before using Paid Inclusion for your most important pages.

Other ways to promote your website
Keep your eye on search engine news. Google was an up and coming engine a few years ago; you never know what will happen in the industry so stay on your toes. Continue to promote your website through links in topical directory listings. Search for websites that contain topics related to yours. Link when it "makes sense." Don't forget traditional means of marketing your website: print ads, brochures, magazine articles and more may help to make a difference. One of the best ways to promote yourself online and increase your link popularity is to write articles on your subject. Find websites that accept free content and submit your ezine, articles or newsletters to those websites to build your link popularity. Newsletters, forums, FAQs, blogs and tips on your subject are all viable means to inform your visitors and bring in new traffic to your website. Don't forget to archive your newsletters and articles on your website, which works to build your site size and increase link popularity through your authoritative knowledge of your subject. You aren't a writer? Consider working with a copywriter to help build your good content.

Paid inclusion and pay per click
If you haven't ventured into using Paid Inclusion or PPC services, consider using them to help balance the changes in your traffic. Use a Paid Inclusion subscription for your most important pages, or submit dynamically generated pages that aren't being picked up by the search engine robots so they will appear regularly in the search engine database. You can start your PPC bidding in small doses. Look for some of the secondary smaller terms that don't cost as much but will still bring in traffic your competitors may miss. Take a look at some of the smaller PPC engines available out there, a little traffic from a lot of places can add up.

For more information on choosing keyword phrases, read our article "Finding Targeted Keyword Phrases Your Competitors Miss" (http://www.searchinnovation.com/keyword-phrases-competitors.asp).

Content, content, content
The biggest mistake I see webmasters make is creating a website with little content. Don't rely on a few paragraphs of text with optimization to convince search engine robots to stick around. A skeleton website does not make a good impression on anyone. Build the content of your website. Google's new algorithm may be a sign of search engine robots getting a little smarter when it comes to understanding what your website content is about. Build information that will keep your visitors at your website. Become an authority on your subject so other websites will naturally link to you because your information is invaluable. Remember, Google is interested in serving those who use its search capabilities, just as you should be interested in serving your visitors. Give as much real content information as able to your visitors, they will thank you with return visits.

And in the end...
In the end, the information you give is often equal to the response you receive. Make the effort to become an authority site on your subject. Building the groundwork of your website with quality information and broadening your methods of marketing will help sustain you during the search engine wars upcoming.

http://www.smartoffice.org

2004-02-06T11:57:00.000+02:00

Rebuild Site or Search Engine Optimization
Which should you do first?

A lot of website owners are interested in rebuilding their website and in performing search engine optimization (SEO), but can’t. Budget constraints won’t allow for both and so they struggle with which one to do first. Rebuilding a website is a great idea. Performing SEO on it is better.

The Internet is vast...truly vast. It is comprised of, at last count, over 3 billion web pages and that number increases daily. People need a map to chart this unimaginably large landscapes and search engines are the maps. SEO provides pointers to your business on the maps; rebuilding your website does not.

If you understand the following statement, then the decision is very easy to make - in order to become visible to their second audience (the visitors), websites must first receive adequate top rankings (the first two pages of listing results) by their first audience (the search engines).

Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is probably the single most important marketing technique that a website owner can do to increase visibility and visitors. Greater visibility and highly targeted visitors improve sales, which in turn, improves the bottom-line.

Numerous studies have proven just how important SEO is for online businesses:

50% of those who bought from online retail sites arrived via the search engines (Aggrandise.com, 2002).
Between 85 and 90% of people use search engines to find websites they’ve never visited before.
The Financial Times reported August 2002, that every day over 340-million web users rely on search engines to locate new businesses (DISC).
57% of Internet users search the web each day, making search the second most popular Internet activity next to checking email (81%) (DISC).
Studies have also proven that SEO has the best return on investment (ROI) of any form of advertising in terms of cost-per-acquisition (CPA). Savvy website owners who realize just how fierce competition on the Internet is use SEO to position their business ahead of their competitors. If you are not incorporating SEO as part of a website marketing/promotion strategy you are losing out, because your competition mostly likely is!

If done properly, the results from SEO are very impressive. One of our long time clients in the printing industry has been operating the same site for almost five years. Instead of rebuilding their website which has a very simple design, they decided to perform SEO. That same site now delivers so much business that SEO is the only form of sales and marketing they use (both online and offline). Another client now does as much business in one day as it used to in seven. And this client originally wanted to rebuild their site first. And to this day, the site is still the same except for some minor regular updates. In the past, the client did a lot of print advertising, but because of great SEO results, they have cut their advertising costs in half and achieved sales growth of 700%! For more great examples, read the case studies on the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) website.

Rebuilding a website
Rebuilding a site makes it look nice, provides fresh content, and sometimes improves navigation. Will any of these lead to increased visitors? Most likely not. Making aesthetic changes does very little to increase a website’s visibility on the Internet.

It is estimated that 56% of ALL websites are "lost in cyberspace"! What is the point of spending money on rebuilding a site if no one ever sees it? It would be a complete waste of time, money, and effort - all of which translate into a very poor ROI.

Your website is competing with over 3 billion (at last count) other pages on the Internet. It will be “lost” by not having it visible to the search engines - akin to putting up a flashing billboard on a deserted island! It can be the greatest billboard ever designed, but because of its isolated location very few people will see or read it, and thus, it will be a poor source of revenue generation.

The fact is, there are lots of great websites on the Internet. So what? What’s the use of having a great website if no one knows about it or can find it? And even if people do know about it, you are still not reaching the largest Internet demographic: the 85 to 90% of ALL Internet users who find what they are looking for by conducting searches on search engines!

The top 4 search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL (CyberAtlas, May 2003). How do they compare in terms of traffic? The info below shows the top 5 results of the Top-50 Internet Property Rankings for October 2003 (ComScore Media Metrix, Nov. 2003). Keep in mind that the table shows total number of unique visitors, not total number of searches. So while MSN is tops in terms of traffic, Google is still the king of search.

Rank Property Unique Visitors (in thousands)
1 MSN-Microsoft sites 109,334
2 Yahoo! sites 108,673
3 AOL Time Warner Network 108,394
4 eBay 62,454
5 Google sites 58,209

The point of the table is that four out of the top five most-visited sites are search related sites. SEO is your mechanism for becoming visible to this group. SEO is critical to the success of your online venture. Rebuilding is also important, but it can wait.

Other considerations

Ask yourself, what will deliver more results to my business: rebuilding or SEO?
What is the purpose of your site? If you use it to bring in customers or sell products, then SEO is definitely the one to do first. If visitors and sales aren’t important, but having a beautiful, stylish site is, then by all means rebuild it.
To deliver maximum benefits your website has to be both people and search engine friendly. Will rebuilding accomplish this?
Some owners think they’ll rebuild the site first and then perform SEO, only to discover afterwards that their budgets won’t allow for it. Ask yourself, do I want to be stuck with a nice looking site that delivers NO more traffic than its predecessor?
Your website should be an asset, not an expense. It should be generating you income or leads, or providing useful information about your company. If it isn’t then why have it?
In the US, 13% of traffic to a website comes from search engines, up from 8% for the previous year. International figures were even more striking with some countries having search engine referral rates as high as 21%! (WebSideStory, Mar. 2003). SEO makes your site search engine friendly. Rebuilding it may or may not, depending on how skilled in SEO your webmaster is. There’s far, far more to SEO than just inserting META tags (title, description, keyword tag).
SEO first, rebuild second
It really is a much wiser choice to perform SEO first. Later if the results indicate the need to make improvements, then proceed with rebuilding your website. Involve your SEO in the rebuilding process - their input/ advice will be invaluable!

Search Engines E-marketing Metrix

Google Site Map Generator

Pay-Per-Click Tips for Attracting Traffic

Targeting Your Campaigns

Final Thoughts

Distinguishing Features of E-Commerce

Website Promotion – The Power of Writing Article

Do We Need Web Directories?

Google to Compete with PayPal?

How to Generate Cash from Your Web Site

Google PageRank, & How to Get It:

First Published: June 2004Last Update: June 2004Author: Bob Wakfer

PageRank: The Background

How is PageRank calculated?

Here is the PageRank Calculation Chart.

The assumptions and the mathematics:

Are these findings valid?

About the Author

Using Newsletters to Market Your Home Based Business

Six Powerful Places to Advertise Your Autoresponder!

Content Ever be Profitable?

Leading eCommerce Consultant Admits You Should Only Listen to One Real Expert! (And it's not him!)

Website Marketing: 10 Resourceful Things You Can Do With A Product That Doesn't Sell

Top 10 Internet Marketing Tips For Your Home Based Business

Top 3 Online Business Success Needs

Sell Your Product Online

Boost Your Web Site Sales

Software marketing articles by Dave Collins

Software marketing articles by Dave Collins

Bringing New Meaning To The Phrase "Google Cash"

Google Introduces “Significant Enhancements” To AdWords

Ten Reasons Why Blogging is Good For Your Career

Are You In The Mindset For Yahoo?

RSS turtorials

Introducing RSS

What's in a RSS feed?

How do people use feeds?

Why should I make an RSS feed available?

But isn't that giving away my content?

Choosing Content for RSS Feeds

Publishing RSS

Telling People About Your Feed

RSS Versions and Modules

RSS 0.9x

RSS 1.0

Dublin Core Module

Tips for Generating Good RSS Feeds

RSS Tools and Validators

Aggregators and Other RSS Clients

More Information about RSS

About this Document

Google Sitemaps: RSS For The Entire Website?

Search engines go mobile

Anchor Text Tips That Rocket Your Rankings

What's the difference between blogs and RSS?

What's the difference between blogs and RSS?

More technical info and abbreviations than you need...

The Search Engine Marketing Kit - Chapter 1

SitePoint's Search Engine Marketing Column

The Search Engine Marketing Kit - Chapter 1

By Dan Thies April 6th 2005 Reader Rating: 9.4

Chapter 1 - Understanding Search Engines

A Brief History of the Search Engine

The Early Days of Web Search

The Great Search Engine Explosion

Google Dominates, the Field Narrows

Promote Your eBay Business - Publish Articles on the Web

Promote Your eBay Business - Publish Articles on the Web

Why Blogs Rank High In Search Engines

A Brief History Of Google In Time

Google’s Personal Evolution

Google Launches AdSense for RSS Feeds

AdSense For RSS Feeds Launched

AdSense For RSS Feeds Launched

Two Great Tips To Increase Your AdSense Revenue

8 ways to boost your Google Adsense earnings.

First Published: June 2004

Last Update: June 2004

Author: Bob Wakfer

By Dan Thies

April 6th 2005

Reader Rating: 9.4