tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48585465495691917612024-02-20T01:24:59.839-08:00SearchKing DirectoryTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-79832020075024547492013-03-22T13:55:00.001-07:002013-03-22T13:55:06.985-07:00AdvertisingCheck out the advertising on <a href="http://www.searchking.com/">SearchKing.com/</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.searchking.com/advertise1.htm" target="_blank">Discount if you list your URL in our directory</a>TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-75315741033607992302012-12-26T09:43:00.000-08:002012-12-26T09:43:10.411-08:00594 Prayer<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: 36pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Relax your mind and humble your heart to focus on Christ. Allow God to be the only person on your mind while you read this prayer. If we can take the time to read long jokes, stories, etc., we should give the same respect to this prayer. Friends, who pray together, stay together. </span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><b><i><span style="color: maroon; font-size: 36pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br />If you pray this prayer,</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 36pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">change the number.</span></span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><br /></span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br />Dear Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning. I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God. You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me. Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you. I ask now for Your forgiveness.<br /><br />Please keep me safe from all danger and harm. Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let me make the best of each day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.<br /><br />Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over.. Let me conti</span></i></b></span><br />
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">nue to see sin through God's eyes and acknowledge it as evil. And when I sin, let me repent, and confess with my mouth my wrongdoing, and receive the forgiveness of God.<br /><br />And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus' example -- to slip away and find a quiet place to pray. It's the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits. I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart. Continue to use me to do Your will.<br /><br />Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others. Keep me strong that I may help the weak.. Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others. I pray for those who are lost and can't find their way. I pray for those who are misjudged and misunderstood. I pray for those who don't know You intimately. I pray for those who will delete this without sharing it with others. I pray for those who don't believe. But I thank you that I believe.<br /><br />I believe that God changes people and God changes things. I pray for all my sisters and brothers. For every family member in their households. I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that they are out of debt and all their needs are met.<br /><br />I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem, circumstance, or situation greater than God. Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight.</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: blue; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">I pray that these words be received into the hearts of every eye that sees them and every mouth that confesses them willingly..<br /><br />This is my prayer.<br />In Jesus' Name,</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br />Amen.<br /><br />Pass this</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: navy; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span></i> </b><b><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">message</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: navy; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> on! Who knows who might need this today.</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: #4181ff; font-size: 18pt;"><span style="color: #4181ff; font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></i></b></div>
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TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-61294377707032942162012-12-26T09:41:00.001-08:002012-12-26T09:41:46.502-08:00A.S.A.P.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginnings, but not its end... "In GOD We Trust!" "Put Prayer back in our Schools"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span><span><img height="960" src="http://mail.aol.com/37267-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=27124540&folder=NewMail&partId=3" width="720" /></span></span>TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-39861376070301102752012-05-07T15:36:00.000-07:002012-05-07T15:36:19.830-07:00NEVER judge what you don't understand!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Hard to explain to someone who has no clue. Or doesn't believe you. It's a daily struggle being in pain or feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside. Please put this as your status for at least 1 hour if you or someone you know has an invisible illness (Pancreatitis, Crohn's, PTSD, Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression, Diabetes, LUPUS, Fibromyalgia, MS,Lupus, ME, Arthritis, Cancer, Heart Disease, Epilepsy, Autism,M.D. Evan Syndrome,Kidney Disease etc.) " Never judge what you don't understand.</span>TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-43199788164234356742012-04-30T14:25:00.003-07:002012-04-30T14:25:29.637-07:00McAfee Error Message<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowoaRJp6Adt2PC1v6qSc5Aj41b8K5dlxyl0Qlq1qeFSCukfmLjO_3-h4ulJIUEU2IsrrmK3gKY1x-ZTTK1gpZsrjYbjD52Jlyw9lSaceX6esJfj5jB9Ukq5fRU0vlicnwpM1vP6ELeqU/s1600/Error+Message.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowoaRJp6Adt2PC1v6qSc5Aj41b8K5dlxyl0Qlq1qeFSCukfmLjO_3-h4ulJIUEU2IsrrmK3gKY1x-ZTTK1gpZsrjYbjD52Jlyw9lSaceX6esJfj5jB9Ukq5fRU0vlicnwpM1vP6ELeqU/s320/Error+Message.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<pre style="color: #333333; font-family: monospace; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; white-space: pre-wrap;">The message you posted looks like it comes from McAfee's Site Adviser and it doesn't show up if it isn't installed. Their site summary only has annoyances in bold and describes them as number of popups and cookies installed. As this is an issue with McAfee's security ratings we can't begin troubleshooting without more information from McAfee.
You can start the dispute process and ask them what we can do to get your site taken care of with the contact information below .
To begin, please submit your rating dispute via email at support@siteadvisor.com or <a href="mailto:support@siteadvisor.com">support@siteadvisor.com</a></pre>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><pre style="color: #333333; font-family: monospace; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; white-space: pre-wrap;"> online.
<a href="http://www.siteadvisor.com/userfeedback.html">http://www.siteadvisor.com/userfeedback.html</a>
During the evaluation of this dispute, McAfee communicates with site owners via e-mail.
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<br />TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-32410644102293279342012-04-17T21:31:00.001-07:002012-04-17T21:32:44.250-07:00Looking for a competitive edge?<span style="font-weight:bold;">Looking for a competitive edge?</span><br /><br />Accept the Internet for what it truly is ..... A MARKETING TOOL!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Get More Sales!</span><br /><br />Every client is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. This specialized attention is not only focused on generating traffic, but also heavily focused on conversions. You will have more than eight years experience in web site promotion working for you.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Don't Fear Success!</span><br /><br />You CAN have the online success you have always wanted. Our methods have proven themselves effective many times over. All of the knowledge and resources we have acquired over the years will be put to work for you.<br /><br />You can spend a lot of time and money trying to put your site in a top position and still not have a top placement. You have a business to run, what you need is someone who can deliver customers to you.<br /><br />Aggressive internet marketing gets you what you are looking for .... more MONEY!. Hiring a service like ours let's you put your focus where it needs to be, on making more SALES.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Effective Techniques Get You Results</span><br /><br />Give us a call, or eMail and let us evaluate your needs and devise a strategy geared for success.TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-58908954000431085652012-04-16T05:50:00.003-07:002012-04-16T06:11:15.504-07:00Google's latest algorithm changesWith Google's latest algorithm changes, it's now more important than ever to secure High Quality back links to your website.<br /><br />Google puts a heavy emphasis on back links to any website...but it's the type of links that the search engine is examining more closely now. Sure, you could have THOUSANDS of links pointing to your site from fly-by-night sources. Even legitimate links that only "appear" spammy can hurt your site's rankings!<br /><br />That's why we at SearchKing help you focus on getting Permanent quality links to your site from some of the best web directories. Our Web Directory Submission Service delivers from 215 up to 5,000 directory submissions, depending on the package you choose. Build permanent links gradually with unique link text and manual submissions.<br /><br />Ready to secure your linking strategy for better rankings? <a href="http://www.searchking.com">Click here</a> to select an affordable Web Directory Submission package today:<br /><br />web <a href="http://www.searchking.com">directory submission</a><br /><br />SearchKing’s services over the years including: link building, targeted emailings, Mall link, targeted traffic, article marketing, press releases and others. The result? My website is at the top of all related Google and Bing searches along with the articles they wrote about my training way back in 1997. I find their services through, long lasting and they get results! When I have questions I talk to SearchKing who has been a great help in my online journey. I’m not sure how it all works but it has sure worked for me.<br /><br />Get THOUSANDS of high quality links to your site from TOP Web Directories - you don't have a minute to lose when it comes to Google and other search engine rankings. <a href="http://www.searchking.com">So click</a> below to enhance your link strategy affordably now:<br /><br />web <a href="http://www.searchking.com">directory submission</a><br /><br />Happy Marketing,TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-62196301937429215092012-04-15T13:19:00.001-07:002012-04-15T13:20:37.507-07:00What Happened to SearchKing?<span style="font-weight:bold;">The Big Idea</span><br /><br />The big idea actually had nothing to do with building a network of niche portals at first.<br /><br />In the summer of 1997, I hung out a lot at the Warriors forums. Kind of the SEW of it's day, complete with it's own Googleguy of sorts. Only back then Infoseek was king.<br /><br />Anyway, someone posted that they had been busted by Infoseek but that no one from the company would answer their emails and they wondered what they could do. Looked upon as a kind of resident SEO expert within the community, I replied that it may be easier to just get another domain and start over rather than begging for a response from a company notorious for their lack of responses. Well, some IS employee with an email address of spamassasin, emailed me that Infoseek did not like people recommending multiple domains to one person so they wiped out the placements of my domain and every client we had. You know how they knew who my clients were? Because like the naive, peace and love, ex-hippy I was, I listed all my clients right on my main website with contact details and urls as references.<br /><br />I have always had a real problem with authority and my perception of the abuse of authority really gets me motivated. Motivated to get me suspended from school. Motivated to leave home at an early age. Motivated to sue huge tech companies and basically motivated to take a bad situation and usually make it much worse. I admit to being guilty of being bull-headed, tenacious, unwilling to listen and unshakeable in my convictions once filled with righteous indignation.<br /><br />So, here was a company who had just tried and convicted me because I answered a question in an effort to assist someone who Infoseek could have answered themselves and the question would have never been asked in the first place. This company whose vice president at the time was dominating the 6 o'clock news for being arrested while trying to hook up with a 13 year old girl he had seduced in an internet chat room, and had now passed judgment on me without any semblance of due process. I was motivated.<br /><br />Furthermore, this was a company that was putting fast meta refreshes to the top within 30 minutes of submitting. Their answer to fighting this problem was to disable the auto submit on weekends. I thought it was a poor excuse for a real search engine compared to Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos and HotBot and I didn't feel they would have ever gotten as big as fast as they did had it not been for SEO's talking them up. I thought I could do better with my limited tech knowledge and even more limited revenue stream. In hindsight, that was my first mistake.<br /><br />The idea was simply to put more focus on human review. To me, Infoseek and the others main objective was to eliminate the expense of human involvement. To try to automate algorithmically, the process of cataloging huge volumes of data. I could see the profit potential in trying to get one machine to do the work of a lot of people, but I could also see the reality was far from actually doing it.<br /><br />I wanted a way to do get Yahoo quality without the expense, (which I felt I couldn't afford at the time), of a staff of hundreds of editors. A way to use human intellect and opinion on an individual basis to improve relevancy and use the computer programs only to make the process scalable. Still motivated, I set out to find the people that could help me build it.<br /><br />After a couple of feeble attempts with a few internet notables such as Dave Kelly and Jude Lacour,( before they became internet marketing icons), I wised up a little and sit down and actually drafted a business plan complete with objectives, strategies, cash flow studies and basic software design. I found a local company desperately wanting to get their development company off the ground and met a very smart young man who, using my basic design documents, put together a real one. I was impressed, made the deal and SearchKing was born.<br /><br />To my knowledge, SearchKing was the first search engine to ever effectively use searcher responses in the form of votes as the backbone of a working algorithm. We had instant indexing. We allowed you to instantly edit your own titles and descriptions. We had a pretty sophisticated adult word filter that actually worked back in 98 and we had a philosophy born out of those Search Engine Forum discussions that Kira mentioned. We had no system for penalizing anything. We took the approach that we were not trying to penalize and filter out the bad stuff, rather we were focused on trying to reward and include the good stuff. A concept that I believe has merit even today.<br /><br />I was now about $30,000 in the hole and a monthly cost of about $1500 to keep it maintained. We were plagued by Microsoft/Linux compatibility problems from starting out on a MS box and being limited by the features offered then starting to use the open source magic of Linux. Microsoft never has liked that much. I began learning about things like DNS, IP addresses, routers, networked servers, oh yeah and let's not forget about that, "show up unexpectedly and never leave while eating you out of house and home" buddy, ---- bandwidth.<br /><br />Still, I saw the whole thing as a success. I actually had built something pretty neat and I was proud.<br /><br />The idea for a network of portals came from the fact that after about 18 months we realized that people don't go to search engines to work harder. The purpose of a search engine is to SERVE a human searcher, not to expect that searcher to SERVE the search engine. This is why there are no well known voting search engines right now. There are plenty of "rate this site" buttons on small engines the world over, including the free SK portals, but so few people take the time to do the voting that it shoots scalability and predictability right out the window.<br /><br />That's when we decided that expecting a few people to rate everything was not going to work. A better approach would be to provide the tools to people who wanted to review a lot of data that pertained to a specific subject and form a centralized location to direct the search traffic to a keyword specific "portal" as opposed to a website. In the beginning, our focus was on local portals. I think we even called the first offering Hometown portals or something like that. At the time, using a search engine to get a pizza delivered was still just a glimmer in the eye of a few tech start ups like City Search. Turns out it is much harder than it sounds.<br /><br />By this time, my relationship with the people who had built the first SK engine was becoming strained. They had way underbid the deal from the beginning and it was becoming increasingly obvious with each passing day. I pitched my idea of making the SK software available as a shared program but they were able to convince me that it could not work. They were right as it turns out. Enter Hyperseek.<br /><br />Not long afterward, we changed our company slogan to SearchKing is the foundation and traffic generating center of the world's largest network of independent niche directories.<br /><br />I will stop here as I prepare the next post. Please bear with me as it is going to take me some time. In the meantime, I believe every article I wrote going into great detail just what the plan was, is archived in the portal partner press.com It may not be responding properly as I am still in server hell, but it is there.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Money</span><br /><br />In '97 and '98 the tech stock boom was just getting really hot. Anyone recall Webvan? The 200 million dollar venture capital deals were really throwing a monkey wrench in the conventional wisdom of evaluating start ups. Still, the internet was basically a small town in the old west that just had a railroad line go through it. I can't imagine the California gold rush of 1849 coming close to rivaling the rush to Silicon Valley. It seemed everyone was ready to make a deal.<br /><br />I'm sure that environment had more than a little to do with my cost estimates being in the hundreds of thousands to get the search engine built. I realized even though I was being quoted prices in that range, that estimates rarely come in UNDER budget. I knew from the very beginning that what I was proposing would take more than a year and cost close to a million dollars. The problem was, I didn't have a million dollars.<br /><br />I also knew that venture capital was a definite probably not for me. I don't have a college degree and if I were going to invest in a company, I would expect more formal education than I could offer. I knew from the beginning that whatever it cost, I didn't have it, no one was going to give it to me and if I needed money, I would have to MAKE it.<br /><br />In 1995, at the age of 41, I owned a printing shop specializing in business cards ready in an hour. I sold a lot of business cards. So many in fact that I soon found myself putting in more and more 14 hour days. I lived on coffee, cigarettes and fast food and as any sane person could expect, I had multiple heart attacks that summer. I lost just about everything and fell into a deep depression. The internet saved my life, and still, as much as I hate computers, I dearly love the internet and the promise it offers to all.<br /><br />I never had any idea I would have a knack for thinking like a search engine and be able to understand what makes one document addressing the same question get put on top of another. Turns out I did. By the end of '97 I had actually rebuilt a life based on placing websites in the top of the results of Infoseek mainly, (I can actually kind of understand why they didn't like me much), under terms that made my clients money. Boy, was it easy pickins back then. Swear to goodness, in early '97 I don't think there were more than about 200 people in the world doing SEO. It wasn't even called that back then. Can you imagine. All that greed and desire divided up between only 200 people. Ahhh, those were the days my friend.<br /><br />So, by March of '98 I planned on supporting SearchKing with the money I generated from Magic-city.net, the search engine placement service. More than a little ironic I know. That's what I did and that is part of why I'm in such dire straits today, technically speaking. I've always had to keep my eye on expenses rather than expansion. That is not the optimal situation for a business wanting to grow. Typical, just not optimal.<br /><br />I have never had the luxury of being in a position to hire the best people for the job. I have been more inclined to hire the people willing to do the job for what I could afford to pay. I could very likely hold the world's record for getting the most benefit from employees for the least salary than anyone in history. I have had some really exceptional people do some incredible things for much less than they deserved.<br /><br />That said, to date, I have spent a little over 1.2 million on building and maintaining SearchKing. Both as a search engine and as a portal network. I have had to adjust my projections almost quarterly since the beginning and I would say realistically, it is going to take another 5 million minimum to actually complete the "plan".TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-82219050710691209802012-04-14T19:32:00.003-07:002012-04-14T19:57:18.372-07:00Motivational Quote<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Pu5AWs43Pug10O25Lxd5bfXh5uKl9az-2uVW_7FzB3assfKzLZkPlfHcWi64CMi7CuBa4Jm1JX28yvF-ibIXzrx_ZAZe_MD64OYFp1lpoB_GNQ8qYbsEDhDBLWGveBUidnzNEeYmA4c/s1600/NeverNever+Give+Up.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Pu5AWs43Pug10O25Lxd5bfXh5uKl9az-2uVW_7FzB3assfKzLZkPlfHcWi64CMi7CuBa4Jm1JX28yvF-ibIXzrx_ZAZe_MD64OYFp1lpoB_GNQ8qYbsEDhDBLWGveBUidnzNEeYmA4c/s320/NeverNever+Give+Up.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731454772242680626" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKX1LOErWjZBf0Xm1MorhYAzXHGsMh9KA1_loqSMv2RrvSrUxKyckaVPTwkKx8xXZHgDvH-hX19Uj0i2C9fb0Siv1zY_izPusVFkCkMW9HRYHHYjbBMw_YCDmY_pG0BMOKUUNfG78pB2k/s1600/Motivational+Quote.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKX1LOErWjZBf0Xm1MorhYAzXHGsMh9KA1_loqSMv2RrvSrUxKyckaVPTwkKx8xXZHgDvH-hX19Uj0i2C9fb0Siv1zY_izPusVFkCkMW9HRYHHYjbBMw_YCDmY_pG0BMOKUUNfG78pB2k/s320/Motivational+Quote.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731450675770046370" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-drpIiq72G56n9T9oy07CwYdpBjSHLeLcYQ3bYKXvzGQvOcYhVCHkN2rTh93Xs_8nUCL_sjmtPhvCQAcBc-udHnfPqAtYHNVebD9yfIQtGFi4yHNjy9-khXWjAlKcd_mWc8Pob7Jtk98/s1600/Happy+As+U+want+to+be.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 138px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-drpIiq72G56n9T9oy07CwYdpBjSHLeLcYQ3bYKXvzGQvOcYhVCHkN2rTh93Xs_8nUCL_sjmtPhvCQAcBc-udHnfPqAtYHNVebD9yfIQtGFi4yHNjy9-khXWjAlKcd_mWc8Pob7Jtk98/s320/Happy+As+U+want+to+be.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731456114564816658" /></a>TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-55819899128095327752012-04-14T15:27:00.001-07:002012-04-14T15:29:08.247-07:00EmpathyDefinition – What is empathy all about?<br /><br />Being able to empathize means to be capable of identifying and understanding another person’s feelings, without experiencing them for yourself at that particular moment. It is – just as previously discussed – the ability to literally experience the world from another person’s perspective; to walk in their shoes, to view life from their living conditions and to feel what it feels like to be that person.<br /><br />The noun em•pa•thy refers to<br /><br />* the ability to comprehend another person’s actions and emotions<br />* the identification of thoughts and emotional states within others<br />* the capacity to understand a persons (emotional) reaction<br />* the awareness of another’s problems, without experiencing them<br />which can be – in general – understood as the ability of a person to understand others or to “see where they are coming from”. In contrast to this, the personality trait of a person that is incapable of empathizing with others would be defined as a sociopath.<br /><br />Surprisingly, the ability to empathize with others is relative to a person’s capacity to identify, feel and understand his own feelings and thereby being able to project one’s feelings onto others. This means in turn that it becomes complicated at times to understand what a person is undergoing, if you haven’t undergone it for yourself – or at least felt similar feelings. The outcome of this can be seen in our day-to-day lives; it’s relatively easy to laugh about someone who is not as tall as you, or to rant about “the lazy unemployed” when you have never been unemployed in your life, or grown up in riches. But once you experience for yourself what it feels like to be teased about your body height or the difficulty to find a job, your point of view might change drastically and also how you feel about those who are facing a similar situation.<br /><br />Another aspect that empathy depends on is emotional intelligence. This kind of intelligence has not so much to do with mental skills (intellect) or the intellectual ability to study an emotion, but a lot more with actually experiencing these emotions. A person that has experienced a variety of emotional states and feelings throughout its life – from the heights of victory, happiness and joy to the depths of defeat, sadness and anxiety – will find it easier to understand another person’s problems and feelings. Furthermore, emotional intelligence enables a person to empathize with someone, without the need to have felt likewise in the past. Basically, it’s the mental projection into the emotional state of mind of another person, allowing you to identify their feelings.<br /><br />How to develop and increase empathy?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1. Walk a mile in someone’s shoes – figuratively</span><br /><br />Now, if you think about the events of the last two weeks, I’m pretty sure that there was at least one person, a colleague, your boss or even a friend – whosoever – that has angered you for any reason. If you reflect what happened in this situation, angered emotions might stir up again, but this time try to recall the situation – if possible – as unemotional as possible. You can think about your standpoint, your argumentation and the reasoning behind YOUR behavior for a short while. But then, try to step into the shoes of your counterpart – the person that angered you so much. This might be difficult to begin with, but give your very best and slip into the role of that person and try to view the whole world from that person’s perspective, just for a couple of minutes. Attempt to leave your opinion of your counterpart aside for a while, no matter how arrogant, illogical or full of himself that person appears in your opinion. While in this state of unbiasedness it will hopefully be possible to identify and understand the reasoning behind your opponent’s behavior, whether you approve of it or not is not so important. By understanding the reasons behind your counterpart’s behavior you have mastered an important hurdle on your path towards compassion. Don’t be discouraged if you do not spot the reasoning immediately – every (sane) person has a reason for what they do, it’s just sometimes really difficult to discover and understand that particular reason.<br /><br />Basically, it’s the switch in perspectives David Nichtern is speaking about in his article on the pursuit of happiness: developing empathy for others. He not only says that you should ask yourself what the situation looks like to the other person, but also that this kind of “switch in perspective is the basis for developing empathy.”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2. Developing empathy out of a person’s motive</span><br /><br />I think that once you understand at least the motive behind a person’s action, it’s by far easier to empathize with them. (Please note that we are speaking of regular people you come into contact in your daily life, not criminals!). Your boss, for instance, might be very demanding at times, but maybe you’ll notice that his pressuring bosses could be the reason for this. Maybe, he hasn’t experienced any other management style than his own bosses are setting an example of. By realizing this, you could clearly see that your boss is just a product of his environment, unable to comprehend his misbehavior.<br /><br />The very same holds true with a person’s background, personal circumstances, education and so on. In many cases, people will start an argument with an uninvolved third party just to let off steam, or because they are still lost in thoughts about an exasperating situation. Therefore, you should not only seek for the reasoning behind a person’s action, but also try to understand how it would FEEL like to be your counterpart. From that particular moment where you understand just a slight fraction of the problems and feelings your counterpart is facing in life, it will become easier for you to empathize with them.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">3. Replace anger with compassion</span><br /><br />Once you get a hang of stepping into another person’s shoes, you can try to implement this technique into your daily life – in real time. Make it an intention of yours to respond with understanding instead of anger. Thereby, you can avoid leaping to conclusions and hasty reactions you might regret later. For instance, the next time someone angrily hoots with his car horn at you, try to think for a moment what reason might have led this person to hoot at you, instead of reacting instantly by making gestures or screaming insults. That way, you might discover that your opponent was just offended or is in a rush – which is none of your business and not worth your attention at all.<br /><br />At some point, you might automatically step into another’s shoes before responding emotionally, allowing you to come to a wiser conclusion than starting an argument or a fight, for instance.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">4. Discover the similarities, not the differences</span><br /><br />In this (often times) self-centered world, it seems that many have forgotten that not only they are on a pursuit of happiness, but everyone else is as well. Naturally, this is doomed to cause conflicts, as by centering the whole world on ourselves, we tend to forget about others, which is causing us to see by far more differences between ourselves and “them”. But in reality, we are all the same. No matter of our ethical background, skin color or religious orientation – we all are striving for happiness, peacefulness and love. Also, each of us is trying to avoid sadness and suffering at best. So, instead of being blinded by the differences that superficially separate you from another person, try to acknowledge the commonalities you share with this person.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">5. Don’t judge too hastily</span><br /><br />When we meet a person for the first time, we immediately put them into boxes, subconsciously, if we want it or not. The first impressions can have a long lasting effect on what we think about a person – until we really get to know them better. Often times, we don’t even think much about this process happening and allow our “intuition” guide us when forming an opinion about others. It is important that you realize that this is a natural process unfolding that unfortunately creates a lot of biases. In order to empathize with others, it’s crucial to set aside your biases and generalizations, in order to see behind the façade.<br /><br />Before you judge someone, ask yourself if you know this person inside out and if you know what made them the person that they are today. If you can understand what they go through day after day, if you can relate to them and what it must feel like to be in their position, then you can form an opinion about them, without being biased. Notwithstanding, it should be noted that unless you really experienced the exact same situation as another person, with the same burdens, problems and suffers, you should ask yourself if you are in the proper position to judge or even criticize this person.<br /><br />Also, it’s important to acknowledge the fact that others perceive their reality through biases, values and generalizations as well, which might highly influence their behavior.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">6. Become aware of your emotional landscape</span><br /><br />I’ve mentioned in the above that the ability to empathize with others largely depends on a person’s capacity to fully identify and understand his own feelings. Something many people are struggling with, as they give their best to numb themselves from unsolicited feelings by distracting themselves with work, TV or drugs and alcohol. Therefore, it can be tremendously helpful to keep an “emotions protocol” in order to discover the profundity of one’s emotional patterns, by keeping record of the various emotions we come across in our daily lives. This does not only encourage us to uncover the variety of our own emotions, but also helps us to acknowledge the fact that the emotional landscape of another person is similarly distinctive.<br /><br />Writing an “emotions protocol” does neither require much effort nor time; simply write down – within the time span of five minutes – every emotion or feeling that you experienced during the day. For instance, if you experienced anger write down: “Sore anger: My colleague was promoted, instead of me.” Keep it plain and simple; the goal is to identify a huge variety of very different feelings and emotions.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7. Ask others about their perspective</span><br /><br />The very last aspect on our list on how to develop skills in empathy describes a fantastic way that helps you to further increase and sharpen your empathic skills. Furthermore, it allows you to compare what you thought a person would feel like and how this person feels de facto. It’s as simple as the title of #7 reads; simply ask others about their perspective or even their feelings regarding a specific situation or occurrence. That way, you aren’t dependent on your sensitivity, but have a statement to compare your impressions with. Feel free to apply this technique wherever you feel fit, for instance, ask your colleagues about their opinion on the political development, and so on.<br /><br />As closing remarks, let me point out that empathy is – luckily – a learned skill that can develop and grow through consistent practice. Therefore, if you are willing to increase your understanding of the behavior of others, it is never too late to learn it.TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-23835457919368501472012-04-13T08:18:00.002-07:002012-04-13T08:19:41.300-07:00SearchKing Offices<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXsplNQ9FpOMAkZN4xmTP21UoyoRATypJRseirGiRbMpzkakuyueAArluzzHI5GrdB_iY7Q7KUui4QFLXsUNd5WEYPSPZQJ2ba30tyQUZozHsfuhr3iGEC6DI3SOymWXTSrI7mGjE8Qs/s1600/2400+NW+23rd+Office+2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 217px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZXsplNQ9FpOMAkZN4xmTP21UoyoRATypJRseirGiRbMpzkakuyueAArluzzHI5GrdB_iY7Q7KUui4QFLXsUNd5WEYPSPZQJ2ba30tyQUZozHsfuhr3iGEC6DI3SOymWXTSrI7mGjE8Qs/s320/2400+NW+23rd+Office+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730905115486723586" /></a><br />TimeLine of <a href="http://www.bobmassa.com/SKOffices.html">SearchKing Offices</a> in United States and IndiaTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-3085117315766344752012-04-13T08:16:00.001-07:002012-04-13T08:16:58.916-07:00HonestyIt is difficult, but not impossible,<br />to conduct strictly honest business.<br />... Mahatma GandhiTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-24561704088986479322003-08-01T21:57:00.001-07:002012-04-15T21:59:06.872-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS August 2003<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidm7ivtz7Eu4PZtbBPqsiB9ocAxVOJ92qnunl4yG2RbsjCOWlWFgXhU5XCBlMxrtUS1C72FjW9i05EVcUdirtH7vytz6xWUWFTRgv74JiRVFt3ycuzusbiVZABKlftoqrJ7Mn7MLh9PFc/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidm7ivtz7Eu4PZtbBPqsiB9ocAxVOJ92qnunl4yG2RbsjCOWlWFgXhU5XCBlMxrtUS1C72FjW9i05EVcUdirtH7vytz6xWUWFTRgv74JiRVFt3ycuzusbiVZABKlftoqrJ7Mn7MLh9PFc/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731858552049477282" /></a><br />===========<span style="font-weight:bold;">Volume 5, Issue 11, August 1, 2003</span> ==========<br />Subject: Portal Partner Press <br />Volume 5, Issue 11, August 1, 2003 <br />Date: Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 4:31 PM editor@portalpartnerpress.com<br />********************************************************************************<br /><br />Portal Partner Press: Volume 5 Issue 11, August 1, 2003 ISSN 1545-3499<br />In this Issue: Editor's Notes (Lynne Scott) Hot in the Forums Ask Paynt (Debra Paynter) ********************************************************************************<br /><br /><br />This week we have some great stuff from Debra Paynter. She's really rising to the challenge of answering your questions on portal building. Thanks Debra, we truly appreciate having you share your expertise with us!<br />Housekeeping: I forgot one tasty little tidbit last week. SearchKing is offering free, brandable games to portal partners. You can see the game server at http://www.searchking.com/games Contact kevin@searchking.com to ask for yours.<br />Coming Soon: watch for the launch of the Independent Niche Directory Network. INDN aims to "lay the foundation for a community dedicated to the advancement, promotion and profitability of human reviewed data presentation serving niche markets."<br />Hot in the Forums:<br />> Portals Get a Good Kick in the Pants: it seems some people think that portals are trying to do too much, instead of concentrating on their core product. What do you think? Should portals dump their community tools, or should they keep trying out "sticky stuff"?<br />Talk Back:<br />http://www.searchking.com/skboards/ikonboard.cgi?s=7bcb48413a47454e86f7e4555d93c4da;act=ST;f=4;t=380;st=10;&#entry13<br />Lynne Scott is a graphic designer and partner in Optical Resolution, a Winnipeg, MB design house. She runs the Graphic Design Portal, Eye on Winnipeg, and KidsEdLinks.com. as well as serving as editor for the PPP. **********<br /><br />Ask Paynt Debra Paynter<br />We received three questions this month, thanks for taking the time to write.<br /><br />• What is the easiest way you've found to fill your database? Where do you get your sites when starting out? First create a content rich product. Make sure it's within a defined niche or theme. Present your linking policy in very clear terms and provide both a form and an email address for submissions or communication. Think about what you are going to offer your listings in return, and if there is a cost involved. Given you have a product to offer that is what your linking audience is interested in linking to; creating the appropriate bait is half the battle. The next step is to determine who the linking audience is. More often than not, people limit their options by not keeping an eye open to the peripheral markets. When I am marketing linking towards a body care product, such as hand lotion, I'm going to think of complimentary lines. I'm thinking about what else the person who is looking for hand lotion might also be looking for. Those are all open to linking possibilities if you have the content to support it. People are eager for opportunities to link. Those offering higher levels of linking opportunity, not just a link page, are in a better position to draw in link submissions. Create a hub or niche portal that offers information, resources and community and your product will be more likely than others to succeed. Success still comes down to the passion and drive behind the product. People can feel that. Make it personal. Ensure that you method of communication is clearly defined, encouraged and easy to follow. Communicate with your audience. Don't be afraid to change and adapt content to what you see your visitors wanting more of. Much of this information will come through your logs but you can establish other methods including chats, message boards, newsletters and even polls. Initially I attempt to seed each category with 5 links, the best I find for that category. I let the sites know I've listed them and then I make my plea or plug or sale as the case may be. Remember to personalize your initial contacts. Ask for input and feedback. See if they would like to contribute in other ways. You never know where one link can take you. <br />• There seems to be a lot of negative comments about the ODP lately. Would you care to comment on what you see as the future of the ODP? I am not a mind reader and I have no inside scoop, but, if I were to put money on it, I don't see ODP going away and I do see the benefit of a link there continuing to hold an important rank. It's a link worth getting and worth waiting for. In the mean time you want to be hustling related industry and directory linking. When the ODP link finally comes through it's gravy. ODP has developed through trial and error and, with contributions from very talented volunteers, into quite a directory. We can learn from its example and use it as a guide for both structure and potential listings when developing a directory of our own. Look at the niches within the ODP and imagine what you could do to perfect them. <br />• If you could create your own spider for building a niche directory, what features would you like it to have? Could you briefly describe your "dream" admin control panel for such a spider? This is a great question and warrants more space than available this month so I would like to carry it over to next month. Thank you for writing. I'd promised more on structuring the hub and we have three excellent questions as well this week. I don't want anyone of them to be slighted. To continue, as I promised, with last month's discussion on structuring the hub, I'll introduce channels for you to think about. Not everyone wants to or should use canonicals (subdomains) in their structuring, but I do. Canonicals make it very easy to structure content and organize information, giving each a potential boost in positioning. There are secrets wrapped up in my canonical strategy but it's not too hard to imagine they include content. I organize my hubs by channels of either related information, a related presentation of information such as a glossary or directory, sometimes even by product or manufacturer. Initially themes are what start the process, based on what content we have to support that channel's development. If the whole directory or hub strategy is to divide it into channels, then I break them into complete topics. Last month I introduced the skateboarder into punk music as a possible hub idea. That doesn't seem to threaten any of you and it's a current interest of mine so I'll continue to use it as an example. Let's assume I've done my research, I know who my audience is and I've decided to divide the information into individual sections of thought. One channel is for the artists, the musicians and bands. Once I have determined the topic of the channel itself there are still decisions. I need to consider the section in complete terms, brainstorming, filtering, sorting and then strategizing the sub categories. Will I divide the sub categories based on the alphabet, genre, bands, and location? What fluff do I need to support the channel beyond the listings? What bait can I offer to draw listings, attract search engines and build returning traffic? In structuring the site consider the housekeeping pages. I've followed different strategies and now just include robots noindex, follow in the Meta tags for pages that offer no content to convert traffic. <br />If you want me to share more on structuring please let me know. Debra Paynter Send your questions and comments to Ask Paynt: mailto:editor@portalpartnerpress.com?subject=Ask_Paynt<br />Debra Paynter of www.promotion-strategies.com is now blogging daily. Contact Debra for an affordable Foundation Plan to structure your online promotional strategies. She is accepting new projects from small websites to larger portal development. **********************************************************************<br />Feedback: your comments, suggestions, beefs, bouquets, etc. are very welcome. **********************************************************************<br />Portal Partner Press Archives: http://www.portalpartnerpress.com **********************************************************************TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-23731252673253230862003-07-01T21:56:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:57:56.262-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS July 2003<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirZKseKhuBVzr4j0z_kslaEPHxn8KhHWtTcFka8r_ZAoEzw_z0nKiXBdM2Vi0bkrGZNJpeAcWFYzYNYCE8H2WodJGrlEsAVGp_5d2tI5jOOGONR15mLI7nGDwo62ZY1Bbtza_gIe-R-2c/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirZKseKhuBVzr4j0z_kslaEPHxn8KhHWtTcFka8r_ZAoEzw_z0nKiXBdM2Vi0bkrGZNJpeAcWFYzYNYCE8H2WodJGrlEsAVGp_5d2tI5jOOGONR15mLI7nGDwo62ZY1Bbtza_gIe-R-2c/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731858195713311714" /></a><br />========<span style="font-weight:bold;">Volume 5 Issue 9 July 11, 2003</span> ========<br />Subject: Portal Partner Press: Volume 5 Issue 9, July 11, 2003 <br />Date: Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 3:55 AM editor@portalpartnerpress.com<br />********************************************************************************<br /><br />Portal Partner Press: Volume 5 Issue 9, July 11, 2003 ISSN 1545-3499<br />In this Issue: Editor's Notes (Lynne Scott) Google v. SearchKing collateral damage Ask Paynt (Debra Paynter) Establishing Directory Structure: initial research ********************************************************************************<br /><br /><br />I hope that all of our American readers passed a wonderful 4th of July holiday, and that our Canadian readers had a great Canada Day. You'll notice that this issue is coming out a few days late. That's because I was waiting for some information that needed to be included. Two items that were to be included in this issue have been bumped to next issue in order to include this information.<br />If you've been to the PPP website recently, you will have noticed a note regarding the PPP's upcoming interview with Chris Ridings of SearchGuild ( http://www.searchguild.com ). That interview will be appearing early in August, but during the course of our discussion, Chris asked for some information on the Google v. SearchKing issue. Specifically, he would like information on any ongoing collateral damage being experienced by those either hosted by SearchKing or linking to it. Chris has generously offered to analyze this information in an effort to determine whether this damage is related to Google v. SK, and what course of action might be possible in the event that it is related.<br />If you feel that your site is experiencing ongoing collateral damage, please collect as much information as you can, and forward it to editor@portalpartnerpress.com with "collateral damage" in the subject line. Chris needs the following information:<br />• The url<br />• The PR before the difficulties<br />• Terms ranked for and where before the difficulties (or referrals per term)<br />• Google referrals before the difficulties<br />• The PR immediately after<br />• Terms ranked for and where immediately after (or referrals per term)<br />• Google referrals immediately after<br />• The PR now<br />• Terms ranked for and where now (or referrals per term)<br />• Google referrals now<br />• Whether the site sold inventory to pradnetwork or not<br />Some of you might not have all of this information, but collecting as much of it as you can will be a great help. I'll be forwarding the collected data to Chris for analysis. **********<br />Yahoo Acquires Overture http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=OVER&script=410&layout=0&item_id=430830 This is an interesting development in the whole SEO / SEM arena. Discussion is taking place in the Portal Network Forums, so why not pop in and share your thoughts on the issue. **********<br />ISSN Granted to the Portal Partner Press If you take a look at the top and bottom of this issue, you'll notice a small change. The Portal Partner Press is now an internationally registered publication, with its own ISSN. This is a big step on the road to journalistic acceptance and recognition. **********<br />This week Debra Paynter starts off her regular contributions with some great advice on doing initial research for a hub building project. I'm sure this will get all of you thinking, and generating questions about hub / portal building. Send them in to Ask Paynt.<br />Lynne Scott is a graphic designer and partner in Optical Resolution, a Winnipeg, MB design house. She runs the Graphic Design Portal, Eye on Winnipeg, and KidsEdLinks.com. as well as serving as editor for the PPP. **********<br />Ask Paynt Debra Paynter<br />The door is open on what to talk about this week so what I'd like to do is take you to beginning of establishing what the structure of your directory will be. Start easy with a niche portal on a topic that is close to your heart. In approaching the initial research time I start with a spreadsheet, a word processing document and a text pad. Next I open a browser to Google, one to www.dictionary.com, and my other is www.dnsstuff.com for the direct who is and such information. These are my basic research tools.<br />Knowing that I am approaching the research with a focus, a passion for the subject, or at least a general theme in mind, I can make a list of the general topics I want to use as a starting point to my research. Google directory is my first stop. I go to the top of my tree and check out how the ODP/Google directory approaches my theme/niche/industry. I take note of the 'related' categories and anything that appeals to me, including naming conventions and use of keywords. I visit sites included in the categories.<br />What I am doing with this first run through is getting a feel for how the 'organizers of the web' are dealing with my subject matter. There's no reason to recreate the wheel, so I look for clues to stimulate me to create something that totally encompasses what I can comfortably structure and provide content and listings for. If my goal is to make money from the hub, it is even more important that I take on only what I can comfortably handle and grow with.<br />While in the Google directory I look at what the industry has to offer by way of other directories. What's the competition like, what needs are they meeting, what topics are they covering along with all the same observations as when I'm looking at the upper level Google directory. Not only am I looking at what they offer but what is missing. It's very important to find the holes, especially if the goal is to bring in income. Every industry has them. My job is to find them so I can fill them with my content.<br />As this information starts coming in, I keep lists going. Usually there is one for category ideas, one for keywords, which I may break down into further themes, and one for sites I like. I list the competition and as I find the holes I list those. Often times I'll get ideas for articles, glossary terms or tip ideas, specific thoughts for developing content. If I find sites with communities, chats, message boards and so on I check those out for content. What are people posting about, what information are they looking for?<br />What I am trying to do is balance what the industry has to offer with what is missing. I am balancing what content people are looking for with what I can offer. These are the first steps, the initial feelers I send out. It's important at this point to gather in information. The only sorting is really the list making. Don't throw anything out yet, even if it seems impossible at this point. Research includes a bit of dreaming as well. Look outside the box and I know people are tired of that expression but it's the truth.<br />In the research-dreaming phase think about your audience. What might interest them, in addition to the main focus? Consider their peripheral interests and needs. Your original idea might be punk music but as you get into the research you find sites offering videos, clothing and poetry that you like as well. Maybe your original idea for a hub of punk music is too limited. Maybe what you have in you is a hub that's attractive to a larger audience. Maybe the theme will become more focused or completely open to a new direction, such as skateboarders who love punk music.<br />Until you start looking at these lists with an open mind, not limited by what every other site in your theme is doing or what they consider acceptable to offer from a similar hub, you don't have the edge. Hub building isn't reverse engineering a better page to rise in the ranks.<br />Next month I'll answer any questions that might come in and then carry through with this discussion tying in this initial research with the eventual structure. If anyone has an idea of a specific theme, niche or industry you'd like to explore as an example then let me know. Happy hubbing!<br />Debra Paynter of www.promotion-strategies.com is now blogging daily. Contact Debra for an affordable Foundation Plan to structure your online promotional strategies. She is accepting new projects from small websites to <br />Subject: Portal Partner Press: Volume 5 Issue 10, July 25, 2003 Date: Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 9:54 PM editor@portalpartnerpress.com<br />********************************************************************************<br /><br />=============<span style="font-weight:bold;">Volume 5 Issue 10 July 25, 2003</span>==============<br />Portal Partner Press: Volume 5 Issue 10, July 25, 2003 ISSN 1545-3499<br />In this Issue: Editor's Notes (Lynne Scott) Announcements Don't Get Me Started! (Jane Ellen Carr) ********************************************************************************<br /><br /><br />This week I've been thinking about linking strategies, and reading a few threads in various webmaster forums around the internet. I happened to come across one at Webmaster World that made my blood boil. The thread is titled "Pricing Text Ads for PR Purposes". http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/15476.htm<br />It seems that the owner of a very highly ranked website has been approached by a potential advertiser with a product relevant to the highly ranked site. The advertiser wants to purchase text advertising on multiple pages of the site. So far, so good. Now, if I received such an approach, I would set about determining the total value of those ads, based on my current rate card, and send a quotation off to the advertiser. The advertiser would agree with my quotation, disagree and end discussion, or try to negotiate a better price. Unfortunately, this is not what happened.<br />The site owner, unsure of how to price these text ads, asked an associate for some direction. The associate pointed out that the high PageRank of the owner's site meant that text advertisements would be worth substantially more than standard advertising rates, because PR would be passed to the advertiser, thus improving his search rankings and yielding far more traffic than the ads alone. NB: up to this point, neither the advertiser nor the site owner had mentioned PageRank as a factor in determining price. The advertiser might have been considering it, but we have no way of knowing that.<br />The associate made a post at WMW asking for some direction. In general, the advice he got was sound: price according to what the market will bear. What made me angry, though, was the suggestion that Google might penalize both sites for the buying and selling of PR, and that the links had better use some form of redirection so that Google could not follow them.<br />Think about it. Why should a search engine even enter into the discussion when neither the advertiser nor the site owner had ever expressed any concern over search rankings? Why should any webmaster have to worry about how a search engine might react to his having sold some of his ad inventory? Why should a webmaster have to think about hiding / cloaking / redirecting his advertisers' links? Am I the only one who thinks this is totally absurd? **********<br />Talk Back: http://www.searchking.com/skboards/ikonboard.cgi?s=8fda23fbdecab2a9d635e185e503099f;act=ST;f=50;t=26;st=0;&#entry3<br />Lynne Scott is a graphic designer and partner in Optical Resolution, a Winnipeg, MB design house. She runs the Graphic Design Portal http://www.graphic-design-portal.com , Eye on Winnipeg http://www.eyeonwinnipeg.com , and KidsEdLinks.com http://www.kidsedlinks.com as well as serving as editor for the PPP. **********<br />Announcements Portal Plus owners will be happy to learn that SearchKing is now offering Pluses on top level domains. You can now have your portal plus at yourportal.com, instead of yourportal.searchking.com. Present portal plus owners can upgrade to a top level domain free. You will need to register a domain name. Details at http://www.searchking.com/portals/portal_plus.html<br />Talk Back: http://www.searchking.com/skboards/ikonboard.cgi?s=8fda23fbdecab2a9d635e185e503099f;act=ST;f=1;t=99;st=0;&#entry3 **********<br />Don't Get Me Started! Jane Ellen Carr<br />Ok, I've had it! How many *experts* does it take to make enough recommendations to make you cut your nose off to spite your face? Let's talk about linking strategies. Years ago when the 'Net was young we all learned the value of adding links to our sites. Site visitors love them - that's what made the 'Net so interesting, go to one site, find something interesting, follow the links around and surf to your heart's content.<br />Then along came the big search engines that started adding value to your sites if they had lots of links out to other sites, making your site more valuable (ranking higher) simply because it was in fact more interesting to the user. Remember the killer link list pages in the old days? Those sites that gained huge recognition and traffic simply because they were an invaluable reference tool to find other sites on any given topic.<br />Now here we are 10 years later, with the likes of Google dominating the search engine traffic, and we are being told by all the experts to throw out all that old mentality (links are good) and devise a new strategy - only non-reciprocated links that you don't actively seek out are good. Just a few passive links (preferably from bloggers, of course), and a few links from a selected list of about 5 or 6 well-known directories are what you want, and heaven help you if you accidentally link to someone else who accidentally linked to someone else who accidentally did something that Google didn't like - but you don't know for sure who did something wrong, hence, be careful and don't link to too many outside sources (furthermore, this can harm you as it might dilute your own PR) and just to be on the safe side go through your linked sites with an axe and chop out anybody who has a PR0 showing on the Google toolbar, as you can't take any chances that they might just be a low rankin! g site, or a new site, or a slow to rank site, but heaven forbid, you might get entangled up in a *bad neighborhood*, which nobody knows for sure exactly what that is, but its somebody who did something wrong that Google didn't like.<br />This is poppycock! The height of absurdity! Links are what bring you traffic for goodness sakes. Furthermore, links from other related sites bring you targeted traffic. Who in their right mind would want to trade highly targeted, interested traffic for the holy grail of moving up a notch or two in the Google result stack for some highly competitive keyword - big deal, now you come in position 42 instead of position 267? Lets face it not everybody is going to get in the coveted top 10 positions - there are thousands of good sites out there who will not rank well for their keywords, ever.<br />Now, I'm not suggesting that we all become link farms - we all know what one of those looks like, feels like, and does at a glance (despite the fact that Google can't seem to differentiate between a link farm and a valuable list of related links). I am suggesting that we use some common sense about all of this, and go back to freely linking, giving our recommendations of other good, related sites to visit, and not being afraid to give out a reciprocating link, regardless of the supposed *pitfalls and penalties* being imposed by the mighty Google.<br />See this thread for just one example of what I'm talking about (I see this same advice being given out all over the SE forums, time and time again): http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=2210 And the site in question in that particular thread: http://www.littlefingerslittletoes.net/links_page.html which is a very nice site, btw, one who has taken a LOT of time and trouble to assemble two very long pages of links to other interesting sites.<br />Talk Back: http://www.searchking.com/skboards/ikonboard.cgi?s=8fda23fbdecab2a9d635e185e503099f;act=ST;f=34;t=15;st=0;&#entry8<br />Jane Ellen Carr is the administrator of the SearchKing Forums. She runs Our World of Dolls http://www.our-world-of-dolls.com and Vortal Experts http://www.vortalexperts.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-14614891940807565412003-06-01T21:55:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:56:47.054-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS June 2003<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7Dw_o5ljWetquN9dCBqJbW9SJ80TaaquNNio4idqFWT-DULI0g2RHNEzNL1gp4tGLkggAFYN_0U7oGWoSNYgysSD5r4-qHiQ4ZnMvW3_Tc7rOF-ccPG1eltVLWgbTRWDM3PqjhuDZLg/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7Dw_o5ljWetquN9dCBqJbW9SJ80TaaquNNio4idqFWT-DULI0g2RHNEzNL1gp4tGLkggAFYN_0U7oGWoSNYgysSD5r4-qHiQ4ZnMvW3_Tc7rOF-ccPG1eltVLWgbTRWDM3PqjhuDZLg/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731857878106838594" /></a><br />====== <span style="font-weight:bold;">June 03, 2003 </span>=========<br />Subject: PR AD Network Press 6-3-03<br /> Date: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 3:40 PM <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br />The NETWORK NEWS Published by the PR Ad Network This newsletter is published for the sole purpose of educating, entertaining and exchanging information with those who believe webmasters have as much right to legally profit from their own content as those who use that content without benefit of contract or compensation. It is sent only to those who are either advertisers, inventory partners or like-minded interested parties of the PR Ad Network and those people are known only to the publisher and staff of this newsletter and will not be disclosed to any third party for any reason. We are not anti anything. We are simply very pro ecommerce. ************************************************<br /><br />• Date 06-03-03<br />• IN THIS ISSUE<br />• What's All the Uproar About?<br />• A New Service Launched<br /><br />****************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">WHAT'S ALL THE UPROAR ABOUT</span><br />? For those of you who follow Google's updates or the Webmaster World Forums, you are well aware that this last update is very different from updates in the past. Most of the data being displayed, including backlinks, is from back in February. What a commotion this has caused! Some of the longest threads in the history of WMW have been born in the name of the "dominic update". Everything from, "this is the beginning of the end for Google", to the old tried and true, "let's all just be patient and it will be all right", posts.<br />As I've advised several times in the past, when evaluating information in those forums, remember to consider the source. As usual, both extremes are VERY likely wrong!<br />It is true that they are using more data centers than before. It is also true that the main database is displaying content that is as old as the Feb. update. Most importantly to you, it is also true that many backlinks aren't showing up as we would expect. So what does all this mean? It simply means that link popularity, page rank and anchor text is more important than ever.<br />Anyone notice the discussion about the "god" sites? There is not much point in putting a link to the Google search for God as they are known for changing things quickly when it is brought to the attention of the media. Furthermore, it is well-known that Goolge does manipulate the results whenever they like for any reason they like, but as of today, a search on G for the word God, brings back this page, http://www.phpnuke.org<br />This site has no mention of the word God anywhere! Not in the title. Not in the link titles. Nowhere. Nowhere except in the anchor text of incoming links and the html link titles of incoming links. With Google, as always, page rank is the key. *******************************************************************************************************************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SHAMELESS PLUG</span><br />Control your own domains! Running your own server is much cheaper and faster if you maintain more than just a few domains. More importantly, your server, your domains under your control. You decide how to set up MX records, designate sub-domains, manage re-directs and scripts. Get secure before you lose your placements or PR. Get control of your domains and your clients' domains now!<br />You can run your own hot rod server from just $299 per month with 10 unique IP#'s from 2 class C's.<br />We can manage and maintain it for you for just $149 For details, call 1-888-956-7672 and get secure today! ***********************************************************************************************<br />That is not to say that you can forget about all the other typical aspects of good SEO and good site design. The point is simply that page rank and having the right link from the right site with the right anchor text is the single most important factor to placing well under competitive keywords. Watch your P's and Q's but more importantly, watch your incoming links and your anchor text. As for my personal take on this latest Google update is that it actually has very little to do with SEO's as much as they would like to think that it does. It has more to do with the fact that Google is a business and their business is indexing as much of the web as possible. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe they see their core business as being NOT advertising, rather the collection and organization of the content on the web. The more content they can gather and organize, the more valuable they see their business as being.<br />The single biggest part of the web Google, (and every other search service for that matter), is missing is dynamic content. Dynamic content has always been the "nut to crack" so to speak. If you consider all the shtml, .asp, .php pages, all the flash pages and all the other dynamically generated stuff on the web, it leaves a big hole in anyone's 3 billion document database. My personal opinion is that all they are doing is trying and testing ways to gather and retrieve dynamic content and that it actually has nothing to do with Adwords or link popularity except of course in how to handle one page with thousands of versions of the one page being generated daily. Is that one link or thousands? This too shall pass. *********<br /><br />Subject: Portal Partner Press Volume 5, Issue 7, June 20, 2003 Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 10:19 AM From: "Portal Partner Press" editor@portalpartnerpress.com<br />********************************************************************************<br />In this Issue: Editor's Notes (Lynne Scott) Ask Paynt (Debra Paynter)<br />Some of you will have received this issue twice. I apologize for that. Unfortunately, I discovered a URL error part way through the send, and had to correct it before I could restart. I'll try to make certain that it doesn't happen too often ;-)<br />Those of you who are keeping track will have noticed that it's been several weeks since the last PPP went out. The fact that this one is making out, more or less as it should have gone out 3 weeks ago, is due to a very good technician who managed to retrieve the vast majority of the data hiding on a burnt out hard drive. It took him the better part of 2 weeks to do it, but do it he did, thank goodness. That will teach me to go more than a week without backing up to a CD! Any of you who are wondering whether or not that CD burner would be a good investment can rest assured it will be. A recent backup would have had me back up and running within 2 days. Waiting 2 weeks between backups cost me 2 weeks of downtime and several days of reorganizing data. No contest there!<br />This issue marks several milestones for the PPP:<br />For the first time we are sending out both a text and an html version. I'm counting on those of you receiving the html version to send in some feedback on what you like or don't like about it! Please post your comments in the forums at http://www.searchking.com/skboards/ikonboard.cgi or send them to me at editor@portalpartnerpress.com<br />The PPP website (http://www.portalpartnerpress.com ) is also open, and the archives will be indexed over the next few weeks. This year's issues will be the first indexed, with previous years following close behind.<br />Chat is back! Bob will be hosting an hour or so of chat Wednesday mornings at 10 am, central time. See you there. http://www.searchking.com/chat/okchat/client/index.html<br />I saved the best for last. This week we welcome Debra Paynter of Promotional-Strategies.com ( http://www.promotion-strategies.com ) as a regular contributor to the PPP. Her bi-line will appear in the first issue of each month. Debra is well known as an authority on a number of issues related to niche or hub site building, and we look forward to her contributions. This week Debra answers the questions you sent in following our 2 part interview with her. Welcome aboard Debra!<br />Lynne Scott is a graphic designer and partner in Optical Resolution, a Winnipeg, MB design house. She runs the Graphic Design Portal ( http://www.graphic-design-portal.com ), Eye on Winnipeg, and KidsEdLinks.com. as well as serving as editor for the PPP. ********************************************************************************<br />Ask Paynt Debra Paynter<br />I want to start with two questions Lynne passed to me that came in from the interview. The first is from Brad,<br />"What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of redirected listings vs. direct URLs in regards to a SEO standpoint? And which do you think is better?"<br />Well Brad, there's a purpose for almost every tool, if we look at it that way there may be instances where a redirected URL is important to an overall strategy. I would rather turn the tables and ask why you want to use a redirected link? The most important reason for me to not suggest redirected links is in respect to the sites I am linking to. They deserve a straight static link, unless I've agreed to a redirected link for the purpose of an affiliate program, or at the request of a link partner. There are tracking reasons for redirects and alternative solutions that make a static link possible.<br />I suggest looking for alternative solutions to the use of redirects. Ask yourself what is the purpose of the portal in the first place and then consider the needs of the sites listed and if how they want their links presented is important to your overall strategy.<br />For the most part Brad, in my experience even the search engines like it simple. I'm all for keep it simple SEO. The pure nature of a portal puts it leagues ahead of a standard site for built in optimization benefits.<br />Diane asked, "Is there a guideline for creating a portal?"<br />Very good question, Diane, and the simple answer is yes there is a guideline. The more difficult answer, though, is you are the architect. Development experts know you need a plan to start with and that will act as your guide. The first phase is in the form of research and analysis into your industry and niche. Looking for what are both an industry standard and then the holes in existing information will give you an edge, ultimately, for the traffic, if you are smart in building out the content of your site. Mix that with the passion that drives the topic and you'll find your key to success.<br />If I were take on a new hub project, I would first sit down and figure out what the ultimate goal is and break that into all the supporting goals. I would list what content, tools, resources I had to offer through the portal. My focus would be on my strengths, but I would also look for the holes in the industry and do what I could to fill them. My next list includes the support features, tools and services I need to contract out to build my hub. This may include software, design and programming, even copywriting.<br />One of the most important items to consider is the structure. Along with that are the policies including about the linking/submission policy, privacy, copyright and communication. I have to consider the financial aspects, how the site will pay for itself. Will I sell advertising, PPC or enhanced listings? Equal to this are how the responsibilities will be divided. There are editing, communications, advertising, content development and link checking tasks that require ongoing attention. Add a forum or chat feature and the responsibilities multiply quickly.<br />I am happy to discuss in more detail any of these specific aspects of portal building. I think my greatest contribution though is help in the development/planning aspects so I'll tend to leave the technical aspects to those more qualified. Perhaps we can spend time on developing a working guideline for creating a portal.TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-64712035911444596522003-04-01T21:53:00.001-08:002012-04-15T21:55:34.897-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS April 2003<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnvzUnH6aGC4thT_MisNICMxiwhTMjh4y0jBoL84LIXZ51Q1mLL7H4Exr7OpnC5HmOUd7kd6mT8uh7ZDxKb1K_HATvuSZyHXWyldvi7QbKoNcH_ktThXJHrXGF6pikT5Rd734rvxk3KoA/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnvzUnH6aGC4thT_MisNICMxiwhTMjh4y0jBoL84LIXZ51Q1mLL7H4Exr7OpnC5HmOUd7kd6mT8uh7ZDxKb1K_HATvuSZyHXWyldvi7QbKoNcH_ktThXJHrXGF6pikT5Rd734rvxk3KoA/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731857438608481138" /></a><br />========<span style="font-weight:bold;">April 03, 2003</span>===================<br />Subject: PR AD Network Newsletter 4-3-03<br /> Date: Thursday, April 03, 2003 11:48 AM <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">THE PR AD NETWORK PRESS</span><br />This newsletter is published for the sole purpose of educating, entertaining and exchanging information with those who believe webmasters have as much right to legally profit from their own content as those who use that content without benefit of contract or compensation. It is sent only to those who are either advertisers, inventory partners or like-minded interested parties of the PR Ad Network and those people are known only to the publisher and staff of this newsletter and will not be disclosed to any third party for any reason.<br />We are not anti-google or anti anything. We are simply very PRO- Ecommerce.<br /><br />Date 4-2-03 <br />IN THIS ISSUE<br />• My take on the short term future of SEO<br />• Ask Bob<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">MY TAKE ON THE SHORT TERM FUTURE OF SEO</span><br />First, let me start by saying that what I tell you now is nothing more than my own opinion. I have no control over anything any search service, (other than SearchKing of course), may do at any time. What I tell you is visible to me today could very possibly be gone by the time you go look for yourself. What works today may stop working tomorrow. Always remember that we all have the right to choose what and whom to believe and the smart business person will develop a sense of just the right mix of reading, listening and considering the words of others, but will put their faith in experience. Their own experience! My best advice is to accept that there may be those who will gladly tell you where they think the gold lies, but it is always up to you to do the digging.<br />There was a thread recently a popular webmaster forum where a person known as googleguy haunts. The thread was about PR for sale. It went to 13 pages long with more and more people accepting that PR is a currency and it is was made that way by Google. Once the tone seemed to be shifting to a little of a disgruntled with Google feel, the management of that site decided it had no further use and closed it.<br />Like always, there is more to be learned from what is NOT being said as opposed to what is. If you notice GG's response was nothing more than a thinly veiled threat of possible impending doom, (without saying what he was specifically referring to), and a plea for help with a spam report. He is telling you one thing above all others. Google has a real problem!<br />PageRank is Google's crowning glory. It is the essence of their marketing hype. It is the foundation of their oft-touted algorithm. It is the backbone of everything they claim to be.<br />It is also their Achilles' heel. PageRank, as an algorithm, is very good, but it is not perfect. Google seems bent on not having to admit that. In many ways, they simply can not admit that.<br />With each new filter, with each new algorithm or policy change, they are telling everyone just how important PR is. Naturally, google feels like Page Rank belongs to them and they want to feel like they are smart enough to control it. Maybe they are smart enough to control PR, but they have created a market for a product that does not belong to them and that opens the door to free enterprise. As I've said so many times before, if there is a market for something and it is not illegal to provide a service to satisfy that market, that is free enterprise and there will be those who will attempt to legally capitalize on that market and there isn't anything Google, or anyone else, can do to stop it.<br />Link popularity does not belong to Google. The system for measuring that link popularity may belong to Google, (personally I believe that could be challenged as well), but you measuring the thing does not make that thing belong to you. Link popularity from your web site is yours to do with what you will. Google may be able to penalize you for doing something they don't like, but that does not alter the truth of the statement or the concept and penalizing you for doing anything legal with your own property is a mistake on their part and they will, at some point, be forced to deal with the fact and the consequences of the actions and decisions they make in an attempt to control the legal practices of others.<br />Obviously, I can be called a spammer and everything I have worked to build be brought into question because I had the audacity to speak those beliefs, but history is proving me right as we speak. Just because it is the internet, the laws of supply and demand are not changed, only hidden behind a veil of technology and that can only go so far.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SHAMELESS PLUG</span><br />Control your own domains! Running your own server is much cheaper and faster if you maintain more than just a few domains. More importantly, your server, your domains under your control. You decide how to set up MX records, designate sub-domains, manage re-directs and scripts. Get secure before you lose your placements or PR. Get control of your domains and your clients' domains now!<br />You can run your own hot rod server from just $299 per month with 10 unique IP#'s from 2 class C's. We can manage and maintain it for you for just $149<br />For details, call Ronnie K at 1-888-956-7672 and get secure today!<br /><br /><br />Now, more on topic, PR is more valuable than ever, but NOT just the number in the toolbar. The RIGHT PR is the key. The question has been asked over and over why a lower PR page can outrank a higher PR page in the Google search results. That answer is now easily visible to those who care to look and see.<br />I told you all several months ago that off site criteria was getting to be far more important than on site in regards to top search engine placement. Off site criteria, for all intents and purposes, IS the SEO of 2003 and beyond.<br />I'm telling you now, as I told you then, don't take my word for it. Prove it to yourself. Do a search for just about any keyword and then look through the top 10 sites for the number of times that keyword/phrase shows up on the page. Do it with all top ten sites. The smart SEO will quickly realize that the title on your page isn't nearly as important as the title on the page you want a link from.<br />Now, search the backlinks for the same sites and see the difference in how many references to the keyword/phrase there are on those pages and see for yourself what sites gets what site placed under what keyword. >From this day forward, SEO has much more to do with PR planning, procuring and maintenance, than all the meta tags and keyword density for on-site optimizing put together.<br />The next clue is checking the backlinks for how many of those links come from domains that are not affiliated. That does not mean domains that sell something as an affiliate of someone else. That means sites that have different domain names that can be easily associated with each other. As usual, when googleguy announced on WMW that PR was no longer being passed from expired domains, he was telling us a lot more than just that Google was trying to improve their search results.<br />He was telling us that<br />• , anyone who was in the business of brokering, finding or selling/leasing expired domains was having to face the possibility of extinction virtually overnight at Google's whim. Not that I'm defending the selling of expired domains. I agree that most were of low quality and the purpose of buying these domains was questionable at best. However, not all expired domain purchases were dubious and none of them were illegal. Google has shown before how easily they can accept the consequences of collateral damage.<br />• , They were telling us that they are now able to adjust the value of PR based on Whois records. All of us who own, or control multiple domains, now know that the PR value of crosslinking our own domains is not long for this world.<br />THEY WERE NOT TELLING ANYONE THAT PR IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT!! They are telling us that PR from AFFILIATED sites is not that important but that PR still is the key.<br />As always, you are free to believe whatever you like, but my advice is to stop hunting for PR and start hunting for "the right" PR. An on topic PR is worth more than a general topic PR. Also, you don't need hundreds or thousands of links. In fact that is a very easy way for anyone to flag your site. The quantity of links has virtually nothing to do with anything.<br />Need more money from your site? Like to get some paid ads on your site to help defray the expense of doing net marketing? If you have a PR 4 or higher, start looking for available ad money from people who need the link from your topic.<br />The days of begging people for links is fast coming to an end. PR Ad Network pretty much put the last nail in that coffin. The open marketplace of links is here and it is here to stay until such time as Google either loses dominant market share of finds something to replace PR. I believe that text links have more value than the vast majority of affiliate programs out there. Not many affiliate programs can pay you a minimum of $500 a month for 10 text ads! I predict over the next few months you are going to see everyone and their dog offering every kind of PR generation program you can imagine and the more Google tries to control it, the deeper the hole they will dig themselves into.<br />I find the whole thing more than a little ironic. All I ever wanted from the very beginning was a way that webmasters could expect to be compensated for their efforts if they built a quality niche directory. Google has done more to make that happen than I ever did. As I have said so many times in the past, they are creating the very beast they claim to be fighting.<br />Life is good!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SHAMELESS PLUG #2</span><br />Secure hosting for your promotional domains. Unique Class C IP#. We help you with your domain registration. Set up on an anonymous server. Unique DNS. Unique MX records. All the whistles and bells with 150 megs of space and 10 gigs of burstable bandwidth. <br />$25 a month or $199 a year <br />For details call Ronda at 1-888-956-7672 and get secure today!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">ASK BOB</span><br />Some of you probably knew of me before the PR Ad Network through my Ask Bob columns I wrote for Terry Dean's Web Gold and The Internet Marketing Chronicles as well as few other lesser known ezines and newsletters. I wrote those columns for almost 4 years, (still do write one for Terry Dean), until I just no longer had the time to devote to it.<br />Basically, I was kind of a Dear Abbey of SEO. People would write in with their questions, they would be sent to me, I would answer them and those answers would get published in the next issue.<br />There seems to be as many questions about PR these days as there ever was about SEO in general so in spite of the fact that I don't relish the idea of giving up yet more of my time, I do think there is a need.<br />I can't guarantee you that I can answer every question. I can't guarantee that I will always tell you what you want to hear. Hell, I can't even guarantee you that anything I would tell you would even be right. What I will guarantee is that I will tell you the truth. At least the truth as I see it.<br />You can ask me anything you like by sending your questions to bobking@searchking.com and putting PR Question in the subject line. I will never disclose your identity unless you give me explicit permission to do so. I will post the question as you send it to me without any information about you personally. I will then answer your question as best I can, or ask the readership of this newsletter, in the next issue of the PR Ad Network Press.<br />Remember though, no matter what I say, if you act on my advice or answers and it doesn't do what you expected or even if it has some negative effects, I accept no responsibility whatsoever. BUT, if you do something on my advice or recommendation and it works, I expect to be given full and unconditional credit.<br />That should do it for now. Thanks for taking the time and thanks for your support.<br />See You at the Top Bob<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SHAMELESS PLUG #3</span><br />Did you know that we build and maintain promotional domains, hosted on our servers or yours, for as little as $689 set up for up to 5 pages, including any and all secure pages or scripts, and maintain the site for as little as $249 per month. This includes a complete objective and strategy based on your own goals that YOU approve and at least two pr 5's to the site to get your toolbar glowing.<br />Our maintenance covers up to two hours a month for anything you need. We will build keyword targeted interior pages. We will consult with you in regards to marketing strategy. We will secure and maintain links until we reach our PR objectives. We will research your keywords and/or your competition. We will manage your PPC campaigns. Most importantly, we will monitor and review with you monthly, the logs and stats to ensure that we hit our numbers and MAKE MONEY with the site.<br />We have multiple hot rod servers, full time programmers on staff and 7 full time employees. We can install cgi scripts. We can locate, evaluate and install off-the-shelf software for you. We can even write custom scripts. When it comes to internet marketing and website development, we are a one-stop shopping source! Also, we pay $200 for referrals and offer a reseller plan. Details ? You know who to call.<br /><br />==========<span style="font-weight:bold;">Vol. 5, Iss. 5 April 21, 2003</span>=======================<br />Subject: PR AD Network Newsletter 4-21-03 <br />Date: Monday, April 21, 2003 6:01 PM<br /> From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br /><br /><br />**********************************************************************<br />Portal Partner Press Vol. 5, Iss. 5, April 18, 2003<br />**********************************************************************<br />Inside this issue:<br /><br />• Editor's Message (Lynne Scott)<br />• Product Review: Turbo Seek<br />• Interview with Debra Paynter, pt 1<br /><br />**********************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Editor's Message</span><br />I hope everyone had a blessed Easter, or Pass Over, or whichever holiday you celebrated this weekend, and that nobody has over-dosed on the droppings left by that rotten Easter Bunny.<br />Housekeeping: There have been many requests to restart the Portal Partner Chat. A simple php chat room has been installed at http://portalpartnerpress.com/chat/phpMyChat.php3 This room will be available for scheduled chat on Thursdays, at 7 pm central time.<br />Thanks to Portal Partner Planet Doom for suggesting this week's product review. You can find him hanging around the Portal Network Forums, where he moderates several topics or in the forums on his sci-fi portal, Planet Doom. ( http://planetdoomportal.searchking.com )<br />As promised last week, today we start a series of articles and interviews on the subject of niche portals, building and running them, making money with them, using them to build a related business, and a whole slew of related topics. **********************************************************************<br />Portal Network Forums: pop in and say hello, read up on what's happening, tell us what you think, or just lurk and learn http://www.searchking.com/skboards/ikonboard.cgi **********************************************************************<br /><br />Product Review: Turbo Seek<br />• FocalMedia.net<br />• Price: Shareware License: $169<br />• Minimum Requirements<br />• System: Unix / Linux<br />• Access: Telnet or SSH, CGI bin, sendmail<br />• Language: Perl 5.002 or better<br />• Optional: MySQL<br />• (source: http://www.focalmedia.net )<br />Turbo Seek appears to be a big step up from other directory programs in its price range, with features usually not found until you reach the over $500 level of software pricing. It includes banner rotation software, the ability to generate html directory pages, and a fairly complex online admin panel.<br />Documentation for Turbo Seek is relatively easy to follow, with full tutorials available on the FocalMedia.net website. Although Telnet or SSH access are specified in the system requirements for this program, documentation and tutorials don't mention anything where these are absolute musts. It appears that full ftp access is sufficient. If there are problems with the install, Turbo Seek includes an online troubleshooter that can help get any bugs resolved.<br />According to FocalMedia.net, Turbo Seek is a set of 40 complex scripts that will allow you to build a complete Yahoo-like directory / search engine. Online documentation supports this contention, and installation should be relatively straight forward for anyone comfortable with ftp and setting file permissions. For those who prefer to take over after the install is done, FocalMedia.net offers full installation for an additional fee of $25. Registration (payment for the shareware license) includes free email support, patches and upgrades for the life of the version registered, 1 hour of template customization, etc.<br />Details at: http://www.focalmedia.net/index_tb.html **********************************************************************<br />Lynne Scott is a graphic designer and partner in Optical Resolution, a Winnipeg, MB design house. She runs the Graphic Design Portal ( http://www.graphic-design-portal.com ), Eye on Winnipeg, and KidsEdLinks.com. as well as serving as editor for the PPP. You can reach her at graphicdesign@opticalresolution.com **********************************************************************<br />Portal Partner Ad Webmasterbids - Online Auction for Banner Ads http://www.webmasterbids.com **********************************************************************<br /><br />Debra Paynter on Niche Portals<br />**********************************************************************<br />This week we talk to someone very well known in webmaster circles, who has some strong opinions on the subject of niche portals, or hubs as she likes to call them. Many of you will be familiar with paynt, from the Webmaster World forums ( http://www.webmasterworld.com ), where she moderates the 'link development' and 'content and copywriting' topics. Read on for part one of an interesting interview with Debra Paynter, of Strategic Web Ventures ( http://www.strategicwebventures.com ).<br />PPP: You have been known to express strong opinions on the subject of niche portals. Do you believe they make a contribution to the internet? What is that contribution?<br />D.P.: First, it doesn't surprise me that I have a reputation for strong opinions. I've often commented at Webmasterworld on my obsession with niche portals. Generally I format them in terms of a hub but the fundamental principles I express are the basically the same. The question of whether I believe niche portals contribute, of course [they do]. There are several reasons, each a full article, so I'll attempt to summarize starting with the obvious enormity of the web. Combine that with more people, searching daily for specific information. As good as Google is for bringing up relevant results, with the growing impact of new visitors to the web looking for information, interpreting those needs takes more than what a list of even a hundred sites in a row can offer. With the vying for placement in those positions daily captured through intense strategizing, the actual searcher is often confused, and a comfortable niche portal or topical hub can be seen as a safe harbor in the storm of information.<br />If you give me that point then I'll suggest even a great search engine like Google respects the fact and results are littered with examples of hubs and niche portals. I believe on multiple levels [that] niche portals serve a vital purpose on the web. Of course, that's my take from the searcher and the engine perspective. What also attracts me are the promotional benefits for the marketer, the corporate benefits for the multifaceted business enterprise, not forgetting the educational opportunities for presenting focused information. Anyone entering the web today must consider the pros and cons of announcing their online presence with their own portal, if only to organize their own operations.<br />A niche portal can be a tool. Any organization can use it to manage their empire, from its feeble beginnings on through domination. At some point in time maybe all the ideas will be used up, but for now the way I see it I guess I don't understand controversy surrounding niche portal development. It seems to me this can be the core to build from, with even the simplest niches. There are so many untapped opportunities on the web today. Soon everyone will need a website, like we need business cards at the very least. If you are a part of a niche then it makes sense you'll be draw to that when your time comes to jump online.<br />One of the ultimate appeals of the web is community building. A niche portal is the perfect foundation to build a community around. Many communities start from a hobby heavy with bookmarks. A normal progression from that is to develop a small directory. Add communication to the mix and you have the start of a community. Is community building a contribution which niche portals can make to the web? I believe so.<br />PPP: Given the current trend to centralization of search technology and massive general databases, how do you see the future for small niche portals?<br />D.P: Like wants to draw together, a possible key to niche portal success. That and how you organize information. Niche portals don't succeed because of the software or the bells and whistles; often they survive in spite of it. What a massive general database can't offer is the specialization, unless they channel information, which, in a sense, creates a niche portal within a mega structure. Even with that we will always find a place for a niche within a niche.<br />A beautiful thing about niche portals is that you can have several within an industry, run by different businesses or hobbyists. They can dance around each other in that same industry and still find success. It takes creativity, certainly, to find your place in an industry where niche portals abound. Take the financial industry or the health/medical online industries. Probably those, more than any besides hobby sites (who have had it figured out forever), make use of the niche portal as a means within their strategy. The Real Estate industry tries but it's ugly, really pitiful and needs a good shaking clean up.<br />What is the future of a niche portal? I think it's like the two car garage. Everyone will have one. I see them as the standard not the future. The future is here now. This newsletter will be popular, for standard operating information about website development. There is room for discussion. **********************************************************************<br />Be sure to read next week's issue for part 2 of this interview, and your opportunity to talk back to paynt. **********************************************************************<br />**********************************************************************<br />Feedback: your comments, suggestions, beefs, bouquets, etc. are very welcome. **********************************************************************<br />Ask Bob: send your questions about search engine positioning, community building, etc. **********************************************************************<br /><br />This publication is edited and distributed by Optical Resolution http://www.opticalresolution.com<br /><br />=========<span style="font-weight:bold;">April 21, 2003</span>=========================<br />Subject: PR AD Network Newsletter 4-21-03<br /> Date: Monday, April 21, 2003 6:01 PM<br /> From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br /><br /><br />**********************************************************************<br />Portal Partner Press Vol. 5, Iss. 5, April 18, 2003<br />**********************************************************************<br />Inside this issue:<br /><br />Editor's Message (Lynne Scott)<br />Subject: PR AD Network Newsletter 4-21-03 Date: Monday, April 21, 2003 6:01 PM From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br /><br /><br />**********************************************************************<br />Portal Partner Press Vol. 5, Iss. 5, April 18, 2003<br />**********************************************************************<br />Inside this issue:<br /><br />• Editor's Message (Lynne Scott)<br />• Product Review: Turbo Seek<br />• Interview with Debra Paynter, pt 1<br /><br />**********************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Editor's Message</span><br />I hope everyone had a blessed Easter, or Pass Over, or whichever holiday you celebrated this weekend, and that nobody has over-dosed on the droppings left by that rotten Easter Bunny.<br />Housekeeping: There have been many requests to restart the Portal Partner Chat. A simple php chat room has been installed at http://portalpartnerpress.com/chat/phpMyChat.php3 This room will be available for scheduled chat on Thursdays, at 7 pm central time.<br />Thanks to Portal Partner Planet Doom for suggesting this week's product review. You can find him hanging around the Portal Network Forums, where he moderates several topics or in the forums on his sci-fi portal, Planet Doom. ( http://planetdoomportal.searchking.com )<br />As promised last week, today we start a series of articles and interviews on the subject of niche portals, building and running them, making money with them, using them to build a related business, and a whole slew of related topics. **********************************************************************<br />Portal Network Forums: pop in and say hello, read up on what's happening, tell us what you think, or just lurk and learn **********************************************************************<br /><br />Product Review: Turbo Seek<br />• FocalMedia.net<br />• Price: Shareware License: $169<br />• Minimum Requirements<br />• System: Unix / Linux<br />• Access: Telnet or SSH, CGI bin, sendmail<br />• Language: Perl 5.002 or better<br />• Optional: MySQL<br />• (source: http://www.focalmedia.net )<br />Turbo Seek appears to be a big step up from other directory programs in its price range, with features usually not found until you reach the over $500 level of software pricing. It includes banner rotation software, the ability to generate html directory pages, and a fairly complex online admin panel.<br />Documentation for Turbo Seek is relatively easy to follow, with full tutorials available on the FocalMedia.net website. Although Telnet or SSH access are specified in the system requirements for this program, documentation and tutorials don't mention anything where these are absolute musts. It appears that full ftp access is sufficient. If there are problems with the install, Turbo Seek includes an online troubleshooter that can help get any bugs resolved.<br />According to FocalMedia.net, Turbo Seek is a set of 40 complex scripts that will allow you to build a complete Yahoo-like directory / search engine. Online documentation supports this contention, and installation should be relatively straight forward for anyone comfortable with ftp and setting file permissions. For those who prefer to take over after the install is done, FocalMedia.net offers full installation for an additional fee of $25. Registration (payment for the shareware license) includes free email support, patches and upgrades for the life of the version registered, 1 hour of template customization, etc.<br />Details at: http://www.focalmedia.net/index_tb.html **********************************************************************<br />Lynne Scott is a graphic designer and partner in Optical Resolution, a Winnipeg, MB design house. She runs the Graphic Design Portal ( http://www.graphic-design-portal.com ), Eye on Winnipeg, and KidsEdLinks.com. as well as serving as editor for the PPP. You can reach her at graphicdesign@opticalresolution.com **********************************************************************<br />Portal Partner Ad Webmasterbids - Online Auction for Banner Ads http://www.webmasterbids.com **********************************************************************<br /><br />Debra Paynter on Niche Portals<br />**********************************************************************<br />This week we talk to someone very well known in webmaster circles, who has some strong opinions on the subject of niche portals, or hubs as she likes to call them. Many of you will be familiar with paynt, from the Webmaster World forums ( http://www.webmasterworld.com ), where she moderates the 'link development' and 'content and copywriting' topics. Read on for part one of an interesting interview with Debra Paynter, of Strategic Web Ventures ( http://www.strategicwebventures.com ).<br />PPP: You have been known to express strong opinions on the subject of niche portals. Do you believe they make a contribution to the internet? What is that contribution?<br />D.P.: First, it doesn't surprise me that I have a reputation for strong opinions. I've often commented at Webmasterworld on my obsession with niche portals. Generally I format them in terms of a hub but the fundamental principles I express are the basically the same. The question of whether I believe niche portals contribute, of course [they do]. There are several reasons, each a full article, so I'll attempt to summarize starting with the obvious enormity of the web. Combine that with more people, searching daily for specific information. As good as Google is for bringing up relevant results, with the growing impact of new visitors to the web looking for information, interpreting those needs takes more than what a list of even a hundred sites in a row can offer. With the vying for placement in those positions daily captured through intense strategizing, the actual searcher is often confused, and a comfortable niche portal or topical hub can be seen as a safe harbor in the storm of information.<br />If you give me that point then I'll suggest even a great search engine like Google respects the fact and results are littered with examples of hubs and niche portals. I believe on multiple levels [that] niche portals serve a vital purpose on the web. Of course, that's my take from the searcher and the engine perspective. What also attracts me are the promotional benefits for the marketer, the corporate benefits for the multifaceted business enterprise, not forgetting the educational opportunities for presenting focused information. Anyone entering the web today must consider the pros and cons of announcing their online presence with their own portal, if only to organize their own operations.<br />A niche portal can be a tool. Any organization can use it to manage their empire, from its feeble beginnings on through domination. At some point in time maybe all the ideas will be used up, but for now the way I see it I guess I don't understand controversy surrounding niche portal development. It seems to me this can be the core to build from, with even the simplest niches. There are so many untapped opportunities on the web today. Soon everyone will need a website, like we need business cards at the very least. If you are a part of a niche then it makes sense you'll be draw to that when your time comes to jump online.<br />One of the ultimate appeals of the web is community building. A niche portal is the perfect foundation to build a community around. Many communities start from a hobby heavy with bookmarks. A normal progression from that is to develop a small directory. Add communication to the mix and you have the start of a community. Is community building a contribution which niche portals can make to the web? I believe so.<br />PPP: Given the current trend to centralization of search technology and massive general databases, how do you see the future for small niche portals?<br />D.P: Like wants to draw together, a possible key to niche portal success. That and how you organize information. Niche portals don't succeed because of the software or the bells and whistles; often they survive in spite of it. What a massive general database can't offer is the specialization, unless they channel information, which, in a sense, creates a niche portal within a mega structure. Even with that we will always find a place for a niche within a niche.<br />A beautiful thing about niche portals is that you can have several within an industry, run by different businesses or hobbyists. They can dance around each other in that same industry and still find success. It takes creativity, certainly, to find your place in an industry where niche portals abound. Take the financial industry or the health/medical online industries. Probably those, more than any besides hobby sites (who have had it figured out forever), make use of the niche portal as a means within their strategy. The Real Estate industry tries but it's ugly, really pitiful and needs a good shaking clean up.<br />What is the future of a niche portal? I think it's like the two car garage. Everyone will have one. I see them as the standard not the future. The future is here now. This newsletter will be popular, for standard operating information about website development. There is room for discussion. **********************************************************************<br />Be sure to read next week's issue for part 2 of this interview, and your opportunity to talk back to paynt. **********************************************************************<br /><br />=====<span style="font-weight:bold;">April 29, 2003</span>=======<br />Sent: Subject: PR AD Network Press <br />Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 3:23 PM <br /> From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />THE PR AD NETWORK PRESS<br />This newsletter is published for the sole purpose of educating, entertaining and exchanging information with those who believe webmasters have as much right to legally profit from their own content as those who use that content without benefit of contract or compensation. It is sent only to those who are either advertisers, inventory partners or like-minded interested parties of the PR Ad Network and those people are known only to the publisher and staff of this newsletter and will not be disclosed to any third party for any reason. We are not anti-google or anti anything. We are simply very pro ecommerce. <br />*************************************************************************<br />Goodbye April '03 Issue<br />Date 4-28-03<br />IN THIS ISSUE<br />• The Trouble with PR 9's<br />• Embedded Links<br />• Good News<br /><br />*******************************************************************************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">THE TROUBLE WITH PR 9'S</span><br />• There aren't enough of them. In our daily net excursions around the PR jungle, we are not seeing any new PR 9's being awarded. This would indicate that the ones that are there are kind of grandfathered in. Google can't just reduce the PR of these sites without having to face a possible devastating backlash due to extreme collateral damage. Try to imagine the number of sites that would be effected if just 50 PR 9's all of a sudden went to 8's. I don't recall where right now, but I do remember reading something in a newsletter about three years ago, (long before the toolbar), about every website on the planet being no more than 16 clicks away from anywhere. At first I was very skeptical until I realized it's kind of like the 6 degrees of separation thing. No matter how you look at it, we are all connected by links. You may not link to me but I bet a dollar to do-nut, that you could get to me from your site within 16 clicks or less. Probably a lot less. The point is that very few sites, VERY FEW, have a tremendous amount of perceived power. With so few PR 9's, identifying them, scrutinizing them and watching them closely is very easy. If I can't afford it or don't understand how to use it, obviously anyone that can afford it or does understand it must be a spammer and I should snitch. You've heard the old adage, "those that can do and those that can't teach"?. In the world of website promotion, a new axiom has arisen. Those that can do and those that can't run to WebMasterWorld to snitch to google guy. It is too easy for so called SEO's to find PR9's and if they can't afford the links or don't have the marketing skills to know what a return on investment means, then obviously, anyone who can afford it or does understand it, must be spamming. By telling google about competitors, they don't have to accept that they aren't a marketer or an SEO at all, they can keep on telling themselves they are "ethical SEO's" just trying to help google. What a joke! I have little respect for those who claim that people in the same business they are in, are not as ethical as they are and I don't care how many forums they moderate or how many "tips" newsletters they write. Anyone charging a client money for placement and snitching on someone else doing the exact same thing is a hypocrite. Anyone claiming to be promoting their own site and their idea of success is to get everyone above them busted as a spammer is an loser. Just my opinion. Google seems to like this type of character as they acknowledge those who make these stupid posts. Does anyone really think google has respect for these people? That does not alter the fact that they will act on some of the information passed on by these people. As I said, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to find the 9's. You don't have to know anything about the difference between java and php. You don't have to know anything about reverse engineering anything. All you have to know is how to post in a forum and you have the power to alter perception. That is validation and that makes it OK to tattle. <br />• Who do these PR 9's think they are? $5,000 a month for any reason, including PR, without having the targeted traffic to justify it is absurd. Who set these prices???? It isn't hard to see how this over-valued asset came to be. Everyone wants to get rich the fastest, easiest way possible. If a PR 7 is good, then an 8 is better and a 9 must be GREAT! The fact is, the fastest, easiest way to get rich is to develop an objective and a strategy, set your goal and hit your numbers. It actually has nothing to do with PR other than just a means to an end. When we first launched the PR Ad Network, we established a value on those links of $600 a month because we felt that was a fair price for the inventory and the advertiser alike. Quickly, greed set in and it wasn't long before a one-eyed monkey could easily spot the sites that had gone crazy. One, now famous, site with a PR9 had over 80 links at a rate of $2,000 a month on the front page alone. I'm the first to admit that $160,000 a month is going to tempt just about anybody short of Jesus himself, but that doesn't change the fact that over 80 unrelated links on your front page is just a little stand-outish in anybody's book. As soon as it became the hot topic among the "if you're on top of me you must be a spammer" gang, google had little choice but to do something. That is not to say that those 9's aren't still EXTREMELY valuable. For those of you who like wasting your days, (and nights), reverse engineering backlinks and then checking the sites to find target keywords and then checking the SERPS for placement, you will find the same as I did, there is still a lot of power in placement for those PR9's. Almost every link was an 8 just two weeks ago. Now they are 6's and a few 7's. Coincidence? When checking the backlinks and discounting the interior links, maybe the one 9 is what got them the PR of 6. Also, and more importantly, check the target keywords in the anchor text and the metas of the target site and then check out the placements. Right there on the first page! I'm not saying every webmaster paying for the link picked the right keywords for anchor text, but all the ones I checked were right where you'd think they would be. When you are talking about keywords like New Orleans hotel reservation, maybe 2 grand is a bargain. Remember kids, the harder google tries to dominate and control PR links, the more they validate the importance of PR in the SERPS ! Who do these PR 9's think they are? Maybe they think they are a very small group of members in one hell of an exclusive club. A club that really can change the lives of the people they choose to lend their support to. So, what kind of a price do we put on that? The price I put on it was $600 a month, but it would appear the sites that have that coveted 9 think the price should be much higher. In this game, they pretty much have the ball. As always you are free to make up your own minds, but my advice is to cherish that what makes you money and cast off that what does not. Just be sure which it is first. <br /><br />*************************************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SHAMELESS PLUG #1</span><br />Did you know that we build and maintain promotional domains, hosted on our servers or yours, for as little as $689 set up for up to 5 pages, including any and all secure pages or scripts, and maintain the site for as little as $249 per month. This includes a complete objective and strategy based on your own goals that YOU approve and at least two pr 5's to the site to get your toolbar glowing.<br />Our maintenance covers up to two hours a month for anything you need. We will build keyword targeted interior pages. We will consult with you in regards to marketing strategy. We will secure and maintain links until we reach our PR objectives. We will research your keywords and/or your competition. We will manage your PPC campaigns. Most importantly, we will monitor and review with you monthly, the logs and stats to ensure that we hit our numbers and MAKE MONEY with the site.<br />We have multiple hot rod servers, full time programmers on staff and 7 full time employees. We can install cgi scripts. We can locate, evaluate and install off-the-shelf software for you. We can even write custom scripts. When it comes to internet marketing and website development, we are a one-stop shopping source! Also, we pay $200 for referrals and offer a reseller plan. Details ? You know who to call. 1-888-956-7672 ******************************************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">EMBEDDED LINKS</span><br />It simply means links that are embedded within the text of a web document. Instead of just seeing a page with a list of short text links, you would see an optimized content page with links inside the text.<br />I personally feel that optimized PAGES with links to one or more target sites are going to accomplish two objectives. Better placement for the target sites and less likelihood of being the subject of the next ethics debate at WebmasterWorld.<br />As I've mentioned in past issues, we are finding more and more that the site you find in the top 10 results for a keyword search seem to have very few, if any, of what we would all consider the basic optimization techniques employed on the site. You can do a lot of searches for some of the most competitive terms and find many sites in the first 10 that don't have any reference of the keyword in the title, H tags, or even any mention of the keyword anywhere on the site !!! How can that be??? Well, the answer, (there is always an answer. We are not dealing with fairy dust or some magic potion. We are dealing with only a computer program.), lies not with the target page in the SERPs, but it lies in the anchor text and the optimization of the pages linking to that target page in the SERPs. Don't take my word for it, check for your self. I could be wrong ---------- but I'm not.<br />This little discovery certainly makes a guy go HMMMMMM.<br />Google has made it very clear that they have every intention of trying to dominate and control page rank. They have also made it clear that their concern for so-called collateral damage is not that great. They may discount the value of PR from expired domains, the may program filters to catch affiliated sites, they may even figure in percentages for too many incoming links or too few outgoing links and on and on. When it comes to hunting fleas with elephant guns, google seems to have the biggest guns of them all.<br />The one thing that no one, even the mightiest flea hunter of them all, can ever do is start discounting source documents within a domain. If the page is graphically, aesthetically and conceptually integrated into the look, feel and theme of a site, this, above all other strategies would be the most effective online advertising vehicle making the least amount of noise. The only downside is the length of time to get indexed may be longer depending on exactly when the index updating began. It would require two dances to get the target site updated and placed. This means it could take two or three months to start producing the desired results. In my opinion, a small price to pay if I'm right.<br />I'm looking for a few advertisers and a few inventory partners to participate in this experiment. If you have a gambling nature and feel I have proven to you over these past months that odds are I do know what I'm talking about, then I will run these ads for half price for up to 90 days. If you feel the results are not producing EXACTLY what you expected within the 90 days you may cancel and not have lost more than the half price for the PR you chose. If you realize it really is doing what we think it will do, I'll only charge full price from then on.<br />As for the optimizing part. You may or may not know this, but I happen to be one of the best at the old search engine game. If you are not confident of your own SEO skills, I'll have my people do it for you for $250 a page of up to 200 words including up to two graphics. If you make your own page, it has to have no more than two graphics and no more than 300 words and no less than 150. It has to load fast and still be subject to all the other rules of the PR Ad Network.<br />Whether you make the page or have us do it, we will then send the page and one interior link with the anchor text in it to go on the inventory's main page as well as the url for the inventory link. So, ----- anybody game? *******************************************************************************************************************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />SHAMELESS PLUG #2</span><br />Control your own domains! Running your own server is much cheaper and faster if you maintain more than just a few domains. More importantly, your server, your domains under your control. You decide how to set up MX records, designate sub-domains, manage re-directs and scripts. Get secure before you lose your placements or PR. Get control of your domains and your clients' domains now!<br />You can run your own hot rod server from just $299 per month with 10 unique IP#'s from 2 class C's.<br />We can manage and maintain it for you for just $149<br />For details, call 1-888-956-7672 and get secure today! *******************************************************************************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">GOOD NEWS!</span><br />The good news is that as much as I hate seeing so-called SEO's run and discuss every thing they don't understand or can't afford with google guy, it still amounts to little more than word of mouth advertising for the network. We just keep growing.<br />This past three weeks, we have picked up three great new PR 8's and over 40 7's covering a wide variety of themes including the pharmaceuticals. These are some very nice sites we are very happy to have as inventory partners.<br />We have not picked up any new 9's and don't count on that changing. We can still get you 9's just not for the $600 a month we started out getting them for. I honestly feel a site would place better with less risk by spending the money on a mixture of lower PR's with the proper anchor text.<br />Oh yeah, one other thing in closing.<br />You know how we all keep hearing about on theme links? Well we agree with the concept, it is just common sense not to put monoxidil ads on kids clothing sites, BUT, we see NO evidence of that making any difference at all to google at this time. It looks to me, (just like it has from the beginning), a link is a link and the more you have coming into your site the better. The higher PR of the incoming link, the better. Get every link you can get anyway you can get it and if it you don't have to give a link back that's even better!<br />See You at the Top! Bob *******************************************************************************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SHAMELESS PLUG #3</span><br />The good news is that as much as I hate seeing so-called SEO's run and discuss every thing they don't understand or can't afford with google guy, it still amounts to little more than word of mouth advertising for the network. We just keep growing.<br />This past three weeks, we have picked up three great new PR 8's and over 40 7's covering a wide variety of themes including the pharmaceuticals. These are some very nice sites we are very happy to have as inventory partners.<br />We have not picked up any new 9's and don't count on that changing. We can still get you 9's just not for the $600 a month we started out getting them for. I honestly feel a site would place better with less risk by spending the money on a mixture of lower PR's with the proper anchor text.<br />Oh yeah, one other thing in closing.<br />You know how we all keep hearing about on theme links? Well we agree with the concept, it is just common sense not to put monoxidil ads on kids clothing sites, BUT, we see NO evidence of that making any difference at all to google at this time. It looks to me, (just like it has from the beginning), a link is a link and the more you have coming into your site the better. The higher PR of the incoming link, the better. Get every link you can get anyway you can get it and if it you don't have to give a link back that's even better!<br />See You at the Top! Bob *******************************************************************************************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SHAMELESS PLUG #3</span><br />Secure hosting for your promotional domains. Unique Class C IP#. We help you with your domain registration. Set up on an anonymous server. Unique DNS. Unique MX records. All the whistles and bells with 150 megs of space and 10 gigs of burstable bandwidth.<br />$25 a month or $199 a year<br />For details call 1-888-956-7672 and get secure today! ****************************TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-53148706443743913532003-03-01T18:28:00.000-08:002012-04-15T21:53:49.771-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS March 2003<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidbo02wlhFAvEhr2nXk5sfYC2XU439wGP145yR2Ugwwj8W2AwjtXLUBWqx34ucuQFs-ZttwcJt-s_9sYUDqnmlOC22Rjrv5g8H-6OE7636DLBLYa6PkSfqmLU_Etm-zEuWrDQeeN_-jpc/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidbo02wlhFAvEhr2nXk5sfYC2XU439wGP145yR2Ugwwj8W2AwjtXLUBWqx34ucuQFs-ZttwcJt-s_9sYUDqnmlOC22Rjrv5g8H-6OE7636DLBLYa6PkSfqmLU_Etm-zEuWrDQeeN_-jpc/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731804633275825826" /></a><br /><br />=========<span style="font-weight:bold;">March 18, 2003</span>=========<br />Subject: PR AD Network Newsletter 3-18-03<br /> Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 9:11 AM <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">THE PR AD NETWORK PRESS</span><br />• IN THIS ISSUE<br />• The New Ad Format<br />• New Google Algo<br />• Rotating Class C's IP#<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">THE NEW AD FORMAT</span><br />Just in case you haven't noticed, just about everybody that has a PR of 5 or up is selling text links. We think that is great! Google probably does not.<br />It doesn't take a high school grad to figure out that Google would probably like to see themselves in total control of PR and not appreciate individual webmasters wanting to profit from their own sites. While we have no concrete evidence that Google is penalizing any specific site for any specific links, it just stands to reason that they certainly may.<br />We have seen an incredible number of websites now running 5 word text links at the bottom of their high PR pages. If someone were trying to identify a site that was likely offering text links, it wouldn't be too hard. Add to that fact the number of so-called SEO's running to webmaster world and posting about sites selling PR, there is reason for concern.<br />In our efforts to continue providing state of the art service and security for our clients and our inventory partners, we are changing the look of text links on the web. We don't want our links looking just a list of links at the bottom of a page. We want our links to look professional, We want our links to provide quality and revenue for our partners and we want our links to pass Page Rank on to the target site.<br />So, we have begun sending links to our inventory partners that are a combination of a graphic and text while still providing a straight html link. These "text banners" look very similar to links you would find on the main pages of major search engines. They consist of an image of approx 70x70 that provides a high quality, logo type graphic and the anchor text as a link.<br />No big changes in how they work. Big changes in how they look and how they are perceived by the surfing public and your competitors.<br />Here's an example: If you have a specific graphic that loads fast and we can use, let us know in your comments section of the next order and we'll get in touch. If not, we will design one that will be accepted by the inventory partner for you at no extra charge. We can also create a custom grahic for you but we do charge $125 for those. *************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">NEW GOOGLE ALGO</span><br />Almost every update, we get people calling us and claiming that Google is using a new algorithm. This month, they may have a point. Actually, it is not a new algo, it is just more filters.<br />In the 6+ years I have spent working with search engines, very seldom have I seen anything developed that was intended to get more good stuff in, in spite of the press release hype the search engines released. Almost without fail, their new feature is nothing more than yet another filter to keep what they consider bad stuff out rather than get good stuff in. You may think it sounds like the same thing, but it is two entirely different concepts and it determines which direction to look when faced with the ,"why did my site drop" question.<br />The PR Ad Network does not get involved with search engine placement. If you need help with that you need a different service and we recommend http://www.magic-city.com" who will build you a site from the ground up with the focus on placement for only $689. All the Ad Network does is find you sites that will run your text ad.<br />With that being said, we do have more occasion to notice specific changes than most people and there is one we've noticed.<br />Did anyone see the announcement by GoogleGuy about Google NOT passing PR from expired and re-purchased domains? Well, what they are telling us is that they are now using Internic to aggressively apply certain filter, penalties or algos if you please, to urls BEFORE they are assigned Page Rank.<br />There has also been a lot of discussion this past month about the "new" patent they have applied for commonly referred to as linking interconnectivity. According to the online application, it would appear that it is saying page rank is re-assigned on the fly to a listing AFTER a search query has been entered. This would indicate that in order to place on the first page of results, you would need to get a high PR link from a direct competitor that Google considers an authority or a hub.<br />HMMMM, getting a high PR link from a direct competitor. I don't think so.<br />In that application, they also mention how they will filter, (like I said earlier, when I noticed Googleguy mention it, it was referred to as a feature), for affiliated sites. What could that mean? It means sites that are affiliated in such a way as to strengthen, or as Google calls it, artificially inflate their own page rank.<br />So, they are telling us they are working directly with Internic to filter PR from expired domains and they are telling us they are checking for affiliated sites.<br />When checking for your backlinks and you find absent that one you expected to see, don't jump to conclusions and automatically assume it's the incoming link. What we do is check to see if other links on the page are showing up as backlinks. If one backlink shows up for even one site, then it is not the link that it is coming FROM that has the problem. It is the site that the link is going TO.<br />If all the links from an inventory page don't show up as a backlink for any link from that page, then it is not your site, it is theirs and you need to notify us and have us remove all our clients from that site.<br />So let's assume you find other links that have backlinks from that site but not yours. Why? What we have found so far is that either the site with the link coming in has a re-direct or it was very easy for us to find the affiliation with other domains owned or at least registered by the same source.<br />That means you need to take care of that trail and get the PageRank back!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">ROTATING CLASS C IP# HOSTING</span><br />I would imagine most of you are familiar with the fact that I am involved in a lawsuit with Google. The reason for the lawsuit and for my insight into this new filter system is related. I did not sue them because they PR0'd the pradnetwork.com site. I sued them because they penalized every site I owned and every client's site and every customer's site they could find. The key phrase here being THEY COULD FIND!<br />I've known about the affiliation thing since October, when Google went to great pains to literally put me out of business on the web. Yet, here I am. I'm here because I was lucky enough to see it coming and well over a year ago I started acquiring servers from different sources. I started insisting on as many IP# as I could afford from as many class C's as I could get.<br />When Google wiped out most of our promotional clients overnight, I was able to have them restored within 60 days because I know how to protect my clients and I have the resources to do it.<br />If you find that you have a problem with getting your backlinks showing up, check to see if you can find a connection within Internic. Registrations names the same? Addresses, Emails, Names, Phone numbers?<br />The bigees. IP#'s and domain name servers.<br />If you have multiple sites, even on unique IP's, but they are on the same class c and they represent a significant portion of the total IP's from that class c, or if they all have the same DNS, it is just a matter of time before you are busted.<br />If you find a site that is not passing PR to you or anyone else linked from that page, let us know so we can move your link. If you find a site that is passing PR to others but not to you, maybe you should give me a call. I have begun offering anonymous, secure hosting from random servers with random class C's. I can offer just the hosting and even random servers for those of you who have a lot of sites that need protecting. These aren't low end servers either. These are PIII's and IV's with 1.3 gig processors and up to a gig of memory starting at about $399 a month depending on the software packages.<br />Not many people can offer this type of service. Not many people even understand what it means. If you know what it means and you see a problem, you are welcome to give us a call. Whether you decide to call us or not, you need to take some action about this problem BEFORE you get hit. If you do it before you get popped, you can save the PR you already have.<br />See you at the top BobTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-51763213264448146262002-11-01T21:51:00.000-08:002012-04-15T21:52:10.385-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS November 2002<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqTBysr83-lRQmC0UyPuoAoh-taBOxmW4rnRhhGfkSZqJ83WVGJPCEXjPemDIO5JBw9rGVn8AUhFJhyphenhyphenRG3C9DHVG3nzGAoxcJNhKyMXyrXiPfgTprNmykaCNohexH6JQ0d-8z2jo2j2wU/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqTBysr83-lRQmC0UyPuoAoh-taBOxmW4rnRhhGfkSZqJ83WVGJPCEXjPemDIO5JBw9rGVn8AUhFJhyphenhyphenRG3C9DHVG3nzGAoxcJNhKyMXyrXiPfgTprNmykaCNohexH6JQ0d-8z2jo2j2wU/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731856790076903794" /></a><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">November 15, 2002</span>===========<br />From: Robert Massa Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 4:55 PM <br /> Subject: PPP 11-15-02<br /><br />YOU'RE WASTING YOUR LINK POPULARITY<br />****************************************************************<br />The information contained within this email is for the information, education and enjoyment of advertisers and inventory partners of the PR Ad Network only. It is exclusive and strictly confidential.<br />*************************************************** In This Issue<br />Your wasting your link popularity if you don't optimize your sites!!!<br />***************************************** We have a staff meeting every morning with Ronda, Kathi and myself, to discuss our advertisers, our inventory partners and of course google. In addition, once a week, Ronda and I go over specific advertiser's accounts. We check for movement with PR and placements. We check the backward links and all of their movements.<br />We go to your website and evaluate the optimization techniques. We make sure you kids aren't trying to start your own little link farm, we make sure you're not hoping hidden text is your brass ring. Basically, we're just looking to keep everyone legit and do our best to see that everyone gets what they were expecting with this network thing. We look at a lot of things on a lot of sites.<br />Out of all this evaluating, one thing is VERY clear. Most of you don't fully understand how to get the most from your text ads. We are seeing far too many sites with no keywords where they need to be and too many keywords where they don't need to be.<br />I've spoken with most of you personally and I've always told you all that link popularity is the single most important factor in placing well, but it's not the ONLY factor. You've seen for yourself, sites with a lower PR on top of sites with a hgiher PR on some keywords. That right there tells you that if all it took was PR, eveyone would buy themselves a couple of 8's and we'd all be rich. Well, we're not all rich and it's still a competitive ballgame out there and you are my customers so naturally, I want YOU to win.<br />I'm going to tell you some of the basics today that you really need to do in order to get the most return possible from your link popularity. This is by no means a comprehensive course in SEO. There is as much to learn about SEO as you want to spend the time learning it. The more you learn, the better your chances of winning the placement wars, but my goal is to help you gain more for your money faster and allow you to focus on your business. Here we go.<br />#1. Target keywords that make you sales, not just the ones you think are going to just get you traffic. Far too many times clients insist they want a keyword phrase like travel when all they offer is vacation rentals in yellowstone.<br />Never forget, hits cost you money. Sales make you money.<br />#2. Make sure your target keyword is in your title tag.<br />#3. Make your title tag short, to the point and a hot button.<br />Never forget that the title tag is just about the only thing you can control. Make sure it is one that "sells"<br />#4. Use your target keyword in your description tag once. No need to repeat it.<br />#5. Don't worry about keyword density too much. Just use your keywords jsut like you were talking to a customer on the sales floor. You wouldn't mention your product 20 times in a one minute conversation would you? If you did, you'd sound pretty stupid. It sounds pretty stupid on web pages too.<br />#6. Use your keywords toward the top of the page in a heading tag.<br />#7. Use keywords in your link titles.<br />#8. Remember that your text ads are anchor text but don't jsut repeat keywords. It is an ad. aMake it sell.<br />#9. Keep your target keyword list very short. One way to look at it is this.<br />Every search service on the planet wants to bring back what it feels like is the MOST relevant site for any specfic keyword search. Fishing trips is not the same as fishing camps to a spider, so by trying to capture first page for both terms you are actually having to reduce the relevancy for at least one of them.<br />#10. If you want more keywords on top, build more domains. Just remember that it's a VERY good idea to use different, anonymous servers, with a unique IP address. Preferably different class C's. Remember that order pages and secure pages don't get spidered so a good way to do it is to put an order here button on the site that goers to a secure page and then link THAT page to any other order form you want. This eleminates the worry of duplicate content. Don't duplicate content but you can certainly use a lot of the stuff from the other domain to keep the look, feel and navigation branded, and cut down on the time used to develop content.<br />While I'm on this subject, I want to point out a misconception. I know it is a misconception because I've proven it over and over. Content is king.<br />It is only king when it needs to be king. If you're selling toilet plunger, no one, including search engines, really care about 15 pages about the history of plungers. On the other hand if your target keyword is DNA, you are going to need a little content. Se what I mean? You need as much content as you need to make sales, get traffic and place in the SERPS, in that order.<br />And most important of all<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">BUILD YOUR LINK POPULARITY</span><br />Buy it, rent it, trade for it or beg for it, but build it! Remember, a PR 8 is worth a whole lot of PR 4's so always go for as big a one as you can get. Naturally, I recommend not exchanging links. I recommend doing whatever you need to do to get as much for as little as possible and then sell your own ads. The exchanging part is where we all get into trouble.<br />I know it sounds like a lot of work. The sad fact is, it is a lot of work. No one said this was going to be easy. I have just given some of you the million dollar secret. Make the changes I suggested and your income will increase dramatically. For others, I have told you nothing of any value because it sounds like to much effort. Regardless of how you see it, you need to realize that if you don't take it, someone else will.<br />If it's more work than you want to do, call me. I have an anonymous server with 12 class C's. I can build you a domain for as little as $689. I can get you all the page rank you want. If you do the work, I'm happy to tell you how for free. If you want someone else to do the work, I'm one of the best and I'm cheap. <br />Whether you do it yourself or have someone else do it for you, if you want to win, do it!<br />See You at the Top<br />Bob<br />******************************************<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-59880718793536304242002-10-01T21:49:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:51:08.873-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS October 2002<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4hGglmwci0l3kOdviYv8UxvaYEOjKezlPBMrH-cZ-d4t-HQl_LqaQ_RtmNMOjKErfJuZ47qnJGn633Pn8_tog5CR1F0D3NDyl6nBGdI-6xn-Tvg-Ov9NEiKxX08fN49xHqlpr0SfMPgQ/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4hGglmwci0l3kOdviYv8UxvaYEOjKezlPBMrH-cZ-d4t-HQl_LqaQ_RtmNMOjKErfJuZ47qnJGn633Pn8_tog5CR1F0D3NDyl6nBGdI-6xn-Tvg-Ov9NEiKxX08fN49xHqlpr0SfMPgQ/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731856484091849522" /></a><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">October 18, 2002</span>===========<br />From: Robert Massa Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 1:41 PM <br />Subject: PPP 10-18-02<br /><br />HISTORY IS MADE TODAY<br />****************************************************************<br />The Portal Partner Press is sent for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal or have an interest in niche portals or SearchKing and it's many services. It is intended to help you learn to better maintain and market your own portal or how to use niche portals to enhance the marketing of your web business. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general.<br />*********************************<br />• INSIDE THIS ISSUE<br />• SearchKing Sues Google<br />• Press Release<br />• In The Press<br />• Keeping My Mouth Shut<br />• How You Can Help<br />********************************<br /><br />SEARCHKING SUES GOOGLE.<br />At approximately 10am Pacific Standard time, Friday, October 18th, 2002, Bob Massa of SearchKing, Inc. as well as his legal team of Brett Sanger and Holly Hefton of the Oklahoma City law firm, Brett Sanger, P.C. and the public relations consultants, Debbie Anglin and Steve Lalli with the Public Relations Lab of Oklahoma City, all witnessed the online tracking of Fed-Ex and verified that the office of google, Inc. had been legally served legal notice of an injunction filed in federal court on October 17th, 2002.<br />We have filed a lawsuit against google. I can now at least speak a little bit to you about why I have been so quiet.<br />This is a big deal. This is not just about google arbitrarily trying to devalue and/or defame me or SearchKing with malicious intent. It is not even about them doing the same thing to hundreds of innocent portal partners who had nothing whatsoever to do with selling anything. It is about something much bigger. It is quite possibly about changing the very nature of the internet and how it relates to commerce.<br />It is about the rights of webmasters and who has the right to profit from the work of webmasters. The webmaster who built the site and provided the content, or the people who build a program to gather and display that content for their own gain?<br />Did you ever think about what rights you are giving up by publishing a website to the web? Does that give the right to a third party to make money from your content without your permission? Doesn't sound right when I say it like that huh?<br />So what do you think it is when a spider hits your server, costing you bandwidth, and gathers everything it can and then uses that data gathered to make public statements, (such as bragging about having the largest database in the world), that are designed for the sole purpose of attracting advertising money? Did anyone ever ask permission to cost you that bandwidth? Did anyone ever offer to share the revenue that was generated with your content with you?<br />Has anyone ever asked your permission to display cached versions of your work? Has anyone ever asked you if you minded that they display their own opinion of your site to anyone who would submit to having their internet experience tracked for over 30 years? If someone gives you praise, do you have the right to profit from that praise. Is it an asset and if so, whose is it? The person getting the praise or the person giving it? Do you think you should have a right to defend yourself if that company would decide to tell the world that you were a bad neighborhood?<br />Finally, who owns page rank? The webmaster who had the links to count in the first place, or the programmer who writes a program to count those links really fast? I say page rank could not exist without the efforts of webmasters and therefore, the value of page rank belongs to the creator of the content and NOT the program that evaluates that content.<br />To build a business on the backs of others without the decency to even ask permission is in poor taste and shows a lack of consideration for those who contributed to your success. To fully expect to profit a great deal from those efforts yet no offer to fairly compensate the providers of that content is rude, inconsiderate and I believe illegal.<br />That alone is insidious enough, but to then use your power and influence that you have built from the very content you have taken without permission and use it to hurt, damage, defame or devalue, with the intent to restrain trade, the intent to shut someone up, the intent to try to make an example of anyone else who would have the courage to question you and to do it by hurting innocent people, that is dangerous beyond belief and the question of whether they can get away with it or not MUST be answered and answered now!<br />All these questions have never been asked in front of a judge to my knowledge, yet these are the questions that will shape business in the 21st century. I say we have rights. We certainly have as much right to profit from our efforts as the programmer who wrote a program to gather our data without our permission in the first place. We have to have rights and I intend to be one of the first to have the courage to stand up and demand accountability.<br />There may be the misconception still floating around that the internet is like the old west and there is no sheriff in town, but that is absolutely ludicrous. There is nothing anymore mysterious about the net than there is about a telephone. The internet is woven into the very fabric of the human experience on a global scale. It is here and it is not going away. Today, you have to be a techno wizard to understand the net about as much as you have to be an electrical engineer to turn on the lights in the kitchen.<br />The time for astonishment at man potential is past. The time for wide-eyed wonderment is past. The time for the world and all it's judges to realize that writing a good computer program does not put anyone above the law. The time for responsibility and accountability, even on the internet, is here.<br />It is nothing more than a coincidence that it is my time. I'm not a man who should be suing tech companies to protect the rights of webmasters. I am possibly the very least likely man on earth to be doing this. Maybe it is destiny that SearchKing just happens to be small enough that someone would think they could silence us by throwing in a few lines of codes into a program, yet we are big enough to be able to defend ourselves. Maybe it's destiny. More likely, I'm just a businessman who is being served an injustice and that is wrong and I am just like anyone else, push me hard enough and I'm going to fight.<br />I'm in the rare position of having to fear no man. What are they going to do to me? Wipe out my PR? Make me drive an old beat up 8 year old van? make me live in a modest home? Oops, too late. Already there. The money I have made has not gone into my pockets in spite of what some are saying in forums. I have said from the beginning of SearchKing that it would cost millions and since I don't have millions, I will have to generate it through the business. That is what I've done and will continue to do regardless of the outcome of this lawsuit.<br />So, can I win?<br />As far as the lawsuit, I have some doubts. I believe they are going to send some of the most tech savvy, go for the throat, silicon valley lawyers on the planet to Oklahoma City with the promise of a big bonus if they don't just win the case but maybe rough me up a bit while they're here. I believe they will be coming to kick my as*!<br />I chose the law firm specifically because they know business law, but were not internet experts. I don't believe anything like internet business law exists yet. I hope to be one the pioneers in that arena. Talk about immortality. I can fantasize about some lawyer in 2250 citing massa vs google as a precedence. I wanted to make sure that everyone involved in this from my team, accepts that this is a classic battle of good over evil. It just depends on which side of the fence you're leaning on as to who you think is the good one and who is the evil one.<br />We believe that google takes the approach that they have a lot of very smart, highly qualified people to support the servers that support the world's best program. We take the approach that we have a lot of really good programs to support some of the very best people on the net.<br />I didn't want this to become an issue about algorithms and IP's. I want this to be seen as technology empowering people and people using technology to limit the potential of people who may disagree with the program or pose a possible threat to the objectives of a small group. I want this to be about people and the hope that all people should have the right to hold. The hope that they can better their lives and the lives of their children as long as they work hard and build something of value legally. To have that hope and work toward it without fear of unjust retribution from anyone. To have that hope knowing they have the protection of an honest and fair legal system even when that system is challenged with highly technical issues which may be used by some as a weapon to cloud the real issues.<br />I believe in the basic goodness of man. I believe in America. I believe in democracy and I believe myself and the SearchKing Portal Network. I believe that we are in the right and that the world will see that webmasters who do the work, have the right to expect fair compensation. I believe that I may be forced to accept that there reasons why lawyers make the kind of money they do and that there may be some legal foul I am guilty of. I believe that I may be forced to walk out of court with my tail tucked between my legs and have to endure the inevitable "I told you so" posts in forums for the rest of my days.<br />I also believe that we will win in the court of public opinion. I believe we have more than enough evidence that the portal partners getting their pr wiped out was intentional. It was not a glitch. It was meant to damage SearchKing and me NOT for doing anything that isn't being done even as we speak, but for SAYING I was doing it. For being up-front and honest about it. That is what they saw as a threat, and that is what they reacted to. What does that say? Does anyone honestly believe they don't know that virtually EVERY SEO website on the planet offers to increase your link popularity for a fee? So who is selling page rank?<br />Yes, we will win! Our network will be stronger. Our network will grow and we will be more than we are today and that makes us all, even google, a winner. We do good work and there is a place in the world for that and I intend to prove it.<br />I've put all legal notices and the first press release online at<br />http://www.searchking.com/news/sknews.htm<br />By the way, this page is going to attract a LOT of very targeted traffic over the next few weeks and maybe even months. I'm selling ads on these pages for $1500 a month for the top of the page and $1000 a month for the footer of the page and $250 a month for 10 word text ads along the left side of the page. I've got lawyers to pay!<br />There will be links to order from the page. ********************************************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">PRESS RELEASE</span><br />No need to waste space here. I'll give you the link and you can read it if you like.<br />http://www.searchking.com/news/sknews.htm ****************************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">IN THE PRESS</span><br />I've been interviewed by C-Net and Wired magazine. Not the website, the magazine. I didn't mention anything about the lawsuit because we hadn't filed yet. I have a conference call scheduled with them and my PR consultant today. Something may "leak" out about the suit.<br />Wired called the office yesterday and said the wanted photos to go with the article, (they didn't have any idea about the suit at this time), so they are sending a photographer from San Francisco to do a "shoot" of me. Wow, what if I make the cover??? Am I the face of American small business in the 21st century? Probably not.<br />Also, the PR firm we've retained has an extensive list of tech editors on a regional level and the press release will be going out today. I'm guessing that a lot of tech editors for local newspapers will see this as one of the few real articles come along that they have a shot at getting a by-line in a national publication. I'm expecting a good response form the local media.<br />It seems like I give good interview. Huh, who would have guessed? So, I think between the fact that it is news, it is topical, I do give good interview and we are for real, I think we can expect the press. Of course, I have to remember that whatever press we get, google gets too. ********************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">KEEPING MY MOUTH SHUT</span><br />> For those of you who just seem to love to try to pressure me into saying more than I should, I'm getting better at ignoring you with experience. I'm greatly relieved to be able , at last, to say what I have today. At least now everyone knows that I haven't just been hiding in my office because I was afraid of google, or that I was avoiding portal partners because I was ashamed of getting them in trouble.<br />I hope you can see now that what I do, I honestly do for us all. I am NOT afraid of anyone and with the exception of them hurting the portals, ( I really didn't think they would go that far), things couldn't be going much closer to my plan if all the SEO forums and google themselves were on my payroll. Now my challenge is getting those people who are saying the worst about me and google especially, to see that I am not AGAINST them. They can refuse to see it if they so choose, but what we do, we do for them as well. What we are doing is EXACTLY what we said we were doing along from the very beginning. We are building a better web.<br />I'm just learning now that building a better anything requires a person to be ready to speak up even if it looks hard. I have got to find a way to get everyone involved in this to see that someone winning does not mean someone else has to lose. I have got to find the courage to speak from the heart in the face of ridicule and show everyone how we all can win from this.<br />The only thing I can see that may be more important in that quest than speaking from the heart would be knowing when to keep my mouth shut.<br />My favorite quote:<br />• Small words, spoken in truth, can sway the minds of nations.<br />But I don't care who you are, keep talking long enough and you're going to say something really stupid.<br />So, as always, I WANT to tell you everything all the time, but this is just too important to us all to risk and there are going to be a lot of things I just will not discuss publicly until I feel it's the right time. Please try to understand and know that just because I'm not talking doesn't mean I have nothing to say. Try to have faith in me, in the Network and in yourself and know that if I don't answer your questions or concerns right then, please give me the benefit of the doubt and realize it is probably because I am not at liberty to discuss it at that time without risking more than I feel I can afford to risk. **********************************<br />HOW YOU CAN HELP<br />Screen shots of your site showing PR before September the 27th and after when the PR was reduced. If you don't have screen shots, just a statement from you saying what it was than and what it is now. Tell the truth and don't try to embellish because you may be called upon to testify.<br />Statements from any of you who feel like that have lost due to the reduction in PR for either yourself or someone else in the Network.<br />Statements from you about how you feel about your site and it's place within the Network.<br />I need someone who knows something about webcams and streaming video.<br />If you know someone who would help us in the cause, send them my way.<br />I need someone who could be considered an expert in mathematical engineering. Hopefully someone who may not be all that thrilled that google wrote the program they were working on. Maybe someone from Berkley, UCLA, San Francisco State. Get my drift? If you know someone, let them know about our cause and send them my way.<br />Anything else you think may important in this case.<br />Email them to bobking@searchking.com<br />Be sure to include a short statement giving me permission to use the material you send.<br />Finally, what would I like to see you do to help?<br />EVERYTHING YOU POSSIBLY CAN! Tell everyone, show everyone, stand up and be proud of what we do and who we are. Do it now! Get involved NOW! Care enough to realize we are making history here and realize how much you would like to reap if we win and let that motivate you more than your fear of what you may lose. Realize that we have already suffered the worst and now it is our time in the sun. Take your place there with pride! Help me fight for the rights of all webmasters and all those who would dream of owning their own business on the net. DO IT NOW !!<br />Ask yourself this question now and answer yourself honestly.<br />Is Bob right? Do I have the right to capitalize on the page rank of my site or does my page rank belong to google. Now act accordingly.<br />Thank you for your hard work, your help and your support. You make this possible and together we are more than we are alone.<br />May God bless us all. ******************************************<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-33693262576688067152002-08-01T21:48:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:49:50.418-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS August 2002<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qoXs8riIwuYiHzKlkjWX2gB85iD5MQrzEyHhLdB9QsXgibqTsF4e3QajQr25nI1yW15l0QLrpUN8g2lbGh2-q-qj2PCq-seCJLI8P6m2twSBMMb6rMc8U4TaZA3DiyEGdqtiWfj-W0g/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qoXs8riIwuYiHzKlkjWX2gB85iD5MQrzEyHhLdB9QsXgibqTsF4e3QajQr25nI1yW15l0QLrpUN8g2lbGh2-q-qj2PCq-seCJLI8P6m2twSBMMb6rMc8U4TaZA3DiyEGdqtiWfj-W0g/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731856133131991426" /></a><br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">August 19, 2002</span>=========== <br />Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 2:35 PM Subject: PPP 8-19-02 <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />IN THIS ISSUE<br />The Portal Partner Press is sent for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal or have an interest in niche portals or SearchKing and it's many services. It is intended to help you learn to better maintain and market your own portal or how to use niche portals to enhance the marketing of your web business. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general.<br />*********************************<br />Final Adjustments<br />This is just a short message to let our portal partners know that we will be doing some upgrading to our servers starting tomorrow, Tuesday, August, 20th 2002 .<br />Since we moved onto the new hot rod boxes last month, we have had several issues that we have not been able to effectively resolve. We have had a heck of a time getting the open relay on our mail fixed. We are still having problems with Frontpage and we still have a couple of miscellaneous issues with Hyperseek and Redhat 7.2<br />Anyway, we will be making these upgrades beginning at about 2pm tomorrow, August the 20th. This is central time. We will need you to NOT be loading anything up to your site for about 24 hours and if you do --- BACK IT UP!<br />Your visitors should not experience any down time associated with your site. We will be using all four of the servers we have, (yes, we still have those two old servers online), so that if we have to pull one server down for more than a few seconds for a re-boot, the request would kick over to the other server. In theory, the worst that would happen is that some of your visitors might be seeing data on the updated version of the old server and the next visitor would see data from the new server.<br />The only risk you will have is that anything you might load up could be put on the old server and lost. BACK IT UP!<br />This is the best way we know of to get the kind of speed and reliability that we are going to need over this next year. These new servers are VERY fast and from the testing we've done, even the portal pluses are going to rival the biggest names in the search industry for speed.<br />I know this is the first PPP in a month. I apologize but there is a reason. I have been consumed with these server moves for a month. I've had no real news to bring you and in spite of my reputation, I really don't enjoy talking just to hear my own voice. If I don't have anything to say that might serve some purpose, I don't like wasting the resources needed to send an email to a few thousand people.<br />Now that we almost have the server upgrades out of the way, I have all kinds of things to talk to you about. Like; you all being able to offer yellow pages, and daily polls. My trip to England to get UKSearchKing duplicating SearchKing.com and hiring programmers from across the pond and of course the hottest topic on the net PR Text Ad Links.<br />In upcoming issues I will tell you guys just what Page Rank is and how to get it and how to use it to make money.<br />So, we'll be in touch again soon.<br />BACK UP YOUR DATA<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-55427620696223182872002-06-01T21:47:00.000-07:002012-04-15T21:48:47.661-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS June 2002<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh86apytFpVUyC7xagppwc2c77nQ1D0mVEacg3Jda21TrcicGpZzSKQIR3kQQd75wv6_SIUEXX-u0Kn0u9ZScxKqKnaVK-OtYZEOJIUinfGX6m7sK9-DLOjNPUw__arUDharGTYtBkONuk/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh86apytFpVUyC7xagppwc2c77nQ1D0mVEacg3Jda21TrcicGpZzSKQIR3kQQd75wv6_SIUEXX-u0Kn0u9ZScxKqKnaVK-OtYZEOJIUinfGX6m7sK9-DLOjNPUw__arUDharGTYtBkONuk/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731855798377174098" /></a><br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">June 04, 2002</span>===========<br /> Subject: Portal Partner Press 6-04-02 <br /> Date: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 2:30 PM <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. ***********************************<br /><br />IN THIS ISSUE<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SEO Is Dead And Why I'm Happy About It.</span><br />That's right, I'm saying SEO is dead! Actually, it never really existed in the first place. At least not as it's come to be commonly known.<br />You see, SEO is an acronym that has somehow come to be adopted by an entire industry to misleadingly describe getting a website placed in top positions under specific keywords on major search services. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.<br />When looking at the brief description I just gave above, it's easy to see WHY there was a need for an acronym, I have just never understood why that specific acronym became the one used when it was so blatantly NOT what anyone calling themselves that actually did.<br />The question has always been; "if you are an SEO, which search engine is it that you optimize"?<br />By all but a very few SEO's, the answer has always been; "well, actually what I do is optimize a website to get top placement on a search engine for a specific keyword".<br />In my mind, that has always brought the next question.<br />"If you don't actually optimize a search engine, why do you call yourself that"?<br />For that question, there has been no answer.<br />I have considered myself a search engine placement specialist for the past 6+ years. I have never considered myself an SEO. Which is actually pretty ironic when you consider that out of all the people who would call themselves that, I was one of the very few that really did optimize a search engine. Of course I'm referring to SearchKing. A search engine that I actually have spent a lot of time and money optimizing.<br />Be that as it may, I was never able to convince anyone that I was one of the only "real" SEO's. In fact, the more I brought it up, the less friends I seemed to be making. Actually, I never tried to convince anyone that I alone deserved the title. What I was trying to do was to get anyone who was diddling meta tags to cease and desist from using the SEO acronym because I felt, ( and still do), that using that term was doing nothing but damage to an already tarnished meta tag diddling industry.<br />For the last several years, SEO has had a pretty bad rep and maybe deservedly so. Search engine placement involved quite a bit of technical expertise needed to be really good at it. Trying to explain just what it took to achieve top placement was always a jargon-filled, hard-to-grasp concept that was difficult for just about anyone to understand. This is very likely why the industry became such a haven for spammers and con men. The old dazzle 'em with brilliance or baffle 'em with bulls*** concept very effectively dramatized. You either knew what you were doing or went after people who wouldn't know the difference. Existing within these two arenas, the internet marketing market has not always been so easy to market.<br />I'm sure we've all had those emails promising thousands of hits from search engines for just $39. Along with the "submit your site to hundreds" and "learn what the experts don't want you to know" kind of spams. Naturally, you take something hard to understand for all but the most hard core enthusiast, couple that with an easy to target get-rich-quick scheme and it's not hard to see how the industry had a little bit of a PR problem.<br />I felt, (and still do), that by calling what a search engine placement specialist did, something other than what they actually did, just made the problem worse and I wanted it to change. Not for entirely unselfish reasons. I wanted to see it change because I am recognized as a leader in this PR challenged industry and I knew that the more professional I could help the industry to become, the bigger the available market would be and the more customers I could expect to gain for my own company.<br />Alas, as hard as I tried for as long as I tried, it seemed I was doomed to failure. I could not seem to get anyone to agree that calling our industry, search engine optimizing, was a little misleading and only making our difficult job more difficult. It seemed that every so-called SEO out there was perfectly content to call themselves something they absolutely were not and no one seemed to have a problem with it. But even that is not the weird part.<br />The weird part is that, while most every so-called SEO on the planet agreed that there was too much silly sounding, made up by God-knows-who or even God-knows-why, jargon for the average consumer to understand what in the world it was that an SEO was actually selling, the industry then all of a sudden got a "new" kick. Ethical SEO.<br />Overnight it seemed, the industry was divided into two camps. Good SEO's and bad SEO's. Of course the judge of that was whoever was pointing the finger at the time. For all those who were cloaking, hidden text meant that the person using it was an UN-ethical SEO. For all those using hidden text, those nasty cloakers were the ones ruining the business for all the rest of us. Sheesh! What a joke.<br />Ethical SEO has GOT to be the epitome of oxy-morons.<br />Now, one more little factor comes into play. SEO for who? With the onslaught of Overture and about 200 other pay-per-click engines, with Inktomi going pay-for-inclusion and then of course the greatest PR blunder in the history of the internet so far. Of course I'm referring to the Looksmart "pay a one time fee for review and never be charged again ---oh wait, we changed our minds so we are in effective, going to blatantly steal your money and put you into a pay-per-click model you never agreed to, where we can set the prices and you have no choice other than to just accept your money paid to us was kind of like a donation" , who's left?<br />Infoseek, gone. Excite, gone. Go, gone. Inktomi, going. Alta Vista, going. Hot Bot, going and the list goes on and on. Even the ones that still have a presence on the web, their focus has shifted to a pay-per-click model. So, why would anyone hire an SEO when they could go and open they're own bidding account and get their sites to the top of just about any engine out there just by out-bidding their competitors. Well, I'll tell you why AND why they won't.<br />Once again, the main driving force behind the net marketing community is misconception. It's true that SEO is almost dead as a website search engine placement service, but not because it is a misleading, silly, and confusing acronym, but because of a misconception. Actually two misconceptions.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Misconception #1.</span><br />I just implied three paragraphs prior, that there were no search services, (at least free search services), left to submit to let alone optimize for. That is pretty much an implication that is spreading quickly across the entire spectrum of internet marketing communities throughout the net. I have read literally hundreds of newsletters and forum posts making statements that would imply the ONLY engine left to even attempt placement on for free is Google.<br />Well, what everyone seems to be overlooking is that there are actually more chances of placing well on more engines than at just about anytime in the past. This is going to quickly change now that I have stated the obvious, but the fact is that everyone who talks on the net seems to be talking about PPC.<br />Take a look at Yahoo for example. Are all the listings paid for? If you only went by what you read in marketing forums, you would most likely assume that yes, all the listings are paid for. Well, guess what? They are NOT!<br />Do a search on Yahoo for stock tips, (just using that phrase as an example). There are three listings at the top of the results page that says "sponsor matches". these are results that are PPC provided by Overture. Then there are 20 more listings and then two more "sponsor matches at the bottom of those. Guess where those 20 in the middle came from? I can still guarantee first page placement on Yahoo in spite of all the PPC hype.<br />Yes it does cost $299 per year to get reviewed by Yahoo, but guess what, so many people got PO'ed at them for making the fees $299 a year as opposed to life like it used to be, that there are much fewer submissions. It is easier to get in now than it was before. You do the math and decide for yourself what the better deal is. Paying Overture's extortion, oops, excuse me, I mean bidding fees or paying less than $25 a month for a full time, front page listing on Yahoo.<br />Now let's take a look at Alta Vista. Same stock tips search and again, the top 4 listings are paid for, (these are called products and services -- how up-front of AV), and then 10 listings that got there basically for free. Again, I can still guarantee first page placement on Alta Vista. In fact, one of those listing on that first page are mine.<br />I could go on and list several more engines all doing the same thing but it would only be an effort in redundancy. Almost every major service out there, (almost every non-major service too), all show 3, 4 or 5 paid listings above their own results and then the next 10 or 20 are free. Placed where they are placed for one of two reasons. Either the person who built the page knew what it took to get there or the person who built the page got darn lucky!<br />The great thing is that with so much focus being placed on PPC, it seems the engines aren't all that interested in putting money into continuing to develop new algorithms. It is easy to get placed on most of these engines for free. Not as easy as just going to Overture and outbidding your competitors, but as easy as it has been in a long time and for the most part, still free. Only you can decide what is worth more to you. Doing it yourself or just paying some PPC engine. My only point is that while SEO as it has come to be known, never really existed in the first place, the ability to place a specific website on the first page of results of a specific engine for a specific keyword or phrase, has never been more alive.<br />So the first misconception that you can use against your competitors is that there are no more "free" search engines that anyone can optimize their site for. There is more opportunity to come up on the first page of search results on major engines than ever before. All you have to do is go back over some back issues of the PPP and apply the basics. There is nothing new going on right now. All the things I have been telling you over the last couple of years works and works very well.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Misconception #2.</span><br />There is no such thing as an SEO because no one really optimizes a search engine.<br />WRONG!!!<br />You want to know who the real SEO's are. Who it is that really does ethically optimize a search engine every day. A real honest-to-goodness search engine optimizer? YOU ARE. WE ARE!<br />We really do "run" our own search engines. We are the only true SEO's. We get to be the ones who decides what comes up first and why. That's optimizing a search engine. Being an SEO.<br />We get to decide daily what our engines is going to look like. that is optimizing a search engine. Being an SEO.<br />We get to decide how best our engine can serve our public. That is optimizing a search engine. Being an SEO.<br />There is even a little more to optimizing a search engine. We get to decide not only WHAT to optimize but more importantly WHY.<br />Are we optimizing for maximum advertising dollars? Are we optimizing for our webmasters who submitted to us? Are we optimizing our site to show our own pages and products in the right light? All those questions get answered by us.<br />That's why I'm telling you all that SEO is dead and I'm happy about it. All those people out there cloaking this, hiding text that, link exchanging this and trying to build a theme for that and calling themselves an "ethical SEO" are soooo missing the boat. Estimates say there are over 40,000 websites worldwide offering SEO services and I'm here to tell you that the vast majority of them don't know half as much about getting traffic from search engines as anyone who has read more than 5 issues of the PPP. YOU ARE THE SEO'S OF TODAYS WEB!<br />My job is to make sure the world starts seeing what we are doing and bring them to your door. I'm getting closer to doing that each day.<br />Your job is to continue watching what is going on in the search service industry with open eyes. Don't follow the pack, lead the pack!<br />There has been a lot, (and I do mean a LOT), of money made by people calling themselves SEO's. SEO's are going to make more money than ever before over the next few months and years. Who do you think is going to capitalize on the misconception that there are no free engines out there? Who do you think stands the absolute best chance of offering a fraud-proof alternative advertising package? Who do you think stands the best chance of capitalizing on being in on the ground floor of a network of portals? I'll tell you who. YOU !<br />The SEO"s ************************************<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">June 19, 2002</span>===========<br /> Subject: Portal Partner Press 6-19-02 <br /> Date: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 5:29 PM <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />The Portal Partner Press is sent for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal or have specifically asked to receive it so that they may learn more about SearchKing and/or the niche portals industry. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. ***********************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">THE BIRTH OF A REVENUE SHARING SYSTEM FOR A NETWORK OF PORTALS</span><br />I've just spent some time reading through a discussion on a popular so-called SEO forum. The title of the topic is "the future of directories". For those of you who would like to read it for yourself, the link is: <br />Web Master World<br />I warn you, it's a three page long thread so far, but I strongly recommend you take the time. I know it may seem strange that I would recommend your involvement in such a forum after the last issue of the PPP and my strong sentiments on what SEO really is, but it is an excellent forum supported by some of the most knowledgeable internet marketers on the planet and owned and maintained by man who runs it well, and whom I respect for his efforts in spite of the personal conflicts that he and I may have shared.<br />I encourage you all to become involved in forums of this type. I'm NOT suggesting that you go there to blow SearchKing's horn, I'm suggesting that you go to SEO forums and marketing forums so that you can provide input to topics that are going to be shaping the web in the near future. Start educating the world about what a real SEO is and what that means to them. Become leaders and one of the best ways to do that is through open discussion so that you may learn and educate. Anyway ---<br />Now, reading through that thread, you'll likely see,( just like I did), that with a few notable exceptions, most of the posts being made are being made by people who are only looking at it from a "how do I get my client in the top of the results", perspective. The thing I found to be touched way too lightly upon was the question, "why would anyone WANT to run a small, highly focused directory?" "Where's the money?" "Where's the motivation for the guy doing all the work of building the directory and sending the traffic?"<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">NOTE:</span><br />I'm going to be making some statements here that I'm sure some of you may have the tendency to argue with, but I'd like to invoke the power of historical evidence and point out that when it comes to search engines and directories, I have made a lot of radical statements over the last 6 years and have history as a witness to the fact that I have been right more than I have been wrong. So at the risk of sounding a little pompous, I am going to say what I believe to be, and have accepted as, fact. Realizing of course, we all have, as individuals, the right to believe what we choose and I am simply stating what I choose to believe without stopping to acknowledge your right to believe something else or argue over the validity of your differing viewpoint. *****************************<br />What is wrong with most of the replies in that thread is that they are being made not so much out of logical assessment, but more out of a death grip clutch to some possible way of not having to admit that there is no such thing as SEO for most of the people claiming to be one. Most people responding to that thread are trying desperately to find some way of not having to admit that SEO is dead. That without Google, there would be darn little to even discuss in the first place.<br />Instead of simply admitting that the internet marketing environment has changed and professional marketers need to change with it, far too many people still see the changing search service landscape as a threat to their survival instead of a whole new world of opportunity. In that respect, they have a tendency to perk right up and start jumping in with all kinds of positive, supportive sounding statements without really thinking them through as long as there appears to be the slightest hope that something other than Google may exist to give them some plausible sounding reason to continue trying to be something they never were in the first place. (Boy are these last two paragraphs going to make a lot of people mad or what! You probably won't be seeing old bobking getting invited to too many SEO forums much longer).<br />Whether I make someone mad at me for saying it or not, it needs to be said. Getting mad at me is only killing the messenger. If anyone would spend a few minutes in any so-called SEO forum, one thing quickly becomes painfully apparent. Without Google, there wouldn't be much to talk about. Or at least, not much to talk about that makes a whole lot of sense in terms of how to build a webpage to be able to charge a client for getting that page in the top of the results. I think what the world is witnessing is called a swan song.<br />Taking into consideration the possible motivation of the participants in the discussion doesn't change the fact that little mention was made of why there is a future for directories at all. In my admittedly pompous opinion, the future of niche directories is completely and utterly doomed to extinction or at least to holding a firm grip on last place in the old respect and appreciation race, UNLESS SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE FIGURES OUT HOW TO MAKE A BUCK OUT OF RUNNING A PORTAL!<br />Running a portal takes money. It takes time, dedication, focus and commitment. They don't build themselves you know. It takes work and the better the directory is, the more work and resources it takes. So, where's the pay-off?<br />Of course there are those who become passionate enough, (or fanatical enough), about a specific topic to be willing to invest the time and money required to actually provide a resource of quality about that topic. There are also those who just want to help and there are those who simply become obsessed with having their say the way they want it said. Realistically, I figure this makes up a very small percentage of the net population.<br />Don't get me wrong, we want the data that this small percentage of people gather. We want it very much! But I do think it's time for the net marketing community as a whole to finally get the cahonies to admit that all that bull we keep hearing from ODP supporters, (the vast majority of which are editors), that, "we are just trying to give back to the net and even though there are a few bad apples, most people just like helping", really is just that --- bull!<br />I'm sure most of us have been involved in, or at least been privy to, a discussion or two where someone has accused ODP of being less than arbitrary when it comes to who, where, how and how quickly a site gets into or excluded from the directory. I doubt I'm the only one that has noticed just how quickly and on how many boards someone strongly objects to the implication. It almost looks as if there is some kind of loose network of people who inform each other of where to go and what to post to keep trying to uphold an image of the world's most fair and unadulterated volunteer directory. Hmmmm, the question comes to mind, who would benefit most from that type of image? Maybe the people who are at the top of the listings with the best descriptions?<br />I again realize I'm stepping on a lot of toes and opening myself to a ton of criticism, but the fact is, I don't buy all that, "we just want to help the net" stuff. I honestly believe that a lot of people have given a lot to help a lot of other people in regards to the ODP, but I also believe that someone needs to accept that just maybe it doesn't all add up. Since I'm the major pain in the rear end of the world's largest network of independent portals, I figure I'm as good a candidate as anyone.<br />If anyone could show me where more than 10% of any data in the ODP was put there by someone who does NOT have a website they own, control or are involved in promoting for whatever possible reason, I would publicly retract any negative statement I have ever made about the ODP. Until that time, I say it is extremely obvious why someone would be willing to invest time in building someone else's directory. I also say that for anyone to argue that there is no motivation to give that time with no expectation of anything in return for more than a very small percentage of the entire volunteer staff, is either lying to me, lying to themselves, has been lied to by someone else or is living in a different world than the one I live in.<br />People, (maybe not all people), not saints, not angels of the internet, just people, volunteer to edit for the ODP for a number of reasons, few of which are without their rewards. For some, it gives them the ability to manipulate their own listings within the directory to at least some degree. It gives some a sense of power. It gives some a chance to be in a group of like minded people where they can feel accepted. All these things are rewards, not the least of which is the ability to dominate, control, have power over and benefit from, commercial categories.<br />Editors at ODP get to put their own sites in. Motivation.<br />Editors at Yahoo get paid by the hour to work at Yahoo. Motivation.<br />One person to small companies running their own niche portal. Where's the motivation?<br />This, I believe, is the #1 question that has to be answered before the world can realistically expect small niche portals to become a driving force in the commercial realm of the net and realize their true potential. After the 1% or so of people who honestly are motivated to run a search service simply and totally for the love of the topic, what's in it for the mentally stable person who feels that their time is worth something? Those that feel they have a family to support, bills to pay and dreams to acheive?<br />Well, guess what, I believe I have an answer. SURPRISE! That answer is a network of portals with a revenue sharing program. To be more specific, SearchKing's network of portals with a revenue sharing program.<br />I'm not saying I have another get rich quick on the net scheme. The revenue sharing program I'm talking about does not have making anyone rich as it's objective. The only way to get rich from running a portal is to build it into a better resource with a better plan for generating revenue at a profit than your competitors.<br />I'm talking about a way that a person could sit in their chair, use their computer to spend only a few hours a week and make more money than they could with most affiliate programs on the net. A way to justify the time and money you would spend to get a portal rolling. A more fair and honest way to contribute something of quality without having to simply donate your time and money. A way to do a little work and get a little something back as a reward for your efforts.<br />I'm talking about a way of overcoming the two main obstacles holding the promise of niche directories back. I'm talking about a way of reducing the workload, making it much easier, faster and cheaper to build a quality directory and increasing the ability to generate revenue from that directory.<br />I'm going to close for now as this is going to take up too much space in one issue of the PPP. I'll be using this for a topic at chat this week, (for those of you who actually care about your portal, you really should show up at a chat from time to time. I talk about stuff there that I just can't talk about anywhere else), and I'm sure it will be a pretty hot topic this week in the forum. It will probably be a hot topic in the forum this week more from making so many people mad as just portal partners trying to get me to spill the beans about how the revenue sharing thing is going to work. Either way I'm pretty sure there will be enough discussion to hold us all over until next week when I go into details about how the program will actually work.<br />As for how it will actually work, why not take an active role in that decision and give me some input. I'd like to conduct a kind of survey and would appreciate as many responses to this next question as possible.<br />When you first got your portal, there was no mention of any kind of revenue sharing or revenue generating associated with any SearchKing offer, so that could not have been what motivated you to want a niche portal. What was it? Write in and let me know.<br />See you in the funny papers! :) ************************************<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-75417453522640544942002-05-01T21:45:00.002-07:002012-04-15T21:46:43.833-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS May 2002<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gc3puO1OZN8d8x5ZQlqxdUz3mCCSBRf7EOb5_EBNiiqVpA5B1Ma0sp0TXNWksbU4Jf4ZuAdGo297XxZD_KI_X4HfzQgXemfZD6bamiU92mKLEQI7-kNvUFhUA0aYdjk3iKIkjFWCIbI/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gc3puO1OZN8d8x5ZQlqxdUz3mCCSBRf7EOb5_EBNiiqVpA5B1Ma0sp0TXNWksbU4Jf4ZuAdGo297XxZD_KI_X4HfzQgXemfZD6bamiU92mKLEQI7-kNvUFhUA0aYdjk3iKIkjFWCIbI/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731855178612352386" /></a><br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">May 06, 2002</span>===========<br />Subject: Portal Partner Press 5-06-02 <br />Date: Monday, May 06, 2002 2:42 PM <br /> From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. ****************************************************<br /><br />IN THIS ISSUE<br />• Hang In There Continued<br /><br />***********************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">HANG IN THERE CONTINUED</span><br />In the last issue of the PPP, I said:<br />*A lot of us within our little community have been waiting over two years to see the promise of small, highly focused independent directories become a well accepted part of the internet e-commerce scene. *<br />I also asked for feedback at the end of that article and I got some.<br />With the permission of the author, I am going to share with you all today, an email exchange with one of our partners who decided they couldn't wait for SK to get "everything ready". This partner decided, quite some time back, to do more than wait and see what SK did.<br />I post this today for two reasons:<br /><br />• To show all of you who doubt, that there is a way to achieve success<br />• <br />• To clarify some possible mis-conceptions about what I may have said in the past and how I feel about those issues today.<br />Here is the exchange.<br />NOTE: The names have been deleted to protect the guilty.<br />**********************TravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-38596108790277593342002-04-01T21:44:00.001-08:002012-04-15T21:47:30.562-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS April 2002<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju-5wcKQlk_s2fvIKJYGI3QK_25jA5dP8gUnhKhrpm_h4zPDvimQd7xovQur7tDrHXe3jMnaXNZaWu8bKY0VmTXJVVhz682Os_P8KdBbfDohQ-43fLYhimksxxZfLw_9PRAqDqRUecRC0/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju-5wcKQlk_s2fvIKJYGI3QK_25jA5dP8gUnhKhrpm_h4zPDvimQd7xovQur7tDrHXe3jMnaXNZaWu8bKY0VmTXJVVhz682Os_P8KdBbfDohQ-43fLYhimksxxZfLw_9PRAqDqRUecRC0/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731854910473786418" /></a><br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">April 05, 2002</span>===========<br />Subject: Portal Partner Press 4-5-02 <br />Date: Friday, April 05, 2002 6:02 PM <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. ****************************************************<br />IN THIS ISSUE<br />• Defining an Independent Portal<br />• Why Isn't Anyone Building bullet-proofvest.searchking.com<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">DEFINING AN INDEPENDENT PORTAL</span><br />If we don't define what it is, who will? It is our responsibility. It is our honor, our privilege. It is our opportunity. It is our job.<br />We are getting very close to releasing a new portal software package. This software package was designed for the sole purpose of building and supporting the SearchKing Portal Network. The network that I believe is going to become the new DMOZ.<br />Most of the issues that have come up in the development of this package over the last 6 or 7 months, I've had to refrain from sharing with all the portal partners because the PPP and the forums are public. It didn't make good business sense to disclose all the features we were planning on building to the partners and our competitors at the same time. While we have discussed most of the features in our weekly chats over the last few months, at least superficially, in the chats we pretty much knew who we were talking with. Tain't so with the Portal Partner Press and the SearchKing forums. Starting with the last issue of the PPP, that is changing.<br />Last issue I announced our plans to feed certain features and programs to the portals such as games and news. I asked for discussion on the topic in the forums from the partners to help give staff a little more direction in where to look to add to the menu of value features to feed to the portals. While I was a little disappointed at the response in the forums, (That really surprised me - I thought there would be a lot of feedback on that.), I was very pleased to see that we had at least one partner ask for the news and about 10 or so ask for the games. Very good! It works!<br />This issue is a kind of continuation of that topic.<br />It's time to start putting the templates together that will be offered in the new SearchKing PCP, (portal control panel). Now, the thing with templates, as many of you already know, is that a lot of people pretty much use whatever the template has. Some people are perfectly happy using the template that comes with a program and change it very little, if at all. That makes how those templates look and what those templates do VERY important. So important that in my opinion, if we were going to define what a local or topic specific portal was, we would do it with a template.<br />I am asking again for discussion in the forums or even by emailing me about what should be on the front page of a local or a topic specific portal. News, weather, stocks? What else? I could use your help here. This is important.<br />I'll try to get the ball rolling with at least a few features that I think a local portal needs.<br />The obvious stuff would be:<br />• search engine<br />• free branded email<br />• free branded websites<br />• chat<br />• forums<br />• classifieds<br />• calendar<br />• movie listings<br />• Other stuff that may not be so obvious or so important:<br />• world and local news<br />• weather<br />• stock quotes<br />• games<br />• horoscopes<br />• jokes of the day<br />• What else? What am I not seeing?<br />As for the topic specific stuff, I need a lot of help. My focus has always been just a little right of center leaning towards the local portals, so I could use all the input I can get on the topic portals.<br />So, I hope to be getting some responses in the forums and in my mailbox over this next week or so. It's important. Not to just to me, but to the entire SearchKing Portal Network of which, you too are a very important part. So if you don't pitch in and help now, don't come crying to the rest of us later that we don't have what you really wanted. *****************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">WHY ISN'T ANYONE BUILDING BULLET-PROOFVEST.SEARCHKING.COM</span><br />The world is on the verge of changing. Changes are coming that are of biblical proportions. This isn't just about countries and some border disputes. It's not just about the haves and the have-nots. It's not about technology. It's about all that and it's about the sons of Abraham.<br />The eyes of the world are about to start searching like never before in the history of man. Searching for freedom, security, family, God and maybe even a place to hide. At least a place to hide from the sins of their fathers.<br />I'm not using the PPP to spout off a sermon. The PPP is not about religious beliefs. The PPP has always been, and always will be, about one thing. Portals. SearchKing Portals specifically.<br />Portals are about a doorway to information. SearchKing is about supporting the information those portals provide very quickly.<br />With change comes opportunity. Opportunity to teach, to lead, to prosper.<br />I'm asking you today to take a few minutes out of your busy schedule and think. Think about what effect the events in the world are going to have and what you are going to do to ensure that you and yours have the best chances of coming out winners. Think about what information people might be looking for that you could contribute. What are they going to want to know? What are they going to want to buy?<br />Get my drift? ************************************<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">April 16, 2002</span>===========<br />Subject: Re: Portal Partner Press 4-16-02<br />Hi Bob,<br />I did just have to comment on this weeks PPP. First off you are right and wrong, at least in my opinion. There are people, who at least started the portal thing with SK that ARE making serious money. We have made in excess of 6 figures ( not counting the change :) ) in the last 6 months. We run a network of 'topical portals' or sites if you will, more than 25 right now with more coming. I have affiliate managers and marketing pukes calling me daily and I get a 1/2 dozen offers a week for some new 'thing' they want me to promote for them.<br />We just received 2 cases of wine as a 'thank you' for just carrying one place, and at $100 a bottle, its makes even Pizza Hut taste good. We were also given a cruise and a long list of other things that show up here unannounced because it does work.<br />I do not follow 'your' way, but I did start out that way and did follow some of the advice and discarded the rest. You have always said, that you just can't fill a portal with affiliate programs and make $$$, well I am here to tell you that part is wrong. My portal is 95% affiliate programs and it makes money. Enough that I quit my job and my wife will quit hers soon and just teach and write. You just need to market it, and market it, and market it, and do this all day every day. My days are longer but I am much happier.<br />Yes I am very disappointed in the progress, or lack there of that SK has been making but I couldn't wait on it to catch up. I have closed 1 portal, another will close this month and I will be closing the Pro very soon. I needed 24/7 support so I found it necessary to get my own Hyperseek license ( this part you were dead on with) and set up a new system. Sort of SK in the early days and how I figured it should or would evolve.<br />Almost 2 years ago you and I had about the same vision. We just see different roads to get there. I think I turned around when I stopped worrying about where I was going and how I was going to get there and started looking at where I was. Once you know where to start, the rest comes with good old fashioned hard work.<br />Now don't take this that I am knocking your way, it's just that I found a different road to the place you pointed me too. There is more then one road to every destination.<br />Thanx and enjoy the journey. ********************<br />My reply:<br />Thank you for the letter Rick. I have always appreciated and respected your honesty and pull-no-punches approach. I have to agree with just about everything you said. No one is more disappointed in the progress of SK than I am. That is not your fault and I don't blame you or anyone else for not waiting on me. I fully accept that I will likely have to start all over again when I finally do get the programming I want done.<br />Anyway, I'd like your permission to publish at least some parts of your letter. I wouldn't use your name or url unless you asked me to, but I do think the "good old fashioned hard work" part needs to be heard by the portal partners coming from someone besides me.<br />Best of luck to you Rick and your more than welcome to stay in touch. I'd like to see where we both are in the next few years.<br />Bob ************************<br />One more reply for the partner:<br />Subject: Re: Portal Partner Press 4-16-02<br />Good. I was more then a little concerned that you may take it the wrong way and I didn't want that. You are very very good at what you do but in all honesty, I think you are a bit ahead of your time. Right now, in your face, guerrilla marketing works. While I would like to see a net where everything is relevant, low key and 100% honest, I believe we are a long way from that. Just a quick look at society now tells you that. Sure everyone says they want smaller, non polluting cars but what do they by? SUVs, trucks, etc. It will take the same type of change on the net to bring about your visions as it will to get people to cram their fat lazy butt into a small non polluting car.<br />A core change that is long term in coming. The net moves faster so it may happen first, but it is still a very long range goal and people who try to make their living on the net have to eat today so you do what works today.<br />I guess someone has to be the 'voice' in the back of your head on the net telling you what you know should be, but until people are really ready to listen, the 800 pound gorilla is always going to win.<br />And if you want to know when I made my final decision, it was when you/Mike, whoever made the SK page change to a Google clone. To me that was a sign of desperation and bode poorly for the future and I couldn't allow myself to get caught in yet another dot bomb. SK was always supposed to be different and that's why it was supposed to work. The style change to one of the big boys was an indication to me that the basic premise was wrong and wasn't going to work and people were starting to grab at straws.<br />Feel free to use whatever you want out of my letter as it was meant to give you a bit of insight as to where I am vs where I started and if it gives someone the hope that the net can be worked for a living then it's worth it.<br />We will still be in touch. Lets get real here :) I still will have to Pluses that would be insane for me to give up now. **********************************<br />So, there you have it. A partner who has made over 6 figures in the last 6 months!!! Pretty cool huh?<br />The partner said:<br />*You have always said, that<br />you just can't fill a portal with affiliate programs and make $$$, well I am here to tell you that part is wrong. *<br />I still stand by that statement. The misconception is that this partner seems to think I meant you couldn't use affiliate information as the majority of content on your portal and make money. That is NOT what I meant. What I was saying is that you can expect to just put a bunch of affiliate buttons and banners on your portal, (or any site for that matter), and expect people to start sending you money. What I was saying is that success takes focus, dedication and work. Mostly work.<br />The partner and I actually agree totally and the main reason I wanted to share this exchange with you is because this partner has discovered the key to success.<br />* the rest comes with good old fashioned hard work.*<br />AND<br />*You just need to market it, and market it, and market it, and do this all day every day. *<br />It's easy for me to see how this partner thought I was saying not to build a portal focusing just on affiliate programs. My goal is to get this network of portals rolling and for that to happen someone has to build something other than another affiliate program portal. that's what I want so that's what I focus on and what I talk about. Your goal is probably not the same and that's the way it should be.<br />You don't need to listen to or do anything I say. You need to YOUR numbers! Period. That probably has little to do with anything anyone would say. It has much more to do with what YOU do.<br />Also, I wanted to address the change to a Google clone.<br />Hindsight is 20/20 they say and looking back, the partner is right. I can see now how making SK look like Google would be seen by some as an act of desperation.<br />I have said many times that I am a person who likes to set and hit numbers. Most of you are aware that SK's front page has changed many times over the last two years. It doesn't change due to desperation. I'm no more desperate today than I was four years ago. It changes so I can track numbers to see which lay-out I feel is our best chance of providing quality to our visitors.<br />You, see, SK is still in a pre-marketing stage and I feel like now is the time to experiment.<br />I have a marketing plan in mind that I have had for over two years. I haven't implemented it yet because I still feel like we don't have anything to sell yet. I also feel like getting customers to your door is not that hard. I've proven time and time again that getting traffic is easy. Getting customers and getting them coming back is the hard part. Getting an unhappy customer back is ten times harder than getting them into the door the first time.<br />The entire internet is all about one thing. Information. Information = data. Does anyone NOT see that?<br />The internet is about e-commerce. The internet is about spam. It's about affiliates, webhosting, forums, chat rooms and on and on, but the one most important thing it is about, the thing it was built for, the reason it was started and the reason it thrives today is the exchange of data.<br />This is the primary reason that major search services are some of the most heavily, (and most valued), web sites on the planet. Their primary purpose is to exchange data.<br />If SK had a way that portal partners could get and review sites quickly and easily, and those portals and the reviewed data in those websites were what came up on top of SK, who would have the highest quality data on the planet? If SK had a way that the ad revenue from searches were shared with the portal network, how many people could we get running portals and wanting to review websites for their own portals? What if SK had a way to review the portals to ensure that only quality portals were what was getting the lion's share of traffic from SK so that we could drastically reduce the amount of people who would just take advantage? Now who would have the largest, human reviewed database on the planet and a network in place to manage and share the revenue from that data?<br />Well, that is exactly what we are getting very close to having.<br />So, what if I could get ten times more people to SK today? We would just lose 90% or more of them because we don't have enough data to provide results for far too many searches. This means that most of those people I could get would leave with no intention of ever coming back and using us as a search service again. Then after I do get the data and try to get those people back, they would just say to themselves and their friends, "Oh I've been there before, they suck". To win those people back over would take a lot more effort and a lot more money than to just impress them the first time and that's why I'm not marketing SK yet and that's why we all have to hang in there.<br />We are getting so close to having that data. So close that as much as I'm dying to tell everyone about it, our competitors would love for me to discuss and It just would not make good business sense to disclose too many details right now. All I can tell you now is that I fully intend to market the heck out of SK and the portal network as soon as we have a product to sell and that product is data.<br />This is one of the reasons I don't encourage more of our partners to build portals that focus just on affiliate programs. This is also an opinion and I can fully understand why someone would not agree and I also encourage everyone once again, to not listen to me, listen to your own heart, but my felling on affiliate programs is that you are not in control and that always leaves you vulnerable to the whims of someone else.<br />Remember about a year ago, I had told you in the PPP about a fried of mine who had joined some affiliate programs and was making in excess of $20,000 a month? Well, I had the opportunity to speak with him at length just the other day and he told me he was very dis-enchanted with the hole program.<br />He said while it was true that he was bringing in some 20 grand a month, he was spending some $15,000 a month with Overture on PPC and Yahoo on submitting more domains. Then when he figured in his time, his server, his domain registrations and the cost of getting free lance people to help build sites, he was only clearing less than $2,000, (which was about half of what I had paid him the year before).<br />He also said he decided to stop paying Overture and his income dropped to less than $4,000 a month the first month. Then when he figured in all the companies that had gone out of business while he was expecting a check, or changed their policies while he was still expecting a check, he was making even less. He is about to lose his home, he has already damaged his credit and has serious concerns for his own future.<br />Now I'm not saying this is what WILL happen, I'm only saying it is what happened to this person. I say this only to point out that building a topic specific portal is your data displayed the way you want. You are in control. If you decide to change your commission schedule, you already know it first before the short check comes in the mail.<br />The partner in the letter is doing it the smart way. Build a portal about the topic of that affiliate program and at least if that company tries to screw you, you can always try to find a company with a similar product. You at least have options. *********************************<br />I guess that will do it for this week portal kids. Remember if this issue comes with some kind of weird attachment or a virus of some kind, I apologize in advance. I hate all this virus stuff!<br />A little off topic here, but has anyone ever stopped to think where these viruses come from. Is it really just a bunch of kids mis-behaving?<br />When I stop to think about who would all these viruses benefit there aren't a lot of good answers I can see? Who stands to gain the most from all these problems. Maybe the companies selling anti-virus software?<br />I'm the first to admit that I'm a little paranoid, but that doesn't mean they're not watching.<br />See Ya next week! ************************************<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-56614233222863931012002-01-01T18:44:00.002-08:002012-04-15T21:44:03.796-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS March 2002<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTTXTx4qpgbcp1imgs8GbOtPqZKnwADeUmFQTjDz-5GM2zNenAstLp8_rNrVc0zMD0A3h-hShDAFATgchGvZ-95fWxp2OAgEJ9Yh17oIVapKn1LvMx4SUnxhB4Wg1syQicNpP_1SVeP94/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTTXTx4qpgbcp1imgs8GbOtPqZKnwADeUmFQTjDz-5GM2zNenAstLp8_rNrVc0zMD0A3h-hShDAFATgchGvZ-95fWxp2OAgEJ9Yh17oIVapKn1LvMx4SUnxhB4Wg1syQicNpP_1SVeP94/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731808700735849698" /></a><br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">March 18, 2002</span>===========<br />Subject: Portal Partner Press 3-18-02<br /> Date: Monday, March 18, 2002 10:25 AM <br />From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. ****************************************************<br />IN THIS ISSUE<br /> Why Would Looksmart Want To Buy WiseNut?<br />This PPP Brought To You By The New SearchKing Mailman Program<br /> *********************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">WHY WOULD LOOKSMART WANT TO BUY WISENUT?</span><br />I actually have no idea of why Looksmart would want to buy anyone for any reason. In spite of the fact that I have asked them very nicely for inside information about their business several times over the years, they seem to have chosen to completely ignore me. Like I don't even exist. Rather rude I think. Anyway.<br />There was a post made in our SearchKing forums, (nice catch there Brad - thanks), alerting us all to a link on Wisenut's (http://www.wisenut.com), front page letting the world know that Looksmart intended to acquire Wisenut for approx. $9 million dollars US, (not real money like a check or some cash, but in stock, is that like real money?).<br />For those who actually have a life and don't keep up with all this search engine wars nonsense, Wisenut was touted as the first real threat to Google's complete and utter dominance over the world of search engines. They had the academic clout, they had the hardware, the seemed to have the financing, they even had their own "white paper", (I just GOT to write one of those things one of these days!). Several of the SEO, (search engine optimizers), industry's best and brightest were singing the praises of Wisenut months before they even officially opened.<br />Wisenut finally started accepting submissions, (which meant officially opened at least in my book), about 6 months ago. In that time, I could count on one finger the number of hits the engine has sent to me in spite of the fact that my site is ranked #4 under a reasonably competitive keyword. So, after 6 months or so, not much of a threat to Google but still worth over 9 million I guess.<br />Looksmart on the other hand has one thing even Google doesn't have. MSN<br />Looksmart provides results to MSN along with several other less notable partners. Preferred results as a matter of fact, and that allows them to charge a considerable fee for just considering including your site into their directory. MSN feels that since Looksmart is a respected directory with human editors, (who have their jobs at stake), determining the quality of sites, that they can consider Looksmart results more valuable than their other providers, who at this time are Inktomi and Direct Hit. I'd have to agree with that one because Inktomi is only a few steps a way from being able to advertise, "pay us $30 a page to enter our spam race", and Direct Hit is notorious for updating once or twice a year whether it needs to or not.<br />I doubt many would see the value in paying a Looksmart editor $300 to "look" at their site, were it not for the high likelihood, or at least implication, that the site would pop up in the top of MSN searches at some point in the future thereby establishing value for their investment. Why? Because Looksmart as a search engine isn't a very good resource. They don't get a lot of searches at that site, comparatively speaking of course. They damn sure get a whole lot more than SearchKing, just not many compared to say, MSN, so you wouldn't be paying Looksmart for their own searches but more for the hope of MSN searches. Trust me, I've paid Looksmart well over $30,000 in the last two years and it wasn't so I had a chance of coming up on Looksmart, it was so I had a chance of coming up in the top of their "partner" engines.<br />Ok, so if the value of Looksmart is in their partnerships and they already have those, why pay out some 9 million bucks. Will that get more partners? How does that increase their income?<br />Well, like I said at the beginning of this little oration, I actually have no idea of why Looksmart would do anything, but I do have a couple of educated guesses.<br />Guess number one is that it's just getting to be a trendy kind of thing to do. With Ask Jeeves recently buying Teoma, (another "hot" newcomer thought to be the next Google rival that got bought before ever really even opening up for business), maybe this is just the valley's way of keeping up with the Jones's. Any directory that was able to survive the fall-out of the '99-'00 dot com disaster now needs a spidering engine AND a directory parked in it's driveway to impress the neighbors. Not just any old established spidering engine tough, it's got to be a bold, new vision, unproved spidering engine. Excite is just an old clunker, barely worth throwing up an Overture pay-per-click just to get a few bucks off the dying traffic numbers, but Teoma or Wisenut, those are sleek, new, nobody knows if they actually work or have any value at all kind of engines. Similar to parking a Ferrari in your driveway that you paid twice what you should have and will be lucky to get one third of what you paid for it out of it should you try to sell it next year.<br />My second guess, which actually makes a little more sense, in at least a financial perspective, is that directories suck. Of course that is not to say that spidering engines don't suck. They both suck and that is why spidering engines AND a directory makes a good marriage. Suck may be a little strong because the truth is directories suck in the same way that spidering engines suck and that is they both lack everything they need to make them really effective.<br />Spidering engines are fast and cheap when it comes to getting a lot of urls but for that very reason they are extremely susceptible to low quality results. Human reviewed directories are very good at catching and keeping out low quality sites and dramatically improving the quality of the listings it can present for a search request, but they are slow and expensive. Which is yet one more reasons we all live with this "circle of search".<br />A spidering engine can bring back results for almost any search performed because of the size of it's database, BUT, because of the size of it's database, it's hard for a spidering engine to keep spam out and ensure that only relevant sites come to the top of the results. A spidering engine NEEDS a directory. Surely even the most devout of Google fans are aware of the relationship with Google and DMOZ? Why would you think DMOZ is given increased page rank?<br />A directory, on the other hand, can be generally counted on to provide a better class of result. The perception being that a human can define quality on a web page better than a computer program like a spider. A perception which is not without merit, BUT, with the human review process being so much more labor intensive, thereby driving up the cost, the databases are small and lacking in results for all but the most competitive search terms. A directory NEEDS a spidering engine, or at the least, a cheap way of getting a lot of data fast.<br />If Looksmart, at any point in the future, has any intention of reducing it's dependency on partner sites, such as MSN, for producing the bulk of it's revenue, or if it ever intends to become a search powerhouse in it's own right, it has to provide quality results and a lot of them. After all these years of Looksmart being pretty much recognized as a leader in the search industry, it's own human reviewed database has less than 1 million urls in it, (that number is unofficial and not based on any real investigation by myself). That is not a big enough of a database to bring back results, quality or otherwise, for way too many search queries outside of all but the most obvious. When people don't get results for any search they do, they don't think their search was too broad, they simply think the engine doesn't have any results and move on. As long as Looksmart has been in the internet search business, I believe they know that and I believe that is why they would pay 9 million dollars for Wisenut.<br />There's just not much getting around it, the best search service needs human reviewers with no incentive to spam their own additions AND a lot of results fast at a price that makes gathering, storing and displaying that data cost effective.<br />So where does that leave us? I don't have 9 million dollars to spend on some other engine and I'm pretty much counting on the assumption that not too many of our portal partners have it either. What I do have is an alternative and that alternative is a lot of portal partners running a lot of spiders looking for specific information and not throwing away the stuff they don't want. Sounds simple huh?<br />In many ways it is simple. It is certainly more focused on hi-touch than it is hi-tech, but figuring out all the little details is a bit complicated. It's just that this system is based more on reducing waste than it is on pumping resources into get more stuff faster and that seems to kind of go against the nature of the net.<br />Figuring out how to provide incentives to people to get them to want to help build a better web without providing incentives to try to cheat the system is a little tricky. Figuring out to identify and distribute one man's trash so that it becomes another man's treasure is a little tricky, but not that tricky. It can be done and I believe we've done it. I believe we have a way to provide a more relevant search service with plenty of data in our database to give superior quality results for ANY query without having to buy someone else's search engine.<br />So, at the least, we've just made $9,000,000. *********************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">THIS PPP BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE NEW SEARCHKING MAILMAN PROGRAM</span><br />Waiting on new software to get developed has got to be like a kid waiting on Santa Claus. Well, this kid's wait is almost over. The software is just about done. In fact, I'm mailing out the PPP with the new SK mailman feature.<br />Over several staff strategy meetings, we determined that we wanted the SK portal building system to have a much shorter learning curve. We wanted it so simple that even I could use it with minimal assistance. I was kind of the idiot standard. If I could use it, ANYBODY could use it, kind of thing. Well, I'm a -usin it!<br />If this is an indication of what I can expect from the rest of the system, I'm very excited. If all the features are as easy to use as this one, PLUS it has specialty portal building features such as category moderators and revenue sharing, I think we can expect tremendous growth this next year. I'm shooting for no less than 1,000 active portal partners in the SK directory within a year, (and hoping that's way too low). ***********************************<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;">March 29, 2002</span>===========<br />Subject: Portal Partner Press 3-18-02 Date: Monday, March 29, 2002 10:25 AM From: bobking bobking@searchking.com<br />The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://www.searchking.com/forum.htm and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. ****************************************************<br />IN THIS ISSUE<br />• Boy Do I Have a Knack For Screw-Ups or What?<br />• You Got Game<br /><br />*********************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">BOY DO I HAVE A KNACK FOR SCREW-UPS OR WHAT</span><br />I'm sure I'd be crying if it weren't so comical. Last week's mail fiasco could only be topped by the first PPP I ever sent out. Anyone remember getting the PPP with 1500 or so names in your CC field. That was pretty comical too huh?<br />We found the problem with the new SKMailMan feature so I'm going to show my faith in it once more and use it to send the PPP today. I feel that a way for portal partners to organize, manage and distribute a newsletter in support of their portals is crucial. A way for them to do that without having to know how to program or set up cgi scripts is even crucialer, (I think more crucial would actually be more appropriate here but I'm trying to entertain and hold your attention). In fact, I feel it is so important that I'm willing to risk the public humiliation and the incredible virtual verbal abuse I took after sending as many as 12 copies of the PPP to partners last week.<br />Once again, I truly apologize and only hope that I can make it up to you when you finally see the program and how easy it is to set up and use. **************************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">YOU GOT GAME</span><br />I don't recall the exact issue and I'm too lazy to go look it up, but I believe it was last month when I had written in a PPP that SearchKing had made some decisions as to how SearchKing should look and what it should do to encourage portal partners to make their sites look to accomplish it's goals of becoming a traffic generating center for the portals. SK decided that its job was to get traffic by, among other things, using the resources provided by the partners and then sending it to the portals. The portal's job was to try to keep as much traffic as possible on their for sites as long as possible and coming back to their sites as often as possible. This is significant in the respect that it determines what tools and designs we will use to accomplish those goals.<br />To that end, we have taken several steps over the last few weeks and we have just taken another one that is important to you as portal partners. You got game.<br />I'm sure some of you know that SearchKing used the companies Pogo and ZoomGo to provide us with online games for some time. I know several of you were feeding the pig more than building your portals for a while. Well, using keyword delivery, we can now easily let you offer games to your visitors and make it look like it's on your site without you having to do anything any harder than install three or four lines of code on your page.<br />Here are a couple of examples that Sandy and Ronda set up a couple of days ago.<br />http://glendivemt.searchking.com http://community.searchking.com http://www.glendive-mt.com/games.html http://midwestcity.searchking.com/games.htm<br />These are intended to show the wide range of possibilities available from pluses to pros. This process should enable you to seamlessly integrate these features into your front page or interior pages. You should use this where and how you think it is going to acquire and retain the highest level of traffic -- hopefully income-producing traffic. How about getting your local chess club to sponsor your games page? How about maybe a software retail store in your area buying a sponsorship? Makes sense huh?<br />I'm hoping to see a lot of discussions about this in our forums over the next few weeks because while traffic may be the name of the game, it's money that buys the pieces to play with. The idea of this whole process is that SearchKing can secure deals with providers and then pass those deals on to the partners. Well, what deals are going to look the best? Answer -- the ones that stand to make money.<br />We will be on the lookout for anything that may be of value to your community with emphasis on affiliate programs that could pay. We are in the middle of setting strategies and policies and procedures now for this program but I can tell you that we have already decided that we will offer as many feed services as possible for free, however we intend to monetize this service by finding quality affiliate programs that would enable SK, Inc. to split revenue with partners as well as offering some premium services that may require a fee. Using KWD makes the possibilities almost limitless.<br />For now we have the games and the news ready. We should have weather, (a little trickier because we have to set it up with your location already in it), very soon. We will also have horoscopes, greeting cards, stock quotes, webmaster resources, daily jokes and so forth coming soon as well.<br />We are going to start making all these feeds available from your admin upgrade page in the next few days but for now send an email to Sandy@searchking.com and she'll send you the code.<br />All right kids, that's about it for this week. Now let's get into the forums and discuss how to make this thing work better for all of us.<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4858546549569191761.post-4019773432854702892001-12-01T21:20:00.001-08:002012-04-15T21:23:07.707-07:00PORTAL PARTNER PRESS December 2001<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHOfyIpL7vy973nbcTQKL-rEoaT9Ipo0ehIEHREddQXxZa4YaW90BrnDQshjKMqEWCr-6ygqkhrYxZd_pU4oJ09t6LafLtgPcG2nBqJU6ksD8C-T19ZYkHi_LoFbnR83Z9wL3oHIBbAA/s1600/PPPBanner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 41px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHOfyIpL7vy973nbcTQKL-rEoaT9Ipo0ehIEHREddQXxZa4YaW90BrnDQshjKMqEWCr-6ygqkhrYxZd_pU4oJ09t6LafLtgPcG2nBqJU6ksD8C-T19ZYkHi_LoFbnR83Z9wL3oHIBbAA/s320/PPPBanner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731848949274815842" /></a><br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;"> December 11, 2001</span> ===========<br />From: Robert Massa <br />Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 12:46 PM<br /> Subject: Portal Partner Press 12-11-01<br /><br />The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://forums.searchking.com and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. *******************************************<br />SearchKing Targets European Market Through Franchise Agreements<br />My whole purpose in going to Europe, (aside from the fact that if I have an excuse for spending three weeks in Europe, I'm taking it!), was to strengthen old relationships and establish some new ones. We have had a reseller in London for close to a year now. I mentioned this in an issue of the PPP back when we first made the deal.<br />Basically, his focus is on building and maintaining portals for corporate clients in the UK using SK software. For a small fee, we set up his own branded version of the SK portal program allowing him to use our products and resell them. He gets them for half of what we normally charge and then charges what he likes for the software and the maintenance. Kind of a "what the market will bear" thing.<br />We have also noticed over the last few months that we seem to be doing well in Europe. The UK, Germany and India, (I know, I know, India isn't in Europe), make up almost 40 percent of our total portal pluses. But, we have also noticed that very few of these portals ever upgrade or get involved in our forums. Of course the language barrier and the cultural barriers are the obvious reasons.<br />Even with the UK speaking English, (I found out while I was there, I don't speak English, I speak American), the way we communicate in America is not the same way people in the UK communicate. What we in America find to make sense, is not the same thing that would make sense to someone from Europe, even if they do have a good command of the English language. The cultural differences are as much a barrier as the language.<br />Watching the stats, it occured to me seveal months ago that there was little I could do to appeal to a non-American market. Not knowing or understanding the culture, the language or even the money left me at a real disadvantage. Now the Euro dollar is going to take over in Europe on January 1st 2002, so that may eliminate the money barrier to some extent, keeping in mind that Britain has refused to change and will continue running it's own currency in British pounds, but that still leaves the language and cultural problems.<br />My best solution was to approach it from the position that someone who actually lived in the target market could do a much better job of marketing to that market than I could. Since we had already done the reseller deal with one UK client and found it to work just fine, I could see no reason why we couldn't do it again.<br />So, we set up UKSearchKing as our reseller for mass market penetration. Actually, we will refer to UKSearchKing as a franchisee because it is a little different than the other reseller we have set up. The franchisee will have the rights to distribute all SK products within the UK, (with the exception of course of the deals we already have in place). Kind of a wholesale, retail thing.<br />We will set up a separate admin panel and give UKSearchKing access to all our promotional material letting them run their own branded forums, PPP, classifieds and marketing. They will sell in pounds and pay us in dollars. Their main responsibility will be to change the text on the pages from American to English. They will speak in pounds instead of dollars.<br />We will provide server and technical support for the franchisee, they will provide it for their portal partners. They will run their own forums, and their own PPP. They handle their own billing. They handle their own server costs and bandwidth costs and pass those costs on to their customers the same as SK does. Again, kind of a wholesale, retail thing.<br />This should give each country a community specific to thier intersts and needs, while securing a solid presence for SK in that market. It should also provide a viable business model for search services within that country.<br />They will get all developed software from SK at half the retail price. SK will retain rights to 30% of all advertising space, they get the other 70% and we will share databases so that they have access to global results and we have access to UK specific results. Instant search service and web hosting player in the UK market.<br />Assuming it works, we will then pursue the same strategy with other countries around the globe. We also made a deal with another company to represent our franchise sales in Europe on a commision basis. We're hoping this company ends up being able to handle all deals for franchises around the world. They have unique access to a lot of sales staff that covers a lot of languages. We'll see.<br />We should have everything up and running within the next 90 days. I'll keep you all posted. *********************************<br />Have a great week! See ya' next week. Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.com<br /><br />=======<span style="font-weight:bold;"> December 21, 2001</span> ===========<br />Subject: Portal Partner Press 12-21-01<br />Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:58:13 -0600<br />From: Robert Massa bobcard@ionet.net<br />*******************************************<br />The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://forums.searchking.com and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general. *******************************************<br /><br />IN THIS ISSUE<br />Telling The World Who We Are<br />We're Taking the First Steps to Making SK the Traffic Generating Center for Portals<br />Merry Christmas and Happy New Year<br />***********************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">TELLING THE WORLD WHO WE ARE.</span><br />We all make decisions in our life and it is those decisions that tell the world who we are. Where we go to church, what house we buy, what we teach our children, all these things say something to anyone who will take the time to look. Those decisions define who we are and what we believe.<br />As human beings, we take most of our decisions for granted. We rarely stop to think about the impression we make on people when we decide what to wear today, but the fact is that whether we think about it or not, we are making an impression. So what impression do we want to make when we do think about it. Well, that's what I'm hoping to do today. Get you to think about a decision I'm going to ask you to make. A decision to do something. Something that won't cost you any more than a few minutes out of your busy schedule, but those few minutes will go a long way in telling the world who we are.<br />When you hear someone on the net make a statement like, "telling the world who we are," I think it's safe to assume that most people would think you were referring to sending out bulk email or making a post in a popular forum or at least including something in your sig tags. Well, all those things may play a part in telling people who we are, but in this case, I'm referring to something a little more substantial. I'm talking about taking actions to not only tell, but to SHOW the world who we are. Doing something more than just putting text on a web page or using a sig tag at the end of our emails.<br />Last week, I had the great pleasure of getting to spend some time with a man whom I respect a great deal. A man who, like myself, is convinced that he can do something to make the web a better place.<br />Lennart Svanberg is the founder and organizer of a group called WAIM. That stands for the World Association of Internet Marketers. Lennart is from Sweden and I first met him at the Internet Marketing Conference in Las Vegas last April where I had the great pleasure and honor of being a featured speaker. Lennart is also the organizer for those conferences. This past week he was in the United States and made a special trip to Oklahoma City to see me.<br />While he was here, he never asked anything more of me than my continued support of his efforts. He doesn't even know I'm writing this about him now. He didn't ask for a link. He didn't ask for me to donate money. Just my support any way I wanted to give it.<br />I was impressed with Lennart when I first met him at the conference because I know how difficult it is to organize something like those conferences and I also knew that Lennart was not a wealthy man nor did he have a huge company to handle all the details and to foot the bill. I knew that he was like me in many respects and simply trying to build his business. Well, that takes a lot of focus and dedication, not to mention the kahonies to risk your own money on something you believe in. Pretty much the same reasons I'm impressed with most of you, the portal partners.<br />But what impressed me most was he was pushing hard for the World Association of Internet Marketers. He was obviously passionate about this organization. As we spoke about it, he told me how he felt it was important for there to be an organization that helped to establish standards for e-business on a global scale. Lennart knew how the focus has been on American companies leaving our foreign brothers-in-arms a little left out. He also knew that we were all facing a possibility of allowing the net and e-commerce in general to be completed dominated by big corporations with bottomless pockets and spammers - leaving the "little guy" who just wanted to start an honest business and do his best out in the cold.<br />Now he was singing my song. Over the last few months I have had the chance to read a great many posts from Lennart and speak to him personally on several occasions about WAIM. He, like us, wants to do what he can to build a better web. He believes in many of the same things we do. I decided that I would help and support WAIM any way I could.<br />WAIM is struggling the same as many of us are struggling. He is struggling for many of the same reasons we are. He has taken on a huge job because he believes that someone, somewhere has got to do what they can to make things better. WAIM is non-profit. Lennart doesn't do it for the money. He does it because he believes there needs to be standards set, a code of ethics established for net marketing as an industry and a support system in place to help those that would agree to adhere to those standards. I agree.<br />Now there is nothing to guarantee that WAIM will succeed and grow into becoming a major influence on the world of professional net marketing, but that's not why I feel it's important to support them. I feel it's important because they are trying to do something good, something better and they need our support, and we need to let the world know who we are.<br />If I can just get 5 of you reading this to go to their site and apply for membership, they would feel better and you would feel better too for helping someone who is trying to do the right thing. If I could get 50 of you, now, we as a group would have an impact on the entire organization. That is power. The power to make a difference.<br />Individually, we are just one voice trying to be heard above the clatter and confusion, but together we could be a force to be reckoned with. We could have the power to change things together.<br />Please, make a decision today, right now, to stand up for something and act on it. To show your support for something that tells the world who we are. Go to http://www.waim.org and click on the join waim link at the bottom of the page. There is no fee for joining at the time so it doesn't cost you anything to join. The application for membership is a little tedious. There is no form to fill out, just instructions on how to craft your email application, and due to them being short handed, (I'm sure they'd love to have some of us as volunteers), it can take a week or two to get approved. Just follow the instructions and be sure to let them know in your application that you are a part of SearchKing.<br />Think about this. What if it does become the world's first association of internet professionals? Do we NOT want SearchKing to be a part of that? Do we want to have to pay to join later? Do it now. Do it for yourself and your fellow portal partners and tell the world who we are! ****************************************<br />If you'd like to see some photos of Lennart and I, click here http://www.kathichesnut.com/lenart/lenart2001.htm ********************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">WE'RE TAKING THE FIRST STEPS TO MAKING SK THE TRAFFIC GENERATING CENTER FOR PORTALS</span><br />Some of you may recall some of our discussions earlier in the year in the Portal Partner Press and in the forums about strategic planning. In those discussions I stated that SK's goal was to become the foundation and traffic generating center of the world's largest network of independent portals. One of the best things that came out of those discussions was that it was pointed out to me that this was a mission statement and not a goal. Very important fact. So I changed that to our mission statement and set a real goal. Prudence dictates that I not make that goal publicly known mainly because it's not important so long as we accomplish our mission statement.<br />Well, a few months have passed and I can see where some might think that I have forgotten about that mission statement, but nothing could be further from the truth. Not only have I or anyone else on staff not forgotten about it, it is the topic of conversation on an almost daily basis. It just takes a little time. It is a little more complex than it sounds and it has to be thought through and then built according to plan.<br />There are a lot of developments going on that are all in line with our strategic plan and our mission statement. Today I'm finally getting close enough that I would like to let you know about a couple of things happening that show just how dedicated we are to that mission statement.<br />On Tuesday I called Mike Rotter, our webmaster, and had him start doing some things, (I'm not at liberty to disclose exactly what yet), to ensure that our portal partners get the lion's share of our search traffic. In other words, we are using some of the unique features of the SearchKing admin panel to boost the portals in our directory to the top of the regular search results. So, for those of you who are in the directory and NOT in the SK engine, you will be put there manually, but that means that you won't have the passwords to edit your own site. This is now very important as you can edit your title, description and KEYWORDS to control how you get listed. If you don't have your passwords to edit your site, you can contact Mike at webmaster@searchking.com.<br />For those of you who have submitted your site to SK and have your passwords, you may want to pay a little extra attention to your listing because even though we can PUT you there, you still have to get the votes to stay there.<br />Secondly, we are getting ready to set up a page linked from SK's main page that will push advertisers to your portals directly. Dave has written a couple of routines that allow us to monitor page views from the portals. We will display portals based on categories, which we are also setting up, showing their title, description, url and page views from last month and to date this month. These listings can be edited separately from the regular SK database because the idea is that your title and description should be something to show the value of your service to advertisers rather than just the general searching public.<br />This will also be a way for each partner to be more involved in what is going on as a group and oh yeah, it will also give each partner site that gets listed another link from a site with a page rank in Google almost equal to one from Yahoo. In case you didn't know, Google has obviously decided that SearchKing is a hub worthy of superior linking power.<br />Those are just two of the very first things we're doing. Much, much more to come. ***********************************<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR</span><br />This will be the last issue of the Portal Partner Press until next year, (Wow, 2002. What a trip!), so I'd like to take this moment to wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and a happy new year from me and all the staff at SearchKing.<br />May you receive all the blessings of giving this holiday season as you share with your loved ones and may the coming year see your success bring smiles to the faces of all those you can share more with next year!<br />Thank you for all the wonderful things you have brought to us this year. We look forward to growing with you in 2002.<br />Have a great week!<br />Publisher -- Bob Massa bobking@searchking.comTravelinGrannyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13794531736068569057noreply@blogger.com0