Half-Geek

pay per posters pay big SEO price

Back in December 2006 I was introduced to the world of PayPerPost at the Chicago version of the Search Engine Strategies conference. For those half-geek readers who are not familiar, PayPerPost is a business that leverages the Blogosphere by giving businesses (advertisers) the opportunity to create online buzz for their product or service. PayPerPost to achieve bloggers (publishers) get paid for each post they publish on behalf of PayPerPost advertisers.

In the eyes of the worlds leading search engine Google, the PayPerPost business model is designed to achieve much more than just 'online buzz' for advertisers. The recent Google Page Rank update has now been clearly identified as a move by Google to punish websites that sell links with a clear intention to pass Page Rank value and Google believe that PayPerPost bloggers (publishers) are running websites that fit into this category.

In other words, Google is about to come down hard on bloggers who 'sell' posts and more importantly links as part of their commitment to the PayPerPost program by removing their Page rank completely. Just to make things clear, half-geek.com does not participate in the PayPerPost program. I have logged into the scheme, however, I have never accepted any offers to write promotional posts and get paid for them and the links that they would need to contain.

The whole idea of PayPerPost always seemed morally 'stretched' from my perspective. I hail from an up-bringing of 'white-hat' search engine marketing and it was immediately evident to me that PayPerPosts business model was not sustainable. PayPerPost are, in my eyes, link brokers.

Link Brokers are building businesses that go against the grain of the values of Google proprietary search algorithm. Read any business strategy book and it will not take you long before you learn about 'Driving Forces'.

Google is a 'driving force' in the online marketing industry. Link Brokers have , in my opinion, have not adequately identified this important factor as part of their business strategy. The result of this mistake will be catastrophic for them. The core product offering and ensuing customer benefit within their business model is based on something that could be taken away over night- and that's exactly what has happened.

Key lessons here:

• Don't sell links unless your core business model revolves around selling links
• If you do plan to sell links as a business, don't plan to be in business for long ;-)

NZ Search Engine Room

I'm at the first version of Martin Kelly's Search Engine Room   Conference for New Zealand. More reports on the conference content   later.......

Okay I'm back from the conference which was held at the Hyatt Regency in Auckland Central. It was great to have a pure SEM conference in Auckland as we have been lacking in this area here for quite some time.

I attended early Search Engine Room conferences in Sydney and this, the first version for kiwis locally, had a little bit of the same feel about it. A high proportion of Agency side delegates were in attendance.  I am sure that this will change over the coming years as the audience for this type of event grows.

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posted from iPhoneSlide.com

Mobil SEM strategy: Ooops

Not that long ago I posted about Mobil (the petrol stations) and their latest promotion on the back of the Rugby World Cup. I am talking about their All Black miniature figurines and more specifically the famous falling over Dan Carter version.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Mobil got themselves into a bit of grief by letting the news that their latest promotional products were faulty get out off hand.

My suggestion was that Mobil would have done well to have a more web 2.0 orientated strategy supporting their promotion, allowing kids to communicate easily with Mobil online. This way Mobil would have quickly realised that they had a problem. They would have been on the front foot rather than the media being in this position.

Unfortunately for Mobil, it seems that they are also suffering from poor Search Marketing Strategy (SEM). Actually, to be entirely specific, they obviously have no search marketing strategy. How do I know this? Look what happens when one conducts a Google search for Mobil All Black Miniatures!

Thats right folks, my post abusing the quality of their promotional products actually outranks the Mobil site itself. This is the worst case scenario when you decide to not consider Search Engine Marketing as part of your major promotion.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have seen corporates make such a mistake. I remember a few years back when ISP Woosh launched their new service. A Google search for Woosh at that point in time yielded a string of results from various geek forums who were less than happy about the quality of the new Wireless internet provider.

The lesson to be taken from these examples is simple. If you are going to run any sort of nationwide promotion where significant investments are made in mass media such as TV, for Christs sake make sure that you have your bases covered in the various search engines. The more people you tell about your product or service, the more likely there will be search traffic around your brand or that specific product or service.

dear google

Dear Google

What are you up to? People are talking about their SERP's being all over the show and they feel that you are not being very consistent. I don't really care about the pagerank update but it would be nice to know why some are experiencing Florida like happenings once again.

I have done some searching to try and find out what it is that you are up to exactly. Digital point, one of my usual SEO info sources, is full of so much pagerank update bulldust that I am sick of going there. I'm thinking that you may be running a major pagerank smokescreen and it seems to be working! The only thing I can find are articles about the " Google 950 Penalty". This would be nice to believe but on the whole seems a little flaky in substance.

For the first time ever, your Webmaster tools shows a page deep within my site as having the highest pagerank. My links section seems to be getting updated a lot more frequently. So frequently that the Googlebot is picking up 'temporary' links from sites like scoop where one of my posts may be on the homepage for less than a day.......

I think that there is more to your acquisition of feedburner than meets the average geeks eye. New posts on my site seem to get indexed very quickly, like within half an hour. You have served me well through these last few months and your obviously major algo updates are only helping me more to be honest.

My SERP's may be inconsistent, however, they are generally improving-so thanks!

Regards
half-geek

Is anyone else experiencing weird things with our favorite search engine?

Xtra problems drive angry searches

Not that long ago I was surfing through one of my favourite webmaster forums digital point when I found a thread entitled something like, 'whats the craziest key phrase that you rank number one for in google?'.

On discovering the thread I leaped into my blogs web analytics software and started hunting for something crazy, I was certain that I had seen something crazy over the last 6 or 7 months. But to no avail.

That was until yesterday when I found an absolute gem! Someone arrived at half-geek having conducted a search for:

Xtra webmail bullshit

I almost fell of my chair laughing! I am actually quite proud that I rank number 1 in google for this phrase as I feel that the words 'Xtra' and 'bullshit' have a definite correlation. Plus, googles success has been built around a proprietary search algorithm that provides the most relevant results for users. In my opinion their technology is in top form!!!

Google Page Rank Update

What a fuss......

The google toolbar pagerank update typically comes around once every quarter. Google geeks get green bar  fever in anticipation of increased page rank. The only thing is (Alas!) the update that typically takes place around July each year in the 3rd quarter has not arrived. The search geek forums such as digital point are plastered with bemused postings from would be pagerank benefactors.

For those kiwi readers who are like "what the hell is pagerank?", I'll give you a brief overview. Pagerank is an exponential ranking starting at 1 and finishing at 10 given to each page indexed by the google search engine. Most people check page rank using the google toolbar which has a little green bar installed (it's your choice as to whether you wanna see it).

Exponential refers to the fact that it's harder to get from a ranking of 2 up to a 3 than it is to get from a ranking of 1 up to a 2. You with me?

Apart from being a factor in being accepted into certain affiliate programs, pagerank has really become an over hyped measurement tool. This is proven by the fact that the google toolbar pagerank is only updated every quarter. There is no point getting wound up about the next update as so many positive changes can be made to a commercial website in 3-4 months regardless of your pagerank in the google toolbar.

I must admit though- I do get slightly excited around the time that the toolbar update is expected. For a relatively new blog like mine, progressing up a pagerank notch is a pat on the back in what is an up-hill battle to make one's mark in the blogosphere. In the last update half-geek.com went from a 0 up to a 3 (note: this is my homepage rank).

For more detailed information about pagerank I found a great site called pagerankprediction.com which goes into heavy detail about the pagerank algorithm. The site also has a pagerank prediction tool to alleviate those with too little patience for the actual updates. This tool says half-geek.com is going to go up to a 4 on the next update although I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this prediction.

I'm off to the Coromandel on the east coast of New Zealand for my first holiday in a while for the next few days. This means no posting as I won't have a connection. Next Post will be this Sunday night coming (thats the 12th of August in NZ).

My pagerank may have gone up when I return, but I don't really care to be honest!

New Zealand keyword data tips n' tricks

Good keyword research is the foundation of any successful search engine marketing strategy.

Keyword Research in New Zealand presents a unique challenge. International online marketers in the USA and the UK have the benefit of quality research tools such as wordtracker or trellian.

Travel industry businesses in New Zealand should invest in keyword data from google.com using trellian.Potential tourists will often research using geographical type phrases such as 'Car Hire New Zealand' in the wider google.com database.

But what happens when you want to get keyword data for searches conducted on google.co.nz? There are no New Zealand filters on these research tools yet. So these tools are near useless if you want data for the keyword 'Buy Clothes' in our local NZ google database/filter.

I'm going to let you in on a few tips that I can offer after a number of years getting around this problem. I have developed my own proven strategy for New Zealand keyword research.

Search Engine Bootcamp New Zealand

  If you are in or around Auckland on the 21st of June this year you may want to free up your schedule for a new conference called Search Engine Bootcamp. I have been involved in one way or another with Search Engine Marketing for long enough to know that its about time we had a decent SEM conference of our own here in New Zealand.

Google testing category grouped search results

Okay, this is a bit third hand. However, Danny Sullivan spotted some interesting news over on Lee Odens blog about Google testing search results pages that are grouped by category. If this is something that is eventually implemented it could cause a huge uproar. Which categories are more important? Should comparison shopping always come first? Man this could be a big topic in the near future for the SEM/SEO marketers around the globe.

Understanding the details of Adwords Quality Score

When Google announced that a new "quality score" factor would be the key to Adwords account supremacy - we (those in the search engine industry) were presented with a new challenge. Typically, Google had implemented a major change without actually informing us of the critical details. Sure, they said "get your landing pages as relevant as possible" and we all harped on about Google vs Arbitrage and why the big G would implement technology that technically strangled this lucrative revenue stream.

All I can say is thank god for Brad over at ewhisper.net. When it comes to Google Adwords, it is highly unlikely that you will find a more educated individual. Brads most recent post is a beauty for sure. Finally someone tells us all about the finer details of how our quality scores are calculated.