What’s your favorite quote?

Mine is from Back to the Future III - spoken by Doc Brown:

It means that your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is, whatever you make it. So make it a good one!

It’s similar to a fortune cookie fortune I have taped to my laptop which reads "Your destiny lies before you, choose wisely"

What’s your favorite quote that you try to live by?

So a few days ago I got this email from a big corporation (I won’t name their name, but they run some SEO forums, design forums, script sites, hosting forums and more) asking me if I would be interested in buying some advertising.

here’s an excerpt of their email to me:

I have taken a look your web site. I find it to be well designed, easy to read, and easy to understand.

 I have an opportunity that you might find interesting.

That opportunity would be in one of our Text Link sections, A Text Link in either section will put you on over 50k qualified pages.  This will help you to increase your Google PageRank.

My response back was:

FYI, your sites don’t pass pagerank anymore - they were banned from passing pagerank long ago.

We don’t do Pay Per Click (PPC).

Who do you recommend for Pay Per Click Services, and why?

Anyone offer affiliate programs for PPC Services, or "finders fees"?

————-

Technorati Tags: ppc, pay per click

Do you rank well for your name?

Do you care?

I’ll start…..I do, and I care. Often, If I’m trying to sell someone on "trust me" - I will tell them to Google my name. FYI, I often Google prospective clients, and I google prospective employees.

(FYI, The other Jim Boykin (the tennis player) must hate me. )

–inspired by Simon Heseltine’s post.

A post by Barry on SE Roundtable caught my eye called "Changing Domain Name Ownership Whois Information & Google Search Ranking Impact." His opening paragraph states:

Every since Google became a registrar in January 2005, SEOs wondered how Google would use the whois data. In mid-February we reported that Google admitted to using registrar data to "increase the quality" of the search results. Today a new thread was created at Cre8asite Forums named Changing Domain Ownership, Do’s & Don’ts.

This thread on Cre8asite referenced can be found here. Gilad starts the thread by asking:

I am about to acquire an older domain, and was looking for some input as to the affects of ownership changes on ranking and sandbox…

Barry then goes to Google for an official comment….but all he got in return was "A no comment was sent to me."

They’re probaby afraid to comment because of post like what I’ve done (Screw the Sandbox, buy an old site)….but it also doesn’t seem fair to hold back infomation from a paranoid person who’s buying a domain for totally legit reason and is afraid that if he buys a site (thus changes the whois), moves the host, does a redesign…will that kill this site?….I think it just might (I don’t know because I’ve never done that…and wouldn’t do that). Even if the content topic on the "new site" is the same as the old site.

I do believe that the less you change, the better.

As I am a salesman of SEO services, I’m put in the position of telling a prospective clients (if they have a brand new site), "We’ll, you’re looking at a few years to see any traffic from Google because of this thing called the "sandbox" (or more precisely, it’s "Links over Time" as a Trust Value) - I don’t care how great your site is, or how much of a resource you’ve made it.  No one likes to hear that, but I’m trying to be honest with them. I’d be lying if I said anything less (and I don’t buy the "oh with great trusted links you can "excape" the "sandbox"….in my eyes, thats BS).

So I can either try to get rid of that prospective SEO client caller (who has the new site) ASAP (which I so often do)….or I can explain all of this and add…ya know, there just might be a related site that’s been abandoned or someone who might sell you their old (related) website….and if we do it right, you might have related ranking traffic a lot sooner. (what would you do?) (I’ve only done that a couple of times….I’d rather have someone for a client where we’re working on their site they called my about…which basically means, if your site is less than 2 years old, I probably don’t want to work with you).

….you might be asking "How are your old sites do that you bought a few months ago doing?"….well to be honest, they’re doing quite well….one made ~8k last month, another made ~5k last month, another I turned right around and sold it for a price that made me over 8k instantly in profit, another made about $300 last month, and the other I haven’t changed yet as it took a few months to finally get the ownership changed and since the whois changed, I haven’t touched the site yet (I’ll wait a few months to do anything if the whois changed).

….yes…they were very profitable and I should make ~$150k from those sites over the course of a year….total spent for those 5 sites was less than $20k…..not a bad profit margin.

…now mind you, if I buy an old site, I buy the content too….if I do any changes, I do it over time….if I add any content, it’s related to the original content…I really try to add value to the site….should an engine be upset with me for doing this?…..I hope not…..I can’t help it if I find an old site that has huge potential ($), but isn’t using that potential (because they don’t know that potential)…as an SEO I can see potential, and I’m going to leverage that to make $. I really believe what I’m doing is "clean"….I’m not buying say an old site about "cats" and tossing out the content and selling viagra…that’s be stupid….but if I find a great site about "cats" I’m adpt to sell cat related products on it or serve cat related advertising….I might even add some cat related articles to the site.

Is there something wrong with that in your eyes?

Bad Blogger.

Yesterday and today were the worst 2 days blogging that I’ve had so far…I guess days like this are bound to happen.

Last week I had this great idea for a new tool so I spoke with a few programmers about building this "great backlink" tool….I had the idea…but I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to do what I needed it to do. The programmer I choose thought it was possible, and he did some great work…and within 5 minutes of him saying "here’s the first draft of the tool" - I was posting it to my blog….that was a mistake.

In one sense, I could say I’m like Google (as opposed to Microsoft) in that I’m happy to release things just to be first…bugs and all….but sometimes releasing tools without testing them much first just makes you look bad….so now I’m wishing I hadn’t released my new tool until I had tested it out more first…even if I call it "beta" there can only be 1 original tool release…so instead of setting the SEO world on fire, It just kinda fell on its’ face…maybe it was an engine stopping my tool (and I flatter myself to think they care eneough to stop one of my tools)…but it was probably an error on our part….and my fault for saying "be my guinea pigs - I think it’ll work" - my bad!

Then I went in and deleted the posts saying "Hey Jim, your tool is filled with errors" after I thought I had fixed the errors….that’s not right either….I’m not a fan of deleting posts…I don’t think that’s right (when it is right to delete comments?). The whole experience with that just didn’t feel right….I’ll learn from that experience.

Tonight I also had some comments about people being able to log into my control panel on this blog…at first I freaked out and killed those comments (so any mean people wouldn’t see "hey, you can edit Jims blog if you sign up")….then I signed up as a new member, and clicked on the link in my welcome email and Yea - it totally brought me into (what I thought was) the main controls of my blog….upon further inspection I found what happened….

….I’d been hit with some crappy comment spam last week, so to combat it I decided to make people sign up first to make any comments…while doing that I also changed one setting in wordpress under "Newly registered members:" from what was checked "Cannot write articles" to instead to "May submit drafts for review"…and once that setting is checked, and someone signs in, the control panel kinda looks likes they’ve got free reign in my control panel….but they really didn’t…they could write and submit articles in my control panel for review….but only the mod could approve them (me)….their login control panel showed my posts and comments…but they couldn’t be changed or edited….but at first glance it looks like they had the keys…but they didn’t….

So I fixed that mistake, and changed everyone levels to regular ole users (but if you want to submit an article to me, feel free….the best article I’ve had on my blog was written by guest writer Nick Wilsdon).

So I guess it’s just one of those days with my blog….oh well….

What did I learn….I don’t like deleting comments…and don’t want to in the future unless I feel I really have to…I learned also to not release new tools to the public until I’ve tested them out a lot more (I’ll let you know when/if the "Real Backlinks" tool is ready for the next beta release)…and I learned "don’t change wordpress settings unless you know what they do" (hey wordpress….here’s an idea put a link or something next to settings that say "if you check this box, here’s what will happen" for guys like me who say "wonder what will happen if I check this box "

So tomorrows a new day…and Hey, I’ve got another new tool coming soon….this one I’ll test out first before I tell you how cool it is and before I start asking for guinea pigs

So I don’t feel alone here, have you ever done dumb blogging (or software release) mistakes too (so I/we can learn from them)….(or at least laugh a little)?

Real Backlinks - Find Real Sites that Link to you!

Sorry it’s been a while since posting! I’ve been hiring some new staff, training new staff, going on some business trips, and overall just plain busy!

But, Good News My Friends! We’ve got a new tool that I think you’re all going to like!

It’s called "Real Backlinks" and I’m ready for some beta testers!

Checking your backlinks in Google is near worthless….we all know that Google only shows a stale "sampling" of your backlinks.  Yahoo’s a bit better at showing backlinks…. but they also tend to show lots of scraper junk backlinks that Google’s too smart to index or count…and MSN…we’ll MSN is OK, but they eat up scraper junk too, and they’re not as good at Yahoo. The major engines all have issues in showing us what are our "Real Backlinks" - so this tool attempts to solve those problems and show your "Real Backlinks". 

FYI, exactly how it works I can’t tell you - sorry - It’s an ancient Chinese secret

It’s slow….I know….but it’s as fast as it can be. The best way to run this tool is to enter in your url then minimize that window and return in 1/2 hour to see your results. If you sit there watching it you’re watching grass grow, so don’t do that….get it running, and come back to the page. (when it’s finished it’ll say it’s finished).

It is perfect? No…but I can say that it’s better than viewing your backlink in Google, Yahoo, or MSN. I think I can safely say that it’s the most accurate look at what are your "Real Backlinks".

Take Real Backlinks for a spin….tell me what you think.

**This still has some bugs in it….we’re working on it….it’s Beta for sure **

————————————–

Technorati Tags: seo, seo tools, backlinks, google, yahoo, msn, internet marketing, internet marketing tools, sem, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, links, link popularity, sem tools

I knew this day would come sometime….Stuntdubl’s moving on.

I really feel lucky to have had Todd on my team for the time he was with us, and I know that whatever future he chooses that he’ll be a success. In my opinion Todd’s one of the very best SEO’s in the world, and beyond that he’s a great guy to be around. I’m going to miss our chats on the balcony here talking about the latest forum and blog news that we’ve been reading.

I think this past year we’ve learned some from each other and I think we’re both better for the experience.

I’m going to miss you Todd - but I know that Great Things are in your future!

See Todd’s Goodbye to We Build Pages on stuntdubl.com

Yea, yea, I know that 99% of my readers also read SEOMoz.org, but I still gotta point out a great article by Michael Martinez in SEOMoz about high quality links vs sheer number of backlinks.

Michael starts with:

I have to admit I almost gag every time I read a forum discussion that starts out with a variation on the following:

I have a (insert topic here) Web site with a couple hundred quality links. The site is (insert number of months) months old but it still seems to be sandboxed. My competitors all have (insert some number here) backlinks and their pages are (spammy/unprofessional/incomplete/duplicate content/icky). But they rank higher than me. Why is that?

and towards the end he states:

The point is, if you don’t trust the source of your links for your own surfing, that’s a pretty good indication of what kind of quality you’re getting with your backlinks.  High Quality Links are not easy to get.  They may indeed cost you money, but they aren’t priced on the basis of PR.  They are priced on the basis of a business model that doesn’t take search engine placement into consideration.

and everything in the middle is good thoughts to chew on.

Check out the whole article by Michael Martinez on High Quality Links.

Last month I set up an advertising arrangement with a nice old site. I’ll call this site "Big Site A".

In researching "Big Site A" in the wayback machine I saw that it had a kinda shady history long ago. By shady I mean that it once had been selling links to some questionable websites on many of their pages, so I wasn’t sure if the link value was still passing, so I did a test.

The Test:
I found a nice subpage on "Big Site A", and found another site that we work (Smaller Site B) which had relevant content on it that I thought would make a nice voting test.

I used a 10 word phrase as the link text from "Big Site A", linking to a relevant sub page on "Smaller Site B".

"Smaller Site B" ranked #7 for that 10 word phrase prior to testing. Once the search engines indexed the page on "Big Site A" that linked to the relevant sub page of "Smaller Site B", the page went from #7 to #2 overnight.

Results:
Yup, though "Big Site A" had some shady history in it’s past, it still passed link value. Good Deal.
Sure, it was a nice relevant link for click throughs, but knowing it’s passing some link love makes me feel even better.

———————

Technorati Tags: link building, links, google, yahoo, seo, sem, internet marketing, search engine optimization, search engine marketing