Search etc

Affiliate Network

2006-04-17T10:50:00.000+02:00

I’ve been thinking which Affiliate Network is the best one – there are a number of affiliate networks which are brand based, and some affiliate networks which are lead based.

We’ll be compiling a report on affiliate networks in the near future, to let you know which affiliate network is best.

blog spam

2005-11-15T08:25:00.000+02:00

It’s been a busy few months, and I haven’t been updating search etc nearly as much as I should have been.

I took a look for the first time in ages, and my last comment on adwords changing has had 52 comments….

And out of those 52 comments, 52 (well, I haven’t checked, but I’m assuming) are blog spam.

For those that don’t know, blog spam is the art (or lack of) of posting a comment on a blog with the sole objective of getting a hyperlink back to there site, so that there site will have more incoming links, and the search engines will rank them higher in the search engine rankings, and as a result they will get more traffic for free from the search engine organic listings.

So all the blog spammers have different ways of doing it, which I wont’ go through. There are also plenty of software programs, which allow you to automate the blog spamming to a much greater extent.

Blogger.com (the blog software which I use for the search etc blog) quickly came to the rescue by allowing you to switch off comments, which is a pity that it has to be done, as an important part of blogging is allowing your readers to be interactive with your blog.

I’ve decided to leave on comments for the current time, so I can see the innovative ways blog spammers come up with to get there links.

Many of them actually seem to take the time to read the blogs, and so the process isn’t 100% automated, as they use my name in there postings – unless they are scraping my name off the “about me” section, which is entirely possible.

adwords changing

2005-08-04T16:07:00.000+02:00

plenty news - but just not enough time to write updates! :)

big news of the last few weeks is that google is changing their method for adwords. the google adwords change will happen over the next few weeks.

also big news is that yahoo has finally launched a contextual network in competition to google adsense which is good news for all publishers which to date have had to work with google regardless of whether they wanted to do or not.

the yahoo publisher network is being beta tested by a select few at the moment, and will be rolled out to the rest of the world (well, according to yahoo) by the end of the year.

msn has said they are not far behind in launching their own contextual network, so it looks like there will be soon multiple choices for publishers.

blogger problems

2005-07-15T16:14:00.000+02:00

I’ve received a number of emails complaining about the speed of the blogger.com website.

I checked it out, and found that it is extremely slow downloading the pages.

new adsense format

2005-07-15T00:23:00.001+02:00

Adsense today made a number of changes to the TOS for adsense partners.

In addition they have come out with a new layout for reporting – at first glance it looks nice, but with the same functionality as before.

adsense official document

2005-07-15T00:23:00.000+02:00

Webmasterworld is full of comments about the new layout / TOS on the adsense updates. Jenstar has done an amazing job summarizing already.

What’s interesting is the comment by jdhuk that he / she thought it might be the dreaded google letter – the one stating that you are out of adsense. I wonder how many other adsense partners had that as a first thought when they saw the writing come up instead of the stats. I admit I did. My first thought was “what have I done wrong????”…

icrossing seo company raise VC

2005-07-13T19:32:00.000+02:00

Icrossing Inc., a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based search engine marketing company, has raised $13 million from new company backers RRE Ventures and Generation Partners. The company had received a $28 million VC infusion in 2000 at a post-money valuation of approximately $103 million.

Guess the SEO market is still HOT!

baidu.com stock marketing listing

2005-07-13T19:31:00.001+02:00

It just doesn’t stop…

Baidu.com Inc., a Beijing, China-based Chinese language Internet search engine provider, has filed to raise $80 million via an IPO of American depository shares (ADS). It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol BIDU, with Goldman Sachs (Asia) and CSFB serving as lead underwriters. Significant shareholders include Draper Fisher Jurvetson (28.1% pre-IPO stake), Integrity Partners (11%), Peninsula Capital (10.1%) and IDG Technology Ventures (4.9%) and Google Inc. (2.6%). www.baidu.com

doubleclick and omniture

2005-07-13T19:31:00.000+02:00

There is so much investment news today in the internet marketing world.

2 of the other big headlines other than the icrossing news, which was posted earlier:

DoubleClick Inc. (Nasdaq: DCLK) has received shareholder approval for its proposed acquisition by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman. The deal is valued at $1.1 billion, or $8.50 per share.

Omniture Inc., an Orem, Utah-based provider of web analytics, has raised $40 million in Series C funding. BA Venture Partners led the deal, and was joined by Attractor Inv*stment Management and return backer Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

careful when bidding @ an online auction

2005-07-13T12:49:00.000+02:00

I just took a look at bidorbuy.co.za, an online auction company in South Africa run by Andrew Higgins who I’ve known for many years.

They have the promo “one day crazy auction” every Wednesday where certain products start at R1 bidding, and there is no reserve.

So I went to take a look.

The first thing that caught my eye is an ebook on organic food that is being sold – but it is very unclear that the product is an ebook – any average bidder would assume that it is a real book. And people get unhappy when they buy products thinking they are buying one thing and get another. The only reason I figured it out, is that the image looked like an ebook image, and when I looked at the shipping costs, it said that the book would be delivered by pdf format.

Very dodge if you ask me.

Turbocash, an accounting product which is open source is being sold – sure you can buy the turbocash product on cd for a small amount, but to try sell open source products on an auction site is sad – if the person wants the cd rather than downloading it, I can understand they would be happy to pay a few rand or dollars for it, but most people probably don’t realize that the turbocash product is open source and that they can get it for free.

And then a whole stack of internet marketing ebooks and products, many of which you can get for free, or a couple of the internet marketing products which I noticed, I know have resell licences, so they can be sold, but I remember that many of these internet marketing products have restrictions about being sold on auction sites!

And then living in South Africa – a number of the products on auction like the omega watch, and some of the Jewellery looks a little suspect – would I buy an omega watch on an auction site without clear verification from the seller that they have the right to sell it and that it is not stolen! Probably not!

Anyway, going through the products, and remembering the articles I’ve read about ebay having entire departments to decide on what can and can’t be sold on their auction site, I think that running an auction site is not just about matching buyers and sellers.

You need to have a certain level of confidence in the auctions, and I don’t think that bidorbuy has achieved that yet.

adsense webinar

2005-07-13T12:23:00.000+02:00

The google adsense guys recently held a webinar where they discussed some interesting tactics for adsense.

Many of the points are well known by now by adsense fanatics, but there are a few pearls of wisdom if you read carefully.

And it’s always good to refresh your google adsense knowledge by reading what the google guys have to say.

I learnt that Kim Malone is the Director of Adsense. I don’t know if it will help me make more cash from adsense, but still good to know who is running the google adsense division.

The entire transcript can be found at http://www.google.com/services/adsense_webinar.html

It’s just a pity that the images they refer throughout the webinar to, are not included in the transcript.

google adwords foreign language waste!!!

2005-07-10T10:39:00.000+02:00

Why on earth would a French company advertise their website to the rest of the world in FRENCH!

I know the French have a reputation for snobbery, but this is going overboard – paying for the whole world to visit their site, and very few people can read or understand it.

If anyone who doesn’t speak French, spends more than 1 second on their site, I’d be highly surprised.

So obviously they just don’t realize that when they’re advertising on adwords they need to select regions or languages.

What a waste of money!!!!

China opens Internet Addiction Clinic

2005-07-04T17:13:00.000+02:00

How many Internet Marketers are addicted to the Internet? Probably most of us! J

China has opened its first officially licensed clinic for Internet addiction in Beijing to deal with the effects of the online frenzy that has accompanied the nation's economic boom, reports USA Today.

Doctors say all the children at the clinic have left school because they were playing games or in chat rooms everyday and consequently suffering from depression, nervousness, fear, panic, agitation and unwillingness to interact with others. Many say their online obsessions helped them escape day-to-day stress.

google historical page rank, backlinks, and algo changes

2005-07-03T19:18:00.000+02:00

Aaron from SEOBook.com kindly sent me this link for seocompany, that allows you to see when google algorithms, page rank, and backlinks have been changed in the past, and when they expect them to change again in the future.

Now if I could find a similar site for historical information for the search engine updates for yahoo, msn, and some of the other major search engines, I’d be extremely happy!

brad fallon vs brad callen

2005-06-28T21:29:00.000+02:00

Anyone got a few minutes to spare?

Search on google for the following: “coolest guy on the planet” (without the inverted comma’s)

Seems like a number of SEO boyz are all trying to get the top spot for that term.

Number 1 currently at time of writing goes to Brad Fallon:

SEO Expert, Brad Fallon
Cool quiz on SEO put together by the folks at seomoz. ... 2nd Coolest Guy on the
Planet; Wedding Favors; Wedding Favor Directory; Wedding Favor Directory 2 ...
www.bradfallon.com/ - 43k

Brad Callen’s page doesn’t seem to feature though – I stumbled upon this through his page…

http://www.seoelite.com/Coolest-Guy-On-The-Planet.htm

he does appear in 9^th spot though with his “2^nd coolest guy on the planet” page

2nd Coolest Guy On The Planet is Brad Callen
... to Brad Fallon who claimed the top position for Coolest guy on the planet.
Why Google insists that I'm only the 2nd coolest guy, I'm not quite sure, ...
www.seoelite.com/2nd-Coolest-Guy-On-The-Planet.htm - 9k

Hahahahahahahahaha

Send me photo’s guy! I think a photo gallery is in order?

RE: google earth

2005-06-28T20:57:00.000+02:00

And there I go forgetting the reason I was blogging in the first place.

I was born and spent a good number of years in a town called Durban in South Africa. Durban is in the province Natal.

Anyway, I’ve picked this up on a number of roads, cities, provinces, countries etc.

Google (or digitalglobe which is the company behind the images) have got a number of names wrong.

Natal is called Natalbaai (perhaps the company is based in Amsterdam or somewhere like that as that sounds dutch / Afrikaans).

When I was looking at Cape Town, Lions Head (one of the famous mountains – actually I live very close) is called Lions Rump and Leeukop – that is hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lions Rump instead of Lions Head!!!!!!

And there are a couple of names that I don’t recognize – Boat Bay??? (perhaps I haven’t explored cape town enough, but I’ve never heard of those names in cape town itself)

Still a brilliant program though!!!!

Ahhhh – just saw another one “driankerbaai” and realized they are translating in Afrikaans or dutch, as there is 3 anchor bay in that area – just never heard it translated literally before.

google earth

2005-06-28T20:51:00.000+02:00

Have now spent 2 hours with a couple of glasses of red and the new google offering – google earth which is in beta.

It appears to be an updated version of keyhole or keynote (can’t remember what it was called), which allows you to explore the earth!

But this has gone further. You can explore NYC in the USA in 3D (which for guys like me living in CT in SA is amazing), and you can zoom quite clearly up to about 2000 feet.

I used to live in London near the o2 center in North West London (near finchley road tube) and I could see the o2 center quite clearly from an aerial view, along with west hampstead and finchley road where I spent plenty time.

When you are able to zoom a little closer to see bars, clubs, landmarks, restaurants etc it’s going to be incredible.

I’m already swaying from exploring 3 countries (or maybe that is the red wine) J

The only issue is that google earth is a 10 mb download and the first time I tested it out, it crashed my computer (but has been working fine since).

You have to try google earth – download now for FREE (don’t you love google giving stuff this kewl away for free)

Now for a glass of RED! LOL

scraper sites

2005-06-28T12:33:00.000+02:00

Well, I’m continuing my link building efforts, and I’m amazed by how many scraper sites there are in the search engine index’s!

Reading webmasterworld there have been countless number of messages about how many scraper sites there are, but I hadn’t really encountered this until today.

A scraper site is a site that pulls info off other sites (eg. Is a collection of the title bar, a few pieces of “scraped” info, and the url, often which isn’t hyperlinked), and then adds an advert (either affiliate or adsense throughout the page) to generate revenue.

On the one keyword I typed into yahoo, about 7 of the top 10 sites were scraper sites.

Each of them had the google adsense prominently displayed on them.

I remember when I was starting out a few years back, I even tested out jeff’s traffic equalizer, but never really got into it. Well, these new guys sure have – I’m not sure if they’re using a new version of traffic equalizer, but the sites look slick, and for the uninformed visitor, they would probably simply click on one of the adsense or affiliate links, making the site owner cash.

The only issue (besides that the engines are getting cluttered up), is that google adsense states in the terms of service, that a site can not simply be a collection of links made for adsense, and it appears that these sites DEFINITELY are made for adsense.

It also appears that many of the hardcore internet marketing experts are behind these sites.

Why do I say that?

Because you don’t see many site owners using alternative ads for adsense (to display alternative ads when the google ads don’t show up). These sites have casino alternative url’s – not highly targeted, but many of the players in the internet casino world know what they’re talking about as pills, gambling, and adult are the 3 industries which have the reputation of being on the cutting edge of internet marketing (I should know J many years back I was a media buyer for one of the large internet casino groups).

What’s more amazing is that the same scraper sites have so many similar url’s in them, that yahoo has included a number of the pages from the SAME site in the top listings.

If the engines don’t find a way of getting scraper sites out the engines, then I predict that a number of white hat seo’s are going to move to the dark side (hahaha – been watching too much star wars), as setting up a scraper site is pretty straight forward!!!!!!!

NO! I’m staying pure!!!!!!!!!

partypoker.com & cnbc

2005-06-27T23:21:00.000+02:00

I’m busy watching the tonight show with jay leno on cnbc.

Taking a break from laughing, (the way jay and the bald headed guitarist jive back and forward is hilarious), I started thinking about the sponsor – partypoker.com

I was under the impression that internet gambling is highly grey (if not illegal in the US), as most of the major search engines, and publishers have stopped allowing internet casino advertising (although we have heard rumours that one of the big players might start allowing it in the future again).

However, does internet poker fall outside of these rules, or is offline advertising for internet gambling different to online advertising?

How can the tonight show and cnbc accept party poker, one of the largest internet poker websites, as their sponsor?

The Australian Dream (In reverse)

2005-06-27T20:40:00.000+02:00

The power of Viral Marketing!!! However with email, it’s nearly always non revenue generating emails that are the most viral.

This is the 3^rd time in the last 48 hours I’ve received this mail below (from different groups of people who as far as I’m aware weren’t even related).

But to get a viral marketing e-mail right which actually gets the person to click through to your website, and then you are able to monetize them, is extremely rare.

I remember the one example which worked brilliantly getting people to come to the site, and then referring your friends and colleagues to do the same, but I’m not sure it converted into hard cash.

Viral marketing using only websites or originating from websites is a different story and many are cashing in, in a big way by getting the viral right. (eg. The lead gen platforms, and the school friend type sites)

But I can’t remember an example of where the successful viral marketing originated from an e-mail which resulted in the visitor clicking to the site, monetizing for the publisher, and then referring others to do the same.

The Australian Dream (In reverse), sad but true!

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying Australian JOB. At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in Australia.....

comparing google, msn, and yahoo results

2005-06-27T19:23:00.000+02:00

I was browsing through SEOBook by Aaron Wall yesterday (if you want to learn more about seo, the seo ebook by Aaron @ seoBook.com is a wonderful read) and he reiterated a number of times how important link building was for getting good search engine listings.

So I decided to devote today to getting a number of sites to link to one of my sites.

Firstly I went to yahoo and searched on a relevant keyword, and then did the same on google and msn.

The results were interesting.

Many of the sites in the top 10 for this keyword (not a competitive keyword by the way) didn’t work, or looked like they hadn’t been updated in 5 years. However, because they have a large number of sites linking to them, they get high positions regardless of the fact that some of them DON”T EVEN WORK! I don’t think the search engines meant that to happen when they placed reliance on links to determine relevancy.
A large number of the top listings in Yahoo were the SAME listings in google and msn. Now these sites which were listed in all 3 engines weren’t particulary good, and if I remember correctly, one of them might even have been one of the sites which wasn’t working.

A couple of the sites did in all fairness look relevant and would be the type of site I would want to pull up if I was a random surfer, but TOO many weren’t!

Anyway, in addition to boosting my search engine listings by highly targeted link building, you get too learn a lot about the industry along the way. I was thinking before I started whether I should outsource the work but after spending a number of hours doing this (a large number of hours J), I have realized it’s not only the links which are important – it’s the knowledge you learn about the industry – who the players are in the engines, how they are getting their listings, (one of them gives away app’s as an example), and the different areas they focus on (as this industry is quite a large one – no, before you start nodding your head thinking you know which industry I’m talking about, this site has nothing to do with internet marketing, seo, ppc or any other internet marketing related areas).

Anyway, if you have a website, it’s a good idea to spend a few hours each week linkbuilding – over and above the benefit from having more sites link to you (which will give you direct traffic from the sites, and hopefully extra traffic from the search engines due to the increased relevancy you now have in their eyes), you also get to learn a ton about the industry your site is in.

sitesell.com pays affiliates late

2005-06-25T20:01:00.000+02:00

I received a mail that sitesell.com, the successful company led by Ken Evoy, will be sending July affiliate cheques 3 weeks late as he is personally signs the cheques and will be away in Italy with his daughter for 5 weeks on vacation.

I’ve never promoted his offers so this is nothing personal, but one of the MOST IMPORTANT things to affiliates is that they get paid on time.

Affiliates don’t all do SEO. Many spend large amounts of cash each day on PPC, contextual, e-mail and other media buying, and have cash flow considerations to budget for.

So receiving their payments 3 weeks late is UNACCEPTABLE.

Perhaps Ken doesn’t realize that affiliates are running their own business’s and thus need to be treated as a 3^rd party company. Imagine I owed a large corporation money for items I purchased each month. One month I simply mailed them and said “I don’t feel like paying on time this month, I’ll pay a few weeks late. But don’t worry coz next month I’ll be back to be paying on time.”

Let me reiterate, affiliates need to be treated as business partners, in order to generate maximum long term value from them.

From an internet marketer as well known, and experienced as Ken Evoy, this mail amazed me!!!!

Yanik Silver Underground Secrets

2005-06-24T10:09:00.000+02:00

The top internet marketers are extremely clever.

Yanik is one of these.

The new trend which I’m witnessing is for the marketers to have the seminars which are extremely well attended, (and although pricy, it looks like they are worth the money). I haven’t attended one of these “underground” conferences yet (although I’m making a list of them, and will start attending a number of them), and my conference exposure has been limited to Search Engine Strategies, Ad Tech, Affiliate Summit, and Pubcon webmasterworld…

Anyway, I’m diverging – the underground conferences bring a number of “real” internet marketers together – the ones who are innovative, cutting edge, and are doing REAL internet marketing…the ones who it appears are making the “real” money on the net.

So I saw in Allan Gardayne’s mail this morning, mention of a highlight of Yanik’s underground secrets conference which happened a few weeks back.

So what these guys are doing is recording the conferences, and then creating a 2^nd income stream by selling a limited number of them after the conference. This is genius! It means that a person like me living in South Africa who can’t make the trip over to the US (or bahama’s J) for the conferences, can still catch up with the latest techniques. Obviously, a large part of the value comes from the networking with the other attendees and sharing ideas (at the pub *grin*), but the information that is presented is often very interesting, and gives an up and coming internet marketer a ton of new ideas.

So back to Yanik Silver – when going to the link that Allan gives, you are given an opportunity to watch 2 clips from the conference – but here’s the great part (for Yanik) – you have to double opt in to his mailing list before you can watch the clips. That’s right – DOUBLE OPT IN.

So Yanik gets the following:

Exposure of his personal brand (building up Yanik Silver)
A verified e-mail address of a HIGHLY TARGETTED person – anyone who is opting in to watch an “underground internet marketing” conference is part of a niche group! Wow – what I would do to have a few thousand of these e-mails! J
The opportunity to get these people excited about the “limited release” (in this case 750 copies) of the conference – there is a ticker on the site showing you how many days till the dvd is released.

So when Yanik releases the DVD in a few weeks time, I would have already watched the clip, been excited at the thought of being able to view the entire conference, and would be a potential customer – what a brilliant pre-sell!!!

I did notice when watching the clip that the video is on the speaker and not the presentation – so when watching the dvd, you might not be able to see what the speaker is referring to (or perhaps it jumps back and forwards, or there is a split screen – I’ll have to watch first to find out).

Anyway, I’m determined to start making the trip across to attend some of these “alternative” conferences – I know of a couple that happen in the US, UK and Australia, so I guess that plane is going to be getting some time with me. Last year I did a lot of traveling, coming over for a number of the “commercial” conferences, but I’ve taken a break for the last few months, as I just wanted to enjoy Cape Town.

But I’m excited to see what the conferences actually tell you, and also how the dvd’s compare to the conferences.

If you want to see what I’ve been speaking about, the url for the first page is http://www.undergroundinternetsecrets.com/peek/

(as mentioned, you have to double opt in to receive the link for the clips – I didn’t really get much value out of watching them, but you really have to see the entire speakers presentation / q&a, to get what they’re talking about)

Lastly, I also have a habit of placing a unique email into each internet marketers opt in, so I can determine if any of them are reselling the lists / spamming me at a later date! Get a domain, forward everything to one address (info@new-domain.com), and then use name-of-site-you-are-opting-in-for@new-domain.com for each opt in you do. Then if you start getting new spam, you can get a feel for where it originates from.

new affiliate networks

2005-06-23T17:52:00.000+02:00

I read the digitalmoses newsletter on a regular basis, which is filled with mostly advertisements from the 2^nd tier affiliate and cpa type networks.

What’s interesting is that I’m seeing a couple of new advertisers in the newsletter that either:

I just haven’t paid attention to in the past
haven’t advertised much in digitalmoses or any of the other newsletters (adbumb springs to mind) – talking of which, I got a really interesting mail from viral spiral which I didn’t have a chance to write about (seems they got shut down by godaddy / spamhaus for selling data)
they are new affiliate networks that are springing up hoping to copy the primaryads / azoogleads success story’s
I’m just tired and can’t be bothered to keep track of all the different 2^nd 3^rd to the power of Y affiliate networks that are around these days (all offering similar if not the same offers)

2005-06-23T17:38:00.000+02:00

Is that a cow in my path - it isn't internet marketing, but a friend of mine just sent me this pic of their trip to the wild coast beaches and i thought it was soooo good i had to add it.

msn algo update

2005-06-23T17:31:00.000+02:00

Well, webmasterworld’s community is going ballistic over the new msn algo update.

Take a look at the headlines on ww from the 23^rd june (today) to see the discussion.

The general consensus is that the reshuffle (if you can call it that) in msn’s search, resulted in more spam and scraper sites taking listings, and listings being based on:

more static html / htm pages rather than dynamic pages (which should cause the scraper sites to fall away as many of them are traffic equalizer and other software program type – many of which are dynamic pages, but this doesn’t seem to be the case, as the talk is that more scraper pages are being listed)
that the title, url, and meta tags have become the dominant reasons

sounds like big speculation at the moment. I’ll update on msn search’s status when things calm down.

Linked in monetizing

2005-06-16T08:27:00.000+02:00

If any of you haven't joined up with Linked In yet, I strongly suggest that you do so. It's free to join up, and allows you to network not only with your contacts, but your contacts contacts, and your contacts' contacts's contacts! (tongue twister), all the way to the 4th or 5th level.

It's a really interesting networking platform, built upon the concept of the "6 degrees of seperation".

Anyway, linked in announced today that they'd be using the system to help more people find jobs - at the moment it is a free service, but i can see that it is going to start making linked in cash in the near future. At the moment, I see an upgrade membership on their site, and a number of sponsored links, but i'm not sure how much they can be making out of that.

Regardless, I feel they could be making a lot more, as they need to find a way of getting the over 2 million members they have to make them money, and I think this job service will be a winner.

Derek Gehl

2005-06-16T08:17:00.000+02:00

I've just received an e-mail from Derek Gehl confirming that he is going to be running the Internet Marketing Center going forward.

The home page on the Marketing Tips site has also been set up as a memorial page to Corey Rudl.

FW: MICROSOFT SENDS ILLEGAL SPAM [47 of 178]

2005-06-15T22:25:00.000+02:00

I've just received the following e-mail (see below) from a company calling
themselves "SPAMIS: Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam"

The mail goes on to speak about how Microsoft employees have admitted
they're not as clean cut as we all think they are on the email side
(*grin*).

The mail would be interesting if not for one small fact - these SPAMIS
idiots SPAMMED me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's one way not to
be taken seriously.

I wouldn't post a spam mail usually, (as I get sooooo many), but I'm curious
to find out whether these guys are really an anti spam organization, (which
I sincerely doubt) or what their objective is?

Do they simply not Microsoft, or have they found way of diverting and
monetizing the curious visitor traffic they receive (visitors going to their
site to find out what they are about - I haven't bothered yet, but thinking
about it now, I'm going to visit to see what the site is about) - brb...

Back - very interesting - the site has the following message: "This domain
has been suspended." But underneath is a full page of sponsored links from
Google - it looks like the adsense domain parked program.

Interesting!!!

Domain Direct has suspended the domain, (probably due to the spamming), but
now that the site is getting traffic (due to the spamming), Domain Direct
benefits.

I sure hope they are passing over any revenue from this to a real anti-spam
organization...

-----Original Message-----
From: SPAMIS: [mailto:contact@spamis.org]
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 11:02 AM
To: taken out for obvious reasons
Subject: MICROSOFT SENDS ILLEGAL SPAM [47 of 178]

----- ---- --- -- - - -
Microsoft Employee Mike Lyman Speaks Out on Online Spam
Message Board NANAE & Mailing List SPAM-L on Microsoft Spam
___________________________________________________________

MICROSOFT IS ONE OF THE "GREATEST, MOST HATED INSTITUTIONAL SPAMMERS AROUND"

"I'm with one of the greatest, most hated institutional "spammers" around.
most people speaking officially for the company will go round and round
with you how we don't spam. Well, in the past it was not always obvious
that you were opting in, sometimes it still isn't obvious and our sign up
process still leaves a lot to be desired and is open to abuse."

FIRMLY ADMITTING THAT MICROSOFT IS A "SPAMHOUSE" AND SENDS OUT SPAM

"We are a spamhouse. Doesn't matter that we're Microsoft. Our legitimate,
unsolicited email is still just spam."

___________________________________________________________

MIKE LYMAN:
Microsoft Head Email Abuse Administrator for Microsoft Speaks
Out About Microsoft's Previous & Current Spamming Activities

PREVIOUS CREDENTIALS:
West Point Military Academy Graduate of 1987
Ex-Computer Administrator for the US Department of Defense
___________________________________________________________

..You are receiving this email notification because...

-> MICROSOFT SENDS ILLEGAL UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL SPAM <-

OUR MISSION: Worldwide Boycott of MICROSOFT Software / Hardware / Service
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT: "Don't Support Illegal Spam, Don't Buy Microsoft
Products"

OUR GOAL: 100 Billion Views / 99.9% Internet Saturation / 178 Parts
(2005-2007)

[SPAMIS Foundation: Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam]

----- ---- --- -- - -
MEDIA & JOURNALISTS INTERESTED IN A STORY ON SPAMIS AND/OR MICROSOFT SPAM?
LEGAL FIRMS INTERESTED IN LITIGATION AGAINST MICROSOFT'S ILLEGAL SPAMMING?
Contact: Spamis, Box 1259, Seattle, WA 98111 / Phone or Fax: (206)260-2409

QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE PUBLIC STATEMENTS FROM MICROSOFT:
Microsoft Head Spam Spokesmen: Aaron Kornblum or Ryan Hamlin

SPAMIS EXISTS DUE TO THE IMPROPER, RUDE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS SET FORTH BY:
Microsoft Head Law Firm: Preston, Gates, Ellis, Seattle, WA - USA
Lawyers at Fault: Robert J. Dzielak / David A. Bateman / Theodore J. Angelis

[Part 47 of 178]
(c)2005 SPAMIS: Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam

blog world

2005-06-15T20:58:00.000+02:00

i'm amazed. i went to post my blog on feedster, which is the blog search engine i usually use for finding new blogs, and have found that an entire industry has sprung up around blogs - in a few quick searches, i found a number of "blog search engines".

what i find interesting is how many visitors do these blog engines actually receive?

is it worth posting your blog on these blog engines, and pinging them, or spend time figuring out how to get them to read your new blog postings, or is it a total waste of time, as they get no visitors to send you in the first place?

anyway, i've set up a new section on the right which shows you the different blog engines i've found so far. i'll be speaking in future postings about which blog engines actually are worth looking at.

My Yahoo

2005-06-15T14:22:00.000+02:00

I logged into my “My Yahoo” account for the first time in ages yesterday. The first thing I noticed was that I could add feeds to my account, so that in addition to content such as news and tv listings, I could have my favorite blog headlines being displayed.

This is really useful so that at a glance you can see what is happening at once – without an aggregator you’d have to go to each of the websites separately.

However, “My Yahoo” is more useful for an American citizen rather than me living in Cape Town in South Africa, as the TV listings, and certain other parts of the site can’t be customized for non-american’s. You guys have it all! J I still have to log into a different website to see what is worth watching. It would be great having it all in one place – hopefully yahoo or msn (or more likely google will allow me to do that).

Anyway, today in my inbox I received a mail from Yahoo (the first in ages) letting me know that they had added kewl new features to My Yahoo.

It included the following:

· Add content from around the Web through RSS.

· Choose from over 150,000 new sources (more added daily).

· Create your own custom modules via News Search or add your favorite sites by RSS URL.

Now I’m curious to know whether Yahoo sent this mail to everyone, and that they have only recently introduced RSS on the “my yahoo” site, and that I just happened to look at it before it got announced to the rest of the world, or if they noticed I hadn’t logged in for awhile, and sent me an e-mail based on the fact that I was a returning visitor, who might not have known about the new features that were added some time ago.

2005-06-15T12:12:00.000+02:00

Everyone seems to be speaking about RSS feeds and adsense, but I haven't found any examples of RSS feeds that include adsense advertising.

Apparently, you need to have a certain number of visitors who have added your feed (you prove it by showing your log files) before you can turn on adsense for feeds.

{by the way, i think i've worked out how to add line breaks & hyperlink from the hello software, but i still don't know how to add headings.}

2005-06-15T11:58:00.000+02:00

ThatAdamGuy wrote a posting on webmasterworld today mentioning a term called wysywig wiki. I'd never heard of it so after a quick google search, found on wikipedia.org, that a wysiwig wiki is a a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content.

ways of blogging

2005-06-15T11:50:00.000+02:00

If you thought blogging was simply about going to one of the blog programs on the web, and writing your thoughts, then you with on my wavelength till 30 minutes ago.

But blogging has become quite involved.

There are now a number of ways to post your thoughts to your blog:

On the web, you log into your blog, and post your message
You download a small software program such as Hello to post your messages (and this allows you to upload images as well, so is pretty nifty) – although I can’t seem to find out how to leave spaces between my lines, or to enter headings, so I still have to go into the web based system to fix up my posts.
You can e-mail your thoughts to an address you set up, and they are automatically added to your blog (I thought I had an issue with this method – I wasn’t sure how to hyperlink, but I just worked it out – just press the hyperlink button – doesn’t come much easier than this)
You can send messages to your blog from your mobile – I’ll have to try that out later in the day!
I’m not sure if this is 100% factual, but I get the feeling from reading various articles that you can set your web cam to post images to your blog at predetermined time intervals – give me a few days with this one (still trying to find my driver for me cam so it’s not up and running at the moment)

net marketing 101

2005-06-15T11:29:00.000+02:00

The net is getting bigger and bigger. I'm thinking whether it is better to focus on one area or to become a jack of all trades. There is so many areas to learn and keep up to date with, that it becomes impossible - developing your site, marketing it, and then analysing the stats, so you can max your ROI on your marketing efforts.

But with marketing, and I'm just speaking about Internet Marketing now, not Online PR, Offline PR or Traditional offline marketing, there are so many different areas:

1. Paid Search - 1st tier (google, overture (well, yahoo), msn) / 2nd tier - and the list goes down a number of tiers

2. Organic Search - white hat / black hat / grey hat

3. email

4. contextual (not contextual search, but adware - and then it becomes tricky coz there are the good, the grey and the just plain ugly)

5. media buying (i know ppc falls into this category theoretically, but i think it deserves it's own category, so i'm speaking here about purchasing banners and text links on sites (text links for traffic, not for page rank)

6. viral (probably the best of all, but something i still haven't perfected - watch this space, there are going to be some interesting viral applications being launched in the months to come). (the expert at this time in this space seems to be Mike Filsaime who is launching new viral type applications at a rapid rate!)

7. affiliate - networks, stand alone programs / lead gen

it just goes on and on...

and then how do you monetize all this marketing?

1. commerce - actually selling stuff
2. advertising & sponsorships - think adsense although big sponsorships will probably give you more of that warm fuzzy feeling (go Jaysen - good quote buddy - i use it often - we'll have to catch up soon)
3. affiliate - your risk - but plenty cash to be made, if you know what you are doing
4. using online methods to promote your offline business

Well, i've just realised that although i'm a touch typist, blogging still takes time, and i've got a to-do list that is reaching the 8th floor of my 6 story block (i'm at the top, so you have to realise that the to-do list is pretty damn long!) :)

2005-06-15T11:18:00.000+02:00

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally set up a Blog dedicated to Internet Marketing. I was inspired by the e-mail I received this morning from Tracy Rudl, the wife of Corey Rudl, the founder of the Internet Marketing Center. It was an emotional mail - especially the last line "Corey was an adoring husband... a loving son... a doting brother... a caring friend... and an inspirational leader and mentor." So from now on, this blog will focus on 2 things: 1. Keeping up to date with interesting news in the Internet Marketing arena. 2. Giving my Opinion! :) Time to Blog...