Interesting response to the social advertising model

Over the past few weeks I have been talking to people about social advertising in this case the release of Agloco. This is a very strange phenomenon, its amazing how many people are excited about it. I have the distinct feeling that this will be another Web 2.0 hit.

Are we so money hungry that getting paid to have ads on your web browser can be such a hit? I could imagine IT guys running computer to computer installing the ads under their account and making out like bandits.

SEO in Bay Area News

I was very impressed to see and article posted by the San Francisco Chronicle identifying Search Engine Optimization as a valid source of marketing. A client of mine pointed me to the paper yesterday and thought it would be interesting to have a discussion about it.

At a very low level this is exposing our business to the mainstream clientele, which is great. However, I wish they would have suggested a site that talks about SEO, www.webmasterworld.com would have been a great place to send people. Not an SEO firm.

This type of education is very important to opening up our market. Kudos to the Chronicle for bringing it up!

Google closes the doors on Google Answers

Actually this is a great sign that Google is starting to think about their bottom line. Why offer a charity service like Google Answers when you can focus on revenue? Could this be a sign of changes to come? They stopped investing in unknown highly risky new businesses just a few months back, now we are seeing actual services being shut down.

I am not saying that I do not like free services that Google has offered for years, however if they expect to maintain that ridicules stock price they need to start innovating towards profit and less towards the “that’s cool this month”.

Duplicate content – Shingles

Boogybonbon.com has posted a very interesting article on duplicate content. In this case the reference to Shingles is a block of text that has been directly copied from one site to another. In some cases people use shingles and simply replace keywords that they feel are more appropriate for the page that they are placing it on.

There is a general theory that if you add unique content around this Shingle you can make the content seems more worth while. This article points out that this is not the case and if you wish to use a Shingle, you need to edit the Shingle significantly.

I completely agree with this data and furthermore have had successful examples of this with one of my Billiard sites. When I first launched my Billiard site I would take the content from the manufacturer and place it on my site. Having almost no positive SEO benefits, I attempted to add additional content to the pages which had a nominal lift. When I completely re-wrote each product they sky rocketed up in the rankings. Obviously I used the manufactures specs within my content since it wouldn’t make sense to use other incorrect data.

Interesting read, added it to my home page reader.

Turning off Text Decoration for Links, Bad for SEO?

If there is one thing that stuck in my head at the Pubcon is the conversation about turning Text Decoration off. Basically this make a link not look like a link and it looks like normal text. Usually this is done for style purposes, I never thought about it as a SEO hindrance. I am wondering if anyone has had a similar experience with this.

Especially since so many use this.

Do you remember All Advantage?

You would get paid to surf and the more people you had under you the more you would make. I am actually excited about this new version of it since the new ad rates are so much more expensive you could actually make a nice sum per month. Below is a bit of info about it, I think they will make a killing on this thing. If you want to try it, use my id here ofcourse ;-)

How does this work? Once you sign up on their website, when available you will be able to download the Viewbar software, a free toolbar-sized application (half the size of a traditional Windows tool bar) that quietly sits on your desktop without ever hampering your online habits. That’s all you need to do! Just continue using the Internet as you used to… no need to change your habits!Do you have several individuals using one computer? You can have different AGLOCO™ viewbars to fit the profile of each user.Don’t want to see or use the Viewbar at any given time? Just minimize it and the Viewbar stops working!

There are different ways

AGLOCO™ can make money for its Members:

Cash: You get cash by surfing the Internet while the Viewbar is running. AGLOCO™ ’s profits are distributed back to its Members. And you can also receive real-time discounts should you choose to purchase from AGLOCO™ ’s partners. They will never include gambling or adult entertainment sites as partners.

Shares: In addition to cash, AGLOCO™ will give out shares in the company to its Members. Eventually, AGLOCO™ plans to go public and will be traded on the London Stock Exchange AIM. You can start earning stock options by keeping Viewbar active while you surf. In addition, you will gain extra shares by referring active users to AGLOCO™ (they lose nothing). Click here to see the calculator.

The more people join AGLOCO™ , the more value the community can generate for itself. The company believes those that build the community deserve more: your own profits become larger the more people you refer. You can accumulate hours not only from your Internet activity but also from those who you refer, and their referrals too… Up to 5 levels underneath you! For example, if you refer 10 people and all of them refer 5 people each, you could make over 7000 shares a month*!Remember, this is all free, you don’t lose anything, all you have to do is sign up, download the Viewbar and that’s it. Build your network and refer friends, family and colleagues to AGLOCO™ and earn even more!

The guys behind this idea include several Stanford MBA’s and a few individuals who started AllAdvantage back in 1998, which gave over $100 million to its users before falling victim to the burst of the internet bubble. Today, the context is much more favorable: The sophistication of on-line commerce, the rapid emergence of communities, the wealth of advertising revenue sources, etc. Isn’t it time you got your share of the Internet?

Don't wait any longer. This is a win-win opportunity, and you’ll make it even more profitable for yourself when you start referring friends and relatives before others get to them!

Since I assume you learned about AGLOCO™ thanks to my website*, please don’t forget to add my referee ID when signing up: AGLO-0221. Click here to sign up directly!

New Look and Feel with Google’s Webmaster Tools

It looks like Vanessa Fox’s team has been pretty busy with another cleanup of the Google Webmaster Tools. Now you can expand or contract different boxes and the error messages seem a little easier on the eyes. Nice job!

Pubcon Recap

Sorry for my lack of posting, it's been a crazy month so far.

I found this years Pubcon to be an interesting one. The first day was not what I expected, however I found that the sessions on Wednesday and Thursday where very good. It may have been that since I was involved with 2 of the sessions on Tuesday I did not get to see a great picture.

I was VERY impressed with Guy Kawasaki, his advice on Power Point presentations was great! As he requested I am giving him a link, he wanted to move up a notch.

The In-house optimization forum was pretty good, but the only In-House SEO person on the panel was Jessica Bowman, who I am very impressed with. Business.com got a great in-house SEO! Congrats to Jessica! Heather brought up some interesting information about training problems.

The Large Scale Bid Management was very similar to Boston. Check out Kevin Lee’s presentation, there is so much information that you may have to read it several times.

Corporate Mega Site SEO Management, was also very interesting. I think Robert Carilli from Shop.com had a great presentation, but went off track a little with his SEM data. Where he continued to bring up examples of my sites, which we have corrected. ;-) Andrew Gerhart had a good insight on training and getting people on your side at a mega size company, like Primedia.

Site Structure for Crawlability was another interesting session; I felt there should have been more about the long tail. But this was a great session for beginners; Brett Tabke showed how he selects his site and keyword structure. A very similar procedure to my own, great job Brett!

The purchasing links session did not add any new information from the last Pubcon, I wish they had brought up other alternative ways to drive links.

I also participated at the Ecommerce Site Optimization forum, which I thought was a great forum. May have been one of the best, I was very impressed with the amount of knowledge that the other panelists had. Especially Rob Snell, he is an optimization animal. I would pick up his book Yahoo Stores for Dummies!

As usual the Interactive Site reviews was a great panel, Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Greg Boser, Todd Friesen, Danny Sullivan all do a great job picking out problems with sites. The only trouble was that the crowd was a little harsh on a few of their volunteers.

Also a side note, I really feel sorry for Matt Cutts he just gets slammed at this event. I barely got to say hi, he was bombarded with questions, I am sure he was warn-out by the end.

Blogger Beta Conversion

Finally the new version of Blogger is available for conversion; it was disappointing that you could not convert your old blogger blog to the new one. As of today it looks like you can convert your current blog. I have converted this one and started to put tags on the posts. The conversion was very seamless and it also allowed me to tie my gmail account with the blog. Seems like its operating nicely, but it’s a beta so who knows?

Back in San Francisco

After a much needed business trip to Europe I am finally back in San Francisco today. As much as I love Europe, San Francisco is my home and I always feel integrated with the pulse of the city here. The Webmaster World Pubcon starts Tuesday, I am looking forward to seeing everyone again this week. As the SEO world continues to grow and transform the Pubcon is a very important show to attend. I am involved with 3 of the sessions, stop by and say hi if you around.

Hello from Paris

Got to Paris last night off of the Euro Star bullet train that was a cool experience. I have only been through Paris briefly before and never got to see anything. So far I must say this city is amazing, one of the most beautiful I have seen in years. In terms of the American in Paris paranoia, the cab drivers here are extremely rude. But the younger people here are very friendly. Other than I cant really read anything, I am enjoying the sites. My office is very centrally located making it a great experience.

Linkbucks

Rand posted about this new monetization platform called link bucks, that seems to have an interstitial between clicks on the site to monetize your traffic. I think it’s a little heavy myself. But I have installed the full settings on this blog, try it out and tell me what your opinion is? Is it too much?

This type of monetization has been available for a while now but required a lot of programming. So it’s pretty cool that you can add it to any site in seconds.

Hello from London

After an amazing trip in Dublin I got to London late last night. I keep forgetting how long that taxi line at Paddington can get; it must have been 200 deep. Every time I come to London I have a great time, but with the current strength of the US dollar it’s very challenging. My office is down in the Richmond so my morning commute is pretty thick from Oxford Circus. Getting a lot done work wise, but looking forward to going out and having a few drinks with some old friends and colleagues this week. Trip is slightly changing I will be in Paris Thursday afternoon, through Saturday.

Hello from Dublin

I got to Dublin late last night, I always enjoy flying Lufthansa Air great service every time. But I got to the Hertz car rental counter and they handed me my keys to this Opel after I made a reservation for a BMW. I asked if they gave away my car and they said no, you need to be 30 to rent a cheap BMW in Ireland. As a 5 star gold member of Hertz I was pissed. I will never rent from Hertz outside the US again, in June one of their employees in Tel Aviv stole my laptop. I could write for hours on how they suck. It’s really depressing when a kid 18 +/- tells a 29 year old guy that he is too young to rent a cheap BMW.

I have to gripe about Google maps, no coverage in Dublin. I really needed the maps and no one has it online. I have the Always Lost system from Hertz, which is missing most of the addresses that I needed. It didn’t have the address of my office, or the address of my hotel. On the way to the office this morning it told me to drive the wrong way down a one way street. Great logic!

But Dublin is beautiful, from the little I have seen I am in love! What a great city, if you have a chance you have to visit!

Hello from Berlin

Got in on Monday this week and it was a little cold here, but the last 2 days have been freezing. I had no idea it could get so cold so fast! Berlin is beautiful, great food and good bars. I have enjoyed meeting a few of the top SEO’s from Germany here, its amazing what these guys come up with. Just like the cars they really think out of the box when it comes to tactics. Off to Dublin tonight!