Posted by rebecca
Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week:
Two star links:
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Roundup Thursday for the Week of 3/23/08
The Blend - 2008 Online Publishing Business Strategy
John Battelle riffs on how Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL are screwing up by following in Google’s footsteps trying to create huge ad platforms, while ignoring their brand ad strength. And AdAge asks if we may one day see a web free of push display ads.
If traditional ads become less effective, we will still end up trusting ads that are links that look just like content. How to article linkbait, user generated content, and 100% blended affiliate links now make up the Mahalo business model. Which is really no different than the affiliate marketing Jason despises. That really puts a new perspective on somebody lashing out at SEOs and affiliate marketers before creating something that aspires to be more polluted.
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Tags: Blend, Online, Publishing, Business, StrategySeparating Web Spam from Quality Content - What are the Metrics?
Posted by randfish
Let’s try a little excercise…
Common features of spam domains include:
Long domain names .info, .cc, .us and other cheap, easy to grab TLDs Short registration period (1 year, maybe 2) High ratio of ad blocks to content Javascript redirects from initial landing pages Use of common, high-commercial value spam keywords like “mortgage,” “poker,” “texas hold ‘em,” “porn,” “student credit cards,” and related terms Many links to other low quality, spam sites Few links to high quality, trusted sites High keyword frequencies and keyword densities Small amounts of unique content Very few direct visits Very few links sent out in (non-spam) email to the site Registered to people/entities not associated with trusted sites Not frequently registered with services like Yahoo! Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Central or Live Webmaster Tools Rarely have short, high value domain names Often contain many keyword-stuffed subdomains More likely to have longer domain names More likely to contain multiple hyphens in the domain name Less likely to have links from trusted sources Less likely to have SSL Security certificates Less likely to be in directories like DMOZ, Yahoo!, Librarian’s Internet Index, etc. Unlikely to have any significant quantity of branded searches Unlikely to be bookmarked in services like My Yahoo!, Del.icio.us, Faves.com, etc. Unilkely to get featured in social voting sites like Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! Buzz, StumbleUpon, etc. Unlikely to have channels on YouTube, communities on Facebook or links from Wikipedia Unlikely to be mentioned on major news sites (either with or without link attribution) Unlikely to register with Google/Yahoo!/MSN Local Services Unlikely to have a legitimate physical address/phone number on the website Likely to have the domain associated with emails on blacklists Often contain a large number of snippets of “duplicate” content found elsewhere on the web Unlikely to contain unique content in the form of PDFs, PPTs, XLSs, DOCs, etc. Frequently feature commercially focused content Many levels of links away from highly trusted websites Rarely contain privacy policy and copyright notice pages Rarely listed in Better Business Bureau’s Online Directory Rarely contains high grade level text content (as measured by metrics like Fleisch-Kincaid Reading Level) Rarely have small snippets of text quoted on other websites and pages Cloaking based on user-agent or IP address is common Rarely contain paid analytics tracking software Rarely have online or offline marketing campaigns Rarely have affilliate link programs pointing to them Less likely to have .com or .org extensions Almost never have .mil, .edu or .gov extensions Rarely have links from domains with .edu or .gov extensions Almost never have links from domains with .mil extensions Rarely receive high quantities of monthly visits Rarely have visits lasting longer than 30 seconds Rarely have visitors bookmarking their domains in the browser Unlikely to buy significant quantities of PPC ad traffic Rarely have banner ad media buys Likely to have links to a significant portion of the sites and pages that link to themExtremely unlikely to be mentioned or linked-to in scientific research papers Unlikely to use expensive web technologies (Microsoft Server & Coding Products that Require a Licensing Fee) Likely to be registered by parties who own a very large number of domains Unlikely to attract significant return trafficMore likely to contain malware, viruses or spyware (or any automated downloads)
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Tags: Separating, Quality, Content, MetricsWeekend Reading
Here are some interesting articles I recently came across.
Tapping into unconventional link attributes - tips to evaluate the value of a link, including the fresh boost and the actual lasting value of the link. Beet.tv NYT report - Google traffic to NYT has doubled since unlocking their archivesMicrosoft Continue Reading »
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Tags: Weekend, ReadingWhy Does Yahoo! Search Lag Google & Microsoft in Ranking Newer Websites?
Yahoo! has guys like Jeremy Zawodny marketing their fresh new search platform, and yet they remain behind the competition. Microsoft jumped into the search field way later than Yahoo! did, so why is it that Microsoft rankings for well promoted sites often roughly track Google rankings, while Yahoo! still has yet to give many of these sites an opportunity to rank?
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Tags: Yahoo, Search, Google, Microsoft, Ranking, Newer, WebsitesSearch Companies Battle for Control of Your Television
Sony announced they made a deal to syndicate 5 minute clips on YouTube. And Google has partnered with Matsushita to create the Google TV.
If you watch the Bill Gates CES speech (online here), at about 35 minutes in he talks about how Microsoft will power NBC’s online video distribution for the Olympics. At about 41 minutes in they mentioned that there are 10 million members on Xbox live.
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Tags: Search, Companies, Battle, Control, TelevisionMicrosoft Offers $1.2 Billion for Fast Search & Transfer
Microsoft offered $1.2 billion, a 42% premium over market valuation, for Fast Search & Transfer. Fast Search & Transfer is largely an enterprise search solution. As an example web index to showcase their technology years ago they created AllTheWeb. In early 2003 Overture bought AllTheWeb, and Fast’s web search unit for $70 million cash. Yahoo bought Overture the same year for $1.63 billion.
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Tags: Microsoft, Offers, Billion, Search, TransferAd Intellegence - New Slick Free Microsoft AdCenter Keyword Tool
I hate to curse, but this tool is bad ass. Ad Intelligence is a new keyword tool from Microsoft which is well worth using, and will probably force Google and Yahoo to make better keyword tools. All of this data is free during the beta test as long as you have a Microsoft AdCenter account (you can set one up for $5, with a $50 coupon if you search Google for AdCenter) and a copy of Microsoft Excel 2007 (the Ad Intelligence link above allows you to download a free trial of Excel).
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Tags: Intellegence, Slick, Microsoft, AdCenter, KeywordSeparating the Linkbait Wheat from the Chaff
Posted by randfish
Last week in Whiteboard Friday: Why Your Viral Content Isn’t Working, I covered the importance of creating content that goes beyond just reaching the top of social media portals into the realm of attracting coveted high value links as well. Today, as promised, I’ll share the big separations between the two and some tactics to implement when launching viral content with the intention of link acquisition.
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Tags: Separating, Linkbait, Wheat, Chaff