Online Marketing Journal | Net-Tracks.com

Google’s Phishing Campaign for Paid Links

bilbo — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:09:29 +0000

Here’s a little story for all my tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist friends out there who have reason not to trust Google. (In the interests of full disclosure, I do not trust Google for a variety of reasons (which is an entirely separate blog post). That being said, my opinion is admittedly biased with respect to Google.

But recently, I’ve been tracking a very suspicious phishing campaign (of sorts) that appears to be an attempt to ferret out paid link buyers. I know it might sound a little crazy, and I may just be totally nuts (wouldn’t be the first time I was accused of that) but hear me out on this one.

I recently received several spam emails from several, self-proclaimed “SEO Marketers” looking to sell text links and blog post reviews. The first one that I received appeared totally innocuous:

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Digg Shouting - Can Everybody Please Shut Up?

Wes Lewis — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:24:55 +0000

Digg “shouting”, the act of sharing a link between Digg users, built the foundation of gaining Diggs. Once upon a time, the powerful Diggers with massive networks had a great deal of influence on submission popularity. A few even reached somewhat of a celebrity status. For those who managed to reach the “uber” pathetic levels of internet nerdom, their submissions were almost guaranteed to make the front page. Fifteen minutes of anonymous cyber-fame had never felt so good.

However, recently Digg changed their algorithm to make the sweatpants-clad super Diggers less powerful.

Votes from Digg friends were no longer worth as much as before. Now Kevin Rose’s submissions don’t pimp the system. The multitude of his diggs, garnered moslty from the sheer volume of man-crushes alone, will not rank as heavy as before.

I initially expected that incoming shouts would lighten up. I thought users would realize the changes and try a different method of gaining popularity. But to my amazement, shouts became even more aggressive, as people became more desperate to earn Diggs.

I have a good deal of “friends” online. Some I added because I know them personally. Some were because I was interested in their Diggs. And some I added just to get a diverse portfolio, hoping my submissions would be propagated through the system. But because of the algorithm change, people just don’t seem to be using DIGG shouting correctly.

Does a User’s Mindset Matter in Search?

bilbo — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:26:57 +0000

Several years back, Yahoo! released a product called Yahoo! Mindset which dealt with the challenge of differing mindsets that users might have for the same search query. Yahoo! Mindset would essentially reorder the search results with a machine learning system that was based on the user’s mindset or orientation. The tool was fairly simple and intuitive to understand, utilizing a sliding bar that categorized the user’s search mindset as a “shopping” mindset or a “research” mindset. Sliding the bar all the way to the left for “shopping” would produce a search results page for that keyword that was oriented predominantly for those who might be shopping for products/services for that particular keyword. Sliding the bar all the way to the right for “research” for the same search query would produce a different set of results that were predominantly “research” or informational-oriented results for the same keyword query and topic in question.

Now, I just loved this tool. Reordering the search results based on varying mindsets and even varying degrees of different mindsets worked perfectly for me. But Yahoo! Mindset has since gone underground and the website is currently unavailable. (That’s why I didn’t link back to it because the link to Yahoo! Mindset is currently offline.)

Now, some people might think that this is way too much to ask of a common user doing a search, which may be true. But being able to reorder search results based on mindset is so critically important for a number of different reasons… (more…)

Should I Report Paid Links?

bilbo — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:05:38 +0000

There has been quite a firestorm in the webmastering community as of late regarding paid links. Actually for some time now, there’s been heated debate over the use of them, the SEO benefit and whether or not to engage or restrain from using them. Paying for links benefits a web site in 2 ways. First and foremost, a webmaster that buys a link on a web site with a similar theme or similar content theoretically improves the authority of his own site by nature of the “vote” or vouching that the site owner receives from the other web site. The entire paid link industry was born and has thrived from the well-documented search engine bias and improved search engine rankings resulting from the link juice that passes from one web site to another.

Now, Google in their infinite wisdom and unquenchable pursuit to secure FUD has dubbed them unequivocally evil. So eventually, I drank the Kool-Aid on the advice of Matt Cutts and other industry luminaries regarding paid links. But, of course, only after being toasted a time or two as a result of paid links.

I admittedly made the egregious error of “sponsoring” a WordPress template. Cringe and shudder. The site wide link essentially went on to be a hugely popular template that ended up getting thousands upon thousands of off-topic unrelated links that ultimately vaporized the site in the SERPs, particularly in Google. Double-Doh! All it takes is one miserable mistake like that to get screwed hard. So I paid the price… (more…)

Contextual Search Advertising Sucks

bilbo — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:16:36 +0000

I am not a fan of contextual “search” marketing. I think the value of the inventory is overvalued and its usefulness is overblown.

The idea of contextual marketing sounds reasonable and, at face value, it makes sense.

According to Wikisuckia:

Advertising on a Web site that is targeted to the specific individual who is visiting the Web site. A contextual ad system scans the text of a Web site for keywords and returns ads to the Web page based on what the user is viewing … [for] example, if the user is viewing a site about sports, and the site uses contextual advertising, the user might see ads for sports-related companies, such as memorabilia dealers or ticket sellers.

If you’re selling red sports cars, you put your ad in an article about cars (hopefully it’s an article about red sports cars) … sounds perfectly logical, right?

But there are some pretty significant challenges with contextual advertising and some rules that should be applied.

First of all, should this really be considered “search” marketing? Absolutely not. Contextual advertising is just a different form of banner advertising. A relevant text ad? Hopefully. A better form of banner advertising? Yes. But it’s still, at its core, banner advertising. Contextual advertising is very clearly NOT search. So pretty please with sugar on top, STOP CALLING IT “SEARCH.”

Search marketing can effectively be divided into 2 significant channels of distribution: search engine results pages (SERPS) and contextual networks. The difference between SERPS and contextual networks is a critical distinction … it’s push vs. pull marketing. Contextually targeted advertising is (radio, TV, banner ads) whereby the advertiser is pushing out his messaging to his target audience versus the “pull” effect of keyword advertising-based (SERPS). A consumer that goes to a search engine and does a search query on the term “Buy Sony KE-50XBR950 Plasma Television” is in buy-mode and is most likely predisposed to buying in the near term. Consumers doing a search and finding a “pull” advertisement on a SERP are much further down the road in the buy cycle and are typically much closer to a buy decision than consumers responding (see, clicking) to a “push” marketing message. When comparing contextual to straight search, you get a consumer in sometimes wildly divergent locations within the buying cycle. (more…)