Not really the kind you see on TV, more the ones that send you spam. I have been getting hammered no only by blog spam (than you #42) but also by people sending spam emails out trying to promote their products about search engine marketing.
Some of these clowns are sending article submission requests almost daily to my Depression Blog website.
The irony here is that if they desire to spam that website they could just make an entry, but they don't. They email me their garbage. And so they are clowns.
They use an automated bot to waste my time so I use feedback the search engines can read so people can see they are clowns. Below I listed today's winners of the clown awards!!!
Clown #1: Jon Ricerca of Search Engine Geek
From: jonr@searchenginegeek.com
Hi aaron,
I have included an article submission for Depression Blog.
You have permission to publish this article in your ezine or
on your website.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Thanks,
Jon Ricerca
---------- BEGIN ARTICLE -----------
Does Keyword Location On Page Affect Ranking?
by Jon Ricerca
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com
One of our members asked for a study of keyword location
on a page. Is it more effective to have your keyword
mentioned in the top third, middle third or bottom third
of a page?
Here is the methodology I used to answer this question. I
gathered the results of the queries naturally performed
last month by myself and three associates using Yahoo and
Google. I then fetched the pages and divided the body
section into three equal parts for each page. I tallied
the results for the first 8 rankings on both Yahoo and
Google (keeping the results separate) and then converted
them into a percentage of the total results for each
search engine.
Here are the graphs showing Google and Yahoo results:
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dfg02.gif
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dfy02.gif
(Note to webmasters/ezine editors: You are welcome to hot
link to these graphs or even copy them to your own site.
You are also welcome to remove this note.)
The X-axis shows the ranking (from #1 through #8) of the
search engine results in the study. The Y-axis shows the
percentage of domains that contained the keyword in the
top (red line), middle (blue line) and bottom (purple
line) thirds of the body section of the page.
It is interesting to note that pages containing the
keyword in the top and bottom third of the body section
ranked much better on Google. The top section had a
normalized correlation of +42 on a scale of -100 to +100.
The bottom third also showed a remarkable positive
correlation of +46 on the same scale. Having the keyword
in the middle third had no significant effect (no
correlation whatsoever... neither positive nor negative).
The Yahoo results were even more interesting. I generally
ignore any correlations between -35 and +35 as being
generally insignificant. On Yahoo, none of the three
sections showed any remarkable correlations. The scores
were a +17 for the top, -3 for the middle and -17 for the
bottom third of the body section. Does this mean that
Yahoo doesn't even look for the keyword in the body
section?
Advice: Mention your keywords near the top and/or bottom
of a page for Google ranking.
Jon Ricerca is one of the leading researchers and authors
of the Search Engine Ranking Factor (SERF) reports at
SearchEngineGeek.com. For access to the other SERF
reports, please visit:
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++
but there's more,
Clown #2: Scott F.Geld
from remove-320969@marketingblaster.com
Hi aaron,
I have included an article submission for Depression Blog.
You have permission to publish this article in your ezine or
on your website.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
If you no longer wish to receive article submissions, please
reply with the word "remove" on the subject line.
Thanks,
Scott F. Geld
---------- BEGIN ARTICLE -----------
Writing Articles
by Scott F. Geld
http://www.MarketingBlaster.com
Your product is fantastic your service excellent and
your customers will make huge savings - but no one is
buying.
It is a challenge familiar to many a business owner. One
sure-fire way to get your business noticed online at
minimal cost is to sit down and write about it - or
commission someone else to write about it for you.
Promotional or advertorial articles have traditionally
worked well to publicize businesses offline in magazines,
newspapers and circulars. Now, the Internet offers a
myriad of web-based opportunities in the form of
specialist news sites, portals, on-line newspapers, ezines
and newsletters - all of which require a source of fresh &
interesting content. But where should you begin?
What do your customers read?
You should first consider the types of material your
potential customers will read and where they will view or
download that material from. Perhaps they subscribe to
specific online trade circulars or newsletters published
by a site or magazine they subscribe to. Look to cover all
the options and where possible obtain subscription data so
you can determine if the target audience of a publication
matches with the audience for your product or service. You
will have little success if you target the wrong audience
who have little interest in what you are selling.
Making the content work for you
Developing the content for your article is obviously
critical to your success with this marketing method. It is
also important to realise that whilst some editors will
accept promotional material, others will not. You will
therefore need to think carefully about how your article
is constructed. One way to approach this is to have a few
different versions of the piece to hand ~ from one that
overtly promotes your product or service to one that does
so more subtly. You can then choose which version to
submit to the editor based on their preferences.
An effective publicity angle for those that do accept some
form of promotional advertising in an article is to
present your product or service as a solution to a
problem. To increase your chances of publication, look to
base it on topical events. For instance, if you are
selling anti-spam software you can base it around a piece
that discusses the implications of the latest laws against
spam. If you do not have the time to pen such advertising,
then an alternative is to have someone interview you about
a topic, and ask them to put the material together for you.
Advertising your business through promotional online
articles works wonders for businesses all around the
world. Make sure you don't miss out on this global
promotional opportunity.
Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for
MarketingBlaster.com, a company providing targeted traffic
and direct links starting at only $5. For more info:
http://www.MarketingBlaster.com
