Cost per Influence
Ross Mayfield has an interesting ad concept by the name of cost per influence. Using cost per influence advertising niche specific publishers will be able to start running interesting ads that they see on other sites.

So long as the account associated with funding that ad has money in it the idea spreads. Once the money runs out the ads die. If ads are productive then they will be continually fed more money until they are no longer productive.

This is a similar concept to how many newspaper classified ads are ran except with this the relevant ad locations pick themselves out for you. Interesting idea perhaps best described as viral affiliate marketing.

John Battelle also followed up with an in depth post titled "Sell Side Advertising."

Yahoo! Renting Links
Yahoo! was recently renting / leasing / buying / otherwise acquiring some high PageRank keyword rich links from gasbuddy.com. Normally when large companies buy these types of ads they use tracking codes, but these ads were straight links which are analyzed by search engines. Was Yahoo! Buying PageRank? Was Yahoo! Trying to Manipulate Search Results
Only Yahoo! knows what their true intentions were with the links, but within 4 days of people mentioning the links in the SEW forums the links were dropped. If they were not buying the links to manipulate the search results then one would wonder why they were not using a tracking code.

The Yahoo! ad unit used keyword rich links. They pointed links at
http://autos.yahoo.com/ with "cars" as the anchor text
http://used-cars.autos.yahoo.com/used_cars.html with "used cars" as the anchor text
http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html with "new cars" as the anchor text &
http://used-cars.autos.yahoo.com/kbb/ with "Kelley Blue Book" as the anchor text

What Did Yahoo!'s Ad Look Like
Their Gas Buddy ad unit looked like this:

Yahoo!'s Other Ads
Yahoo! Shopping is still renting other high PageRank links through the Internet.com network to boost their rankings for high margin consumer electronic items.

anchor text "cameras" pointing at
http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:Digital%20Cameras:20148412

anchor text "laptops" pointing at
http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:Laptops:20148417

anchor text "PDAs" pointing at
http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:PDAs:20148420

Yahoo!'s Problem with Link Renting
Yahoo! runs their own search engine which powers a ton of search worldwide. Not only are they renting links that manipulate Google's search results, but the links also manipulate the Yahoo! Search search results.

These links are essentially used to build keyword rich link popularity from powerful websites, which may fall under the following unacceptible practices:

• Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking

• Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity

as set by the Yahoo! Search quality guidelines.

Recently someone at the SEW forums stated that Yahoo! told them the problem with their site is that they have too many links pointing at their site.

The Problem with Yahoo! Renting Links

Yahoo! manually edits their search results. If other people have too many links pointing at their sites it is a problem, but if Yahoo! does it then it is ok? why?

Yahoo! owns a valuable network. What they do with that network is up to them. When people search for information Yahoo! can throw whatever ads they want around the results, but the results themselves should not be internally tainted.

As an oracle of information an ethical question is raised when Yahoo! is paying people to edit their results and paying other people to manipulate those same results.

What Next?

If Yahoo! decided what they want to place in their search results how can I trust them? What happens when they personalize my search? Will that mean that I get biased crap promoting more Yahoo! stuff? Will I not be able to find the information I need?

There is a level of trust associated with search. If Yahoo! wants to manipulate Google search results that is fine. If they are going to do that then they should prevent those same pages from being indexed in their own search results.

Yahoo!'s pages rank in the top 5 of Yahoo! Search for "cars," "new cars," & "used cars." Interesting how those search terms match up with the links they were renting.

Yahoo! just shot themselves in the foot if they were hoping to catch Google in search anytime soon.

Another Link Renting Problem
If you look at the Internet.com commerce partner network
http://www.jupitermedia.com/partners/
you will notice that it is a random collection of websites. The only thing preventing these links from being considered a "link farm" is that:

• they are expensive

• they are attached to a huge powerful network
• and Jupiter Media is making a ton of money from them.

  Also, how can a company claim it

  provides unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging technologies on their business. source

  and yet sell keyword rich ad space:

  • to random sites

  • throughout its own parent company network
  • which manipulates search results?

Recently (maybe about three weeks ago) I began working on a brand new site idea for a client. Within two days his site was built (my designer is really fast and awesome). Within a week it was ranking well in Google for a fairly competitive commercial phrase with a respectible search volume (thousands of searches per day).

What did I do? I picked a keyword rich site name and registered the site with a ton of directories.

There were some other forces at hand that I am not at liberty to discuss, but the primary driving force behind his rankings is about a few dozen directory links.

John Scott and I have been talking a bunch recently about the power of LINKS FROM UNIQUE IP ADDRESSES and he posted a good example recently in the V7N forums.

Obviously I have a ton more tips inside my SEO Book, but the condensed version is:

• buy a keyword rich domain name

• list it in a ton of directories using those keywords
• write articles and figure out other ways to get links into your site

There are a ton of other things to consider, but for most industries the web is so non competitive that just the above few steps can go a long way.

Nigritude Ultramarine SEO Contest winner for the first prize is the Merky Forums. Merky won a free mini ipod (and probably some SEO clients if he is smooth).

In a month we shall see if Merky is a player or a stayer :)

Many other people are now on to one of his secret tactics (spamming Wiki sandboxes) so we shall see if he can hold on. Popular blogger Anil Dashes recently joind the contest so the blog world may make a big splash in the later parts of this contest. The #2 ranking site so far is a blog by Phillip Lessen.

Keep up to date with the lastest contest facts at SearchGuild.

Why do people go to school for SEO when people barely out of high school can create cool search engines?

Also, please note that WhenU cloak, you can get the bone...

Why is the official Google Friends Newsletter a group on Yahoo!?
What will they do?
the release of Google Groups 2...

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We do too...
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