Defendmyname.com spamming forums
by Brian TurnerThere are a number of Online Reputation Management (ORM) companies out there – you’ll hardly ever notice most of them in action.
However, defendmyname.com claims to be able to help protect brands, and showcases a number of big brands, as if implying that this is a high end company that knows what they’re doing.
Instead, I found [...]
December 22, 2008
New Google Toolbar plays down PageRank
by Brian TurnerThe Google Toolbar on my IE install has just updated – and the PageRank bar has been really shrunk down.
As you can see, that’s a radical shrinkage, and almost certainly is a continuation of Google’s policy to try and diminish how PageRank is used and abused by webmasters.
Interestingly enough, most commercial SEO’s see little importance [...]
December 15, 2008
Makes affiliate programs pass link juice
by Brian TurnerAn excellent guide on how to ensure your affiliate program passes link juice on blogstorm.
This is something I try recommending to companies I work with, but unfortunately, is usually not taken up.
Companies who do leverage this do really well in the SERPs – just run a few finance terms and see how often MoneySupermarket [...]
December 11, 2008
Buy.at suffers tracking issues
by Brian TurnerAny affiliates with buy.at will have had a few emails this week warning of tracking issues and programme suspensions brought about because of this.
Campaigns I’ve seen suspension emails for include the RAC, Prudential home insurance, and Legal and General.
Interestingly enough, a number of affiliate programs moved to buy.at after tracking issues with Tradedoubler last year, [...]
December 2, 2008
Social Media profiles: the next internet economy
by Brian TurnerBen McKay asks Could you Buy or Sell Social Media Profiles like Business Assets? – to which the resounding answer has to be “yes!”.
The growth of social media has meant that tapping into this market has become a lucrative business, and while at present most try and buy favours from the influencers, it’s obvious the [...]
RankNet and fRank as an indicator of search future
by Brian TurnerMarios Alexandrou takes a look at an older Microsoft fpaper and compares it to PageRank, but what I find interesting in the reading is human user indicators Google could already have in play.
* Popularity as measured by the number of times it was visited by users over time via the toolbar
[...]
November 13, 2008
6 Big Marketing Mistakes
by Brian TurnerAdam Broitman at iMedia Connection posts a list of 6 Stupid Marketing Mistakes, and I’ll expand on these here – with an adjective swap of “Big” because these can be pretty fundamental.
(As an aside, iMedia Connection is a site covering a range of wider marketing topics, and whether you’ve come to IB as a SEO [...]
November 11, 2008
There are no free permanent links
by Brian TurnerWe know that Google is a links driven search engine, therefore some form of link building as part of a wider marketing strategy can reap literal dividends.
So why is it so many people approach link building as something to be suspicious of, and aim to put the least budget into it?
It’s pretty mad really – [...]
August 26, 2008
Indian Spammers blame Brits
by Brian TurnerIn one of the most contentious posts I’ve ever read, someone actually argues that Indian SEO spam should be blamed on British companies:
as an SEO we need to depend mainly on US, UK, and Australian markets.
The equation is simple – these things exist because there is a need in the market, and you have your [...]
August 23, 2008
Seth Godin confused about click marketing
by Brian TurnerSeth Godin has created a backlash among search marketers for advocating what many see as clickfraud.
Seth suggested that surfers could “tip” websites they liked by clicking on ads – for which the website would be paid for – as a means of thanks.
As many have rightly pointed out, at best this is clickfraud – and [...]
August 16, 2008
Cheap SEO: you get what you pay for
by Brian TurnerI’ve railed before on the pitfalls of cheap SEO, trying to underline the point that the phrase “you get what you pay for” is true to business, but especially SEO.
Well, here’s a sad thread from the DigitalPoint forums – starts out with an attractive offer for services, that sounds reasonably cheap but comprehensive.
Unfortunately, it [...]
August 14, 2008
City of Birmingham confuses UK with US
by Brian TurnerFrom the BBC: Chiefs admit Brum skyline mix-up
Birmingham City Council has admitted sending out leaflets which showed its US namesake’s skyline instead.
About 720,000 pamphlets praising Brummies for their recycling were sent around the city at a cost of £15,000.
But instead of showing landmarks such as the Rotunda and the new Selfridges building, it [...]
July 27, 2008
The Secret Truth about Social Networking
by Brian TurnerNetworking:
“The dark art of pretending to like people in order to advance one’s own self – even though that self has precisely nothing to offer the world barring an extraordinary aptitude for self-advancement.”
From The Encyclopaedia of of Modern Life, aka “Is it just me or is everything shit?” – Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur
July 14, 2008
YOU are an asset!
by Brian TurnerYour websites are assets, the wider internet is a galaxy of assets.
But among all of these stars, there is no greater asset than yourself.
This is a fundamental truth in the social web.
It’s taken me a long time to realise it – every facet of marketing depends on your asset value, and your asset value is [...]
July 10, 2008
New problems with Adwords Quality Scoring?
by Brian TurnerBarry Schwartz refers to a raft of new complaints about Quality Scoring, stating that there’s a new wave of advertisers being hit on their minimum bids.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen complaints about Google Adwords Quality Scoring – but what is really interesting is the claims by Google in response via Google Groups that [...]
July 8, 2008
Google reveals search volume figures
by Brian TurnerUPDATE: July 9th 2008 – I’m now seeing the figures live myself – here’s a screenshot for a generic search for “insurance”.
Google search data is something we’ve all wanted to see for years, but had to contend with less accurate proxies such as Wordtracker and the Overture keyword suggestion tool. Now Google gives it free. [...]
Why you need to understand bounce rates
by Brian TurnerBounce rates were a hot topic at the Edinburgh SEO Class, and the consensus among the SEO’s discussing it was that Google are using bounce rates to re-order search results.
This isn’t a surprise – heck, a few years ago I wrote about how Google could use human user data to modify their results pages (SERPs), [...]
July 7, 2008
Google FriendRank: fire ads at your friends
by Brian TurnerHat tip to Hugo Guzman for bringing our attention to a Google patent for displaying ads – based on social groups.
A computer-implemented method for displaying advertisements to members of a network comprises identifying one or more communities of members, identifying one or more influencers in the one or more communities, and placing one [...]
How many Adwords accounts does Thomson have?
by Brian TurnerMultiple Adwords accounts, or a technical glitch with Adsense?
Shame I didn’t try testing to see whether both ads paid the same, differently, or half as much of the other ads. :)
Dr Who misses marketing opportunity
by Brian TurnerAdded to the “Marketing opportunities lost” file.
The Doctor Who finale to Season 4 was exciting as hell, ending in the two-part episode “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End”.
However, in Stolen Earth various people try and call Doctor Who on a special mobile phone number, which is displayed visibly to the viewers.
According to Techwatch, the mobile [...]