Affiliate marketing

Getting to the top of the search engines has never been easy and the bad news is that it has gotten even harder, especially if you are trying to peak Mt. Google

Recently, with respect to information quality, Google raised the bar even higher with another algorithm tweak that effectively reshuffled (and in some cases evaporated) page rank across thousands of web pages.

Thus if your website’s PR (or that of its inner pages) recently stole quietly away in the middle of the night with nary a goodbye take consolation in the knowledge that you are not alone; this calamity has befallen countless others.

The latest Google algorithm tweak/update has been pretty widespread and non-discriminatory in nature, targeting both new sites and well established veteran sites too.

In the good ole days it used to be that a gray page-rank bar was indicative of a website/web page that had been banned from the Google index but that seems to no longer be the case. Lately it would appear that being grayed-out merely reflects a webpage/website that is under probation (of course in certain cases a gray PR band could actually reflect a banned website/web page).

So what does this all really mean?

Google Web Paradise

Understanding Google’s goals and objectives is fundamental to search-engine optimizing your website effectively and correctly within their guidelines. The first thing you need to appreciate is that online search is a business. Google is Top Dog in the search engine business for two very simple reasons:

1. Google returns the most accurate results for any given search query.

2. Of all the search engines, Google has the fastest retrieval rate for almost all queries.

Being number one for both the above listed parameters obviously has major advantages; it ensures that more people flock to use your search engine and, as has been proven time and time again, where the crowds gather the advertisers hover not far behind.

Advertisers want to get the best bang for their buck so they will naturally tend to spend their dollars where they can get the greatest percentage of targeted and relevant eyeballs; which means advertising on the major search engines (of which surprise, surprise) Google is the leader!

Google’s domination of online search is a tangential derivation of the saying “The Richer Get Richer,” because as Google gets better and leaves the other search engines floundering in their dust, more and more people (and advertisers) will naturally tend to gravitate to them!

The New SEO Horizon

The first thing that should be understood is that the debate about the existence of the Google Sandbox has been laid to rest once and for all. It exists and has become even more expansive as well as having gotten more rigid!

As of January 2005, Google had over 100,000 servers with which to store data in its cache index. The cache index is where Google stores a copy of every page that the googlebot crawls on the internet.

Those web pages that eventually make it into the Google Primary Index (the index that displays the resulting listings in response to a query) are the pages that have been evaluated as most relevant and qualified for that particular query.

Web pages or websites that Google evaluates to be comprised of largely duplicate material that is already in its index are relegated to the supplemental index (the backburner). The supplemental index contains web pages and/or websites that Google considers, for all intents and purposes, to be irrelevant.

In other words you do not want your website to end up in the supplemental index because nobody will ever get to see it!

In 2006 Google suffered a very major server-overload crisis. Since then they have acquired several more servers, but this new algorithm tweak/update tends to suggest that they are leaning much more towards the principle of efficiency-and-quality versus volume-and-quantity.

In essence it appears that Google is adopting an approach geared towards maximizing efficiency of storage and organization of data. This by its very nature means restricting the amount of content that gets crawled, cached and eventually indexed (i.e., saves server space) as opposed to trying to accommodate every single piece of data that is drifting across the internet.

This certainly may go some distance explaining the zeal and passion with which they executed operation “gray band” that affected thousands of websites and web pages.

Recovering From Being G-Slapped

If your website/web pages have recently been demoted (loss of page rank) or now shamefully display a grayed-out PR bar where once a shimmering green existed, then your website has indeed been Google slapped!

So where do you go from there?

There’s a saying that states “understanding the nature of the beast is the first step in divining its true intent” (which is just a fancy way of saying: if you know what makes something tick then you’ll be better able to predict its future actions.”

Keeping that in mind, it is possible to deduce the following aspects from the May 2007 Google update:

1. A gray PR band will be the norm for all new websites and web pages; in other words think “probation period.” The length of time the PR bar remains grayed-out for any particular website/web page is dependent upon a number of factors which include:

a) How unique the content on a web page is. Pages that boast highly original and unique content will tend to be released from the gray zone quicker.

b) A web page that has a lot of unique traffic will have a shorter probation period (note that the origin of that traffic is something the search engines factor in to rule out sneaky play by individuals attempting to game the search engines).

c) Links! Links! Links! Yes, when it comes to SEO it is impossible to ignore the link factor. A page that “naturally” acquires a good number of topically related links will experience a shorter probation period.

d) Greater link activity will increase the importance of the destination page whereby such a web page will tend to attain higher PR quicker. This makes sense because a hyperactive links denotes popularity (websites that are popular are so because people find them useful).

e) The amount of time people spend on your site is also an important parameter that the search engines take into account. People tend to spend more time on websites that they find useful and the search engines can determine that fact through the use of sophisticated tracking scripts.

Bottom line: It is becoming increasingly difficult to game the search engines (the use of blackhat techniques) as their algorithms get smarter and more sophisticated.

The May 2007 Google update amply illustrates that Google is aggressively gunning for its vision of Web Paradise which by necessity means smacking down hard on websites that offer little useful function to that vision!

Simply put, if you wish your website to advance up the SERPs you need to make it user oriented. Visitor use and appreciation of a website appears to be the single strongest factor in determining that website’s eventual position on the SERPs in Google’s brave new Web Paradise!

Internet Marketing Online

About the Author

Ba Kiwanuka is the webmaster of http://www.internetbusinessmart.com

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We have all heard of pay-per-click (PPC) and have seen it rise to become the primary form of online advertising in the space of only a few years. Most webmasters carry PPC ads on their sites these days, be it Google or any of the other PPC providers such as Yahoo or Miva. But how many people have heard of pay-per-play (PPP) and will it work?

As the name suggests, rather than getting paid for each ad-click, webmasters will get paid for each ad-play. A play consists of a five second ad each time a page is loaded that has the PPP code installed. It is a sound based ad that will be based around brand advertising rather than trying to sell a particular product. If the user stays on the page they will not continue to get ads, it is the just the single five second ad, unless they refresh the page.

The million dollar question though is, will PPP work? Sound can be really irritating for website visitors, especially when they are not expecting it. This in itself might deter some webmasters as it might scare their visitors away. On the other hand, it is only a five second ad and if enough websites adopt it, maybe it will become the norm and people will just get used to it.

As a webmaster myself I can see an immediate opportunity to make some quick cash from PPP via traffic exchanges and in particular, auto traffic exchanges. Most traffic exchanges require a page view for between twenty and thirty seconds and we all know most surfers are simply trying to build up their surfing credits. If I put the code on a page explaining what PPP is, surfers will get an ad alongside an explanation and on an auto traffic exchange that page could easily get hundreds of views per day. Each time an ad plays, I am earning a commission. And there are plenty of traffic exchanges that allow sound, so I can’t imagine this will do anything but earn me some bucks.

However, I will still need to be convinced of the risk/reward of putting the PPP code on all my website pages. I’d be really interested to see what other webmasters think about the risk/reward of PPP ads. The risk as I see it is that my visitors will be scared off. The reward is a commission for each ad played. While I intend to take the opportunity of earning some money from the traffic exchange concept, I am not yet ready to dive on in and put the code all over my site.

And what about the advertisers?

Most advertisers looking to promote a brand will be fairly large corporate type advertisers. They will only be attracted by PPP if it is widely adopted by webmasters. They are unlikely to experience the benefit if their ads are primarily being played in traffic exchange type environments. Corporate advertisers will want mainstream coverage. But they will only get mainstream coverage if webmasters are prepared to adopt the concept for the majority of their sites.

We seem to have reached a classic catch 22 scenario.

So are there any other considerations? The website that is currently signing up webmasters for the PPP launch on 1st February 2008 has an Alexa rating of 25000 but a Google page rank of 0. That means some serious marketing is going on behind this program. The website hasn’t been around for very long as borne out by their page rank but already they have enough traffic to put them in the top 25000 websites on the internet. Sure, a three tier affiliate program will help but nonetheless, there must be some serious money behind them. Further, they claim to be backed by a major search engine, as yet unnamed.

In short, I am yet to be convinced by PPP and whether it will work over the longer term. However, on the basis that it might work, I’d like to be a part of it. I’d also love to hear the views of other webmasters.

About the Author

Simon is the webmaster of the netSuccess Directory and a pay-per-play affiliate

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This article highlights the top ten reasons to try the Internet Audios Ads affiliate program by Pay per Play.

#10. Internet audio ads give you the ability to sell advertising. They are backed by one of the major search engines and intend to put money usually paid by big corporations to television and radio networks into the pockets of it’s internet audio advertising affiliate members. They have affiliate programs on both sides of the program.

#9. Internet audio ads already have a large pool of corporate and mom and pop shop advertisers.

With current advertisers on board they have the ability to serve 7 …#34; 10 million ads per day, 7 days a week. They have the infrastructure to serve up to 9000 paid ads per second. That’s 3 quarters of 1 BILLION per day!

#8. Internet audio ads do not requires management on your part. There are no banners to maintain. No banners to upload. No ads to link and no information to enter into databases and/or rotator scripts.

#7. Internet audio ads is risk free. There is no signup fee. There is nothing to buy. All you need is a website, a blog, or even just a myspace page. You can play internet audio ads on any page that you are able to insert the javascript code that they give you.

#6. Internet audio ads take up zero space on your website. All that is required is for you to ad a few lines of javascript to any page on which you would like to play. Ads on a page can look ugly and take up lots of space. With internet audio ads you can make money from ads that don’t clutter your site.

#5. Internet audio ads are contextual and geographically placed. These ads will match the content of your site whenever possible. They will also play ads that are relevant to your location, helping to support vendors right in your neighborhood.

#4. Internet audio ads has a generous payment structure. You get paid for ads that are played on your site. You get paid for ads played on any site your refer. You get paid on any ads played on sites your referrals refer. The payment structure goes three levels deep. This means you can make money without even having ads on your site!

#3. Internet audio ads do not require any user action to make money from them. Ads will be played to any visitor that has javascript and flash enabled. They do not need to click on ads that take up space on your site. This is why they say you get paid per page load.

#2. Internet audio ads do not steer visitors away from your site. This form of advertising is passive, and so is the income that comes with it. Just think, you can get paid for ads people don’t have to click, that don’t take up room on your site, and that doesn’t steer visitors to another site. What else could you ask for?

#1. Internet audio ads is an all new program presently moving through testing phase. Become a core member today! Soon the ability to sign additional people up will only belong to the core group of members that get in before the deadline. Sign up now and you will be able to take advantage of the referral program forever, forever growing your down line and paychecks.

About the Author:
J. V

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It all starts when some well-meaning (yet misdirected) person encourages a budding internet entrepreneur to “start in a niche they know alot about”, or base their business around “something they’re passionate about”…

As horrible as it may sound - they’ve unknowingly sent the hopeful entrepreneur down a path of false expectations, poor results and eventually - failure. In fact, the myth of “do what you love and the money will follow” has been responsible for more failure than likely any other influence - perhaps even moreso than laziness or a lack of perseverance. Because the simple truth of the matter is that the only way you’re going to make real money on the net is if your business is based around two crucial things:

1) Large Demand

2) Buyers

In other words - you aren’t going to get rich selling a $15 ebook about growing square watermelons - even though that might be a great passion of yours.The demand just isn’t there. Maybe there’s a few searches a day on Google for the topic, and perhaps there’s some interest in the online “gardening enthusiast” communities - but you’d be hard-pressed to make even a few hundred dollars a month from ebook sales.

Similarly, you also aren’t going to have a particularly easy time getting rich by building websites about some seemingly “popular” topics like humor, jokes, funny pictures and so on. And while there are a few ways to “monetize” your site (with AdSense, CPA Offers, CPM Banners, etc.), it takes literally millions of website visitors to make even just a few thousand dollars in markets like that.

The demand is huge - but the visitor value is extremely low…

Instead, if you want to make it big online - pulling down an impressive six-figure income - you need to tap into markets with tons of demand, where the majority of the visitors are valuable. You need to capture tons of traffic that wants to buy something. If you take this approach, you’d practically have to hijack your own order links (or affiliate links) not to make a sizeable
income.

In fact - did you know that some affiliates make several thousand dollars daily just by promoting a single product in hot markets? (Just imagine what the merchant is making…) In some markets there’s actually so much demand that the vendors are quite literally selling over a thousand units - or more - per day. Digital products, with practically zero overhead/delivery cost.

But it all comes back to tapping into valuable demand. In most cases, it takes no extra effort or “skill” to market to a valuable market than it does to struggle along with something you’re passionate about. These two factors - demand and buying traffic - are what seperate the “wannabe” marketers from the millionaires. Because there’s no real secret - you just need to sell what thousands of people are already buying.

The ball is now officially in your court. Are you tapping into markets with massive, valuable demand? Or are you struggling to simply make a few dollars occasionally
with a business that’s based on your own passionate interests?

About the author:
Daniel reveals 5 of the most effective traffic strategies and niche-targeting tactics in full detail at- http://digita
lmediadealer.com/superaffiliate

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