SEO Tip - Are You Wasting Your Time With Do Follow Blogs?

I’m sure a lot of you spend a great deal of time searching for relevant high PR “do follow” blogs, but are you spending your time wisely? Keep in mind that not all posts are indexed, not all posts stay indexed and not all posts pass link juice. Just because a post is on a high PR blog does not mean that your comment will give you a link - here are a few quick tips (that many of you may already know) to make sure you get the most out of link building on “dofollow” blogs - Read more

Google Technology to Combat Child Pornography

The San Jose Mercury News did an interesting feature today on some new Google technology that is being used to fight child pornography. The same technology that the company utilizes to block copyrighted videos on YouTube has now been employed to help track down predators online.

This innovative project comes out of the company’s infamous “20% percent time”, which Google encourages its employees to use to work on projects of their own creation and choosing. Four software engineers at Google collaborated to adapt the YouTube software to search for patterns in child pornography found online. Read more

Will Jason Gambert get the trademark for the term “SEO”?

If Jason Gambert gets his trademark application approved, which I highly doubt will happen, the SEO world will definitely be in turmoil.

I cannot imagine that someone can be given that much power in a world where the free market decides.
Just to give you guys an idea of potential consequences, Jason would be able to cease and desist any domain name using the term “SEO”. Read more

SEO Tip - Are You Using SpamVantage?

I love spam, w…ell most spam. Spam not only makes me smile a few times a day, but it helps give me a nice link jackpot from time to time too.

Smiles From Spam!

Spammers send emails with Viagra and Cialisis offers followed by an email from our blog letting me know I just received an exclusive list of 20 websites that I will surely enjoy once I buy the pills they are practically giving away - YIPPEE! – All I need now is that lump sum of money from my new royal friend in Africa…and I am set.

Spam isn’t so bad - (no really click on that link you’ll probably like it )

I like spam, and spammers and here’s why

Read more

Search Featured: Rick Schwartz

Mike Dammann: How did you get the idea to start the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Domain Conference and Expos and how close are you to the search engine industry?

Rick Schwartz: It started as a 12 person get together at my home. When 35 wanted to come I hooked up with my Attorney, Howard Neu, and decided we needed a venue other than my house and an agenda of activities and discussions. When 135 signed up we got THRUST into the convention business. 6 months later we held our second TRAFFIC show in Las Vegas and this time 235 showed up. By the time we have another show in Florida a few months later, we were 350 strong. So it was never planned, it was needed and we just took the ball and ran with it.

After 10 shows we have established ourselves as the key event in the space and thousands of domainers and investors have come to one show or another.

As for the search industry, it is an industry having more and more in common with domain owners. In our show in May in Orlando we will have at least one SEO panel and in future conferences even more as our channels overlap more and more.

Mike Dammann: Rick, you have recently made your last blog post and announced that one of your main projects will be Property.com.
Are you getting more involved in the development process?

Rick Schwartz: Very much so. Property.com is one project, however the project I am going to put a lot of effort into is Widgets.com. Probably by the time this is published, the site will be up and running. I have put a team together that shares the same vision I have and want to make Widgets.com a very valuable Internet business. It is based on a very simple idea that will allow it to grow virally in a very quick and special way. We are going to tap into some of the brightest minds in the world and run contests that will bring widgets to a new and profitable level. Until now folks made widgets, gave them away for free and that was that. We are going to change that and in the process transform this channel into a profitable money maker.

Mike Dammann: One of the domain names I remember that you’ve owned was men.com which you have since sold, is a part of the reason for you selling it that you want to move away from the adult industry?

Rick Schwartz: Hell no! I sold Men.com because I got a $1.3M cash offer. I have never ran from the adult world. The adult industry has always been YEARS ahead of mainstream. When there was not a penny to be made in mainstream, millions could be made in adult. Yes, I know there is the stigma about adult. However nobody seems to care that all the big hotel chains make more profit selling dirty movies to their guests than they do anywhere else. Sex sells. Always has, always will. It surrounds us. The “Wall” between mainstream and adult on the net is the silliest thing I have ever seen. In the real world no such division exists. Proof is the hotel example I gave above. The adult world has always been ahead of the curve. Going as far back as the VHS or 900 numbers or even streaming video. It is the adult industry that pushes technology forward in many cases.

In my case I own many adult domain names, however I have no adult sites and no adult content. I leave that for others. I just supply the eyeballs. I think certain industries are missing a HUGE opportunity to target those eyeballs, increase their market share and find their demographics. Liquor companies, beer companies, cigarette manufacturers would do very well. Their target audience is sitting right there. But this silly wall and those on Madison Ave are preventing these companies from tapping into a gusher of new business. Just plain shortsighted. Imagine, when I go into the titty bar, their signs and brand are everywhere. They have yet to make the connection online. Shortcomings like these are why I am so bullish about the future of domain and the internet. Because in time they will figure it out. When they do, that unlocks a lot of new $$$ flooding into the market. Some of these companies will sponsor music and concerts that encourage you to kill your family or other violent behavior or other such nonsense but would not advertise on adult sites? That’s more than hypocritical. It’s uninformed business and it will take a recession to wake them up.

Mike Dammann: Being in the SEO industry, you always have the pressure to get and keep your websites ranked. Obviously your domain names and the domain names of your friends do provide a large amount of type-in traffic. How much of an additional push do search engines provide you with and how much time do you spend on studying the search engines?

Rick Schwartz: Very little to be honest. Let me go back. The ONLY reason I started to buy domain names is that I did not have the talent or the smarts to get search engine traffic. I had to look for an alternative way to get traffic. So I went in the back door. I KNEW about “Human behavior” via my involvement with Toll Free Vanity numbers. Those 800 numbers that spell things. I got in that industry at the tail end, but I was able to make the connection that if people surfed 800 numbers to spell things, and they did, that would be even better on the Internet. So I bet there would be a parallel and I was right. So I was late to one party and right on time for another party. Of course a lot of this was theory when it came to the net until I got Dick.com. That was a REAL turning point. I paid $100 for the domain. When I activated it, I made $200 the first night and since then it has pumped out hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now approaching $1m on this single domain. That led me to buy others like ass.com, porno.com, voyeur.com, orgy.com, sexo.com and many others. Those domains I just listed cost me about $80k. Folks thought I was insane. Crazy. Had more dollars than brains. The search guys really hated me. they did not believe in type in traffic back in 1997. It was as if I was cheating. But there was no denying that those few domains were getting 50,000 daily visitors and were making thousands of dollars a day. All along I would take my earnings and invest in mainstream domains even though at that point in time there was no way to monetize them. I knew in time that would change and that mainstream would be much bigger.

So if not for my ignorance, I would have never done so well. Like they say….”Ignorance is Bliss” and I am living proof. Sometimes the less you know can pay big dividends.

Mike Dammann: One of your keynote speakers at the Miami Convention was Steve Forbes. How much of an open-mindedness have you witnessed from Wall Street and major business moguls and how much of an impact do you believe you have on each others?

Rick Schwartz: Having Steve Forbes coming to speak at TRAFFIC was a great moment for the entire domain industry. He understood domains in seconds and for years before he ever met us. He was able to make the connection between the real world and the virtual world long before most. When he spoke about Forbes.com there was no doubt that he understands the net inside and out. He too was a pioneer as Forbes.com went live in 1995 while his competition was yet to get it. Steve articulated a challenging future for domain owners as he tied the sins of the past to the sins of what is yet to come. As domains get more valuable and even become priceless, predators will do everything in their power to STEAL what you have. Laws, lawsuits, whatever.

As for Wall Street…they get it. Venture Capitalists showed up at TRAFFIC in mass. But they are also looking at things differently. They basically have a 5 year window to get in and out and make a killing. That’s a tough road to hoe when the time frame as I see it is more like 20 years.
We also had back and forth with Madison Avenue advertising agencies. For the most part, they just don’t get it. The ones that do, don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to share their successes. But one only has to look at Baby.com owned by Johnson & Johnson, Loans.com owned by Bank of America, Books.com owned by Barnes and Noble. Disney, Proctoer and Gamble, others. But NONE of the ones that “Get it” are willing to talk.” They don’t want the others to figure it out so I don’t blame them. Their counterparts meanwhile are so blinded by “Branding” that they lost sight of the FACT that the ultimate branding is MORE SALES. When corporate America or any business goes to Madison Avenue it IS for branding. But it is also to do more sales. MORE SALES. When a Madison Ave exec shrugs his shoulders to “More sales” I think he is doing a great disservice to his client. I have an extensive blog post about Madison Ave. Those guys should read it everyday until they wake up and figure it out.

http://www.ricksblog.com/my_weblog/2007/04/how_madison_ave.html

Mike Dammann: Let’s say you don’t own any domain names. You know what you have learned in the past few years, but nobody knows who you are and you have limited resources. Where would you start to get into the domain business and which personal mistakes would you avoid making this time?

Rick Schwartz: 1. Stay with dotcom
2. Focus on domains from $50-$1500
3. Make sure it is easy to spell and easy to remember
4. Make sure it MEANS something. 4 words just stuck together does not make a domain name.

The single biggest mistake folks make is getting a .net and not owning the .com version. If you base your business on a .net, chances are ALL that world of mouth traffic will end up on the guys site that has the dotcom version. You will make HIM rich. Additionally, if you were to advertise on TV or radio etc, you would again lose about 25% of your traffic to the other guy. So you basically just hand over 25% of all the dollars you spend and all that effort you put in to your competition. That makes no sense. You end up growing his company more than your own because he did not spend a penny to take advantage of your efforts. This is probably the biggest sticking point with the search industry. They just don’t believe it. They are right in the sense that search engines does not make the distinction between a .net and a .com. However they are 100% wrong when it comes to advertising as I described above.

Mike Dammann: The last word is yours. Is there anything you would like to announce, get off your chest or share with our readers?

Rick Schwartz: I think while the search industry and the domain industry were once diametrically opposed to each other, that is no longer the case. Domainers and the SEO industry have a lot in common and both groups can help each other make more money and that is what it is all about. As this development phase kicks in, the search industry will find out they can do very well with an expanding domain industry. Every domainer I know is seriously looking to develop and expand their prime properties. What few don’t know is that domainers can make decisions on the spot and have the funds to pay the bills and can be great partners with search folks. I always hear the comment from search guys just how easy it is to work with the domain industry. Fast decisions, quick payments and repeat business. A real trifecta!

Search Featured: Seth Godin

Seth I want to thank you for the opportunity to get to know a little bit more about you. In a word you are a genius – what keeps you going, have you not done enough already?

Seth: I’m hardly a genius. I’m just good at making a ruckus, at pointing out the obvious, at giving people a chance to do the things they already knew were right. I’m lucky to be working in a world that fits my personality… I’d be a failure in the 1800s, that’s for sure.

Seth, you were VP of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, American Magazine called you “America’s Greatest Marketer”, and you are responsible for 10 bestselling books AND Squidoo. Is there anything else we can expect to see soon? Any Grammys coming up?

Seth: The number of people who have heard me sing is small indeed. I’m even asked to sit quietly during “happy birthday.”

I have read a lot of your work and am always impressed with what you constantly deliver. You recently released “The Dip” what’s it about, who will it help the most and where can I get my copy?

Seth: The Dip takes on a topic that has been off-limits for years: Quitting. I think quitting is a good thing, and the ability to quit is a great thing. In a google-centric world, where every choice is only a click away, people always choose the ‘best’ one, or at least the one they think is the best. That makes sense, of course. Why would anyone choose the second or third best?

But if we live in a world where winner takes all, what should you do if you’re in second or fifth place? What should you do if you don’t have enough delegates or a big enough fan base or a good enough business model? My point in the book (which is less than 100 pages long) is that being prepared to quit when you can’t see a path to becoming the best is in fact empowering. It gives you the push you need to not settle. Be the best or do something else.

A little over a month ago I created a Squidoo page, threw some links at it and managed to rank it for decent keywords. Squidoo is a young and very powerful site. What can we expect from Squidoo over the next couple of years? Any new features?

Seth: Squidoo works best when you put a lot into it. A few links and some keywords work okay, but a few hours of thoughtful research and some insightful writing turn it into something truly useful. In the next eight weeks we are rolling out some improvements that are really going to make those pages sing.

Many people wonder how companies like Facebook and MySpace are going to make the money they need to live up to their expectations. Where do you see them making most of their money over the next 5-10 years? Is it going to be enough?

Seth: not everyone agrees, but my feeling is that you can make money interrupting CONTENT with ads, but not COMMUNITY. People don’t want commerce mixed in with their friends and their social graph. So I think that monetizing the astounding page views of these sites is going to be extremely difficult.

When I think of Seth Godin I think of a Guerilla Marketing Guru and bestselling author, but there is more to you than that, right? You are an old-timer in the SEO field – what is the one thing that has always ranked websites well; the one thing that every optimizer should consistently focus on?

Seth: I’m an old timer on the Net… first email in 1976, first Internet startup in 1990. But I underestimated the web and have never claimed any SEO skills at all. My take is pretty simple: The best SEO is great content and a tribe that wants to follow you and talk about you and interact with what you build.

In the time it takes to game the system, I think you can do better by actually working with the system to create content people WANT to find. Once you’ve done that, then yes, hire the best SEO you can find, because it’ll pay.

It seems like Google is making it harder for new websites to grow and survive online. Some claim that in years to come entrance barriers will be so high in some industries that startups will never make it. Are you seeing the same thing or is all of this just one more thing that people will learn from and use to discover new ways to make any good website rank well?

Seth: Every industry matures, and as it matures, it’s harder to find an entry point (want to start a steel mill? I didn’t think so). BUT, I think Google is actually making it easier than it has ever been in the history of mankind to start a business with no money and make a profit.

One more question about SEO concerning links, buying links is nearly out, directories and blogs may be fading, and social media may too dwindle away. What do you think most optimizers will be focusing on to get good rankings in the next few years?

Seth: Content. Probably Content. And definitely, Content

The search engines keep getting smarter. The way to win is to be remarkable, useful, unique and updated.

You have a fundraiser on April 30^th in NYC . From what I understand, it is going to be a little different from the typical long presentation and Q & A. What is this I hear about you giving your $800 four DVD set away free and what is going to be different about the fundraiser? Are there still seats available and is there anything our interested readers should know?

Seth: Thanks for asking. All the money goes to Acumen (in fact, you pay them directly). I have six seats left and I figure they’ll go soon. The details are on my blog. I hope you can come. If you can’t, I hope you’ll buy the DVD set. It’s long, but if what you want is me prattling on, that’s what you get

Thanks Seth -

Buy Seth’s latest bestseller Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync? on Barnes & Noble.com.

Google Officially Says No to SEO in Fear Of Christmas Rumble

Google decides to stick with an old claim and sell their search engine optimization company.

On March 11, Google’s purchase of DoubleClick finalized and Google became the proud owner of Performics and the company’s search engine optimization (SEO) division. The thought of Google owning a search engine optimization company with everyone. Read more