Go.com has become the latest victim of the dot com shake out. In a surprise move on January 29th, Disney announced that Go.com will close by the end of February. Traffic will most likely be redirected to other Disney properties.

Go.com was previously known as Infoseek, one of the first major search engines on the Web. In 1999 Disney acquired Infoseek in whole. They soon discarded the well-known Infoseek brand name in favor of Go.com. Later, Disney announced a major shift from a general portal site to one that would move toward a focus on entertainment. However, their strategy failed. To add to Go.com woes, Goto.com successfully sued Go.com for copyright infringement regarding their "traffic light" logo.

There are reports that Disney will consider offers for buying the Go.com service, however, no offers are said to be on the table.

CNN: Disney to Stop GO.com

http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/01/29/technology/disney_go/index.htm

WebPosition customers can rest assured that a free update will be issued in the coming weeks to add one or more new engines to replace the loss of Go.com. We'll announce the new included engines in the March newsletter.

For more information on using WebPosition Gold to improve your rankings on the major search engines, see:

http://www.webposition.com/product.htm

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Google has recently become more active in banning Web sites that it feels are spamming its index or are operating outside its rules. Most evidence suggests that they are not systematically banning Web sites in an automated fashion. However, reports indicate that their staff may be using additional methods to find and scrutinize sites more closely than they have previously.

As always, it is our job to educate you as to how to make your Web site "search engine friendly." The better you can comply with what the search engines are looking for, the happier they will be, and the better rankings you can achieve.

Specifically, here are some of the risk factors that we believe could get your Web site penalized or banned by Google. Many of these tips were derived from a recent live Webcast interview of a Google engineer:

1) Google frowns upon participation in certain services to artificially inflate link popularity. Google's ranking algorithm is heavily dependent on the number of links to your Web site. Some Web sites have been reported as being banned by Google for participating in services where you agree to add a list of links page on your site. Other participants in the link exchange service agree to do the same, thereby improving everyone's link popularity.

These services often work well to increase links to a site. However, be cautious about participating in any link services that are easily identifiable. For example, if every links page includes the phrase "Jerry's Link Exchange Service" at the top of the page, Google may decide to either ignore all such pages in its index or ban sites that are listed on such pages. Obviously, Google must be cautious about how far this is taken since many Web sites are included in various link directories that have nothing to do with inflating link popularity.

As I've mentioned in past articles, starting your own affiliate program can be the ideal way to improve link popularity without raising red flags with an engine. Affiliate programs pay people to link to your site either based on the number of visitors they refer to you or by the sales resulting from those referrals. These affiliate links can improve your link popularity as well as your traffic.

There are many other ways to improve your site's link popularity such as giving away content to other Web sites if they agree to credit you for your information and link back to your site. For example, we allow Web sites to reprint content from this newsletter with permission if they clearly credit us for the information and place a link back to our site near the article.

Another technique is to give away special awards to Web sites. In this scenario, those receiving the award may display your award logo on their site. They'd also include a link back to your site when the image is clicked on. However, be sure your award system has real criteria for winning. Don't send out spam mail awarding everyone with a Web site your "Site of the Week" award.

2) Use of hidden text or abuse of hidden links may get you banned by Google. Hidden text containing content that does not apply to your Web site or page's visible content is the worst such abuse. We have always recommended against using techniques to hide text regardless of the content. But, if you choose to use hidden text anyway, be sure it contains content that applies to your page's visible text.

In regard to hidden links, a few of these links will not likely get you into trouble with Google. There are many valid reasons to use hidden links. For example, you may wish a search engine spider to be able to spider to a page but you don't wish your site's visitors to traverse the same link from that particular area of your site. Still, too many hidden links may be considered spam by Google and could get your site red-flagged for review or banned. In particular, hidden links to pages that lack significant content is the worst such abuse according to the Google representative.

For some tips on creating pages with quality content, and how to avoid spamming search engines in general, see one of my past articles at:

http://www.webposition.com/mp-1000.htm#ONE

3) Google hates spam mail. Sending spam mail to Google (by accident or on purpose) can get your Web site banned from their engine.

4) Do not over-submit! It's best not to submit more than five URLs per day to Google. WebPosition Gold will warn you of all known submission limits for each search engine. Google will allow more than five submissions, but the more you submit the greater chance you have of being red-flagged for spamming whether you submit manually or using an automated query tool.

Since Google is normally very good about spidering the rest of the site based on a single submission, this is not much of a problem. It's best to submit a hallway page (i.e., site map) of your Web site to Google, which links to all the other important pages of your site. It's probably best to limit the number of such links to fifty or less per page.

5) Over-use of any automated query tool may get you red-flagged or banned on Google according to the Google representative in the Webcast interview. Other Google representatives claim any amount of use of automated tools is not tolerated.

In past months, a small percentage of WebPosition users (a fraction of one percent) have reported to us of having their IP address blocked by Google, presumably for querying Google excessively. The magical number of queries that puts you on Google's radar is not known.

Users who have an IP address that is dynamically assigned on each connection are not nearly as susceptible to this issue. This is particularly true if you re-dial your connection between running a Reporter and a Submitter mission so the queries cannot be associated on the same IP.

We have recently updated WebPosition Gold to be more "polite" when accessing Google by only conducting one search at a time against the service in most cases. We are working on another update to be available soon which will allow you to slow down searches even further in consideration to Google.

The recent interview of a Google engineer recommended that if you conduct automated queries on Google, that you keep those queries to a minimum and that you schedule them to run late at night. In the case of WebPosition, you should try to utilize the built-in scheduler feature to run missions late at night and to space them out over a greater period of time whenever possible. Never conduct thousands of queries on Google in a single day.

In addition, you can space out queries in WebPosition by limiting the number of parallel searches on the WebPosition Options tab for either the Reporter or Submitter. The default is eight searches or submissions at a time spread across the selected engines.

Reducing the number of parallel searches to four will approximately double the amount of time between each search on any given engine. This will require more time for your mission to complete, but it will be more polite to each search engine. This example assumes that the mission has four or more engines selected. The current version will attempt to query a different engine for each parallel search allowed if enough engines were selected.

Important: Since we are working on a free update to greatly reduce the chances of you being red-flagged or banned by Google, while being more considerate to Google's wishes, we recommend that you consider postponing your rank checking on Google until this update is released (expected by mid-February).

On a related topic, we have recently received copies of some e-mails sent to WebPosition users by Google representatives. These e-mails incorrectly state in regard to FirstPlace Software: "We have tried to contact the people who write this software [WebPosition] to talk to them about this, but they have steadfastly ignored us..."

However, for the record FirstPlace Software has sent multiple letters to Google's attorney since October 2000. We did this after their attorney sent a letter asking we either remove support for Google from the WebPosition product, or alternatively contact them in regard to reaching an agreement that would address their concerns. Since they encouraged us to contact them, we did so.

It is our stance that anyone has the right to access publicly available information on Google.com whether they use a browser or another tool to do so. However, it is our desire to be accommodating whenever possible and to work in the best interests of our customers as well as the search engines. We would prefer whenever possible to work together rather than against each other. We have built mutually beneficial relationships with other engines though advertising with them, participating in affiliate programs, or educating Webmasters as to the search engine's policies.

Our continued goal remains to educate users on how to create search engine friendly pages. We attempt to report exactly what each search engine likes to see and does not like to see in regard to your Web site. We've also recommended for years against many common spam techniques.

This policy benefits not only the Webmaster, but the search engines. The rules of each search engine vary, change often, and are generally not clearly defined. Therefore, the need for resources like WebPosition Gold and this newsletter has never been greater.

After multiple letters, and a phone call in November, Google's attorney promised to get back to us as to what would satisfy Google. At the time of this writing (February 1st), we have not heard from their attorney as promised. Instead, we've received reports that Google representatives are operating under the false belief that we've made no attempt to contact them in regard to the matter.

Therefore, under the assumption that this is simply some type of misunderstanding, we have now made a fourth attempt to formally contact Google's legal representative in regard to resolving the matter. It is our desire that the needs of all parties can be accommodated in a fair and reasonable manner.

If you are a WebPosition user, we ask for your patience and understanding in this matter. We are confident that concerns regarding Google can be resolved. We also wish to reiterate that all automated products are subject to scrutiny by Google based on their current policies. However, we are taking multiple, pro-active steps to ensure that WebPosition Gold remains an important tool to aid you in creating search engine friendly Web sites and for monitoring your progress.

(Note: The Webcast interview mentioned above was derived from an interview by Daron Babin at http://www.searchenginematrix.com/livechat/. Please be warned that this site caters to the adult webmaster community so adult ads may be present).

Get your beta today at: http://www.quest.com/webqa_profiler/

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In the past Looksmart did not officially allow more than one submission per Web site to its directory. However, they appear to have realized that many sites contain enough content to warrant multiple listings. Therefore, they've implemented a new policy for allowing submission of up to five URLs within the same Web site. Unfortunately, they charge $199 per URL submitted:

http://submit.looksmart.com/info.jhtml?synd=zbv

For more than five URLs, Looksmart says you can call their number at (877) 512-5665 to discuss their special "Subsite listing program" which I assume includes some price breaks. Personally, I feel that they should offer discounts for anything after the first URL. Looksmart offers a lot of potential visibility to a Web marketer but $199 is admittedly pricey.

If you do decide it's worthwhile to submit one or more URLs to Looksmart, be sure to read our Looksmart submission guide from our September newsletter first:

http://www.webposition.com/mp-0900.htm#ONE

You'll receive other directory submission guides for Yahoo, Open Directory, and NBCi when you purchase WebPosition Gold at:

https://www.webposition.com/wpg-easyorder.htm

It's important to take the time to submit to each directory properly to maximize your investment and to maximize your traffic.

Goto.com for years has offered a free service to the public to help locate popular keywords. However, Goto.com has recently pulled this service from public view and made it available only to those who setup an account with them of $50 or more.

One MarketPosition subscriber reported that their bookmarked link to Goto.com's service still worked even though he didn't have an account with them. He surmised that perhaps a cookie existed on his system that allowed him to still access his link (at least for now).

Fortunately, WordTracker now offers a better alternative to Goto.com for picking keywords. A full review of WordTracker from last month's MarketPosition can be found at:

http://www.webposition.com/mp-0101.htm#ONE

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Since last month's review, WordTracker has added a new "View All Your Results" feature (the paid version only) that helps consolidate multiple competitive analysis reports that you create while using WordTracker. This allows you to consolidate more than one report to see the bigger picture.

What's more interesting is that you can quickly build a list of popular keywords using one of its many search options. Once you build your list, click the competitive analysis link to see how competitive your keywords are on any of over a dozen search engines.

If you select any of the Pay Per Bid engines they support like Goto.com, FindWhat or Sprinks, WordTracker will give you a list of what the current bids are for all the "popular" keywords that you chose using WordTracker. The report compares these bids for each Pay Per Bid service you select. The bids are displayed in a compact grid format that allows you to quickly locate "bargain" keywords where the bids are lowest yet where the keywords are more popular, regardless of the service they are found on. They limit you to comparing two services at a time, but they allow you to consolidate the results later so it is not a serious limitation.

In conclusion, using this feature allows any Web marketer to find and buy positions for as little as one cent per visitor. When I did a couple of searches, I found many number one positions available for just one cent per visitor. If you're a Web marketing veteran, you know that you can pay 30 cents to over a dollar per visitor when purchasing banner and other ad types. You also take a gamble regarding what your ultimate cost per visitor will be when paying per impression. Therefore, obtaining targeted visitors on one of these engines for anything less than you're paying now can be a bargain. In the past, the problem with these services was the time needed to find those "bargains." WordTracker solves this dilemma by doing the grunt work for you.

WordTracker's free trial is located at:

http://www.wordtracker.com/freetrial.htm

Note: Be aware that their free trial can be somewhat deceptive. Their paid service offers many features, such as the Pay Per Bid management, that is not shown in their free version. However, to make up for this, they do have a money-back guarantee, which allows you to try everything in the paid service without risk.

As we continue to grow and expand, new job opportunities come available. We're currently looking for skilled programmers with no less than two years experience in Visual Basic. Experience in one or more of the following areas is also a plus:

a) DHTML using Visual Basic 6.0
b) Visual C++
c) ASP / HTML / PERL

You'd work on new, Internet related technologies. You can set your own hours and work remotely from your home or office. You should have 20 or more hours available per week. You should be able to speak excellent English. If you're interested, please e-mail your resume and detailed work history to:

brent@firstplacesoftware.com

If you're interested in advertising in MarketPosition(tm), the most popular search engine marketing newsletter on the Web, see:

http://www.marketposition.com/advertising.htm

Webmasters, marketers, and business owners around the world read this newsletter.

Tip: Book your spot early since advertising slots fill up fast.

Last month I talked about several important topics including:

- Keyword Selection - Finally an Easier Way to Do It!

- StatMarket Study: Are Search Engine Referrals Really Declining?

- Nine Tips for Improving Your Excite.com Rankings

- Search Engine Positioning Services: Who to Trust?

If you missed these or other key discussions, you can find the back issues at:

http://www.webposition.com/newsletters.htm

FirstPlace Software produces several products including WebPosition Gold, the first software program to report your search positions on the major search engines and to help you in optimizing those positions.

You may download a FREE trial of WebPosition Gold at: http://www.webposition.com

You may call us at 1-800-962-4855 if you have questions not addressed on our site. You will also find an array of additional tips and techniques for improving your search positions in both the WebPosition Help File and the Reports it generates.