In January I stated that Lycos is dying a slow death. It looks as though now they just want to get it over with for about $200 million. source.

I would say Google, MSN, and Yahoo! have little need for Lycos, but it could be rather appealing to Ask. We shall see...

When Google begins a visual PageRank update they transfer the data from server to server, thus you will be able to view the new PageRank randomly in your toolbar and sometimes you will be seeing the old PageRank.

To view the PageRank of your site after the update you can:

• get lucky and randomly see the new PageRank sometimes

• wait until the update is finished
• change your host file cofiguration to tell Google to collect the data from the IP address of the server that was updated first

This update first occured on 64.233.161.98
you can add this line of code
64.233.161.98      toolbarqueries.google.com
to this file
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Congrats to John on his PR8 BlueFind directory.
Congrats to Anthony for realizing I am a spy.

Google PageRank Update today: Discuss on WMW
Google server IP: 64.233.161.98

Google IPO Update? Article at Wall Street Journal says they are to push forward with an IPO

Gmail for the Bloggers? Google extended it's beta release of Gmail to include some active Bloggers. Andy Beal got the hook-up. With MovableType being WAY BETTER than Blogger I knew I was eventually going to see some downside...

Google AdWords Broken? at least for a little while they were.

So I made a directory of bad SEO services (Black Hat SEO.com) and tools. It sat dormant for a great length of time. I told a few people about it and it did relatively nothing.

Out of nowhere I looked today and saw that I have been serving thousands and thousands of page views on that site...almost exceeding bandwidth limits in a few days.

Alexa is unreliable, but it works somewhat decently when your page is in the top 10,000 or so. Out of nowhere the page went to 2,505 when I checked today. The page may soon fade, but that directory has drummed up some good business for me. More potential leads in one day than most individual SEO's probably get in a month.

It's a Seth Godin type Purple Cow example. My very own Banana Guard. It certainly is an ugly cow, but it is still purple.

It is much easier to promote an idea worth promoting than putting tons of effort in promoting something not worthwhile. How can your site attach to an emotion? How can you make people want to link to your site free of charge? If you find ways to answer these questions then your ideas spread and you win.

If you are from the UK and are debating giving Google AdWords a try then you probably should. Currently Google is giving away free 50 pound AdWords coupon vouchers to new UK Google AdWords customers.

If you want to learn now the AdWords system works best then I highly recommend reading Andrew Goodman's Google AdWords report ($69).

GoToast is one of the more well known pay per click search engine management software providers (free 14 day trial). Recently they offered a real quick witepaper covering the topic of conversion.

In this study, we classified 1,000 reasonably well-trafficked search listings representing a broad cross section of industries and approximately 250 distinct Web sites. 4,880,209 clicks/visits were analyzed as the basis for this research.

How Does Landing Page URL Affect Conversion Rate?

Does It Make a Difference If the Visitor Has the Capability to Convert on the Landing Page?

That data is almost motivational enough to make me want to create lead generation websites.

Sometimes what you are intended to do is extremely obvious when the writer is extremely motivated...this is one of those examples.

ALTA VISTA SENDS THE BEST SUPPORT EMAILS. ALL CAPS IS ALL COOL!!!

ATTENTION ALTAVISTA PAID INCLUSION MEMBERS. BEGINNING APRIL 16TH, YAHOO WILL "DROP"INKTOMI'S PAID INCLUSION LISTINGS IN THE YAHOO SEARCH RESULTS. IF YOUR URL DISAPPEARS FROM YAHOO'S SEARCH RESULTS, YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER JOINING THE
NEW YAHOO/OVERTURE SITE MATCH INCLUSION PROGRAM THROUGH WWW.INFOSPIDER.COM. YAHOO WILL BE EXCLUSIVELY USING THEIR OWN SEARCH ALGORITHM FOR INDEXING URLS AND DISPLAYING THE RESULTS THROUGH YAHOO'S ENTIRE GLOBAL DATABASE . IF YOU ARE NOT
ALREADY A YAHOO SITE MATCH MEMBER, PLEASE GO TO WWW.INFOSPIDER.COM AND SIGN-UP.

It looks as though the day where Yahoo! no longer lists the other Paid Inclusion search results in Yahoo! Search has come. Oddly enough, you can still get Inktomi paid inclusion over at Lycos Insite (which is still good for your MSN traffic)...

uptimebot.com (not linked due to excessive questionable ads) - provides uptime info and server info from different configurations as it spiders the web. also will email an inbound link report every day if you wish.

http://www.recip-links.com/ - allows you to enter a list of up to 50 reciprical link locations to see if those link partners are still linking to you.

http://www.dead-links.com/ - searches your outbound links for dead links. (similar to what Xenu link sluth does, but does not require a download)

http://www.linkcounter.com/ - measures the inbound and outbound traffic for your site for a meager fee.

When I want to optimize a page for top Yahoo! rankings, it just happens. Little to no effort = lots o distribution. I can't think of a single site I have ever worked on which has not got decent Yahoo! distribution. Google, on the other hand, either takes a bunch of money, time, or understanding to manipulate. Last November Google made changes that most SEO's still do not understand to this day.

Google is so far ahead of it's competitors that it is a joke. I think they honestly hold back tons of information and innovation (perfecting it in the background) just waiting for competition to have an exciting story to squash.

Yahoo! dumped Google. Google added a billion pages to it's index. Which got more coverage in general media...Google adding a billion pages.

Amazon A9 just launched. Google just launched the ability to target ads to your neighbor's house. Google's new technology will allow small people with low funds to cause huge ripples in social and political processes...I, for one, think it is fun to mix things up a bit :)

Amazon quietly announced the beta launch of their A9 search engine. Currently A9 appears to be a cross between Amazon and Alexa, while not being as commercially built up or invasive as either of those sites. A9 outlines many of their cool features on their "A9 cool features" page, and a more in depth review of A9 is listed below.

A9.com's service currently relies heavily on a partnership with Google, which supplies many of the search results, and Amazon's Alexa subsidiary, which provides traffic, other sites of interest and additional information on specific Web sites.

Search results also include text ads from Google's sponsored links program.

Alison Diboll, an A9.com spokeswoman, declined to say whether the company eventually plans to create its own search technology. She confirmed that Amazon plans to use the technology to serve both its online store and the rest of the Web. source: The Seatle Times

A9 has a couple interesting features that many other search engines do not. Their new A9 toolbar allows people to jot down notes about a website which can be viewed later on anywhere.

The site, and its accompanying toolbar, pull together various elements previously available on Amazon.com in a unique way. Data comes from partner Google, the Amazon.com site and its Alexa division. Three separate columns of results include natural search results, the ability to access Alexa's "what's related" features, book excerpt results from Amazon.com's offerings and the user's history. Personalization features, which use the Amazon.com login and cookie, are probably the most revolutionary part of the offering -- not because of their current form, but because of their potential. source: ClickZ

One of the more interesting things they did at A9 (as far as PR goes) is that they had John Battelle discuss it before any other news outlet so that the blog community could get their hands on it before some of the larger media outlets.

Google is being bombarded with complaints.

Senator Figueroa from California is drafting a bill to block Google's Gmail.

Certainly an unprotected system could be open to abuse, but are we saying that we would rather be spammed than have targeted messages. Google seems to be one of the few companies in the world with enough foresight to actually want to save me time everyday. BUT we are concerned about our privacy...it is my choice if I want to trust Google with that information, let me.

"Those who are ready to sacrifice freedom for security ultimately will lose both."
-Abraham Lincoln

Also, The New York Times just published an artilce further turning up the heat on Google for it's search result for the word "Jew."

I know I personally could outrank a measly PageRank 5 page showing less than 60 backlinks in Google. Not a single person who is complaining about this issue cares enough to change the automated results. Do these religious believers not believe in communinty? Is it not their faith that is in doubt? Obviously they believe in a higher power, and certainly they can't say that power is Google. Why can't they think in groups?

Google is sick of the crap everyone is giving them. As of midnight they will cease operations. In preparation for their upcomming closure you can read on their new services page. "This space intentionally left blank." Alright, so that services page has been blank for a while and Google has no intent to close up shop. Is your life better because Google exists? Yes or No, and WHY?

Update: Tim O'Reily says what I am trying to say a bit more eloquently than I can.

Google has recently changed it's trademark policy to allow people to bid on trademark phrases of companies within the US and Canada. Inside the US and Canada they will not allow trademark terms to appear in the ad copy. Outside those areas the will check ad text and keyword.

There has not yet been any clear statement in what the valid trademark laws are on the internet. With the advent of <iframe>'s and paid ads triggered by keywords the waters are sure to be muddy for an exceptionally long time...perhaps indefinitely.

Trademark owners should still be able to protect their trademarks via the autmated price system of Google. Trademark terms showing up in ads will warrent greater clickthrough rates since their terms will appear bolded. This will cause the prices to be reduced as these clickthrough rates are factored into click price. Your competitors will be required to spend much more to have their ad compete. Google AdWords Trademark Complaint Procedure – Trademark rights in US and Canada

When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we will only investigate whether the advertisements at issue are using the trademarked term in ad text . If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the text of the ad and prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in ad text in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords associated with trademark usage. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

Google AdWords Trademark Complaint Procedure – Trademark rights outside US and Canada

When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, our review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using the trademarked term in the ad text or as a keyword trigger. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the ad text or keyword list and will prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in the future. Please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

Source: Google Trademark Complain Procedure

Google Updated PageRank a few days back (on the 7^TH). Even though some people have got good PageRank (MSN Watch is already up to PR6), it is not enough to get good PageRank. Nowadays we want more for our money!!!

People want everything their way. They want small email boxes. They want popups and slow loading banners. They don't want relevant ads. Privacy groups hate the Gmail product. They would rather be spammed or pay for bad services. Perhaps they want an undercooked McChicken Sandwitch like the one I ate a few days back.

Have it Your Way! the Subservient Chick

This post was brought to you by Burger King.

Many articles have came out recently stating that reciprocal link exchanges are a waste of time. This is true if you can afford to spend a bunch on links, but if you are a bootstrapper you will need to do all the little things. Reciprocal link exchanges can still help boost link popularity some.
Shawn over at Digital Point creates some of the best free SEO tools on the market. Recently he whipped up this free reciprocal link checking script, which reads a file of link partners (in the same directory) by the name of sites.txt. sites.txt is a list of URLs to check (separated by a carriage return).

<?php

$mydomain = "www.yourdomain.com"; // Set this to your domain

$list = file_get_contents("sites.txt");
$urls = explode ("\n", $list);

echo "<B>Checking back links to $mydomain....</B><P><FONT SIZE=-1>";

foreach ($urls as $url) {
if (strlen ($url)) {
echo $url . "<B><FONT COLOR=";
if (strpos (file_get_contents($url), $mydomain) != FALSE) {
echo "GREEN> Found";
} else {
echo "RED> Missing";
}
echo "</FONT></B><BR>";
}
}
echo "</FONT>";

?>

There is an ongoing discussion about his free reciprocal link checking script over at the Digital Point forums.

Update: Backlink Analyzer is free link analysis software which has probably the best feature set of any of the link analysis software products on the market.

Recently another PageRank analysis tool came out by the name of PageRank Prowler. PageRank Prowler ($97) is somewhat of a hybrid between OptiLink ($224) and the recent free PageRank tool by SEO Guy.

PageRank Prowler
PageRank Prowler allows you to set a PageRank level which it will look through Google search results to find sites at or above that PageRank. These results can be saved as an HTML sheet or in a CSV list. The benefits PageRank Prowler has over other PageRank software are

• It allows you to search for multiple terms at once. For example, you can search for sites linking to any of your main competitors all at the same time.

• PageRank Prowler also allows you to search for specific search terms and not just backlinks. (OptiLink just searches the backlinks of a given site).
• PageRank Prowler will also allow you to search starting from URLs within a given site / sites and return results from there.
• At $97 PageRank Prowler is significantly cheaper than OptiLink.

SEO Guy PageRank Tool
The SEO Guy PageRank tool is the quickest of the three, but it has the least features and the search depth is limited to 100 documents. This means that if your competitors backlinks are listed at #102 then you will never know they exist. If you can not afford to spend money then this free web based tool is a real time saver.

OptiLink
The biggest downside to OptiLink is that it costs $224, but it is well worth that if you can afford it. It allows you to query different databases and comes with free lifetime updates. Leslie Rhodes is a smart marketer and programmer who will probably even include Yahoo! Webrank in future releases of his software.

All three are real time savers, it's up to you to decide which one is right for you though...

Recently I was over at Topix.net and glanced at their blog and found a great post about Google by their founder Rich Skrenta which highlights Google's competitive advantages.

...the story is about seemingly incremental features that are actually massively expensive for others to match, and the platform that Google is building which makes it cheaper and easier for them to develop and run web-scale applications than anyone else...While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.

I also just finished reading Emergence by Steven Berlin Johnson where he reviews some emergent software and social networks such as Slashdot.

While at Slashdot I noticed they too were eating up Rich's post, as the blog community at large is (last I checked MIT's Blogdex it was the most rapidly spreading idea on the web).

After reading Emergence it became more apparent how smart the Topix news idea is. After reading his post it became even more apparent how smart Rich is. I am just wondering how they will be able to take news market share from the big search monsters. Obviously doing news way better works, but even Rich's own post state how amazingling cheap CPU cycles are at Google. How will Topix overcome Google's competitive advantages?

It is amazing how quickly Google AdSense stat tracking software has became a commodity. You can pay $100 one time license fee to track the clickthroughs specifically by page. This license allows unlimed usage across all of your domains.

(found in http://www.forobuscadores.com/foros/)

Also, these AdSense charts provided by DigitalPoint are free.

Internet giants Google and Yahoo! will stop carrying adverts for online casinos, blaming a "lack of clarity" in US regulations.

US prosecutors last month warned companies that running ads for offshore online casinos was equivalent to "aiding and abetting". It is illegal to run an online gambling site from within the US.

Google and Yahoo made the announcement seperately on Friday. Yahoo said the ban would apply to US websites only while Google self-denial hits all its sites worldwide. The change is likely to come in at the end of this month, according to the New York Times. - The Register

Those who were spending $10 - $30 per click advertising for words such as "casino" or "online casino" will now be spending that money elsewhere.

Anyone want to bet as to wheter they see more casino sponsored text links drive up the cost of text ads on many sites?

This entry was inspired by a recent article from Danny Sullivan.

Lots O good Google PageRank info below. Still not much out on Yahoo Webrank though... What is Google PageRank?
Google PageRank is a mathematical approximation that a random web surfer would cross any given page prior to starting to surf over again. It is a measure of link popularity on a 1 - 10 logarithmic scale. One powerful link from a strong site is worth way more than many links from small sites.

How do I check PageRank?

• You can download the Google Toolbar (with advanced features).

• PageRank also shows in the Google Directory (it is on a slightly different scale though).
• Top25Web has a free PageRank checking tool.
• Rusty Brick also created a tool for figuring out future PageRank which is somewhat questionable in it's exactness, but fun to look at. It has been telling me that this site will rank as a 10 or 11, so that will require you providing manu links into me :)

How do I check my Competitors PageRank?

• The same way you would check your own. OR

• There are automated tools which process portions of the web to help you find link partners quicker. Here are two interesting tools:
  • SEO Guy has a tool which allows you to set PageRank levels and perform a search for any given term. It will return a list of top ranking websites which have a PageRank equal to or greater than the # you requested.

  • For deeper link analysis, OptiLink link analysis software - orders the backlinks of your competitors in order of PageRank so you can Quickly view his most important backlinks (in the eyes of Google).

More on PageRank
PageRank is only one aspect of website promotion. It does play a huge role in the current Google ranking system, but there are many other factors. Generally some sites could really do well by making sure their site is well integrated into their local community and then buying a link or two to suppliment their rankings.

The web does self organize into micro communities and PageRank does not take that into account as well as search engines such as Teoma do (see also: Teoma review).

Buying PageRank
It is probably worth it for many sites to buy 1 or 2 PR7 or so links. I have been able to locate them for under $100 a month and sometimes cheaper than $50...a few times even free. I have seen run of the site PR7 links around $200 per month.

There are many many reseller networks of people selling PageRank. You want to make sure you are as close to the source as possible when buying links. IE: you may want to buy off a website, a link broker, or link brokers friend, but you start to run into heavy inflation when you buy links off a link broker from a different link broker from a link broker...

The prices of the links are spread extremely wide. There are many important factors such as

• How well the webmaster knows what their links are worth.

• The PageRank of the page.
• The number of links on the page.
• How well that page fits the theme of your site.
• The direct traffic that link will bring.
• The length of the contract.
• Sometimes you can get discounts for quantity buys.

On my other site I have listed more PageRank resources and more in depth Google PageRank coverage.

Yahoo! Webrank
As you can see there is a ton of info out there on PageRank. Since Yahoo! Webrank is new and expiremental there is no solid data out there on it.

They are currently testing Yahoo! Webrank in a beta test which is closed. In Danny Sullivan's article he pointed me to a backdoor link he found in Webmaster World which will allow you to download the toolbar that will show the Yahoo! Webrank. In addition Digital Point has a Yahoo! Webrank tool which sometimes provides sporadic or random results. Its inaccuracies may actually be due to the fact that Yahoo! Webrank is still in a beta test.

In an email I got about 3 minutes ago Google has claimed the following changes to the AdSense program.

Better and Better Ad Relevance
Now, in addition to understanding the overall meaning of a page, our technology determines the relevance of concepts found on a page to pick better performing ads.
Smarter and Smarter Pricing
With the new AdWords pricing model, we’ll also automatically adjust the price of clicks across the Google Network based on their expected value to the advertiser. A number of factors will be taken into account when calculating the expected value, including the keywords or concepts that triggered the ad. For example, a click on an ad for digital cameras on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.

I believe that Google may use the clickthrough tracking offered from some AdWords customers to determine the value of a site as compared to other ad distribution (other sites, email distribution, and search results). Most likely this will cause a decline in click price as many large marketers have stated that contextual ads (on average) are worth approximately 30% the value of the same ad placed in search results.

The major search engines have came together to addopt a new proprietary meta tag. This new tag will help to properly mix results and reduce the load SPAM is placing on the search engine engineers.

Syntext for the new SPAM tag:
<meta content="SPAM">

SMAM Benefits:
Those sites signing to comply with the new SPAM rating will get a golden pass good for infinite domicile within the major search indexes. A small fee and smallish algorithmic fee will also be associated with the program.

Public Outcry over new Spam Tag
Members of the ACLU and the NAACP are already protesting this new standard out in the street. They were quoted as saying "it's not a white and black problem."

Spam Tag Passes on Ebay
Cloakers missed the boat as they could not produce a script that returned their actual email address. Apparently these golden SPAM passes have been selling on eBay for as much as $31,853.

How the Search Engines & Portals feel they will benefit from the new tag:

• AOL - We figure those sites compying with the SPAM tag will be of exceptionally poor quality and design. If they get a boost in the rankings then our stupid popups will feel more apropriate to those still suffering er surfing with AOL.

• AllTheWeb - We are excited as this will give us a chance to capture "All The Web," though Yahoo! will likely throw away 1/3 of it.
• AltaVista - We were about to die anyway. This should give us that added boost which ends the misery.
• Ask Jeeves - Ask someone else. I am sick of these stupid questions.
• Booble - We are launching a countersuit on Google. We feel they are trying to enter a submissive search market we are clearly dominating.
  
• Dipsie - (editor note: Even if they index all the SPAM in the world they will have a hard time getting 10,000,000,000 documents in their index.) We intend to also execute forms and javascript on these SPAM pages. That's the ticket to 10,000,000,000 resources.

• Eukster - friends don't spam friends unless they are spammers, in which case they live in Nigeria or South Africa and address everyone as "My Friend." (editor note: Turkish people try to sell you rugs using this same "my friend" tag.)
• Google - SPAM is EVIL. However spammers who admit what they are doing become a bit less evil. Perhaps maybe from a George Bush to a Darth Vader.
• Kanoodle - We are excite to be the first to integrate the SPAM into our email distribution network.
• Lycos - We don't do search. We don't even know who provides our search product. Have you seen our exciting new SOCIAL NETWORK!!!!
• MSN - Our lack of compliance with this new tag should help us get our feet wet in search and kill the rest of the search market in the first year.
• Netscape - AOL owns us. We were dead a long time ago.
• Overture - Participation in the SPAM standard program will across our distribution network will cost 15 cents per click. I mean, we have to make something off it.
• Teoma - Since we keep kicking the shit out of our index its hard for us to find out who the topical hubs and authorities are. We are excited to embrace this new community.
• Yahoo! - I can't believe how much of that crap we edited. We are glad to note that we did get the other search engines to agree that affiliate sites could not participate in the program.