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It's out, it's live, it's free: the newsletter exposing all the tricks of the trade and more – a must read for every webmaster interested in optimizing their search engine ranking and in achieving higher returns in search marketing!
Here's your requested archived issue of our fantomNews™ ezine
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All the tricks of the search engine trade and more ...
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vol. 3/issue 014 _ _ ___ __
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| _/ _` | \| / - \/ _ _ \|\ ||__\ /\ / \ ___ \
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2002-07-16 --- Sent by subscription only!
Circulation: 6,605+ very special readers, and growing
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mailto:fantomnews@fantomaster.com
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in its unedited form. Please do share it with others!
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************************************
* Those who fear the dark have not *
* yet seen what the light can do. *
************************************
-------------
IN THIS ISSUE
-------------
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
= Sponsorship Notice:
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING TACTICS 2002 (AMSTERDAM): THE
HANDS-ON, NO FLUFF PRACTICAL SEARCH ENGINE CONFERENCE
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
= News Flash:
fantomaster.com Featured In Business 2.0 *
"Search Engine Marketing Tactics 2002 (Amsterdam)" -
Registrations Are On, Plus A 15% Discount Special Bonus
Offer
= fantomTip:
The Ultimate Search Engine Book
= Mike Grehan: "How Term Vectors Became
Chinese Whispers"
= Workshops For Traffic Generation
= Security Alert: Dangerous Spiders From Inktomi
= fantomTip:
Overture Offers $10 Bonus Credit To New Advertisers
= Miscellaneous Bots: Larbin
= Keyword Typos
= LookSmart Not Small Business Friendly
= fantomSpot: Featured SE Site
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= Sponsorship Notice:
FIND EXPIRED DOMAINS WITH HIGH LINK POPULARITY AND
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= fantomTip:
Setting Up PayPal Links
= The Search Engine Grapevine: News 'n Stuff
= Lee Traupel: "The New Marketing Landscape"
= Classified Ads
= Guest Columnist:
Sage Lewis, "Overture gets confusing ... and greedy"
= How to Be Featured as our Guest Columnist
= fantomAd:
"Spying On the Spiders: Our Landmark Online Service"
= Spider IPs: Lots of New Alexa Spiders Detected
Plus - New Google Spiders
Plus - New Inktomi Spiders
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Sponsorship Notice
------------------
Search Engine Marketing Tactics 2002 (Amsterdam): The
Hands-On, No Fluff Practical Search Engine Conference
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
fantomaster.com Featured In Business 2.0 *
Search Engine Marketing Tactics 2002 (Amsterdam) -
Registrations Are On, Plus A 15% Discount Special Bonus
Offer
------------------------------------------------------
(rt) Business 2.0 has published a piece on search
engine optimization in its July issue, featuring
fantomaster.com as a company offering cloaking
technology and, thereby, helping sites to get more
hits.
Full article:
< http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,41488|2,00.html >
On another note, registrations are on now for the
Search Engine Marketing Tactics 2002 (Amsterdam)
conference on September 23-24, 2002 in the Amsterdam
Hilton (Netherlands).
All subscribers are cordially invited to attend and to
meet with us there.
Find comprehensive info here:
< http://internetconferences.nl >
SPECIAL BONUS OFFER: If you sign up for the conference
at < http://internetconferences.nl/ic-register.html >,
be sure to enter promo code "FAN015" for an exclusive
15% discount, reserved to subscribers of fantomNews!
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======================================================
fantomTip:
The Ultimate Search Engine Book
------------------------------------------------------
(rt) This second edition of what's been an online
bestseller for long time already is a real killer -
namely Mike Grehan's recently published/launched
ebook "Search Engine Marketing: The essential best
practice guide".
Mike Grehan has researched all aspects of this field
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dated and faulty advice circulating widely around the
Internet.
By effectively debunking many of the search engine
optimization industry's fondest myths, presenting
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engine marketing, this is definitely the best book
money can buy. An indisputable must-read.
Want some independent confirmation? How about this
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"This is the single best publication about search
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Mike, sincerely. With this, I believe you may have
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industry. [...]
If there is ever a certification program for search
engine optimization professionals (SEOs), this book
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Congratulations on far, far exceeding my considerable
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"HTML 4 Bible" and the award winning "The E-commerce
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Digital Arena"
So check it out here:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=sem1 >
Also, read Mike Grehan's exclusive article below!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Serial: Search Engine Myth-Busters
----------------------------------
Mike Grehan: "How term vectors became Chinese whispers"
------------------------------------------------------
Intro:
In the first of the "Myth-Busters" series, Mike Grehan
dispels the long held myth of "themed" web sites.
The author:
Mike Grehan of e-Business Center (UK) was formerly a
professional broadcaster in radio and TV. Today, he is
a marketing communications professional on the web. His
clients include many world leading Fortune 500
organisations.
He is also the author of "Search Engine Marketing:
The essential best practice guide". (See article above.)
More info on this book:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=sem1 >
------------------------------------------------------
One day, when I was a child, I was watching some
rabbits at play in a field. It was a glorious Summer's
day and I was with my Grandfather. After exhausting
myself running around the field chasing the rabbits, I
told him how I'd dearly love to catch one and keep it
as a pet. My Grandfather knew a great deal about
country-life and told me that there was a special
secret to catching a rabbit. He told me that, the
secret is to "put a pinch of salt on the rabbit's
tail." Knowing that my Grandfather was a wise old man,
I duly went to the kitchen, took a pinch of salt and
headed back to the field where I exhausted myself again
until the sun came down.
Of course, it was many years later when it actually
dawned on me that, if you ever got close enough to a
rabbit to put a pinch of salt on its tail, then you'd
caught it already! This is perhaps the most useless
piece of advice that my 'wise man' Grandfather had ever
given to me. And with a little bit of lateral thinking,
I could have saved an awful lot of breath. But I'm sure
he and my Grandmother had a good laugh about it.
So, I hear you ask yourself: "What's this got to do
with search engines?" Well let me tell you: in a manner
of speaking, out on the Internet we're all chasing
rabbits. The rabbit, of course, has been replaced by
the customer. And the Internet is full of 'wise men',
frequently dishing out advice on how to catch them.
However, unlike my Grandfather's prank (as it was), we
stand to fail with our businesses if we adhere to the
tons of what is frequently, useless advice on the web.
Before I go any further here, I want to 'chisel in
stone' that this series of articles is not intended to
'right' the wrong advice, of which, as I say, there is
an abundance. It's intended to clear up some long held
myths which pervade about search engines (in the main).
And instead of giving advice (which may end up being as
good my Grandfather's) I want to point you in the
direction of factual material. You can then draw your
own conclusions. So don't expect the usual 'magic pill'
approach which is used in so many 'customer confidence'
type newsletters. This particular article has a little
comfort, and lot of pain. The comfort comes in the form
of a 'road map' which leads to some answers. The pain
comes in your own head when you have to force the 'old
grey matter' into action. The reward though, is worth
it: self enlightenment. Not crappy advice.
Let me also just quickly establish something else. As
anyone who has already read the second edition of my
SEM guide will know, I've just completed a year of
intensive research into the fundamental algorithms,
systems and processes used by search engines. The
feedback I've had from many leading professionals in
the field has been tremendous. But I've also discovered
the dissentient faction asking the question: is it
essential to know the 'inner workings' of search
engines to do SEM? Well, no, perhaps in cases it may
not be. Many people may feel they're doing just OK by
keeping their title tags right, throwing in a h1 for
good measure, using a corresponding alt tag then asking
'the next door neighbours' for a link. And that's fine:
if you approach SEM a bit like a 'Sunday-driver'. But
think about this: a Formulae One racing driver only
reaches the top of his profession by understanding the
mechanics of his machine. He then applies that
knowledge to achieve the optimum winning performance.
I'm afraid it would appear that, in so many cases, the
term 'dilettante' seems to have found a natural home on
the world wide web.
Here's a good place to begin. I take it you've heard of
term vectors? You must have, you're involved in search
engine marketing (if not - you're reading the wrong
newsletter :-) Times and dates are largely immaterial
here, but somewhere back between 1999/2000, a bunch of
scientists/researchers in the field of information
retrieval on the web, posted the result of some
research work they had carried out. This project work
was closely linked to two other projects which were
extremely significant to the future of search on the
web. At this juncture, we're only concerned with 'The
Term Vector Database.' The others will find their
natural place in this newsletter, just as they did in
what became, in search engine research, an epoch.
As they have been saying since the appearance of this
document on the web, in some SEM circles, the story
goes like this: search engines have discovered a brand
new technology called 'term vectoring'. Effectively,
search engines no longer look at words on a page, they
now turn them into 'vector numbers' (sic) and use this
information to provide the theme of an entire web site.
It's now necessary to ensure that you can sum up the
entire theme of your web site in as a little as two
words, because that's how term vectors work: in term
weight pairs.
So, that's the advice, create a web site which can be
summed up in two words and when the search engine can
get the 'gist' of your entire site: you're in. Have you
come upon this advice before? I'm sure you must have
done, because we're talking about the introduction of
themes. And themes are very important to search engine
indexes. But the theme a search engine is looking for
ranges over the linkage of an entire corpus of web
pages and the text within them. Not the web pages of
any one particular web site. And this is where the
confusion that causes the myth begins. In our little
'road map' I want you to start the journey with me now
by travelling back in time. Many readers of this
newsletter may already have read this document (and
probably some time ago) but I want to do a little
refresher even with those who have. So, point your
browser here first:
< http://www9.org/w9cdrom/159/159.html >
You can download it, print it, or just keep it
available on your monitor as I will be referring back
to it from time-to-time. First, look at the abstract.
It is well written. It sums up the purpose of the
project perfectly. However, it does not immediately
explain the main motivation behind the work. For this,
you need to look at section 3.2 and here, in the first
sentence you'll find the major goal, not just of this
project, but generally for search engines in terms of
relevancy at the interface: topic distillation.
OK, we've stopped at the first destination. But we
can't reflect on the first part of the journey unless
we make it an overnight stop, here at a place which
actually catches us still as time travellers, going
further back in time to where we hear the 'patter of
tiny Google feet' from the results of an algorithm
developed by Professor Jon Kleinberg, Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y. Because I've mentioned topic
distillation (which is covered in much more detail in
another 'Myth-Busters article) we need to get the
basics of what it's all about and how both topic
distillation and term vectors apply to the myth we're
exploring.
< http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/April98/websearch.bs.html >
Have you heard the latest 'vogue' expression of 'hubs
and authorities'? Have you read the newsletters
'ranting' about the latest theories of 'link
popularity' and your 'reputation' on the web? Term
vectors; hubs and authorities; topic distillation,
reputation: It's hard to get your head around, because
this is stuff all NEW… my ass! And believe me, this is
just the tip of the iceberg.
In our first overnight stop, we're staying with Jon
Kleinberg. And as our journey continues, we'll cover a
short review of searching techniques based on Jon's
HITS and related algorithms which utilise link topology
of the web to provide the basis for a structure based
search technology. The more we know about what search
engines are trying to achieve, the more we know about
how to help them achieve it: that being our 100% good
quality pages in the index.
So: Terminology first. Let's quickly cover 'hubs and
authorities'. Jon Kleinberg's HITS algorithm is based
on the simple notion of the way we generally spread
information. Those 'in the know' pass it on to those
who don't know. And then it's passed on to others not
in the know, frequently with a reference to the source
of the information. Just think about the way in
academia that, research work by other researchers is
'cited' in a formal manner. Using citation counting
methodology, you can look at the number of citations
given on any one specific subject and narrow down a
recognised expert on the subject matter. Using this
simple analogy, let's look at the way that HITS (for
Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search) works.
HITS begins by conducting an ordinary text-based search
on a topic using a search engine. This collects a "root
set" of about 200 pages that contain the entered
keywords. It then expands the set to include all the
pages linked to by pages in the root set. The expanded
set might include from 1,000 to 3,000 pages.
From there on, text is ignored, and the application
only looks at the way pages in the expanded set are
linked to one another. The first time through, it
identifies the pages that are pointed to most often by
other pages, and assigns them a score, or "weight,"
indicating that they are more likely to be authorities.
At the same time it notes the pages that contain more
links to other pages and gives them more weight as
hubs. It's very much a similar process to that of
citation analysis.
You probably (make that, 'most certainly' if you're in
SEO) use some form of keyword density analyser. But,
have you ever asked yourself why? Let's now tackle
'term vectors'. This, I'm afraid does not really have a
simple analogy to go with it. But let's look at the
background and a bit of history.
Three retrieval models have gained the most popularity
within information retrieval circles: Boolean Model;
Probabilistic model; Vector Space Model. Of particular
relevance to search engines happens to be the work
carried out in the field of automatic text retrieval
and indexing. Pre-eminent in the field is the late
Gerard Salton who died in 1995. Of German descent,
Salton was Professor of Computer Science at Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y. (coincidentally, the same
University as Jon Kleinberg). He was interested in
natural-language processing, especially information
retrieval, and began the SMART information retrieval
system in the 1960's (allegedly, SMART is known as
"Salton's Magical Automatic Retriever of Text").
Professor Salton's work is referred to (cited) in just
about every recent research paper on the subject of
information retrieval.
Salton developed one of the most influential models for
automatically retrieving documents in 1975. Known as
the Vector Space Model, it was designed to specify
which documents should be returned for a given query
and how those results should be ranked relative to each
other in the results list. This model is still very
much fundamental to the index and retrieval systems of
full text search engines. In his own words, here's how
he describes the model:
"In a document retrieval, or other pattern matching
environment where stored entities (documents) are
compared with each other, or with incoming patterns
(search requests), it appears the best indexing
(property) space is one where each entity lies as far
away from the others as possible; that is, retrieval
performance correlates inversely with space density.
This result is used to choose an optimum indexing
vocabulary for a collection of documents."
Salton spent a lifetime working on the vector space
model. It was introduced to the web in 1994 by Brian
Pinkerton with his innovative, full text retrieval
WebCrawler. Do you remember, earlier, I mentioned this
'new technology' called term vectoring used by search
engines? Well, how new would you like 1994 to be!
Here's a general (or simplified) overview of how it
works. The indexer at a search engine, measures the
'term frequency' (tf) of the word in a Doc (web page)
to get the 'term density' and then measures the
'inverse document frequency' (idf) which is a
calculation of the frequency of terms in a document;
the total number of documents; the number of documents
which contain the term. With this further calculation,
each Doc (web page) can now be viewed as a vector of tf
x idf values (binary or numeric values corresponding
directly or indirectly to the words of the Doc). What
you then have is a term weight pair. You could
transpose this as: a document has a weighted list of
words: a word has a weighted list of documents (a term
weight pair).
Note the most important thing from the above: a term
weight pair is relative to a mathematical equation
across the entire corpus held in a search engine
database. NOT the number of words you use to describe
the corpus bound within your web site's pages.
Keyword density analysis as SEO's know it has a fine
old history. I asked you to keep the first document
open. Go to the Term Vector Database document now and
look at 1.Introduction (they date Salton back to 71
here). And then look at 2.1 Definition of term vectors.
Then you'll better understand term vectors and the
characteristics of a 'term weight pair'. How the
experiment only worked in English, and term frequency
Vs inverse document frequency creates the formalised
beginning of term weighting.
The reason that using the vector space model is so
important (other than the fact that no better model yet
exists) is that, when the user submits the [short]
query, it is immediately converted to a vector in the
same vector space. This is how a mathematical match can
be made so quickly.
It's also interesting to note that, considering we are
discussing a corpus of documents which covers the world
wide web in every language, because of the use of
'Porter Stemming' the term Vector Database experiment
only worked in English. The 'Porter Stemming' algorithm
(developed by Professor Michael Porter) is the one
which makes the difference between whether a search
engine returns the same results for 'connections' as it
would for 'connection', it strips back plurals (as well
as doing a number of other things). And as you'll note,
as far as term selection goes, the model used in the
Term Vector Database project 'weights' the 50
strongest terms per page (I want to stress PAGE again).
So far, we know that words on a page are important. But
some words are more important than others. By using a
'stop list' as it's known, it's easy to eliminate words
from a search engine index which have little or no
meaning on their own. In the second edition of my
guide, I make reference to an experiment which took
some millions and millions of words written by
experienced journalists working on Time Magazine. The
top 20 words from the entire corpus were all 'stop
words'. Now, this proves what's known as Zipf's Law.
Basically, Zipf says, we're all lazy. It's true: with
any productive task we look for the easiest, shortest,
less involved way of completing it. It's only natural.
And so, as we write, we use the same words over and
over again, sparingly interspersed with some words of
meaning. Those words of meaning, are the rarest across
the corpus within a search engine index, and therefore
are the ones most important when attempting to match a
user query with the millions of words/terms/tokens as
they are within the index. Using an inverted index, a
search engine is able to take the words with the most
importance and map them back, using identifiers, to the
pages which contain them. This makes absolute sense. As
the search engine index builds its 'lexicon' (remember
that many web pages are not English and many contain
'jargon') the database need only keep one occurrence of
a term with the location of the pages which include it,
as opposed to keeping millions and millions of records
of the same term.
Now we have a corpus of important terms on many, many
pages. What's needed now is: how do we identify the
most important pages containing these terms? Still at
our overnight stop, we need to go back to Jon
Kleinberg. His introduction and contribution to what we
know as 'link popularity' is one of the most important,
in terms of information retrieval on the web, as you
may have gathered.
Here we can see, that it's not just about the words on
a page anymore, it's about the number of other pages
which are also interested in the words on that page.
Interested enough to want to point a link back to them
in fact. However, much as Jon Kleinberg's work is
extremely important, it's not perfect. Which is why
there have been so many 'variations' on his work to
avoid what's known as 'topic drift'. This simply means
that, many links point back to other pages, not because
they're on the same topic, but because they may serve
another purpose i.e. 'noisy' links like banner adverts,
or affiliate links. Just summing the total number of
'back-links' may prove one page to be more popular than
another in terms of count: but this does not
necessarily mean that the same 'theme' exists in the
linking pattern. Yes. I did. I used the word theme
again. But note, I'm talking about a theme relating to
linkage between pages on the entire web (or that
fraction of the web which a search engine has
captured):, not the theme of particular web sites.
It's time to look at the map again and move onto the
next stop. Earlier, I mentioned the 'patter of tiny
Google feet'. Let's see how what we know so far about
inverted indexes, term vectors and hubs and authorities
has played its role in the birth of a web phenomenon.
Please point your browser here:
< http://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html >
Yes, this is where it all begins with what has become
the web's most popular search service. In the very
first sentence of the abstract, Sergey Brin and Larry
Page make reference to ' heavy use of the structure
present in hypertext'. Sound familiar? Now, skip to
4.5.1 and note in the section on ranking, the number of
times the word 'vector' is used when referring to
weighting. Here, in the last sentence of that first
paragraph in the section, we see: "Finally, the IR
(information retrieval) score is combined with PageRank
to give a final rank to the document." Now we have the
sum of the algorithms covering the term frequency
multiplied by the inverse document frequency combined
with the PageRank (the linkage analysis) algorithm.
Basically, keyword density plus link analysis. All of
which is leading what is currently the most important
factor in current search engine optimisation
techniques.
I think, before we go any further, it's a good idea to
separate a couple of very important considerations
which need to be made when using the algorithm
combination described above. And that's the different
ways which the user query can be dealt with at the
interface. There are two ways of determining the order
of rank: a query dependent return, or a query
independent return. To make this easier to understand,
let's stay with Google. At Google, the return is based
primarily on a query independent score. Because the use
of PageRank has already determined your 'degree of
importance' by the quality of your linkage data, prior
to any query being made. Although, in my own research,
I used a much longer version of the paper we are
referring to (which is no longer freely available
unfortunately) the one we are referencing here serves
the purpose of this article. Let's go back to the
Google paper and look at 2.1. Here, you'll see how
PageRank is described as an "objective measure of its
citation importance that corresponds well with people's
subjective idea of importance. Because of this
correspondence, PageRank is an excellent way to
prioritize the results of web keyword searches" i.e.
regardless of the words on the page and the density of
such, the 'pecking order' is already determined,
initially, by linkage data first.
Before I reach the summing up of the first part of our
journey on the 'debunking' road map, we have another
quick stop to make. Once again, in the second edition
of my guide, there is much more in-depth analysis
covering this particular, related subject. But for the
purpose of this article, let's take just one specific
reference. The idea of themed web sites which has been
much propagated in web circles, is also based on the
notion of a search engine now looking at ALL of the
pages in your web site to get the overall 'theme'. In
my book, I made reference to a number of 'high profile'
web sites, documents and books as major exponents of
the notion. First of all, let me tell you that, within
my own client base (and I work with both extremely
large organisations as well as SME's): I don't have a
single client which has ALL of the pages of their web
site indexed by any one search engine. How could a
search engine determine the theme of your entire site
if it doesn't have the entire content in the database?
Pay for inclusion is predominantly becoming the way to
guarantee that your pages are indexed by a search
engine. Yes, you could pay to include ALL of your
pages, although I would doubt your reasoning for
wanting to do this. All of the 'third party' suppliers
for pay for inclusion schemes have the 'corporate PR
machines' working at full power to promote the
benefits. And one of them, important to this article,
is the second point made by Inktomi (on behalf of
Position Technologies) under the subtitled section
'Traditional Search Engines':
< http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/submit.html >
We'll continue on our journey, next edition. But here's
a quick summing up of where we've been and what we've
discovered so far.
The researchers on the Term Vector Database project did
not invent term vectors. The vector Space Model was
developed many years ago.
Topic distillation, the fundamentals of which, in
search engine history, were developed by Jon Kleinberg
relates to web PAGES not web SITES.
Search engines are less likely to have ALL of the PAGES
in your web site indexed than you may imagine.
It's about PAGES. It's about linkage.
It's about classification and categorisation.
This short series of 'Myth-Buster' articles will cross
reference many of the points made in each article in an
effort to give a 'fuller' picture (worth saving).
Next issue I'm taking a 'debunkers' look at crawling
the web and link analysis.
See you in Amsterdam:
< http://internetconferences.nl >
Mike Grehan is the author of
"Search Engine Marketing: The essential best practice
guide".
< http://www.searchengine-report.co.uk >
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
fantomTip:
What You Really Need - Total Link Analysis
------------------------------------------------------
(rt) Good, copious linkage having evolved to a non-
debatable major SEO factor in recent years, the obvious
question pops up ever more frequently: what's a good
link - and how can I improve on my web site's link
popularity? It is now common knowledge that mere link
farms won't do anymore - what really counts is both
topical link descriptions and a good reputation as
reflected in other sites' links to yours and what they
are actually saying about you.
The problem is, you might be a bit surprised at what
some of your links say!
Enter OptiLink(TM), probably the most useful client based
SEO tool of them all: this truly neat program offers you
a full analysis of all links pointing to your site (plus
your site's internal links) in any given search engine's
index. It lists the link texts actually used to point to
your site - crucial for quality linkage and of course you
would want nothing less.
Finally, OptiLink(TM) will also help you analyze your
competitors' linkage so you can organize your efforts
to better them and improve your rankings in the
process.
The program comes with a 90-day 100% money back guarantee,
so you really have nothing to lose.
Learn more about OptiLink(TM) here:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=ol1 >
Or, check out their 5 min. Online Tour:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=ol2 >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Workshops For Traffic Generation
------------------------------------------------------
(rt) Ever wanted private, step-by-step instruction in
search engine optimization? What if you could
personally spend a few days having SEO industry
insiders reveal all of the best methods and techniques
for top placement? Here's your invitation to join the
Ultimate SEO Mastery Workshop, by Search Engine
Workshops.com.
Industry leaders Robin Nobles and John Alexander are
conducting these 3-day, hands-on, personalized
workshops geared to meet your specific needs. The next
workshop will be held on July 29-31 in Denver. Space is
limited, so make your reservations now!
More info:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=sews >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Security Alert: Dangerous Spiders From Inktomi
------------------------------------------------------
(bro) Search engine servers aren't only sending out
well known SE spiders. To prove this point, we have
detected the following worms which attacked our systems
from the IPs given below.
Code Red
========
home-44-016.extranet.inktomi.com
209.131.44.16
Nimda
=====
wmlive.mixt.inktomi.com
216.155.194.141
kuumba.cds.inktomi.com
216.155.196.131
dhcp-216-155-204-239.dhcp.inktomi.com
216.155.204.239
This goes to show that not all that's coming from
the search engines is good for your ranking.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
fantomTip:
Overture Offers $10 Bonus Credit To New Advertisers
------------------------------------------------------
(rt) Earn a special $10 bonus credit if you become a new
active Overture advertiser* between now and December
31, 2002. This offer is only valid for friends of
current Overture advertisers, and if you're reading
this message, that's you!
Click here to learn more and list your site with
Overture:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=ov1 >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Miscellaneous Bots:
Larbin
------------------------------------------------------
(bro) Larbin is one of a fairly large group of spiders
which crawl the Net aggressively devouring tons of
bandwidth in the process.
Here is a list of various Larbin UserAgents we detected
recently:
MSIE-5.13 (larbin@unspecified.mail)
MSIE-5.13 larbin@unspecified.mail
Mozilla/5.0 (larbin2.6.2@unspecified.mail)
Mozilla/5.0 larbin2.6.2@unspecified.mail
Opera/6.01 (larbin2.6.2@unspecified.mail)
Opera/6.01 (larbin@unspecified.mail)
Opera/6.01 larbin2.6.2@unspecified.mail
Opera/6.01 larbin@unspecified.mail
WinampMPEG/2.00 (larbin@unspecified.mail)
WinampMPEG/2.00 larbin@unspecified.mail
larbin (samualt9@bigfoot.com)
larbin samualt9@bigfoot.com
larbin_2.2.1_de_Viennot (Laurent.Viennot@inria.fr)
larbin_2.2.1_de_Viennot Laurent.Viennot@inria.fr
larbin_2.2.2 (liston@cc.gatech.edu)
larbin_2.2.2 (mjovanov@ececs.uc.edu)
larbin_2.2.2 liston@cc.gatech.edu
larbin_2.2.2 mjovanov@ececs.uc.edu
larbin_2.2.2_guillaume (guillaume@liafa.jussieu.fr)
larbin_2.2.2_guillaume guillaume@liafa.jussieu.fr
larbin_2.5.0 (larbin2.5.0@unspecified.mail)
larbin_2.5.0 larbin2.5.0@unspecified.mail
larbin_2.5.9 (larbin2.5.9@unspecified.mail)
larbin_2.5.9 larbin2.5.9@unspecified.mail
larbin_2.6.0 (drt@un.bewaff.net)
larbin_2.6.0 (larbin2.6.0@unspecified.mail)
larbin_2.6.0 drt@un.bewaff.net
larbin_2.6.0 larbin2.6.0@unspecified.mail
larbin_2.6.1 (larbin2.6.1@unspecified.mail)
larbin_2.6.1 (pcorrea@edd.fr)
larbin_2.6.1 larbin2.6.1@unspecified.mail
larbin_2.6.1 pcorrea@edd.fr
larbin_2.6.2 (larbin2.6.2@unspecified.mail)
larbin_2.6.2 (nagy_testver@allam.hu)
larbin_2.6.2 (tom@lemurconsulting.com)
larbin_2.6.2 larbin2.6.2@unspecified.mail
larbin_2.6.2 nagy_testver@allam.hu
larbin_2.6.2 tom@lemurconsulting.com
larbin_2.6_basileocaml (basile.starynkevitch@cea.fr)
larbin_2.6_basileocaml basile.starynkevitch@cea.fr
larbin_devel (http://pauillac.inria.fr/~ailleret/prog/larbin/)
larbin_devel http://pauillac.inria.fr/~ailleret/prog/larbin/
Moreover, they are adding new spiders to this list
every week.
Once you have detected a Larbin spider crawling your site,
why not reciprocate the favor and visit it in turn?
To achieve this, simply extract the spider's IP address
from your server's access log file and create the following
type of URL:
< http://IPofLarbin:8081/ >
E.g.: if IP is 66.28.68.234, this will give you the following
URL:
< http://66.28.68.234:8081/ >
This will lead you to their administration page.
However, it will only work if the server the IP address is
pointing to is still online and access has not been blocked
via a firewall.
You can find more information on Larbing here:
< http://larbin.sourceforge.net/index-eng.html >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Keyword Typos
------------------------------------------------------
(rt) Optimizing for typos may be an excellent idea for
the simple reason that they're so common - traffic, you
would lose otherwise.
Here's a resource which list keywords complete with meta
tags to insert in your web pages:
< http://www.searchspell.com/typo/ >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
LookSmart Not Small Business Friendly
-------------------------------------
(wbi) There is a firestorm of negative press regarding
LookSmart's recent marketing stumbles via numerous
discussion groups, including two of the oldest and most
influential, I-Search and I-Advertising Digests. Most
of the critiques center on LookSmart's inability to
develop viable programs for SMB/SME ("small to medium
business or enterprise"), the difficulty in managing
their new pay per click "Small Business Listings"
advertising program, and their overall lack of customer
service responsiveness.
Many of us in the agency/marketing services world
relied upon LookSmart's directory in the early days;
especially as an offset to Yahoo's "my way or the
highway" attitude when they became the 20 pound gorilla
in the marketplace. So, it's sad to say, but LookSmart
appears to be morphing to just another portal with
little marketing awareness of how to work effectively
with the tens of millions of SMB companies that have
rapidly embraced a web-centric business model. Their
overall terms of services are geared for big companies
and their SMB programs appear to be an afterthought at
best!
One of the core issues that frustrates many small
businesses is the difficulty in getting a listing that
actually describes their company, products, and/or
services accurately - to add insult to injury, you have
to pay in some cases twice to have your listing
upgraded. Apparently, LookSmart's editorial staff can't
keep up with the demand, or is so pressured to maintain
some internal quota their descriptions suffer
accordingly.
LookSmart's new Small Business Listings program is
simply not "small business friendly." It is a complex
program with lots of important details buried in an FAQ
and there are some "gotchas" in the small print -
including being forced to wait up to 90 days for the
return of the upfront deposit of $150. and paying a
setup fee for a listing; but having it deactivated when
you exceed the dollar amount of your "monthly click
limit." I can understand their dropping the listing
once you exceed your budget, but it does not seem
equitable to charge $49. to setup the listing in the
first place - your in essence subsidizing LookSmart's
cost of doing business.
We've found inconsistencies in LookSmart's stated
Privacy program versus inbound e-mail traffic we've
received from them over the past 3-6 months. We've
unsubscribed 3-4 times and still keep getting self-
promotional marketing materials which are not of any
value, other than promoting LookSmart's business. They
are clearly not adhering to their stated privacy policy
and to compound matters, our complaints have not been
addressed via their customer service department.
So, if your an SMB company what are your alternatives
to working with LookSmart? We would recommend your
assessing Google's new "AdWords Select" program which
is geared more for business of all sizes; but, I must
warn you there is some complexity in setting up this
type of program as well. But, you certainly get much
more coverage with Google - their rapidly becoming the
dominant search engine du jour with approximately 40%
market share of all combined searches.
Inktomi's "Search Submit" program should also be
assessed as an alternative to working with LookSmart
and as an adjunct to an existing Search Engine or
Marketing program. They have partnered with some of the
same companies that LookSmart is working with,
including MSN, AOL, iWon, and many others. They offer
very good value for the incurred costs, charging a
nominal fee $39. for the first URL and $25. for
additional URLs to have your web site "crawled"
(assessed or indexed) on a regular basis for one year
and sharing this information with the most heavily used
search engines on the web.
Finally, you may want to consider utilizing standard
pay per click ("PPC") search engines to drive qualified
traffic to your web site and/or looking at competitive
PPC programs offered by LookSmart's competitors
including Yahoo, AOL, Alta Vista and others. Overture
(formerly GoTo) is the dominant market leader in the
pure PPC market that can deliver a great deal of
traffic. But, there are approximately 150 second tier
pay per click search engines available for assessment
and you should be able to leverage your marketing costs
by carefully analyzing your "keyword buys" via some of
these PPC search engines including Kanoodle, FindWhat,
Sprinks and many others.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
fantomSpot: Featured SE Site
"1DO3.com - The UK Shortal Challenging Google"
-------------------------------------------------------
(rt) Here's a new web site self-defined as a "shortal"
It claims to be the first of a new breed of sites for
the post-Google era, delivering short, relevant and
well-researched lists of web sites, keyed directly to
user's needs, with weblog-style reviews by real human
beings.
Instead of presenting you with thousands of links from
all over the world, it takes you, in three clicks or
less, to a shortlist of useful web sites most likely to
meet your needs.
"Google has made it possible to see what’s out there,
but now the emphasis has shifted to making that
information more useful, and that’s where 1do3 comes
in," said David Hopson, one of the web site’s founders.
"1do3 evolved out of a frustration with search engines
that provide 18 million results for a word like ‘maps’
when all you need is one or two good sites to give you
directions."
Here's the 1do3 Feature List:
- 3 click navigation to all web sites
- Internal search based on natural language heuristics
- Instant navigation using "phone number" CallCodes(TM)
- Web Log
- web site commenting
- Free membership offers Personal Shortal feature,
including personal selection of web sites and recent
history.
Free membership functions can be checked out by
clicking on the login link, in the top right of the
screen, using:
Username : trythis
Password : trythis
Very neat!
Press release:
< http://www.1do3.com/uk/press/20020704_1do3pr2.html >
More info:
< http://www.1do3.com/uk/do.php?m=press >
Direct access:
< http://www.1do3.com/uk/user.php >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sponsorship Notice
------------------
Find Expired Domains With High Link Popularity and
Yahoo! Listings
------------------------------------------------------
Now in version 1.09, this cool program helps you search
millions of expired domains and check their respective
link popularity with AltaVista, Google, HotBot, MSN,
Alltheweb - and, just as importantly, whether any of
those is still listed in Yahoo! Such sites can guarantee
lots of traffic off the cuff.
Another very nifty feature is their "Record of Traffic"
button: This checks the Alexa traffic database to
determine how popular those expired domains are with
this browser plug-in's users.
Simply register expired domains with high link popularity
and build a site to your requirements.
OnSnap links are an excellent affordable source of
consistent, pre-existing traffic which would otherwise
be wasted.
Download a free 30 day demo version here:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=os1 >
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
======================================================
fantomTip
Setting Up PayPal Links
------------------------------------------------------
(rt) Here's a resource which makes setting up PayPal
links, shopping carts, buttons, etc. a breeze:
< http://iva.tech.nu/ >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
The Search Engine Grapevine: News 'n Stuff
------------------------------------------------------
Reversing Google
----------------
For a bit of good, harmless fun at the cost of Google,
be sure to have a look at this one:
< http://www.alltooflat.com/geeky/elgoog/index.cgi >
Lycos (US) Changes Free Submission Mode
----------------------------------------
Lycos (US) has switched its free submission mode: as
of immediately, free submission is only possible after
sign up here:
< http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/select_overview.asp >
This will effectively prevent automatic submissions.
Overture Strikes Deal With Lycos Europe
---------------------------------------
Overture and Lycos have signed an exclusive agreement
under which the PPC engine will furnish Lycos Europe's
search sites with top search results.
From their press release: "As part of the agreement,
Overture will provide its editorially reviewed search
listings to Lycos UK beginning in the third quarter of
2002. In addition, Overture's search results will
appear on Lycos Europe's properties in Germany and
France beginning in the first quarter of 2003. Overture
plans to launch its France marketplace in the second
half of 2002.
Overture will provide its top five search listings on
Lycos Europe's first search results page and five
additional listings on each subsequent search listings
page. Overture's search listings will be provided to
Lycos Europe's sites in other European countries as
Overture develops services in those marketplaces."
This is widely considered to be a major setback for
Espotting, Europe's #1 PPC engine.
More info:
< http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?
ticker=OVER&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=304849 >
(Unwrap link text before clicking!)
Yahoo! Tests New Welcome Page
-----------------------------
Have a look at Yahoo!'s beta version of its new
index page here:
< http://www.yahoo.com/beta.html >
AltaVista Boosts Index To 1 Billion Pages
-----------------------------------------
As part of its own resuscitation efforts, AltaVista has
expanded its index to one billion pages, the company
announced recently. Ranking algorithms were also improved
to deliver more relevant results faster.
(Source: Abondance)
More info (in French):
< http://actu.abondance.com/semaine.html#jeudi >
Wisenut Drops Free Submission
-----------------------------
Wisenut has droppeed its free submission page, presumably
to merge more seamlessly with Looksmart's paid submission
service after their March buyout.
Overture To Launch In France
----------------------------
Overture has announced the launch of its French PPC-
service for the third quarter of 2002. In a press
release following only hours after Espotting's
announcement of its Spanish operation, they are offering
a 50% discount on all accounts opened by July 22.
Similar to their German setup, Overture will also offer
editing and pre-selection help for keywords and link
descriptions at a reduced fee of EUR 50 for 20 keywords
and EUR 99 for 100.
Espotting Goes Spain
--------------------
Espotting will launch their Spanish operation in June,
offering its existing UK advertisers special introductory
rates: Espotting will double any amount up to EUR 1,000
placed in a newly opened Spanish PPC related account.
From their info:
"Don't worry if you don't have a Spanish web site, all
that counts is that you offer relevant products and
services to Spanish users."
You can see their current Spanish site here:
< http://es.espotting.com/ >
Sign up here:
< http://www.fantomaster.com/tj.cgi?ln=es0 >
Google's AdWords Inconsistencies
--------------------------------
"Please don’t let these guys ever form a government!",
writes Traffic.com editor Andrew Goodman in this piece
outlining the inconsistencies and confusing editorial
rules Google has begun to enforce on participants in
their AdWords Select program. Thankfully, he also
explains how to comply with Google's cryptic standards
to make the most out of your advertising buck.
Full text here:
< http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=70 >
Google's Competitors Stirring
-----------------------------
Succint article covering contentions both upstarts and
legacy search engines have with Google's ranking
technology - and how they are trying to topple the
current market leader.
Read "Critics poke holes in Google's success" here:
< http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/3135150.htm >
Google Answers Offers Pay-For-Search
------------------------------------
In an obvious drive to open a further source of
revenue, Google has launched its "Google Answers"
service (in beta): Here, subscribers can place a bid on
a question they would like to see answered by an
expert. Bids can range from $4 to $50 with a non-
refundable fee of $0.50 being charged by Google even if
the question remains unanswered.
More info:
< http://answers.google.com/answers/main >
The Future Of The Search Engine Optimization Industry
-----------------------------------------------------
Susanne and Per Koch, the editors of Pandia newsletter,
have written an article ("The Quest For Perfect
Search") for CNET on the future of the search engine
optimization industry. Recommended.
Full text:
< http://news.com.com/2010-1078-886183.html >
Case Study: How Even Limited SEO Can Work
-----------------------------------------
Excellent case study debunking a major SEO company's
wild claims of success - and showing how even low
effort, less-than-optimal optimization may still do the
trick to some extent. By Heather Lloyd-Martin (formerly
of "RankWrite).
Full text:
< http://www.ascendant-group.com/archives/tagline/casestudy001.html >
Coping with Fraudulent Pay-Per-Click Traffic
--------------------------------------------
This issue is rapidly gaining in importance: fraudulent
traffic generation makes going PPC a risky or, at the
very least, costly task. Here's some advice straight
from the horse's mouth on what to do about it -
Mamma.com's Patrick Hopf describes strategies and
tactics to combat PPC fraud.
Read it here:
< http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/02/sd0418-ppc-fraud.html >
Google, AltaVista, Yahoo! To Be Sued Over Links
-----------------------------------------------
Deutsche Bahn AG, the German national railway operator,
has announced that they will be filing a suit against
Google for linking to a site that offer information on
how to sabotage the railway system. This information is
presented by Radikal, a magazine outlawed in Germany.
Suits against Yahoo! and AltaVista are also being
prepared.
More info:
< http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO70203,00.html >
Search Engine Trends
--------------------
Here's a short and succint overview of current search
engine trends and developments by Canadian SEO expert
Andrew Goodman. Recommended.
Full text:
< http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=11 >
Google Clobbers Automatic Ranking Checkers
------------------------------------------
Read this story about how Google is trying to fight
automatic ranking checker tools and their users -
admittedly banning the innocent together with the
guilty.
More info:
< http://news.com.com/2100-1023-883558.html?tag=cd_mh >
Google #1 Search Engine, Report Indicates
-----------------------------------------
Dutch based Web traffic analysis company OneStat.com
reports that Google's market share of overall search
engine usage has risen to 46%, with Yahoo! coming in
second (20.6%).
More info:
< http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1106-883562.html >
Search Engines Main Traffic Channels
------------------------------------
Surveys recently conducted in France show that search
engines have come to outrank links and banner ads as
web site traffic sources.
More info:
< http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=10000 >
Google Paid Submission Launched - Sort Of
-----------------------------------------
French search engine Caloga (formerly Caloweb) has
launched what may well qualify for one of the strangest
money making schemes extant in the current search
engine optimization industry: guaranteed paid
submission to Google. Now of course the Google crowd
have been making a strong point in most of their promo
that they won't charge for submissions, so what's going
on here?
Simple: Caloga will submit your URLs to Google for a
fee starting from EUR 20 (appr. $18) for the first page,
to EUR 15 (appr. $12) for pages 2 to 9, down to EUR 10
(appr. $8) for pages 50 to 99. Pages are guaranteed to
be indexed by Google on the 10th day of the second month
following submission date. Else, Caloga says it will
offer a full refund.
More info (in French):
< http://fr.web.caloga.com/html/pay_url.php >
DirectHit Dropped, Redirects to Teoma
-------------------------------------
As announced earlier last month, Ask.com has canceled
the DirectHit public search engine service. Visitors are
now being redirected to Teoma, another Ask.com property.
Check it out for yourself here:
< http://directhit.com/ >
If you want to submit your site to Teoma, it's PFI only,
available here:
< http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/addjeeves/Submit.html >
< http://ask.ineedhits.com/ >
Lycos Europe to Drop HotBot (DE)
-------------------------------
Lycos Europe is to drop the German instance of HotBot
in order to focus on its two main search engines Lycos.de
and Fireball.de, de.internet.com reports, citing corporate
sources.
More info (in German):
< http://de.internet.com/index.html?section=Homepage&id=2013084 >
Fireball (DE) Restructuring
---------------------------
German Lycos daughter Fireball.de is being restructured.
Reports that it will be shut down are being denied by
Lycos sources.
Read more about this fairly confusing situation here:
< http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum18/419.htm >
Scandinavian Keywords Available
-------------------------------
For Scandinavian keyword research check out this new
commercial service:
< http://www.keywordmaker.com/ >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
"The New Marketing Landscape"
------------------------------------------------------
(wbi) Many of us in the marketing services and/or
agency business are starting to see some real tangible
marketing patterns emerging that businesses need to be
aware of if they want to leverage their marketing
dollars in this "post .com implosion economy."
Good Web Site Design increasingly More Important
------------------------------------------------
It's imperative for a company to have a quality web
site today - but many firms are still throwing up web
sites that are just poorly designed or overly complex.
Poor navigation (menus and overall site structure) when
coupled with low quality graphics is really
problematical (!) - online visitors think less of your
company as a result which will hurt revenue in the long
run. Many think just doing a minimal job is sufficient
but they aren't factoring in how close your competition
is! On the web any potential customer is only one click
away from seeing a high quality web site that is well
designed and conveys a quality image.
A good rule of thumb when budgeting for a web site is
to assume you will pay approximately $250-300 per page -
this should include your graphics design, content
development, setting up registration forms, etc. This
may sound too expensive for many companies but for
better or worse perception is reality in the online
world! So, don't short change yourself, put some
resources into your web site and be prepared to
continue to do so - it's now a vital component of any
company's ongoing marketing processes that needs
constant upgrading like traditional marcom (PR, print,
etc.) materials.
Opt-in E-Mail Trending Down but still Viable
--------------------------------------------
Opt-in or permission based e-mail (meaning people give
you "permission" to market to them) response rates for
Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer are
dropping below where they were a year ago by 30-50% on
average. What's happening? The ever-increasing deluge
of Spam is negating the throughput (response rates,
purchases, etc.) of quality opt-in e-mail.
Opt-in e-mail is still a viable and excellent way to
market your company but expect less results, lower
costs/fees (more vendors equals more competition which
is good) and the need to repeat your campaigns if you
want to see tangible results. And don't get dazzled by
a design firm or your in house marketing staff that
wants to design a fancy HTML e-mail message for you -
65-75% of the market today still doesn't want fancy
graphics, they want a short message, delivered
concisely with short paragraphs in a text format. Less
is more!
Performance Based Marketing on Upswing
--------------------------------------
Publishers and advertisers are more and more willing to
accept advertising which is "performance based" and/or
based on a "cost per click" or even a revenue share
basis. Meaning, it's not like putting an ad in the USA
Today and hoping people respond to the publication -
you can now work with list brokers, online publishers
and marketing organizations to setup very targeted
campaigns that are based on your paying a small cost
for an actual response to your message via an opt-in e-
mail campaign, text link ad on a web site and/or an
insert in a newsletter.
Case in point, companies like Virtumundo, Inc. (they
are a pioneer in the performance based market) are now
willing to charge nothing upfront in many cases for an
advertising campaign and to just do a revenue share
with you on the back end; this is typically 20-40% of
your SRP, will vary depending upon your goods and/or
services. And, they will do a test campaign prior to a
full-bore campaign to make sure that the response rates
will be worth their investment.
Another key benefit to any business that wants to
leverage the shifts occurring in performance-based
marketing is its inherent ability to be highly
targeted. You can tie a marketing process (campaign) to
web site, newsletter or pay per click search engine
(Overture and now via Google's Ad Words Program) with
specific demographics that are highly qualified and
targeted. Contrast this again with the traditional
print medium where you can target to a certain extent;
but not like performance-based marketing. Consider an
add again (for example) in the sports section of the
USA Today - it will clearly deliver a sports
enthusiast, but not a male who plays tennis that lives
in the Western US, etc. And, better targeting will
always deliver better results, assuming all other
issues are on a level playing field.
Search Engine Marketing still a Mystery to Many
-----------------------------------------------
I hate to say it but most of the web sites we analyze
still don't have the basic HTML fundamentals (Title,
Keywords, Description) in-place so their sites can/will
be indexed (reviewed by an automated bot/software
agent) properly. Their title is wrong (don't repeat
your company name), there are too many keywords (you
want 8-12) or the wrong keywords and the description of
the company is either poorly written or reads like yet
another "mission statement" that has been developed by
the CEO/CFO and three Senior VPs. This is basic block
and tackling marketing and should be setup properly
when a web site is designed.
Be prepared to deploy some marketing resources for
quality Search Engine Marketing - it's fiercely
competitive for web site rankings; you've got 3-5K web
sites coming online every single day of the week and
many are trying to drive market awareness via S/Engine
ranking. What's a rule of thumb of what to pay for
standard S/Engine Marketing Services: i.e.
Title/Description Development, Keyword Analysis,
Content Rewrites, etc.? Costs can vary tremendously,
depending on your market segment, web site size, what
type of services you outsource, competitive issues,
etc. Generally expect to pay $3-6K for a basic 3-4
month campaign and then some modest fee for ongoing
maintenance (say $200-500.per month). There are
alternative sophisticated S/Engine processes that cost
much more than this, but these are typically suited for
companies that have a good sized marketing budget and
or a large web site that necessitates a different
approach.
------------------------------------------------------
fantomNews Marketing Editor Lee Traupel (wbi) has 20
plus years of business development and marketing
experience. He is the founder/CEO of a Northern
California based, privately held Interactive Marketing
Agency and Software Company, Intelective Communications,
Inc., < http://www.intelective.com/ > and can be reached
via e-mail at: lt@intelective.com
He will also be speaking at the Search Engine Marketing
Tactics 2002 (Amsterdam) conference in September:
< http://internetconferences.nl >
(c) copyright 2002 by intelective.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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------------------------------------------------------
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top 10 - and what you can do about it. Read the
industry's most subscribed newsletter and book on how
to win the search engine wars!
< http://www.searchenginehelp.com/fantomaster >
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Guest Columnist
Sage Lewis: "Overture gets confusing ... and greedy"
------------------------------------------------------
Intro:
Sage Lewis is the founder and president of the web
site promotion firm SageRock.com. He has been employed
as an Internet Strategist and design/promotion
consultant for 5 years.
To subscribe to SageRock's marketing newsletter, send
a blank message to:
sagerock-subscribe@egroups.com or visit the company's
site at < http://www.sagerock.com >.
-------------------------------------------------------
We used to tell people: "Sign up for Overture. It’s a
relatively easy way to start generating immediate,
affordable traffic."
A few week’s back we told people: "Sign up for
Overture. But read the guidelines and review the site
carefully. Once your account is accepted and starts
generating traffic, either buy software for maintenance
and/or monitor your bids daily, if not hourly, in order
to sustain those affordable traffic results."
And now? Now we have to write a long article. And
here’s why.
Overture wants to help you help yourself. They know how
confusing it is to sign up and maintain listings. So
they’ve unveiled a new, FREE service called
AutoBidding. According to Overture, "You set the
maximum you are willing to pay for a click, and our
systems will adjust your cost per click to give you the
best price available." Sounds perfect, right?
Here is our summary of how it works:
1) You become an advertiser and access the "Manage
Listings" tool.
2) Choose Automated Bidding, instead of fixed bidding
(where you pay the bid you designate and change it
manually to compete with other bidders).
3) Designate a maximum bid you’re willing to pay to be
#1 for a phrase. 4) Overture will put you in the
highest position possible according to this bid,
exactly 1 penny above your competitors. If your max bid
is more than everyone else’s, you’ll be in position #
1.
5) If another company has a maximum bid above your
maximum bid, they will always be one penny above you
and so on.
Here’s a real life example:
The term is "Search Engine Marketing"
The bids (on 7/8 at 3:30pm) are as follows:
Listing 1: $6.08
Listing 2: $6.07
Listing 3: $6.06
Listing 4: $6.05
Here’s how listing #1 and #2 look:
1) Search Engine Marketing Results
Achieve your search engine marketing results fast.
Highest ROI for your marketing dollars. We’ve placed
more companies in top positions than anyone else. Let
us do it for you. www.seoink.com (Advertiser's Max Bid:
$9.00)
2) Search Engine Submission - only $99/year
We offer the complete package: Detailed site review,
submissions to the top 15 search engines plus 100,000
more. Monthly submissions and follow-up for a full
year. Get listed now - only $99. rs.spinsubmit.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $6.07)
The "Advertisers Max Bid: ___" cost used to be the cost
that advertiser was paying per click. This is no longer
the case. Listing #1 is not paying $9.00 for a click
(not yet anyway). That company is actually paying
$6.08, but what you see is the max bid that advertiser
is willing to pay to stay #1 -- $9.00. The company in
listing #2 may have designated a max bid of $6.07 in
automated bidding, but this is unlikely. More likely,
all the companies in listings #2-4 have chosen "fixed
bidding" and are manually bidding against each other,
penny by penny, for those remaining top spots (keeping
in mind they probably do this "fixed" or "manual"
bidding using software. [Confused yet?])
Let’s say the listing #2 company decided to go with
Overture’s Automated Bidding and designated $7.00 as
its maximum bid. Although it designated a max bid for
$7.00, that company would still be in the #2 spot
because their max bid is lower than their competitor’s
max bid, which is $9.00. So the company with the $7.00
max bid would still be in position #2 -- paying 1 penny
more than the competition – still paying $6.07.
But the company in position #1, in order to stay in
position #1, will need to pay 1 penny more than company
#2’s maximum bid (otherwise company#1 wouldn’t deserve
to be #1. Then anyone could designate an absurd max
bid, of $500 for example, to stay in spot #1). So, in
this new scenario, #1 listing company will be paying
$7.01 a click to be in spot one. The #2 listing company
will pay $6.07. The #3 guy, a fixed bidder, is paying
$6.06.
Listing 1 – (Max bid $9.00 / cost per click $7.01)
Listing 2 – (Max bid $7.00 / cost per click $6.07)
Listing 3 – (No max bid. Fixed bid at $6.06)
Listing 4 - (No max bid. Fixed bid at $6.05)
Do you see it coming?
In this way, striving to always be #1 does two things:
drives the bids up to make Overture a lot of money, and
leaves top advertiser’s open to some severe abuse by
their competitors.
Because, if listing #2 company really wanted to screw
his listing #1 competitor he could raise his max bid
from $7.00 to $8.99. In this way, the company in
listing #2 continues to pay $6.07 for spot #2 and now
his competitor pays the full $9.00 for spot #1. Of
course, the #2 guy pays $6.07 until the company in spot
#3 figures this out and sets his max bid at $8.98. Then
spot #3 company (with a max bid of $8.98) will pay
$6.06 cents for spot #3, spot #2 will pay $8.99, and
spot#1 will pay $9.00.
Listing 1 – (Max bid $9.00 / cost per click $9.00)
Listing 2 – (Max bid $8.99 / cost per click $8.99)
Listing 3 – (Max bid $8.98/ cost per click $6.06)
Listing 4 - (No max bid. Fixed bid at $6.05)
Until the guy in position #4 figures it out, ad
nauseam.
It’s a win/win for Overture. If no one abuses the
system, then it generally works to keep those who are
willing to pay at the top, although there will be some
ridiculous bidding gaps and money poorly spent (profits
in Overture pockets). If the system gets abused, all
the better. Now Overture really cleans up on profits as
advertisers drive up bids in an effort to screw each
other out of the cherished top 3 spots.
You’ll notice that Overture doesn’t make mention of
this glitch in their automated bidding tutorial (you
can find it on http://www.overture.com, the "Advertiser
Login" page). There is talk already of people getting
"screwed" out of as much as $50 a click because they
didn’t understand this flaw and set max bids sky high
thinking it would assure their positions in #1 spots.
And it did, for as long as they could afford to pay
$50/click. Whoops.
So here’s what we decided to tell people now: "It’s a
good idea to sign up for Overture, but hire someone to
register and manage bids so you don’t get swindled into
paying too much money. And avoid that Auto Bidding
feature, unless you want to be unethical and screw your
competition. But remember, what comes around goes
around. And the only one who really wins is, well,
Overture."
-----------------------------------------
How to Be Featured as Our Guest Columnist
-----------------------------------------
While we welcome all pertinent contributions, we
strongly suggest you read our "Article Submission
Authors Guidelines" before submitting an article. You
can request them by email from here:
< fnsubmissionguide@fantomaster.com >
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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======================================================
Spider IPs: Lots of New Alexa Spiders Detected
Plus - New Google Spiders
Plus - New Inktomi Spiders
------------------------------------------------------
(bro) Here's a verified list of Alexa spiders:
##UA Mozilla/4.76 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.16 i686)
#ai-209-247-40-206.alexa.com
#209.247.40.206
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-208.alexa.com
#209.247.40.208
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-228.alexa.com
#209.247.40.228
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-229.alexa.com
#209.247.40.229
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-232.alexa.com
#209.247.40.232
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-233.alexa.com
#209.247.40.233
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-236.alexa.com
#209.247.40.236
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-238.alexa.com
#209.247.40.238
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-249.alexa.com
#209.247.40.249
##UA Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020328
#ai-209-247-40-250.alexa.com
#209.247.40.250
Here's a verified list of new Google spiders:
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler10.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.29
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler10.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.30
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler11.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.31
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler11.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.32
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler11.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.33
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler11.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.34
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler11.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.35
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler11.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.37
##UA Googlebot/2.1 (http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
#crawler11.googlebot.com
#64.68.82.41
And finally, here are new Inktomi spiders:
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3111.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.21
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3114.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.24
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3115.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.25
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3120.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.30
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3128.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.38
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3130.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.40
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3132.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.42
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3144.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.54
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3148.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.58
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3149.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.59
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3155.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.65
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3159.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.69
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3161.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.71
#UA Mozilla/5.0 (Slurp/cat; slurp@inktomi.com; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)
j3168.inktomisearch.com
66.196.72.78
Source: fantomas spiderSpy(TM) botBase
< http://fantomaster.com/fasvsspy01.html >
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Publishers: fantomaster.com GmbH (Belgium)
Editor-in-Chief: Ralph Tegtmeier M.A. (rt)
Technical Editor: Dr. D. Brockhausen (bro)
< http://brocon.com >
Marketing Editor: Lee Traupel (wbi)
< http://intelective.com >
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------------------------
List of Guest Columnists
------------------------
Gabe Weinberg (vol. 1/issue 001)
Linda Cox (vol. 1/issue 002+ vol. 2/issue 011)
Robert Woodhead (vol. 1/issues 003+004)
Lee Traupel (vol. 1/issue 005)
Robin Nobles (vol. 2/issues 009+010)
Phil Stark (vol. 2/issue 010)
David Dimas (vol. 2/issue 012)
David Gikandi (vol. 2/issue 012)
Eric Lander (vol. 3/issue 013)
Sage Lewis (vol. 3/issue 014)
******************************************************
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