"Create a Flood of Traffic with 500 Words" by Shannon Emmanuel

"Create a Flood of Traffic with 500 Words" by Shannon Emmanuel

Are you looking to increase your relevancy in the search engines? You probably have heard that increasing the links to your site has an impact on your listing. But did you know you can do it without waiting, or asking other sites to link to you themselves?
If you can write a 500-1000 word article about your business, you can increase your links in 24 hours.
Here's the secret: Every article submitted to article directories includes a resource box. This is a short sentence or paragraph about the author. By including the link to your site (MUST include http://) you can post YOUR link as many places as you want. There are dozens of free article directories that provide content for websites and newsletter publishers who are just waiting for fresh content.
If your article is used by someone, your link goes with it as they are not allowed to remove the credits/resources. So they do even more advertising for you.
The great thing about article submission is that the major search engines, Google, Yahoo etc. spider the big sites far more often than litte ol' you and me, so they will find you within a few days when you post at a large directory.
The key to a good article (and you'll find some sites with more specific guidelines) is that it CANNOT be an obvious ad for your company. Create a 'How To' or '10 Ways to...' type article relevant to your business. At the end write something like this:
"So-and-So is running her own business while raising a family. She has been providing services (or product, information, etc.)to the __________ community for over 2 years. You can find more information about _________ at http://www.h*mebased.com."
Try this out and search for "article directories" at Google, and start submitting your articles to gain traffic.
Wishing everyone success this year!

About the Author
While raising two young daughters, Shannon and her husband, Cyprian, are helping others start and promote their own home business with articles, resources and recommended programs. Find more information at http://www.Affiliate-Start.com

Back Door Google via Overture by GIL HIDAS

Back Door Google via Overture by GIL HIDAS

The importance of link popularity is widely known and many articles, theories and applications have been written on the topic. We all know by now that having many web sites pointing to your web site increases your Google link popularity and can score your web site higher page ranking and consequently the site will be higher in the search engine 'natural results'.

What we don't know however, is that running a PPC (pay per click) campaign with Overture can increase a web site's Google link popularity. I wish I could see the raising eyebrows of some of you now. In the next few paragraphs I'm going to tell you how this method works and like everything in life its pros and cons.

So, running an Overture campaign (regardless of how successful the campaign is) will put your advertisement on thousands of web sites (refer to Overture Impressions). It's pretty simple; there are thousands of 'content' web sites that use Overture ads as their main income stream. Similar to Google ads, web sites are publishing Overture ads and once a user clicks on the ads, Overture pays a small amount to the 'content' web site (for example see http://www.brazil.com , right click on any link on this web site then properties, you'll see that this links back to overture). Once your ad appears on many web sites it's ready to be indexed by Google. Google, using its famous crawler - GoogleBot, visits many web sites each day and there is a high chance that it will find, index and include the page that displays your ad in its natural results.

Sounds a bit farfetched? Let's have a look at this example, open a browser, go to Google and type www.orangejewelry.com/ -site:www.orangejewelry.com/ into the Google search box. What you will find is around 200+ links to this web site. These are Google's natural results; however, 90% of the links in this results set are 'content' pages that run Overture advertisement campaigns!!! www.orangejewelry.com is a new web site on the web that runs PPC campaign with Overture, what they found out is that they get an additional value from the campaign in the form of 'loose links' in Google, which increases link popularity. Again, it's pretty straightforward; www.orangejewelry.com pays Overture to be visible on the internet. Overture pays small 'content' web sites to display www.orangejewelry.com ads. Google crawl these web sites, index them and include them in its natural results.


As I mention above, these links are 'loose', which means these are not real links to your web site. The reason is that the Overture ads are changing all the time and by the time that Google picks up the page, index it and put it in its natural results the real ad or link to your web site is not there, it's changing dynamically by Overture.


To prove this, do the exercise we did above, or click on the following link to Google. What you will find is that by clicking on the Google results, and going into one of the web pages in the results set, there is no mention to www.orangejewelry.com (for example: Brazil.com) ; however, if you click on the results cached page (for example: Cached) you can clearly see when the page was indexed by Google and that your web site Overture advertisement is there!!! Amazing ha?
The pros and cons are quite self-explanatory at this stage (I think) on the one hand you get link popularity boost from Google by running an Overture campaign (go figure, why Google do this as Overture is its main competition). This is by far the single most important factor to determine what sites are indexed by Google (see Google PageRank Information). On the other hand these links are not 'real' rather 'loose' as once the user clicks on them heshe doesn't get to your web site but to where your web site was advertised awhile ago.


My conclusion is pretty simple, if you have a new web site OR use Overture a lot to increase traffic to your web site, try to use this method smartly (for example, you can participate in categories in Overture that have many impression but low click rate, this will result in your web site ads are visible on the net for GoogleBot but you won't have to pay much for Overture clicks). Whatever you do, keep in mind that once you stop your Overture campaign, these 'loose' links in Google will stay there for only few weeks. What I'm still puzzled about is why Google indexes pages with links to Overture and not pages with Google ads, which they can have financial gain from (not very ethical though).


Note: this article was published on 01/02/2005 and all the links in this article are valid as of this date. Keep in mind that links to Google search results are likely to change every few weeks. If you read this article and it has broken or incorrect links, please contact me via e-mail at gil@stridergroup.biz.


In my next article I'll discuss the effectiveness of Overture campaign to online stores.


About the Author
Gil Hidas is a web master and a database specialist.

Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser by Mark Daoust

Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser by Mark Daoust

It is official, the search engine wars are in full swing. On Tuesday, February 01, 2005 MSN officially rolled out its new search solution to all of its websites, including MSN.com. This comes on the heels of growing speculation that Google plans to launch its own browser, possibly in an attempt to attack Microsofts greatest strength in Internet Explorer. Is it possible that MSN actually rolled out their search engine to prevent Google from doing the same thing they did to Yahoo! with the release of Gmail?

Google appears to have been planning a browser for some time. In April of 2004 they purchased the domain gbrowser.com (notice the similarity to gmail.com) and recently they lured two of the lead developers on the Firefox browser project to join the Google team. When asked what their role would be at Google, both developers were unable to specify what their roles were. Yet with Firefoxs relative success at chipping away Internet Explorers stronghold on the browser market, Google is certain to take notice of the minds that were able to make a dent in the Internet Explorer stronghold.

Google Has a History of Attacking Strengths

The common thought when considering an attack on a competitor is to attack their weaknesses. Google, true to their history of bucking tradition, has a history of doing just the opposite. Rather than attacking their potential competitors strengths, Google identifies its competitors strengths and attacks those strengths directly. This is exactly what they did when they launched Gmail.

Before the launch of Gmail, the search engine wars were being anticipated by the SEO community. Yahoo! had acquired Overture and Inktomi and had announced its plans to abandon the Google search results. Similarly, MSN had announced that they too would be leaving Googles search results and would develop their own internal search technology. Both Yahoo! and MSN posed a real threat to steal a significant portion of Googles search market. However, at the time, Yahoo! proved to be the more imminent threat as they would go to market with a proven search technology in Inktomi and an established advertising network with Overture.

Yahoo!s real strength in attacking Google was the draw that their portal had. The tool that offered Yahoo! the most certain return traffic was Yahoo! Mail. Although Yahoo! has several different tools that bring users back time and time again, nothing was as powerful as their email system. As people came back to Yahoo! to use their e-mail, or other tools for that matter, the hope was that they would grow to become loyal to Yahoo!s search results as well.

Google realized the strength of Yahoo! Mail, so they launched Gmail as an offensive on Yahoo!s greatest strength. At the time Google launched Gmail, they were offering 10 times the amount of space, an obvious attempt to gain press and increase the desirability of Gmail.

MSN Search Provides a Bigger Threat

Although MSN Search currently holds a smaller share of the search engine market than Yahoo! or Google, they are actually the bigger threat to Yahoo!. Yahoo! had the ability to push their search results to the millions of people who come to their portal to use their tools. If Google is able to provide users with the same tools that they find at Yahoo!, users no longer have a reason to visit Yahoo!. However, any computer user who is using Windows most likely will use Internet Explorer, even if it is to eventually download an alternate browser, and we all know that most people are comfortable enough with Internet Explorer to not even look for an alternative.

Because MSN has the constant attention of consumers through Internet Explorer, they have many more channels to push their search results through. Do not be surprised if the next version of Internet Explorer comes with a search bar included as well as more redirects to MSN search results when a bad address is typed in the address bar. As long as MSN has such a strong majority of the browser market they will be able to push their search results.

MSN also has the advantage of developing a new search technology. Yahoo! entered the search engine battles using technology that web searches had been using for years in Inktomi. The problem is that users had already used Inktomi search results and had chosen Google instead. Although Yahoo! made changes to the algorithm that powered Inktomis results, the changes were not significant enough to make a strong distinction from Googles search results. Whether the MSN results will be of a significantly higher quality than Google is yet to be seen, but by developing a new search technology, MSN has the ability to provide users with significantly different results than Google.

Google Will Need To Duplicate Gmail with Gbrowser

With MSNs search becoming the latest threat to Googles search market stronghold, Google will once again attack its competitors strength. Internet Explorer has recently shown some weakness in losing market share to Firefox, and it appears as if Google is ready to attempt to bring down MSNs greatest strength.

If Google hopes to have any success in bringing down Internet Explorer, they will need to duplicate the success of the Gmail campaign. When launching Gmail, Google knew that they would make little to no impact on Yahoo! if they were to simply offer an e-mail program that was open to the general public. What reason would a person have to join Gmail if they had a perfectly fine email account at Yahoo!? An open launch to the general public would result in an initial influx of new users, many of which would be curiosity seekers who would quickly forget about their new, secondary email accounts.

Instead of launching an open campaign to invite the general public to participate in Gmail, Google chose to employ a viral marketing campaign of six degrees of separation. No single person had the ability to get a Gmail account unless they knew someone who was permitted to extend an invitation. People who had an account, and who in turn were allowed to give away six invitations to others to join Gmail became Gmails primary advertisers. A feeling of exclusivity became quickly associated with having a Gmail account, and soon message boards were filled with people offering just six accounts that they were able to give away. The effect is a brilliant example of just how effective Gmail can be. Gmail did not and will not become the most popular e-mail program in a short time span, but over time the six degrees of separation will make Gmail the most popular email system available (if you know someone).

If Google wants to be at all effective in dethroning Internet Explorer, they will have to reach into their bag of tricks once again to make Gbrowser an option that carries the same desirability that Gmail carried. Google can certainly count on the Microsoft haters to give their browser a spin, but in order to get the audience that really matters, the vast majority of Internet users, Google will need to extend a personal invitation.

MSN Must Act Quickly

Now that MSN has launched their search results, they will need to act quickly to protect against Google making any serious impact on their browser market. MSN has already done several things right. They are the first of the major search engines to offer their search results in an RSS format, opening up their results to all webmasters. They also offer Encarta answers to search results, provide music searches, feed discovery, definitions, provide math calculations, news search, and other features that are becoming increasingly important to offer.

However, MSN has not yet launched its own sponsored links program. Although this is certainly a program in the making, MSN will need to launch this service as soon as possible if they want to compete with Google and Yahoo! on every level.

But more importantly, Microsoft will need to have a new version of Internet Explorer available to launch once Gbrowser makes its debut. Yahoo! successfully dampened the blow of Gmail by matching the increased storage space that Google came out with. If Microsoft wants to keep its browser market share safe when Google launches Gbrowser, it will be important that they answer Gbrowser with a competitive product.

It Is All Very Welcome

The search engine wars are all very welcome. The results of the search engine wars have been nothing but positive so far. The launch of Gmail provided users with significantly increased storage for email. Yahoo! has improved their search results and Google is continuing to try and improve their search results. If Google launches a new browser it will no doubt offer new options that will only help users organize and find information.

The search engine wars have become much more than a war for the attention of Internet searchers. Because Yahoo! and MSN entered the search market hoping their strengths would provide them with the necessary momentum to topple Google, Google has brought the battle to Yahoo! and MSN. The search engine war is now the war of vying for Internet users attention through search, email, browsers, news aggregation, etc.

No matter how the search engine wars turn out, the people who will ultimately benefit will be Internet usersand the shareholders of the winning company.
About the Author
Mark Daoust is the owner of Site Reference. This is a link to the original article: Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser

Discuss this article further at Forums.Site-Reference.com