For the past several weeks I was out of the country visiting my father and we had very poor or no internet access most of the time (I can’t believe I survived).  I realize now that I probably should have made a blog post beforehand letting my readers know I’d be away for a bit, but as I mentioned in a comment, I was hesitant to make a post that didn’t really contain anything useful, humorous or informative–so I held off—and now I’m doing it late, as a loser would, just to let subscribers know I’m still around and will be posting at a normal speed again :).

  

  

As most of my readers have probably already heard elsewhere, wikipedia recently reintroduced their nofollow tag on outbound links to try and prevent spam from SEOs.

Secretly, I believed this might have been a bit of a trick and that wikipedia was a large enough site that they might have gotten in touch with Google directly and informed them that they were putting on a nofollow tag to dissuade spammers, but that perhaps Google should (unspokenly) ignore that tag.

As always in SEO, you can never really be sure, but I think that today and yesterday the discounting of wikipedia links caught up to me in a very real way. The site I’ve mentioned on this blog in the past–that I started on October 1st and that was getting around 1,500 to 2,000 uniques daily–had a fairly limited number of IBLs. Maybe 500 or so, but they were good ones and the site is a genuinely useful, good site. I think we had 12 Wikipedia links at last count, all valid and longstanding, based on contributions we had offered.

Yesterday, however, our traffic from Google was literally reduced to a third of what it had been before. Simultaneously, we got some of the best links I’ve ever attained in all my days of SEO. I wish I could brag with these here, but I just don’t feel comfortable posting URLs, etc. on an SEO blog I’m sure you understand. Anyway, the only reason I could possibly see for this very dramatic reduction in traffic is either an algo change or, in my opinion more likely, the impact of Google’s recognition of Wikipedia’s new nofollow policy. After all, 12 PR5+ links from an authority site like Wikipedia, with valid and helpful anchor text is a pretty significant contribution to a site with only 500 or so unique IBLs.

Of course this is all anecdotal and theory, as always with SEO, but it seems to me that it’s the only variable that changed and also that it happened just when I would expect Google to have had time to recrawl and recalculate the Wikipedia links. Food for thought. Please let me know if you’ve had similar (or contrary) experiences!

  

  

One humorous experience I had time and again at Affiliate Summit West involved employees of affiliate networks trying to sell me.

This is meant as advice, not criticism, but I have a tendency to come across as aggressive or critical in my blog posts from time to time, so this is my disclaimer. That’s really not what I’m trying to do here.

First of all, at least be straight up about it and get to the point ASAP. You aren’t going to trick affiliates—we recognize a pitch when we see one. Think about how we make our money. We sell things to other people, and we do it all the time. It’s no secret that you make money every time we sell your product, so we know why you’re in this. And, because the affiliate industry does have its sleazy elements, we’re exposed to scams and deceptive marketing all the time—a decent percentage of affiliates even participate in this themselves. Really, you’re not going to trick us. We get it. We know what you’re doing, and it creates an awkward situation when you try to sell us while pretending that’s not what’s going on because we stand there trying to be polite while you run through your spiel. Really, it’s like going up to a car salesman and trying to sell them a car. Often times I was embarrassed for the person talking to me, because the pitch was so transparent.

I think the best way—and with me, the only way—you have a chance of getting me on your network or promoting your product is to “SHOW ME THE MONEY.” I know I talk about Shoemoney a lot here, and it’s because I think his advice is really solid and to-the-point. So I’ll borrow one of his stories here and because I’m mixing it with my own thoughts, the story is italicized, and keep in mind the quotes are basically what was said but not word for word.

Shoemoney promotes ring tones, as most of my readers probably know, and he’s good at it. In the story I’m thinking of, an affiliate network (I believe) called him up and tried to get him to promote a ring tone offer of his.

The first feeling going through an affiliate in this situation is “ugh.” It’s because we’re so used to this, and there’s usually nothing you’re going to tell me over the phone that I haven’t heard before or that isn’t available on your site.

In his situation, Shoe cut to the chase by saying “how much do you pay per lead? And how do you convert?”

Tip: Please, please don’t reply with “we pay the highest” or “we guarantee the largest commissions” or one of the hundred other oft-made claims. It sounds to us like BS and because everyone says that, it’s meaningless. Very few affiliates would think “Wow, sweet, the highest payouts?!” What we want is NUMBERS or PROOF. Not jargon, but real information. How much do you pay? What’s the conversion rate? Those are the first two questions that come to my mind, and I’m looking for actual data-style numbers, not hype or marketing talk.

Back to the story—the guy on the phone said something like $14. Well Shoe was already at $18 or $20, I can’t remember the specifics) so things didn’t sound too good. But, because the guy was persistent, Shoe humored him with what I thought was a great offer. “Look, you approached me” Shoe explained, “so you know who I am and that I can deliver. On the other hand, I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know if you’ll really pay me. So I’ll tell you what, give me a $50,000 deposit to ensure that I can trust your guarantee and I’ll give you a chance.”

Not surprisingly, there were stutters and the conversation ended without any kind of deal. To sum up, my advice (as an affiliate) to people trying to sell to affiliates is to make it quick and don’t do anything that could possibly be interpreted as being deceptive. We’ll see through it very quickly and you lose your credibility and end up looking like a schmuck, often without even realizing it.

  

  

I apologize for not posting frequent, live Affiliate Summit West event coverage as I meant to. After a late, exhausted arrival I was playing catch up the whole time and didn’t get to blog as much as I’d hoped–I’ll try my best to do a better job of this at future events.

My adventure in Las Vegas ended on a great note—Kris Jones from Pepperjam gave an awesome presentation that was, without question, my favorite of the event. And I’m not just saying that because he mentioned my blog on one of his slides, although I admit that surprise did make my day (I know, I’m a loser) :).

Although things have been hectic, this event has caused me to reflect and think about what makes a presentation good—at least in my eyes. I came to the conclusion that the main reason I liked Kris’ session so much was because you could tell he does not ‘have a job.’ At these events, I find there’s a big difference between a speaker who is a creator / entrepreneur as compared to a speaker who is an employee. Why? A number of reasons, but I think the most important is that these are the people who give you something to take home—something you can’t find in a hundred business books. Not to mention that these presenters are, understandably, more comfortable speaking because they aren’t being judged or restricted by an employer.

Kris’ session reminded me a lot of Roger Montii’s at the last PubCon—it had my mind racing with ideas and made me take notes I’ll actually read and act on as soon as I get home, which is very rare for me :). I can appreciate and understand that other ‘employed’ speakers might be very intelligent, qualified, etc., but for me personally, hearing creators discuss the things they know so intimately is priceless—not to mention extremely fun and motivating. It’s always more interesting to have a conversation about something a person loves than something they feel forced to do as a ‘job’—and while I don’t know this as fact, I’d be willing to guess the majority (if not all) of the speakers I’ve enjoyed most don’t consider working on their projects or businesses to be ‘work,’ even if they might use the word.

I tried to find a transcript or audio file of Kris’ session (and some of the others) without success. If anyone knows where these are located please comment :).

I’ve never been a note taker because I feel like writing keeps me from truly listening to speakers, but I did jot down a few things. As soon as I find the slides / audio / transcripts I’ll give a more in depth write up of the points I found most enlightening. In the mean time, here are the few notes I didn’t want to forget (these are all from Kris):

Google Quality Score: Kris has found that having a privacy policy seems to improve the quality score a page is given by Google (Kris also mentions the more frequently cited concerns of substantial, quality content, navigable link structure, etc.).

Digital River (to be honest I can’t remember what they do and all I wrote down was “Digital River,” so I’ll have to elaborate on this point later or maybe we’ll get some comments with more info).

Keyword Tools – Kris recommends: Rapid Keyword, Keyword Discovery, Keycompete (Kris says this one is the best. If I understood him correctly, the tool somehow lets you identify what keywords competitors are bidding on. Wow, that makes work sound like a waste of time – just let someone else do it), Google Suggest and Yahoo Suggest.

Rejected Keywords: With Yahoo, Kris has found that they’ll reject about a third of any list for no apparent reason. Once you get the list of rejected keywords, just upload that one, and they’ll reject another third, and so on. I haven’t had a problem with this yet, because to be honest I haven’t played with Yahoo Search Marketing in three years or so (Overture back then).

Duplicate Clicks / Click Fraud: I actually asked this question near the end, and Kris’ reply was really helpful. Basically, I understood how I could detect the duplicate clicks, etc., but I had no idea how I could present that information to MSN/Yahoo/Google/etc. to get a refund. Do I put it in a spreadsheet or send server logs or..? Kris answered that the first step is, of course, to analyze the clicks yourself and identify any suspicious activity. If the damage appears to be substantial and worth pursuing, you should send an e-mail to the network explaining that you’ve found what appears to be duplicate clicking and make your case. Not surprisingly, Kris says the first reply is usually something along the lines of “We don’t see what you’re seeing,” so you will have to get a dialogue going and continue to make your case. Often times they will refund you for invalid clicks based on this communication. But if they don’t, the next step Kris recommends is to tell them you’re going to blog about this experience. Try not to make it sound like a threat, Kris warns, but let them know that blogging is the next step on your end if you can’t get this worked out. Apparently they appreciate the power of blogging and might acquiesce at this point.

* Please keep in mind that this is my recollection of Kris’ words and not an exact representation of what was said.

  

I just wanted to post a quick update since I haven’t been able to blog at all since getting to Vegas. I had a really rough weekend (family-type problems) that resulted in a missed flight after a night with just a few hours of terrible sleep. I made it to my hotel at about 5:30, much later than I’d anticipated and couldn’t keep my eyes open. I fell asleep at about 6:30 PM and because it was so early I didn’t set my alarm–little did I know I’d wake up at 10:30 AM today, missing the keynote. It’s okay thought, I have to earn my Loser title somehow And as you can imagine after all that sleep I’m feeling a lot better today and excited for the sessions, parties, etc. I’m also ready to blog with some more event coverage ASAP (and as frequently as I have something to report / say).

The first session I went to was called Marketing Your Affiliate Site - Outside of the Box by Scott Hazard. I really enjoyed this presentation, particularly because Scott was such a likeable, friendly person. You could also tell this guy was ‘in the trenches’ so to speak and working on his own stuff. I find time and again that the presenters I like best are the ones that don’t have ‘jobs.’

Okay, I wish I could write more but I really do not want to miss anything from the Shoemoney / Jon (of WickedFire.com) presentation–this is the session I came to Vegas for Hopefully there are good questions and I’m sure there will be some great answers. Maybe I’ll even ask one, if something inspires me. Nothin’ planned though.

Overall though, and despite being a little off because of some family problems, I’m having an awesome time here at the Affiliate Summit and so far the people have all been really, really friendly. The vibe here is very unique and so far I love it. Okay, time for Shoe/Jon’s session!

  

Tags: affiliate, summit, west,, affiliate, summit,, asw,, affiliate, marketing,, affiliate, summit, las, vegas,, coverage

  

No, I don’t mean it’s the new “most important” component of the Google algorithm.  I mean it’s the one that probably isn’t that important but causes people to OBSESS.  Just like toolbar PageRank has done for years.

As always, this is personal opinion.

In the SEO world—in forums, blogs, tools, etc.—a ranking factor that is coming up more and more is age.  And people are saying, almost universally, that older is better, although most confess that freshness is important in tandem (i.e. you should keep adding new content).

If you objectively consider age as a ranking element, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s better or more relevant.  In fact, it could just as often be a negative attribute.  When I search for Vista reviews, for example, chances are I’m not looking for a review of the first beta.  I’m looking for the newest review. Sure, I could use Google news for this, but the results are limited and normal users probably don’t do that.  So why would Google put weight on age?  The short answer: they don’t.

Then why do all these high profile SEOs talk about it so much?  It’s the age old mistake of misinterpreting correlation and causation.

When reviewing high ranking sites, of course it’s going to look like age plays a role—older sites have a head start in link building and virtually every other aspect of SEO.  But just because older sites are ranking better it doesn’t mean they are doing so because of their age.  Most of the time, they have more natural links, more content, etc.

I frequently hear SEOs blaming poor rankings on a site’s age.  They go through their normal quick link building routine, whatever that may be, and then they don’t rank well right off the bat.  Looking for something to explain their poor rankings, they say “Oh, well it’s gotta be because my site’s so new.”

It’s an easy mistake to make because it seems to obvious.  But it’s wrong.  You’re not ranking poorly because your site is new, per say.  It’s because your site hasn’t doesn’t have enough—or good enough—links yet.  If you create a new site targeting competitive keyword terms, I’m sure you could rank in the top ten very quickly; IF you were able to get links from authority sites that were relevant and natural.

To push an example to an unrealistic extreme, just for sake of argument, consider creating a new site targeting a competitive term like Search Engine Optimization.  Most people would say you’re looking at YEARS of ‘age’ before you stand a chance.  Well that’s probably true, but ONLY because that’s how long it would take you to get enough link / trust juice.  Say this imaginary site were linked to from the Google homepage, Yahoo’s homepage, a good DMOZ category, etc. (multiply that by 1000) in just a few days.  I’d be willing to bet that it would rank well in a few weeks.

If you’re thinking the example is totally screwy because this is a pretty much impossible scenario, you’re missing the point.  The point is that it’s not about AGE, it’s about links.

I can specifically recall an episode of SEO Rockstars where they have Matt Cutts on as a guest.  The guys discuss an experiment they conducted with their nofollow / Link Condom site.  To sum up, they try to get Matt to admit the site isn’t ranking well because it’s young—and that their comparison page (on an established blog I believe) that they SEOd for the same term is ranking well because it’s on an older site—but Matt repeatedly denies this charge, surprisingly directly, citing other algorithmic elements (including some on site affiliate links).

Anyway, the main point is that if you sit around waiting for your site to age so it will rank well, you’re making a big mistake.   It’s not about age.  It’s about links.  In my mind, saying a site is ranking well (or even better) strictly because of domain age is like saying a site is ranking well because it has high PR—after all, most sites that rank well do have higher PR, even though we know and accept that PR is not the reason for their rankings.

  

  

I’ll preface by saying I think it’s very cool that rand posted the company’s financial statements… you don’t see companies doing that very often and the information is extremely interesting to other business people in the SEO industry—so thanks rand for making such a revealing post. And this should be interpreted as my perception of potential, not criticism. I also recognize that my opinions on what SEOMoz should do are “easier said than done,” so my post might be a little unfair in some regards.

Now I am not an SEOMozzer, if that moniker event exists. I’ve only recently subscribed to their RSS feed. My knowledge of the company is, therefore, fairly limited—but I am familiar with their reputation, presence at industry events, and some of their outstanding rankings (e.g. first page for “SEO” in Google).

You can read rand’s post here.

On to the real pinnacle of my discussion: “Total Earnings (2006) - $600,000”

$600,000? Wow, I’m stunned… there are plenty of affiliates I know personally making much more than that as individuals. And I’m under the impression that the $600,000 estimate is before expenses are deducted.

Most people might be more shocked by rand’s “personal earnings” of $38,000, “including bonuses.” But this doesn’t really surprise me–owner’s don’t necessarily have to pay themselves to make money—the business is essentially their asset.

In the earnings break down, the component I think is remarkably low and that SEOMoz should seek to improve in 2007 is “In-house Projects”—currently responsible for only $36,000 of earnings.

This is all opinion, but I believe that with the skills of the SEOMoz staff and the company’s industry connections, it wouldn’t be overly ambitious to say this number could be increased by 4000% or more fairly easily (up to nearly 1.5 million USD).

When you have an organization with industry leading skills in SEO and web development, you have the tools you need to create extremely lucrative “properties” of your own. There are countless terms, far less competitive than “SEO,” that could make this sum from affiliate links alone. This guy, Matt Inman, for example, is, in my mind—and based on what I’ve heard from him on SEOMoz, a potential goldmine. I would have him developing in-house sites whenever possible and then have the SEOs in the company promoting the properties he developed. Good web developers make good sites. Good sites, with good SEO, make ridiculous amounts of money. There are so many niches out there lacking the tools and resources users are searching for. If you can build the tools or resources and you know how to SEO them to get them going, they will grow on their own as webmasters, bloggers, etc., find and link to them.

I like and respect SEOMoz, so I hope next year I’ll be reading a new report from rand with a much bigger number on the “in-house projects” line. Good luck guys! You have the right tools and you’re in the right place.

  

Tags: seomoz,, seomoz.org,, seo, moz,, seo,, seo, moz, financial, statements,, rand,, rand, fishkin,, matt, inman

  

It took me about two years to actually give Webmaster Radio a try, but when I did I was really impressed by some of the shows–particularly Shoemoney’s show (Net Income) and SEO Rockstars.

As far as I can tell from the archives, I’ve listened to every single episode of Net Income several times (it’s good commuting material :)). The other day I was on a plane with my iPod and didn’t feel like listening to music, so I started up an old episode of Net Income; more specifically, the July 18th show with Kris Jones, CEO of Pepperjamsearch.com. Shoemoney and Kris discuss PPC and affiliate strategies.

While this is the second installment of a two part-series, you should be able to understand everything without listening to the preceding episode (although if you have time, I’d definitely recommend it). Kris really puts forward some quality, fundamental advice that applies to everyone from the total newbie to the super affiliate. My favorite segment is one I agree with wholeheartedly and that really screams to me “This guy GETS IT!” When asked about starting out on a limited budget (as an affiliate), Kris responds:

This is IT! This is all there is to it, and Kris does a great job laying it out. I really love and passionately relate to / support his thought process when he remembers his reaction to his first paycheck: “WOW, if I could make a $100… I knew at that time this was back you know 5 or 6 years ago I knew at that time there were more than 1,000 merchants who had affiliate programs, so I figured if I could make $50 or $100 per merchant program, per month, you know, you’re talking about a lot of money.”

Later Kris reiterates this concept:

Once you could perfect a concept that makes you money…. You know, take it back to my initial philosophy. If you could figure out how to make $100 doing one thing, why not try to replicate that 500 or 1,000 times? Right?

Anyway, I won’t repeat the whole thing here, and I know it’s an old episode, but I just listened to it again and was really struck by how good Kris’ advice is. I’m really looking forward to hearing him speak at Affiliate Summit West.

Tags: kris, jones,, pepperjam,, pepper, jam,, affiliate, marketing,, affiliates,, tips,, net, income,, webmaster, radio,, shoemoney,, affiliate, summit,, affiliate, summit, west

  

I’ll cut to the chase: Monday, the 18^th of this month, Google made a post on the AdSense Blog stating: “We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads.”

This has, by the majority of publishers, been assumed for some time. However, it was also long rumored (and seen in practice) that Google would tolerate images next to AdSense ads, so long as there was a line or some other divide segregating the images. In theory, this safeguard allowed publishers to be ‘resourceful’ in their placement of images next to ads without violating AdSense Terms of Service. In fact, Shoemoney even went so far as to develop a really cool php-based tool that uses the Yahoo! Image API to locate and resize relevant (hopefully) / unique images on the fly.

I’m sure most of my readers have seen the image-by-ads tactic many times before, but just in case I’ve been unclear, here’s the (very typical) example posted on the AdSense blog:

Google addressed this notion with an uncharacteristically direct response:

Here’s an idea for Google: Why not allow advertisers to upload small, pertinent images when they create their ads? Publishers obviously wouldn’t object—many of them are already doing it now in violation of AdSense TOS. Furthermore, the images would be more relevant if they were controlled by the advertisers and they would also provide a visual reinforcement to the message delivered by standard AdSense ads (after all, the advertiser would have the option of uploading a small image with each ad, and these images would go through an approval process just like ad copy).

And let’s do some thinking… Why are publishers putting these images next to the ads? Because for some reason these images increase the CTR. Whoa! That’s what advertisers want, too! A high CTR.

If Google took control and allowed unique ad formats that included small images like these, everyone would win: the publishers (higher CTR), the advertisers (higher CTR) and Google (higher CTR). My guess is it’s just a matter of time—at least it should be.

  

Tags: adsense,, google,, seo,, shoemoney,, images,, adsense, ads,, ctr,, search, engine, optimization

  

DOH! It was just a tease. I loaded up Shoemoney’s blog this morning and what did I see? A picture of myself at PubCon (I’m on the right hand side, the guy in the middle is my friend from home, Eder Callejas)! Hmmm…. ‘He must be posting something about my SEO Loser blog!’, I thought. After taking a deep breath I started to read the post and saw that it’s about “Hot Chicks at Search Engine Conferences.”

Okay, the irony is too overwhelming: I create a blog about how I learned I am an SEO Loser… the blog’s main post talks quite a bit about Shoemoney. Several weeks later, Shoemoney posts a picture of me on his homepage. It turns out Shoemoney doesn’t know the picture is me (duh, I’m a loser), and he made the post ‘cause I happen to be standing next to a hot chick.

Does this remind anyone else of waving back at someone and then realizing they were actually waving at the person behind you?