A couple days ago while I was at a conference news came about that Network Solutions was hijacking unused customer subdomains to post links to their other websites. It is getting really hard to trust *many* online service providers.

A big tip for new websites is to use the www subdomain and 301 the non www version to the www version, for 3 reasons

1. If some nefarious group tries to add subdomains to your site you can easily spot them with a Google search for site:mysite.com -site:www.mysite.com (you could subtract other subdomains if you liked as well, likeso). You can even set up a Google Alert to track Google indexing any subdomains by entering that search in a Google Alert. Once any new subdomain is discovered you can delete any of their nefarious activity and/or add the subdomain and 301 it to your site to reclaim any link popularity (if the domain was expired or re-purchased and the subdomain had some remnant link equity).
2. Already owning the www and non-www means that they have fewer opportunities to hijack one of your most important subdomains.
3. Some automated penalties that occur on subdomains do not flow back to the root. If you are using WWW you can move it to another subdomain, but if your core site is at the root (without the www) then you may be out of luck.

Disclaimer: Microsoft Live Search is *really* bad at following 301 redirects. So if you are already using the non-www version and have built a lot of links, then it may not be worth the risk of 301ing it...especially if your site is really clean and you are not pushing any algorithmic limits with aggressive SEO techniques.

In addition to the above tips, ensuring that you software is up to date and using your own non-shared host also helps mitigate the risk of subdomain hijacking. SEO Book reader Rich Atkinson also stated

Another good tip is to create a wildcard dns 'A' record for your domain. Then config your web server to 301 all unrecognised hosts to your main site.

This is good for picking up the ww.example.com typos too.

Of course - you may or may not be able to do this on shared hosting.

From their press release:

Yahoo! Inc. a leading global Internet company, announced today that it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.'s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!'s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!'s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.

Anyone who syndicates Yahoo! ads or operates a business that relies on selling clicks has to be concerned with this news.

If you have a site with a large traffic stream you can use your site search data to come up with ideas on what content to create, what products to add to your store, and what keywords to bid on. Acting early on keyword data is important no matter what site you publish.

• PPC margins In many affiliate markets the large profits happen early when the market is still inefficient, and margins are drastically lowered as more affiliates compete. Automatically adding your internal search keywords to your PPC ad accounts allows you to arbitrage the keywords while they have a fat profit margin.
• Organic rankings if you rank early and pick up a couple self-reinforcing links it gets much harder for people entering the field later to compete with you.

If you have a strong brand you may be able to use internal search data to automatically create related searches, which creates relevant content on those pages.

Ken Robinson spoke at TED about creativity and mentioned Epiphany, the name of a new book name that he was working on.

That book has yet to come out, but enough people searched for it at Amazon.com that they added the keywords to related searches.

And since they are first to market they are already ranking in Google. When the book comes out they will already control that traffic stream.

This related searches tip can be used in a way that looks spammy or a way that looks legitimate. It is up to the user to decide how far they want to go with it. ;)

While I signed up nearly a year ago, I just recently started using Twitter. As a marketer I find it both interesting and fascinating...as it is more transparent than most social networks are. People often write back and forth using @username when they want to send another person a message, which sometimes draws you into other conversations. And since everyone you follow is someone you know or related to someone else you know it is really easy to get pulled in. And the social pressure of being associated with everything you do (no anonymous domain registration here folks) prevents Twitter from becoming a spam filled mess. Maybe there is some way such a system could be applied to search?

People can subscribe to get short blurbs from you (and whoever else they like), and the system is almost instantly self-correcting. It is the complete opposite of email spam hype marketing - if you want off the list you get off the list. If I were to spew nothing but hollow hyped up marketing messages nobody would subscribe (and many would unsubscribe). Conversely, if I help give people a laugh (and share the goodness of pearl drink worldwide) people subscribe. Next to peace and SEO, pearl drink is the best thing you can spread.

Ok...back on topic, so where was I.... I recently started using Twitter. From a social network and marketing standpoint Twitter is worth checking out and understanding. If you would like to check it out you can sign up here, and if you want to follow me, I am awall19.

Here are some of my favorite Twitter feeds: webgirl, Graywolf, Rae, Copyblogger, Mike McDonald, Chris Winfield, ChrisG tamar, Stuntdubl, Lee Odden, Barry, Debra Mastaler, Todd Mintz, Vanessa Fox and Danny Sullivan.

Henry Rollins is using Twitter too!

And by far, Neil Patel is out in front on the "people subscribed to" list, with over 8,000! I think (once he finds time to) he will finish up writing that final blog post about stopping everything else in favor of reading Twitter 23.9 hours a day. ;)

I was amused and a bit irked by this irrelevant and disturbing spam post from a fluff website promoting Wealthy Affiliate. I enjoy reading material plagued with disconnects and false information like this post. You can really learn a lot from both your mistakes and others'.

They attempted to compare The Rich Jerk, SEO Book and Wealthy Affiliate. Of course, since they are an affiliate of Wealthy Affiliate, guess who the BEST company was? The point here is that they did a poor job persuading me that the three subjects are relevant and from the same category.

Here are the disconnects:

1a. Rich Jerk Up-sells
1b. Seobook.com changed its business model and market one product. This was a good move because it eliminated folks who weren't serious about learning and keeping up with the ever changing world of SEO.
1c. Wealthy Affiliate??? I honestly don't see how this company is different from hundreds of sites like it.

2a. Rich Jerk offends people as a gimmick.
2b. Seobook.com is praised by Fortune 500 clients, best selling marketing authors, an Ivy League business professor, and countless webmasters. It's not our job to make everyone in the world happy but we try and work our ass to give supreme value to our members.
2c. I can't find the USP of Wealthy Affiliate

3a. Rich Jerk is a marketing gimmick that worked.
3b. Seobook.com is a very active member of the SEO/Webmaster community and writes for other Technorati Top 100 Blogs, including this one.
3c. The pop-up that attacked my screen disabled me to click further on Wealthy Affiliate

4a. The attack on the Rich Jerk was 3 long paragraphs.
4b. The dismissal on Seobook was a short paragraph including a positive statement about the quality of the product.
4c. Wealthy Affiliate is God's gift to mankind.

I don't know where they got the information that Seobook was free. They need to stop visiting sites that steal copyrighted content. ALSO - they admitted that they heard Seobook was good stuff.

Persuading the Reader to Take Action

When you hard-sell a reader, especially how terrible other products are, never mention anything positive about the subject you are lambasting and destroying. IN FACT.... When you want to persuade a person to TAKE ACTION, you need to speak in their own terms. How will this post convince a buyer? Will or can they be trusted? How will it help their buyer's needs? What are the benefits and potential gains?

As a newbie Internet marketer, they failed in so many levels:

• made absolutely false statements
• comparison of three different products further dimmed their sub-standard ability to determine relevancy, which is really what selling online is about.