Archive for November, 2006

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SEO Link Spam

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

I’m a skeptic when it comes to chiropractic; see the video Adjusting the Joints or read the transcript. Before you start flaming, this is not about whether you agree or disagree with my point of view on chiropractic.* This is about I received from an SEO for a chiropractic website. The actual links have obviously been modified here.

Dr. Donald Quack wrote:

I found you through the San Diego Blogger site, but really enjoyed your site. I was hoping you would take a look at my website, and if you like it, blog about it!

If you are looking for some excellent free help with a sore neck, shoulders, back or headaches, you are going really enjoy what is below.

I have a fun site
http://www.domainname.com/

Cool staff
http://www.domainname.com/MainPages/OurStaff.html
Fun Cartoon Books
http://www.domainname.com/Library.html
Impressive Testimonials
http://www.domainname.com/Testimonials.html

and all kinds of other cool stuff going on!

I would love you to read my site and blog about it. Even more than that, I would love you to come in as a patient to our office as my guest, and receive your first four visits (worth $570) , and then blog about it! I promise you will be thrilled with it. I won’t even try to control what you say in your blog in any way, other than asking you to be totally truthful and put a link to our site. I guarantee if you come to our office you will have a good time, or your money back! Hey, wait a second your not paying anything for this, it is all free!!!

When you link to our site, I ask that you avoid nofollow tags. (If you don’t know, a nofollow tag tells the search engines not to follow the link. I can help you with this if you need it).

Thanks Tons! Let me know what you think.
Dr. Donald Quack
Website: www.domainname.com

As spammy emails go this was better than most until the SEO mentioned the nofollow tags (the bolding is mine). They completely lost me at that point. For me it was a jarring transition from the flow of the message. Up to that point, even though I know I am being spammed, I am ok with the presentation.

The offer of free visits is good marketing whether a reader decides to take them up on it or not. The concept of a local business asking to write about them in exchange for free services is a great idea. Saying something about not trying to “control” what the blogger writes is the correct approach. Remove the nofollow nonsense and it’s a much better marketing message.

*What I used back-in-the-day.
Gravity Boots

Posted in marketing | No Comments »

Free Online Programming Books

Monday, November 27th, 2006

345 Free Online Programming Books.

… and many more.

Posted in web apps | No Comments »

Best 10 Places to Get Free Images

Monday, November 20th, 2006

1) morgueFile
A free stock photo site that’s available to the public either for personal or commercial use.

2) Stock.Xchang
Stock.xchang is well organized and easy to navigate. And, there are plenty of pictures to choose from. There are different licenses for each photo.

3) Open Photo
An attractive looking stock photo community and resource. It has photos under several categories such as animals, computers, landscapes, still life and technology.

4) Our Media
OurMedia.org is a resource for media materials such as photos, audio and videos. Some photos are restricted and some are in public domain.

5) Google Images
It’s not always easy to tell which photos are okay to use and which ones are restricted.

morguefile Image

6) Free Stock Photos
Some of its categories include: animals, scenery, sky, weather, wildflowers and plants. The photos are okay to use for both commercial and non-commercial use with attribution.

7) Image After
This collection of free stock photography can be used both in personal and commercial projects.

8) Flickr
Flickr is a photo storage service. Some users offer their photos for use to the public.

9) Buzznet
Buzznet is another photo storage service. Photos may have different types of restrictions.

10) PD Photo
PDPhoto.org is a collection of stock photography. Some photos are restricted and some are in public domain.

Posted in photography | 2 Comments »

New Standardized Sitemap Protocol

Friday, November 17th, 2006

Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google have aligned on a new, standardized sitemap protocol that allows webmasters to give all three companies’ search engine spiders a complete listing of their site’s pages. The companies have put up a site to explain it all.

Hat Tip

Posted in search engines | No Comments »

Review of ReviewMe

Friday, November 10th, 2006

In an earlier post I wrote about my experience with PayPerPost, a sponsored posts program. At the end of that post I recommended Text Links Ads (TLA), an online link advertising system. Today I received an email from TLA, announcing their new blog advertising system, Reviewme.com.

We have just launched a brand new blog advertising system called Reviewme.com. Your blog has been pre approved into the publisher system! Please note that unlike TLA, Reviewme works on any blog including: Typepad, Blogger, etc because no ad code is needed (if your site is not a blog my apologies for this message as this network is for blogs only).

Please visit Reviewme.com and also check out our promotion where we are giving out $25,000.00 for bloggers who review Reviewme!

So I went over to ReviewMe and easily signed up. Since this blog was preapproved, I was automatically accepted into the system.

Thanks for signing up to be a ReviewMe member! Your membership allows you purchase reviews, as well as submit blogs for publishing. You also will receive special discounts and breaking news on issue[sic] pertinent to your membership.

Then I went back to accept the the review of ReviewMe for which I am supposed to be paid $30!

You have accepted an offer to review ReviewMe. You have until 11/12/2006 to complete your review.

I am disclosing that this post is a paid review and that any paid-for-review that I accept will be placed in the sponsored post category, as is this post.

Do you have to do a “puff piece” for an advertiser to pay you? Here’s what ReviewMe says in their FAQ:

We do not allow advertisers to require a positive review. The vast majority of reviews are measuredly positive, although many do contain constructive criticism. We view this as a bonus: how else can you quickly and cheaply get feedback on a product or service from influencers?

From the other side of the fence, if you are a new player, you can pay an established web author (BinaryWolf Blog dates back to 2004), to review your product or service.

Here’s the part where I disagree with ReviewMe. They claim that many publishers have noticed their contextual ad click through rates and earnings drop over time, because, people ignore ads. In of itself, that statement may be true, especially since they qualified their claim by using the term, “many”. However as someone who has been in the game for some time, that is not the case for me. They use that claim to setup their proposition that because our reviews are not formatted to look like ads, publishers are able to deliver more attention and value than through advertising via any other marketing channel. Well, that remains to be seen.

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How to Rename a Batch of Photos All at Once

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Which is easier to identify DSCN1518.JPG or vacation(18).JPG?

When you download images from your digital camera to your computer, the file names of the images have nothing to do with the events or scenes in the pictures. Renaming each file manually is time-consuming, but using this Microsoft Windows XP technique, you can quickly rename a folder of digital photos all at once. When you use this technique on a folder, all the files in the folder end up with a single name (including a sequential number) that relates to the subject of the images. Using this technique to rename your digital photos makes it easier to locate the one you’re looking for at a later date—a photo named museum of flight august (18).JPG, for example, is easier to find than that same photo named DSCN1518.JPG.

How to Rename a Batch of Photos All at Once
1. Click Start and then click My Pictures.
2. Open a folder of digital photo files whose names you want to change.
3. Click Edit and then click Select All.
4. Right click on the first digital photo file in the list and then click Rename. The name of the first digital photo file is highlighted and ready to be edited.
5. Type the name you want to use to identify all the digital photo files in the folder. Choose a name that allows you to identify a photo from this folder at a later date.
Note: Be sure to type the file extension after the file name. In this example we use the extension .jpg after the file name museum of flight august because these image files are jpeg format, which is the format that most digital cameras use.
6. Press Enter on your keyboard to rename all the digital photo files in the folder and add sequential numbering to the file names.

Posted in photography | No Comments »

Should You Use Text Link Ads?

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

Earlier this year, I signed up with text link broker Text Link Ads. They sell small text ads on your site, split the revenue with you 50-50, and deposit your earnings directly into your designated account.

Every month my earnings have increased. If you are a content publisher, it’s a totally passive and easy extra income solution for you to sell links off of your site. If you are an advertiser, the links should provide a boost in organic rankings by increasing targeted backlinks to your site.

Text Link Ads offers a good product and an attractive way to make money. Their links can be run along side a contextual system as they are not contextually served. You don’t have to worry about clickthroughs to make money. You can see the Text Link Ads which have been purchased on this site over on the sidebar.

Posted in blogging, marketing | No Comments »

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