In my last post I covered this site being flagged by StopBadware.org and then removed from Google’s listings. I did a check late last night and it i730 mp3 nextel ringtones,mp3 nextel ringtones,nextel mp3 ringtonesblackberry free ringtonesfree country music ringtonesfree cricket wireless ringtonessamsung polyphonic ringtonesdownload wwe ringtones for freefree download mobile ringtones,download free mobile phone ringtones t,download free ringtones for virgin mobile phonedownload free tracfone ringtonesdownload free ringtones boost mobilefree ringtones for nextel phone24 theme ringtones,24 ringtones theme100 free real music ringtonesfree cingular wireless ringtonesfree yahoo ringtonesdownload free lg ringtonesfree nokia ringtones composer100 free mobile ringtonespolyphonic ringtones,ericsson polyphonic ringtones sony,nokia polyphonic ringtonessamsung ringtones downloadfree real ringtones verizonfree samsung cell phone ringtonescountry music ringtones,free country music ringtonessend ringtones to cell phonedownload free midi ringtonesfree cingular music ringtonesfree verizon real music ringtonesnokia polyphonic ringtones,nokia 3560 polyphonic ringtones,6560 nokia polyphonic ringtones1100 compositor nokia peliculas ringtones,ringtones gratis nokia 1100,nokia 1100 ringtonescingular phone free real ringtones100 download free ringtones,100 cell free phone ringtones,100 free ringtones3g for free ringtones,3g audio free ringtones,3g 4 free ringtonesinfo polyphonic remember ringtones,downloadable info polyphonic remember ringtones,info polyphonic remember ringtones siemensringtones maker,3 maker ringtones sidekick,ringtones maker serialdownload free sprint ringtonesdownload free ringtones for verizon wireless phone,download free verizon ringtonesonline poker strategypoker moneyfree 7 card stud pokertexas hold em game7 card stud poker rulesno limit texas holdem,free no limit texas holdem,no limit texas holdem pokerfree online texas holdem pokerstud poker rule,free caribbean stud poker,stud pokergambling pokerfree online poker tip,free online poker,free online hold em pokerpoker gamesonline roulette pokerfree texas holdem card game,free texas holdem game,free texas holdem game downloadonline casino poker tournamentonline betting poker appears we’re back in the the top 5 for our promoted keywords.

What have we learned from the ordeal? From now on we’re only using plugins that can be downloaded from the WordPress site.

Any snippet of widget code or affiliate advertiser code will also be suspect and scanned for iFrame tags.

Many new ad networks are springing up for the blogging community. In the interest of gaining advertisers as quickly as possible, some of the networks aren’t particularly selective in who they take on. The StopBadware.org site lists advertising networks that include advertisers that distribute badware as a common reason blogs are being flagged with the “Warning - this web site may harm your computer” Google message.

About three weeks ago our blog was flagged by Google and StopBadware.org. Our traffic dropped right off due to the warning “Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!” placed in our listing on Google. We got right to work on solving the problem but soon found our site delisted.

It took a while to track the problem down. The information on StopBadAware.org was very vague. We updated our version of WordPress, but that didn’t help. We then requested a review from StopBadware.org and it took a while to get a reply. The piece of offending exploit code came from a third party WordPress Traffic Statistics plug-in we installed (don’t even know where we downloaded it) that tracked stats through WordPress.org and inserted a bit of code at the footer of our posts in an iframe.

Once the Stats plug-in was removed we requested that Google review our site and the message was removed within 24 hours. Unfortunately, our PageRank and first page ranking have not been restored. I did a search for our site today and we’ve completely vanished from Google.

In our quest to resolve this issue we encountered quite a few other WordPress bloggers who had been flagged by StopBadware.org and Google. We’ve vowed never to download another plug-in from any sites other than the WordPress site.

We welcome your input. If you know of any problem plug-ins please share them. The one that caused all the mischief in our case was simply a file in the Plugins folder labeled stats.php.

Having your site listed on Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) is one of the best ways to gain high quality backlinks. Being listed on these top directories also influences your placement in other search engines and directories.

Yahoo! charges $299 annually for a listing in their directory. They do however guarantee that your site will be reviewed within 7 business days.

The Open Directory Project (DMOZ) can also take months and repeated submissions before you’re indexed. If your site has been accepted into the Open Directory, it may take anywhere from two weeks to several months for your site to be listed on partner sites which use the Open Directory data, such as AOL Search, Google, Netscape Search, Yahoo Search, and hundreds of other sites. Open Directory is definitely worth your effort.

On rare occasions, these directories will allow you to slip some keywords into the title, but do so at your own risk. This practice could raise a red flag for your submission and subject it to additional scrutiny.

The website description you include with your submission has a big impact upon how your site will rank once it’s listed in the directory. It is very important to get it right the first time. If you include too much promotional jargon in your description or make it too long, the human editors are sure to change it. If they do, it’s highly unlikely that your keywords won’t appear in the final listing. Be concise, be sensible, and, most of all, include your most important keywords wherever you can without appearing to be keyword loading.

Start with your meta description tag for your site. Copy and paste it into the submission form, then start deleting extraneous words. Reposition words until you have the shortest yet most descriptive sentence possible. If you do this correctly, chances are the editors won’t alter it. They’ll appreciate the fact that you saved them the time of editing the description.

The words you’re using in your description must appear on the pages of your site. If they don’t, and the site appears to be about subjects other than what you described in your form, your description might be edited. It’s almost impossible to change a site description once it’s listed in most Internet directories. Get it absolutely right the first time.

One shortcut to getting into DMOZ is to volunteer as an editor in the category you wish to appear. The time investment in most cases is well worth the return of having exactly the listing you want approved with just one submission.

Technorati Tags: zeal submission, dmoz submission, yahoo submission

Contextual advertising has become one of the most lucrative monetization vehicles available to bloggers and affiliate publishers. Our own blogs and sites have done particularly well with contextual ad links.

As publishers, here are the factors we consider when evaluating a contextual (text link) ad or affiliate program:

• Is it easy to sign up?
• Is the program available for any site or only a specific blog platform?
• Is it easy to install the code or plug-in?
• Can we combine ads with other ad brokers like AdSense?
• Does the company sell enough ads to actually place ads on your niche site?
• Is the limit before payments low enough to realize profits quickly?
• Do they pay reliably?

The publisher registration form at www.tnx.net/register.php was a snap to fill in… only five fields. I like that! TNX guarantees to review your site within 3 days.

The ads display on any page you place the code on. For blogs, just pop it in the footer. For HTML sites, just place the code on any page you wish ads to be sold on. The more pages, the more real estate you have to offer and the more ads you can sell. The price of each ad sold is based upon the page’s search engine rating. With TNX, you’re in charge of which pages the ads appear on.

TNX.net has no problem with you combining ad brokers. Even if some context ad brokers do have a problem with combining contextual ads from different systems, you can still ad TNX’s code because the ads appear as standard text links. Nobody can stop you from placing direct links in your pages.

TNX pays by a point system instead of PayPal/cheque. You can accumulate points and watch them grow, sell them back to TNX or another TNX member or buy links for advertising your own site.

There is a cost, by way of a 12.5% commission TNX charges to both advertiser and publisher.

If you have a PageRank above zero, you should give TNX.net a try. They have a handy income calculator on the site you can use to determine how well you could do with TNX.

Check out the forum post at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=477444 for more information.

We plan to try TNX on one of our other websites (www.whitewolfdesign.com) and will update this article from time to time. If you have used TNX we welcome your comments.

Technorati Tags: contextual advertising, kontera, tnx.net, text link ads

The Internet and search engines have reached a new level of maturity and sophistication. Search engines are putting more and more weight on the age of the domain in their algorithms.

If you purchase a domain that ranks reasonably well, but where the owner has failed to monetize the site or convert visitors into buyers, and the domain name matches the keywords you want to promote, you can shave many months off the standard ranking process. You should be able to buy an instant page rank cheaply because of the previous owner’s lack of marketing savvy.

According to the Google’s Sandbox theory, all new domains will take six to twelve months to rank well. If your business is solely Internet based buying a seasoned domain with a pagerank can literally mean the difference between a brilliant success and bankruptcy.

Whether or not you believe in the Google Sandbox theory, in most search engines, the age of the domain does play a role in site ranking. There are web pages in the index that have been there for a decade that have less than twenty back links, on extremely competitive terms, that rank in the top five positions.

An existing domain name that is already in the index is a valuable commodity. If you’re looking for a shortcut to search engine rankings, traffic and online profits, consider purchasing a mature domain.

A note of caution is in order. If you aren’t careful and purchase a domain that has been banned for either search engine black hat techniques or for click fraud then you can pretty much write off that domain for ever getting into the indexes again.

Cole Wiebe
Vancouver SEO

Technorati Tags: aged domains, seasoned domain, mature domains

There are three unique types of searchers who visit the search engines you are targeting.

1) Navigational Searchers

Navigational searchers are searching for a specific website. Sometimes, it’s because they have visited the site before or perhaps someone described it to them. Often, they have heard of a particular company or its products. Perhaps they were flipping through a magazine and saw something that piqued their interest. And lastly, there are many Internet searchers who have so much confidence in the web that if they think of something they assume a site exists to that covers it.

Navigational searchers are not web surfers. They know what they are looking for and no other site will do.

Niche affiliate marketing has captitalized on the navigational searcher, providing niche-specific content to exactly fit their unique requirements.

Navigational searchers are the only group likely to go past page one in the search results, if they don’t find titles and description snippets that match their queries in the first ten search results.

2) Informational Searchers

Informational searchers are looking for in-depth content on a very specific subject. They believe the deep information exists but they don’t know where to find it. Unlike navigational searchers, informational searches aren’t looking for a specific answer. They will often click several of the top ten search results, then follow the links in the sites they arrive at to expand their search.

Almost every Internet user is an informational searcher at some point, and
informational searchers are the mainstay of any search marketing program. Informational searchers have not firmly decided on a product or service, so they are still ‘up for grabs’. They allow you the opportunity to sell them. Conversion plays a vital role with informational searchers, turning visitors into buyers.

3) Transactional Searchers

Transactional searchers are ‘can do’ people. They make things happen. They are not surfing for information. They want to take action. Transactional searchers want to buy something, download something, sign up for a newsletter, subscribe to a blog, donate to a charity, etc.

Make sure the keywords for any specific searches they may enter come up on search engines and your site search. They enter model number and product/service information.

Transactional queries are the most difficult to optimize your site for. The product and service pages they are looking for are often database-generated catalog pages, which have little content to work with. You’ll have to be careful to include all relavent keywords in these brief descriptions. Choice of your shopping cart or CMS, based upon optimization will be critical.

If you would like follow-up articles on optimizing for each group, please comment.

Technorati Tags: navigational searchers, informational searchers, transactional searchers

What do you think about this? I personally think this show will reduce the credibility of those of us who provide legitimate services and products online, fueling the ‘get rich quick on the web’ ebook craze to new heights. Imagine the wave of spam that will follow this show’s airing and the flood of bogus unproven strategies to be foisted upon the ’something for nothing’ groupies. Scary stuff!

Your thoughts?

SEO experts and Internet marketing consultants don’t always agree on SEO pricing and budgeting, but on average the SEO budget recommendation works out to 4 - 5 times the cost of the website. In other words, if a company’s annual website budget is $15,000.00, SEO and Internet marketing should be between $60,000.00 and $75,000.00.

To their extreme detriment, most website owners have it exactly in reverse. They’ll invest only a paltry 5 to 10% into SEO and Internet marketing.. The results will almost always be a disaster. The most drop-dead-gorgeous award-winning website without traffic is like having boxes of Clio-winning four color glossy brochures stacked neatly in the storage closet.

Small companies often feel they can’t afford to invest in SEO. They’ll build a budget site for two or three thousand and then throw a few dollars after it with a $24.95 site submission package. What they should have done is invest $500.00 into the site and $2,500.00 into first rate SEO and Internet marketing, developing the backlinks that provide a top-5 ranking on Google, Yahoo Search and MSN Search. Even a butt-ugly website (while not recommended) with a flood of qualified traffic will always outperform the pretty site with little or no traffic.

Some SEOs like Vancouver SEO expert, Cole Wiebe, offer monthly SEO plans at very reasonable rates. Even a small company can afford six to nine months of Advantage SEO or  Extreme SEO to drive serious traffic to their site.

Technorati Tags: seo investment, seo budget, how much for SEO

SEO Only uses WebPosition 4 Professional as its search engine ranking benchmark. WebPosition not only shows monthly rankings on the leading search engines. It helps target keywords, analyze conversion rates and optimize web pages.

At SEO Only, we’ve depended on WebPosition software for eight years. Our clients recognize the WebPosition reports as an industry benchmark.

Web CEO 7.0 is a suite of 12 programs that cover all aspects of SEO optimization and website promotion. The company broke new ground when they made the lowest level of Web CEO a free product in 2004, a bold step but one which seems to be paying off. My first introduction to Web CEO was an email that offered me the amazing Free software.

Web CEO is a feature rich application and is backed by a superb team of developers. New updates are constantly available (even for the free version) and response times for technical queries are excellent.

Optimize Your Site:

Find best keywords. The keyword mining software will help you pick out keywords with lowest competition and highest demand, i.e. best from the SEO POV.

Optimize your site for high rankings: the page analyzer built into our SEO software will give you detailed SEO advice in plain English.

Promote Your Site:

Submit your URLs to search engines by using our wise and safe SEO submission software.

Know who links to your site, and to your competition. Web CEO’s link analysis software reports inbound links, and even analyzes their text which is important for SEO.

Find link partners and build link popularity. Any SEO software would be incomplete without a tool for building link popularity.

Manage paid search campaigns. Though not directly related to organic SEO, PPC software is an important Web marketing tool.

Analyze Your Site:

Check your rankings with search engines. Web CEO software allows for tracking your SEO success with an advanced ranking checker and keywords trends.

Track and analyze your visitors, ad campaigns, transactions, revenues, etc. with more than 120 live analytical reports built into our software

Maintain Your Site:

Pinpoint broken links and other errors on your site.

Edit your Web pages in the WYSIWYG mode.

Upload HTML and other files to your server.

Monitor your website to know if it is up or down.

I don’t think any webmaster should be without at least the free edition of Web CEO. If you’re a serious webmaster or site owner, or active in flipping web estate (websites), upgrade or purchase Web CEO 7.0 before leaving this site. It’s must have software and will be money well spent. I can’t imagine pulling the traffic I need to make the income I make without it.

seo-guy

Technorati Tags: web ceo, seo software