Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 28th, 2006 in General
So I get an email from MSN today tellling me that I’ve been chosen to participate in the U.S. pilot of MSN adCenter. Woohoo! Only one problem. I can’t get in. It requires IE6 or above. Now, ok, no problem I think (when I get the message via Firefox). So, I try it via IE7. Nope, same message. (Isn’t that above???). Ok, so I try it with Maxthon (which uses IE6 engine I think). Nope, same message. C’mon guys! IE7 replaced my IE6 when I installed it, so what am I supposed to do? I’ve got a support ticket in…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 28th, 2006 in General
With all the hullabaloo about the rebranding of Ask.com yesterday, I began to look at it more seriously than ever before. I mean, frankly, I’ve ignored it completely all these years. So yesterday, I began to evaluate the new Ask.com, and I realized that we, as seos, probably evaluate search engines much differently than most folks.
To an SEO, what makes a good search engine? Good design? Ease of Use? Features? Relevant search results? Well, no. Ok, those things are on the list, but they aren’t at the top of the list. And one could argue that those things contribute to what is…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 27th, 2006 in Search Engine News
I love the new look for ask.com (screenshot below). It is clean, easy on the eyes, and easy on the brain. It should help the novices of the world understand what they can do here. The icons in the toolbox on the right side of the page couldn’t be easier to understand.
SEW has an excellent review, so there’s no need for me to expand on it. Be sure to check it out. I think Ask has a real shot at moving up in the ranks with this rebranding effort. I know I’ll be using it more often, at least for…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 26th, 2006 in General
Freedom, a senior member of WebmasterWorld, brings up a very interesting topic in this thread. He wants to know, From all the famous or infamous algo changes over the years, the ups and downs, is Google really any better then it was in 2001 or 2002?
Some more excerpts:
From all the famous or infamous algo changes over the years, the ups and downs, is Google really any better then it was in 2001 or 2002?
From the monthly Google dances, to Florida to Brandy - and so on, the intended goal was never met, Google engineers are overpaid on a lost cause…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 25th, 2006 in General
ShoeMoney has a teaser post about an upcoming SEO contest that he promises will be “different” and “entertaining”. The prizes will be estimated at $25,000+, so I’m sure it will draw significant attention. He also mentions that Azoogleads will be the official sponsor of the contest. Is 2006 the year of the SEO contest?
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 23rd, 2006 in Search Engine News
According to the rumormill, Google Wallet is not only coming, but it will end the problem of click fraud for Google. Supposedly, a click-through would only result in payment once the user purchases something from the advertised site, using Google Wallet of course. Exit CPC, Enter CPA.
That would probably be great news for Adwords advertisers, but potentially bad news for Adsense publishers. Adsense would then simply be another affiliate program. Affiliate programs work well for some sites, but the whole appeal of Adsense (for me, at least) was that it could work well where affiliate programs did not.
We’ll have to…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 22nd, 2006 in SEO Theories
Ok, maybe I’m way behind the times here, but this is something that I’ve never seen before. One of the sites competing in the v7n contest, shows scorecards for each competitor (i.e. how that page’s ranking is moving up or down). On the scorecard is the name of the site, today’s ranking, today’s movement, links to the site, PR of the page, backlinks, etc. It does not actually show the content of the competing site’s page, just information about it’s ranking.
So what, you ask? Well, here’s the thing. On my scorecard, the adsense ads are all about Buzz Lightyear, and…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 21st, 2006 in Search Engine News
The Dallas Search Engine Marketing Blog reports that they received the first demo of MSN adCenter 3.0 (in beta) at their monthly meeting. They talk about some pretty cool features, including:
- More dynamic parameters to control your ad copy and even allow for dynamic destination URLs
- Tailor ad copy based on demographics such as basic traffic trends, age and gender, geography, wealth index and lifestyle
- Incremental bidding based on specific demographic groups
- Split testing of ads
- Setting ads to display only on certain days, times, etc.
Sounds like some interesting things will be coming from the new adCenter. Be sure to check out the Dallas Search Engine…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 20th, 2006 in SEO Tips
Over at SEORefugee, a couple of threads have been focusing on optimizing for local traffic (i.e. Web Design San Diego). EarlPearl is definitely a local SEO guru, and I suggest everyone pay attention when he discusses the matter. I mentioned some tips that EarlPearl has since taken to calling the DD Method, so as a joke, I am officially claiming it as mine right here. *grin*
Basically, in this thread, rmccarley wanted help getting his client ranked for various towns in certain counties. As it turns out, the client’s niche is a photography studio. The DD Method, then, was to use…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 18th, 2006 in SEO Tips
This does seem to be a true update (as opposed to a rollback), as new sites with no previous PR is obtaining PR on the following datacenters. A quick and easy way to check is to use this tool.
216.239.57.99
216.239.57.104
216.239.53.99
216.239.53.104
There may be other datacenters as well, but those are the ones I know about. So, if you care about PageRank (and I suspect more do than will admit) your wait is over.
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 17th, 2006 in General
Why, oh why, do people who supply cut and paste code for things like affiliate codes, ad buttons, etc. insist on using non-valid code? It never fails that I forget to check the code before placing it on my site. Then, days, weeks, or months later, when I get around to re-validating a page, I realize that the umpteen errors that are showing up are due to ad code. So I go through and change all the ampersands to entity codes, and all the image tags to include alt text, etc. etc. What a waste of time! C’mon people, supply…
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 15th, 2006 in SEO Tools
Adrian over at Cre8asite mentioned a very sweet wizard-style tool that lets you easily create vertical or horizontal CSS-based navigation. This is the kind of tool that not only makes your job easier, but it also creates nice SEO’d nav bars, and looks great to boot! Thanks Adrian for pointing it out. Now, all of you…quick…run over to this cool CSS nav generator and have fun.
Posted by DazzlinDonna on February 14th, 2006 in General
Happy Valentine’s Day! In the spirit of the day, I think we should all show a little link love to our fellow SEO buddies. So go ahead, link out to at least one SEO or webmaster today. I’ll start. Here’s to you Scott.
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