Search advertisers willing to live with click fraud

This is an update of a previously published story. Adds in 24th paragraph that Google says it has never charged for clicks it knows are fraudulent.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Frank Watson of Forex Capital Markets has always assumed that some of the people who click on his company's online ads, which are placed alongside Google Inc.'s search results, do so fraudulently.
Late last month, Watson had his assumptions confirmed by an authoritative source -- Google itself.

The world's biggest provider of search advertising told him 20% of such clicks on the ads it places online for his company were fraudulent.
And these were the ones Google caught. Watson estimates there's perhaps another 10% that Google doesn't catch, an assertion which echoes those of Google critics who say the company and its search rivals are under-reporting the practice.
Regardless of the exact number, there's no doubt that advertisers like Watson, who pay up every time an ad gets clicked on, are overpaying Google, Yahoo Inc. and other search firms.
So, is Watson, who runs his company's Internet search and analytics operations, up in arms and re-evaluating his company's spending on Google ads?
Not at all.
"A certain amount of mail goes missing - are you not going to write letters?" Watson says. "Airlines occasionally crash, are you going to stop flying? The answer is no," he says.
And Watson isn't alone in his opinion. An informal MarketWatch survey of Google advertisers suggests they will keep using search-based marketing because, despite clear evidence of click fraud, such ad campaigns still pay off.
"As long as your business is still making money (with it), you're going to keep doing something even if you know there are hazards," Watson said.
In other words, one month after Google began sharing some data on click fraud with advertisers, Watson and others have developed a comfort level with it -- even though research firms such as Outsell in Burlingame, Calif. estimate it costs advertisers between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion a year.
Like spam that fills email boxes and viruses that crash PC operating systems, click fraud seems to have become accepted as the price of advertising on the Internet.
While that could change if the practice continues to grow, the muted reaction of advertisers refutes the idea that click fraud could prove to be the Achilles heel for Google and its main rival in the search advertising market, Yahoo Inc.
"Click fraud is like any other business risk; you should take appropriate steps to reduce the risk and gather firm data of any fraud," said Duncan Perry, a click fraud expert and U.K.-based consultant.
A clandestine weapon
According to those who follow the practice, click fraud is used mainly as a clandestine weapon by advertisers against their rivals. Using automated means, one company will click on its rival's ads to increase the amount they must pay for it.
The practice also skews the effectiveness of an online ad campaign, because it leaves advertisers in the dark about which of its ads are of genuine interest to the customers it hopes to reach.
Click fraud illustrates s how new technologies that improve the effectiveness of a business operation can nevertheless have a down side.
Before the advent of Internet advertising in the late 1990s, advertising was paid for up front, and involved a finite number of ads that were placed on television, radio or in newspapers.
But online ads created a new payment model that required advertisers to pay for an ad only when it is clicked on.
Google and another startup called Overture, which was acquired by Yahoo in July 2003, then pushed Internet advertising a step further. They developed automated systems to serve up a limitless supply of ads that could be placed alongside the results of an Internet search query.
Marketers love these kind of ads because it allows them to deliver their message to people who - through their search request - have already expressed an interest in a related topic and are thus more likely to be receptive to their advertising message.
Google and other search providers hold auctions in which advertisers pay top dollar to have their ads placed next to these search terms. For example, a car company might pay to have its ads appear next to the search results that appear when an Internet user searches for the phrase "new car dealer."
Google refined the technology of its program, called AdWords, so it can now place its ads not only on its own Web pages but on hundreds of thousands of other Internet sites as well.
The explosive growth of this so-called paid search advertising has been a huge boon for the company. Google saw its sales surge 77% to $2.46 billion last quarter, thanks in part to the loyalty of advertisers like Watson. Revenues from the number of online ads it placed almost doubled from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, Internet advertising has grown into a multi-billion dollar a year market, and today about 6% of all the money spent on advertising is spent on the Internet. That figure is expected to double over the next three years, according to U.K.-based Zenith Optimedia Group, a business-intelligence firm.
Opening the door to click fraud
In fact, the phenomenal growth rate of search advertising is one of the reasons it's been targeted by click fraudsters.
Years into the click fraud issue, there's lots of disagreements about its scope.
Google recently began telling its advertisers how often its filters determined that ad clicks were invalid, and, as a result, their accounts weren't charged. According to the company, it has never charged for clicks it knows are fraudulent.
The company so far refuses to divulge how often ads that are clicked upon with fraudulent intent aren't caught by its filters and thus end up costing advertisers money.
When pressed, officials at Google will infer the rate is somewhere in the low- to mid-single digits. Critics, meanwhile, say it can be as high as 50%.
Recently, Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said the firm's likely to make such reports available, but didn't say when.
But again, even advertisers whom Google has told that nearly half the clicks on their ads are fraudulent are unwilling to give up search-based marketing.
Consider Life In Asia, a Web site that on some days has a 47% click fraud percentage. Yet David Jemison, the president of Life In Asia, Inc., based in Westlake Village, Calif. has no plans to pare back what he spends on Google advertising.
"Why should I?" he said.
Google's ability to match advertisers with consumers who are more likely to buy their product is something traditional radio, TV, newspaper and magazine advertising can't come close to duplicating.
Nearly every one of the 11 Google advertisers MarketWatch contacted for this story remained pleased with the service, even after Google began reporting the click fraud that its filters catch.
Google Business Product Manager for Trust & Safety Shuman Ghosemajumdar, during an interview, said he would not discuss individual findings because he did not have permission from the individual advertiser to do so.
But, speaking generally, he said "it's perfectly natural for there to be fluctuations in the number of clicks which we will be detecting and filtering out. There are certainly folks that have that attitude," he said.
But he added that not one Google AdWords advertising customer has canceled their service since Google began generating the new click fraud reports.

Dan O'Brien, the Web master for the Playa El Agua resort located on Margarita Island in Venezuela, who recently discovered that up to 5% of the times an ad of his was clicked, it was for fraudulent or invalid reasons. End of Story

Search Engine Bans and Penalties, or Just Your Imagination?

After the recent Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose, I was bombarded with requests to help get Web sites unbanned by Google and other major search engines. At first, I thought I was getting requests from former black-hat SEO (define) clients whose sites were getting their just desserts: exploit the search engines, get penalized.

After a few consultations, I realized a number of sites didn't even have search engine spam penalties. What I discovered were people with unrealistic expectations about search engine visibility; limited knowledge about the technical aspects of Web sites; and unclear concepts about how search engines work.

Search Engine Spider vs. Search Engine Index

I always have great fun at SES, not only as a speaker but also as an attendee. I often sit in the back of the room and listen to attendees' questions. They reveal how little or how much people know about the entire optimization process. If I hear the same question in multiple sessions, I know I should explain the concepts more clearly in forthcoming presentations.

The biggest misconception at this year's conference was the difference between the spidering and indexing processes. The index is a subset of the spider. Search engines access Web content through the spidering process. Then, they filter out duplicates and other bad content and create the index.

Maybe the reason SEO professionals, Web site owners, marketing professionals, and usability experts don't understand this concept is because there's so much emphasis on keywords. Before you build a Web site, you should perform keyword research. Keyword research is necessary to understand how users categorize and describe your products and services before you place site navigation and other sense-of-place labels on an advanced prototype. You can think keyword, keyword, keyword until you're blue in the face. Search engines won't see your Web pages' keywords unless you provide access to those keywords.

A Web site can be spidered and not included in a search engine index.

Instead of keywords, keywords, keywords, think access, access, access. Many Web site owners think their sites have been banned in the search engines when in reality they suddenly provided search engines with limited or no access to their sites' content.

Spam Penalty or Not?

Before assuming a site has been banned from or penalized by a search engine, look for technical reasons the site may not be included in the index.

Look at the robots exclusion protocol, both the text file (if used) and the robots exclusion meta tags. Was your site's content management system recently upgraded? Were the 301 redirects (define) properly implemented? Is your server delivering the appropriate HTTP status codes?

The 301 redirect is like a change-of-address card for a URL. It means a Web page address has permanently moved to a new address. If search engines have limited or no access to the new URLs, Web pages won't appear in search results.

Additionally, if 301 redirects aren't properly implemented, they can really mess up a site's link development. I recently had to go through a painstaking explanation (and some troubleshooting) of improperly formatted 301s for a client who assumed his site was banned by Google.

Ouch! Bad flashback. Excuse me for a moment while I take an aspirin.

Another common technical issue is a change in a page's linkage properties. Link farms are a form of search engine spam. A Web site owner has no control over how other sites link to his site, but he has complete control over how he links to other sites. Therefore, search engines rarely penalize a site for how other sites link to yours, with the exception of link farms. Additionally, by modifying all outbound links on a page to have a nofollow attribute, site owners change the hub or authority score of that page. That can have a negative impact on search engine visibility.

After all technical reasons for not being spidered or indexed are addressed, there's the genuine possibility a site is penalized or banned. Helping sites get unbanned is no fun task. It often takes months to undue all the damage created by black-hat SEO professionals.

I actually encountered a Web site banned for its affiliates' actions. The corporate site wasn't actually part of the link farm, but many of its affiliate sites participated in link farms to achieve instant link popularity. As a result, Google banned both the affiliate sites and the corporate site. Get a good handle on your affiliate SEO plan before embarking on an SEO campaign.

Ouch! Another bad flashback. Excuse me again while I take another aspirin.

Conclusion

First, look for technical reasons why Web pages aren't being spidered and indexed. Then, if the site has no technical issues, try to find items on a site that may violate the terms and conditions set forth by the commercial Web search engines. Sometimes, the simplest solution is turning to the black-hat SEO firm you hired and saying, "You're fired!"

All too often, the main reason people believe their sites have been banned or penalized is unrealistic expectations. All search engine positioning fluctuates. It doesn't matter whether pages of your site had top-10 positions for the past five years. No site is entitled to top search engine positions all the time.

New sites are added to the Web every day. Sometimes, these sites have better content and better site usability than your site. Search engine spam pages slip through the cracks, too. And search engines certainly don't always have effective algorithms. Keyword research, Web site development, usability, and search optimization are ongoing processes. By staying on top of all these processes, your site should receive consistent, qualified traffic over time from search engines and other reputable resources.

Yahoo! Search becomes the second most used search engine in China

Yahoo! Search's market share has become the runner-up in China. According to the Research Report of Searching Engine Market in China, issued by the CCW Research, it has surpassed Google and now follows after Baidu.

The Report also shows that the number of users of the address bar search is expanding. It is estimated that it will reach up to 476 million Yuan, an increase of 21.4 per cent.

A New Concept in Online Advertising

If you have not heard of 'word sites' or 'word link advertising' or 'word cloud' before, then get ready to witness a new phenomenon in online advertising.

If you have a business website that is for trading forex, commodities, stocks or options, etc., then you might be interested in a new advertising method that will send massive new traffic to your business sites and get you tons of valuable one-way back links to improve your page rank, all hands-free!

The concept is very simple. You purchase a word relating to your business, product, service or organization from a 'word site' or 'word cloud' then hyperlink that word to your own website and ... presto! You have just instantly "branded" your website with a single, descriptive word.

Now you can create an instant, recognizable brand for your product, service, business, or organization and increase your website exposure with the hottest thing on the net right now...with word link advertising!

Cynthia Macy, who runs 1000 Trading Words, is VERY proud to introduce to you a new concept in online advertising that is proving to be very effective in creating exposure, traffic and 'branding' for your trading website or online presence.

Now you can have YOUR word hyperlink to YOUR website and get the benefit of your word on a page that links to other hi-page rank sites...this will get you a higher page rank too!

If you haven't picked up a keyword linking to your site on a word cloud site yet, you are missing out on the HOTTEST thing to hit the web since pixel ads!

Don't know what a word cloud is? It's a page of words where each word hyperlinks to a different website. The advantage is three-fold:

1. someone will click on your word name out of interest = a new customer!

2. some of the word names will be a higher page rank than yours = your word name,

by association on the word cloud page, will take on a higher page rank too!

3. as your website increases in page rank, it will be seen more often in the

search engines and the result will be increased traffic, increased exposure and sales!

The potential for massive new traffic as the page rank climbs is huge! This means ever-increasing traffic for your site, for at least the next two years!

With the official launch still several days away, advertisers can take advantage of the current generous "pre-launch" discounts being offered to new word link advertisers. Currently, prices are 1/2 price and a soon-to-be-offered free drawing will give potential advertisers the chance to win the word of their choice for free! Upcoming details about the free drawing will soon be posted on the website.

What is the Google Pagerank?

The Google Pagerank system is integral to the operation of the world’s favourite search engine. It is a system for ranking all web pages indexed by Google.

So important is the pagerank system to the performance of web pages that there are hundreds of sites dedicated to analysing it!

According to Google itself in its Technology section:

Google looks at the popularity and relevance of inward links in determining their importance.
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyses the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

To get started, and to see where your site (and others) rank according to Google, you will need to download the Google Toolbar. Whenever you visit a site on the web, the toolbar will show how “relevant” that particular page is – anywhere between 0 and 10. Chances are, if you have just uploaded a site for the first time, your site will be ranked “0”. Of course, Google is ranked “10”, and major traffic sites won’t be far off.

Pagerank (PR) is related to link popularity (i.e. other sites linking to yours), however it is more dependent on the quality of these links than merely the number. Google looks at the popularity and relevance of inward links in determining their importance.

As well as the external links, it is important firstly to look at the way your own pages link internally. When you look at most sites, you’ll find their main index page has the highest rank out of all indexed pages for that site. As you step down the directory structure to secondary links and below, the page rank will usually decrease. So, you could have a PR of 6 on your main page, 5 on your secondary pages, and so on.

Therefore, to increase the chances of getting healthy page ranks for pages beneath the home page, make sure your site is linked together healthily. Link all secondary pages to the home page, and to each other. If you have several articles, in different directories on a similar subject, link these together too – Google will see them as relevant and rank accordingly. The key is to make life as easy as possible for the Googlebot (which crawls your site to find pages for the Google engine) – make life easy for yourself and link your pages together.

The external links your site has is the most important determining factor in establishing your page rank. Not only are external links a good source of traffic in their own right, but good quality links from relevant sites will boost your site’s Page ranking.

It is essential to exchange links with sites with a PR of 4 or more. Sites of all PR’s are worthwhile and should be contacted, but those with 4+ have a direct impact on your page ranking. If these sites have a subject relevant to your own, even better.

As is the theme of our site as a whole, good sites have a better chance of exchanging links than sites put up purely to generate traffic and sell products. If you have good quality content, good layout and design, you have a far better chance of building reciprocal links to sites in the subject area as yours. Google knows there is no way around this fundamental fact, and will rank accordingly. You will very rarely find rubbish or low quality content sites with a PR over 4 or 5. With a PR of 6 and over and you’re doing well. The content-rich sites we have overseen over the past few years are all 6 or more, due to their quality content and good links with other companies in a similar area of business.

How To Get Indexed In Google Search Fast Without Submitting To Google

Most new websites think that the only way to get indexed into Google search or any search engine is to submit there website.

Once a webmaster goes and submits their website into search engines their site normally will be placed on hold. Google calls this the Sand Box effect. This can take months before your website shows in search index.

Do you have months to wait and see if your website shows in Search Engines?

If your answer is no then I have a 4 step easy process that will get your website into Google Search index in some times less than a week and you never submit it to Google.

Read on to find out how.

1) The first thing you want to do is forget about submitting your site directly to the big engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo. This is the old, slow way.

2) Now the next thing you want to do is look online for free online directories and websites to submit your site to. Just type Free Search Engine Friendly Directory List into your favorite search engine. This should give you a good number of websites to start with.

3) Once you have found a list of free directories you can start submitting or suggesting your website. Be sure to place your website into the proper related categories. Try to look for directories that have a page rank of at least 2 to 3 to submit to first. They hold a bit more weight with Google Search than a 0 to 1 page rank sites.

4) Be sure to use a text link with your keyword phrases when submitting rather than just your URL. This will help search engines determine what keywords to index your website under.

That’s it. It is that simple. Google Search and other search engines will find your website link while crawling websites and directories already indexed. Search engines look at this a vote for your site. Because most directories are human edited and if your link has been approved, engines like Google Search realize that your website must have some value.

Note: Not all directories will approve your site submission so you want to continue to find new link possibilities as this is also an excellent way to build link popularity.

Search Engines are always looking to supply new, fresh valued content websites to their update index, increasing the quality of their query results.

There are other things you can do to create links to your website like forum marketing, article submission and press releases but submitting your website to directories works just as well and free directories are all over the net.

RSS Syndication Raises SEO and Online Visibility

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Also called web feeds, RSS feeds are a content delivery vehicle - a method of getting new content out on the Internet and sharing it with others. Content syndication can improve your SEO and online visibility.

Originally created by Netscape, the technology behind RSS is well tested. It’s a format that describes different types of information. RSS feeds (or files) include some basic information about the content, such as the title, description, logo etc, and the actual content you want to deliver

RSS is a simple technology that allows you to easily syndicate your content and get it delivered to your audiences (subscribers, bloggers, journalists, employees, investors, other key influencers), websites looking for good content to publish, specialized search engines, directories and other online systems.

More than 20 percent of permission-based commercial email gets blocked or filtered before it reaches the inbox. (Source: iMediaConnection ) RSS on the other hand, gives you 100 percent guaranteed delivery. In essence, RSS is the key enabling technology that stands at the forefront of the new world of marketing and PR.

Syndication, enabled by RSS, is the process of making your online content available for republication by other websites and actively distributing that content to any website of relevance for your business. It makes your content more visible online, and at the same time helps you to better conduct your business intelligence activities to quickly adapt to new market situations.

"Online visibility and online traffic are, quite naturally, of paramount importance to everyone and anyone marketing or conducting business online, period. While RSS may not be the key tool to improve your online visibility and traffic, its importance in helping you do this cannot be disputed," says Rok Hrastnik author of Unleash The Marketing Power of RSS.

Why do people use Feeds?

Like TiVO, with RSS you get only the content you want, when you want it. It can be pulled into your email inbox with a reader like Newsgator, you can install a desktop reader to keep your news content in a separate space or you can organize and keep it in a web-based service like Bloglines.

With the overwhelming amount of new content available online today, a system like RSS and feeds makes it possible to stay abreast of the news, information and research you need to keep your finger on. There is no possibility of spam. You only get the content you subscribe to and you can organize it, file it and read when you are ready to do so.

Who is reading RSS?

Is this still a ‘techie’ application that most businesses need not worry about yet? Not at all. RSS adoption has moved way beyond that point. Firefox, Safari (the MAC browser) My Yahoo, MY MSN and the personalized Google pages all offer an RSS reader. Earthlink just added one to their personalized pages. This means millions of ordinary people are using RSS feeds to gather and read their news and information online. And it's not only the 18 - 34 year olds. Even the AARP uses feeds to update their members.

A Yahoo! survey identified people who were RSS users by their clickstream, yet when they were asked about RSS 82 percent did not even now they were using RSS feeds! They just know they use the Add Content feature to read their news online.

Microsoft’s IE 7 has a built in RSS reader and when this is released broadly it will be a tipping point. In the same way as the background technology of email (SMTP) is not known to most people, the acronym RSS will drop out of use as more and more people use the feeds in browsers and personalized pages. News feeds or web feeds will become a part of our everyday online reading experience.

“Even if it is something as simple as putting your press releases in an RSS feed, marketers will benefit from early exposure to distributing information via RSS feeds.” Forrester Research

But don't restrict your feeds to your press releases - a web feed can be used for any content that gets updated on a regular basis on your website or blog. Every business has content that they want to get out to their audiences. Up till now your choices have been a web site and email. With the new social media tools powered by RSS - blogs, podcasts, syndication of articles - your options are wide open. Get started with RSS feeds and join the online conversation

Defend Against Black Hat SEO: Your Web Host Can Help

The world wide web is a dynamic, exciting place to launch a new business or promote your organizations message. Its also a lawless landscape in which black hats " crackers, hackers and other on-line evil doers " roam with very little oversight or law enforcement.

Bring in the Big Guns

And that means its up to every site owner to ensure that his or her site is defended against intrusions, code injections and other forms of attack. Theres plenty of software to help keep hackers out of your desktop pc, but what about your hosting service? How can you protect server-based data?

Top-tier web hosting firms design proprietary hardware and software protection to ensure that your business is secure. But site security doesnt stop with impenetrable firewalls, spam zappers and e-mail scanners. In fact, if you go with a hosting service that isnt up to speed on the latest forms of hacker attackers, you could quickly find your site is no longer under your control!

Great hosts harden their server systems to deter and deflect known exploit points in the software the servers run and in any client-sites code! There is where the value of quality hosting comes into play .

XSS Attacks

XSS stands for cross site scripting and it poses a threat to even the most secure sites because XSS exploits vulnerable hardware and software holes that allow black hat SEOs to circumvent commonly employed security systems. In an XSS attack, black hats inject malicious HTML script into site pages of other domains. They do this for two reasons.

First, in some instances, black hats inject undetected scripting into competitor sites to taint these sites when SE bots spider them. Imagine, a competitor is able to access your sites code, insert invisible text (at least invisible to you) and, when an SE bot discovers this invisible text, your site is slammed. Even banned from Google. Dont think it can happen? It closes down on-line businesses daily.

So what kind of attacks can be planted on your site? There are plenty:
Redirects take visitors to another site as soon as they reach yours.


Overloading alt tags, meta tags and other interior coding with keywords, sometimes called keyword stuffing.


Inaccurate or misleading keywords inserted within site pages.


Cloaking, which detects search engine spiders and changes site text to improve PR.


Pagejacking, the practice of stealing site content, can not only cost you in sales, it can also slam your PR because your content isn't original any longer.
Any of these black hat SEO tactics and more (spamglish, links farms, virus injections, etc.) can and will do severe, if not irreparable, damage to your on-line enterprise. Why?

SE Bots Are Brainless

SE spiders are dumber than a box of rocks. Theyre unable to discern legitimate text from a malware injection. They rely, solely, on automation to assess and categorize a site. Theres no subjective analysis. Just text strings that are sorted completely by brainless bots.

A competitor, using one of the XSS attacks listed above, exploits to de-optimize and make it appear that youre using black hat SEO tactics, or can gain access to your site through a web browser and/or inject toxic data to devalue your content.

Google Penalties For Black Hat Tactics

The purpose of any search engine is to deliver relevant, useful SERPs to users queries. So, when a Google bot discovers what it perceives as an attempt to falsely increase value, the site may suffer serious, site-threatening sanctions.

Some of these penalties may be imposed without you even knowing about it " until you discover that site revenues have dropped 75% in two days as a result of lost rankings and traffic! A site discovered to employ black hat SEO may be penalized in page rank, may lose PR altogether, may experience SE indexing issues (partial or mis-indexing, for example) and, for the worst offenders, banishment from the Google site altogether. Dead in the eyes of Google bots.

So, heres the problem: without your knowledge, a black hat competitor can inject toxic script into your site that could, conceivably, get your site banned from Google. Even if you and your web host have all the firewall and intrusion detection protection there is.

It Gets Even Worse

The second reason black hats use cross site scripting is to actually gain access and control of your on-line business. Certain types of XSS attacks actually enable a complete stranger to acquire the same system privileges reserved for the site owner - you.

Access to sensitive customer data, bank account information, the entire back office " all can be achieved with relative ease by a knowledgeable cracker looking to steal and plunder your site.

Whether the black hat is a competitor who wants to eliminate the competition, or a script-kiddie looking to clean out the till and sell some credit card numbers, your on-line business is at risk regardless of how much security you and your web host deploy.

This Is Where Quality Web Hosting Enters

During the design, administration and growth of a web-based business, numerous tools and applications are used by site owners and designers. Theres site building software, email management software, a check-out, customer database, automated shipping apps, tools for developing site metrics and many others.

This software isnt necessarily designed with security as Priority One. Often, there are openings in commonly-used ebiz software that are exploited by black hats during the execution of an XSS attack.

And, because of the nature of these attacks, system and server security measures can be breached because, in essence, the hackers piggyback their way onto an unsuspecting site using the site administrators credentials to gain access and/or control.

The key to protection from XSS attacks is in the proper configuration of all of the applications and tools that comprise your on-line enterprise. These apps must be synced up to work together while, at the same time, developing protection against XSS attacks.

This configuring of applications is done at the host level and should include a detailed analysis of potential XSS entry points within the sites design and reconfiguration to fit the server security already in place.

Go With The Host Who Knows

If your web hosting service isnt familiar with the growing danger of XSS attacks based on application exploitation points, consider finding a more informed host.

Its not a matter of securing your business system locally. And its not a matter of the multi-layers of protection offered by your web host.

Its a matter of thinking like a black hat and taking a proactive stance against XSS attacks they may employ. If you arent sure your site is protected, and your hosting rep cant provide the assurances you require, talk to another hosting company before disaster strikes and your site is banned from Google.

Its that important.

EBay Fees On The Rise

eBay is set to make a risky move this week as it prepares to raise certain fees. Members who sell items through the company's online stores face a rate hike that will nearly level the difference between auction and store prices. eBay hopes this will raise revenues. If unhappy sellers jump ship, it could have the opposite effect.

Devina Mehra, a lead analyst at First Global Securities, wrote a note to clients in which she voiced support for the rate hike. "We believe eBay is moving in the right direction towards restoring its growth trajectory," she said, as reported in a Seattle Times article.

"Under the new fee structure, a $50 item sold through the store will generate $4.46 in fees for eBay, up from $3.27 before the change," wrote Ben Charny, the author of the article. "Under the old rules, store items cost 27 percent less to list than auction items . . . . As of Tuesday, however, the difference will be just 3 percent."

A number of sellers have already expressed their displeasure. One group coordinated a boycott of eBay, and also began calling for Google to create an auction site. That plea underscored one point in eBay's favor - there is no real alternative available. Expect sellers to start exploring their options, though.

One possibility is for them to revert to auctioning items. Indeed, "eBay hopes the extra fees will encourage a certain amount of store operators to switch back to selling items through auctions," Charny wrote. Chief Executive Meg Whitman believed this would "rebalance the marketplace." As eBay sellers protest the rate increase (which could cause eBay buyers to see resultant price increases), it remains to be seen if that can be accomplished.

SEO: Cutts Scratches A Niche

It took Google blogger Matt Cutts about six paragraphs to produce SEO advice that made more sense than a host of other articles on the subject.

Cutts advises his readers to follow their niche when doing SEO, and that can mean just about anything... or nothing.

It's simplicity and purity that matters in the end.

Become the uncarved block, man, as your SEO evolves around you, and promise not to use this insight for evil.

Cutts begins his lesson with a short explanation of how to change the default printer on Linux and Firefox. Yes, it's very wax on, wax off, isn't it?

That's a good place to begin because Matt was looking for that information himself recently and discovered that the answer just wasn't out there.

So he searched for the answer, discovered it for himself, and wrote it up for others to find.

And that is SEO.

The echoing silence can make your insides ache with the joyous splendor of the universe. It is so simple, yet so complex.

It is faith in a mustard seed; it's the universe between your toes.

From Matt's post:

But the larger point is that if you put in time and research to produce or to synthesize original content, think hard about what niches to target. My advice is not to start with an article about porn/pills/casinos/mortgages-it's better to start with a smaller niche…

An infinite number of niches are waiting for someone to claim them. I'd ask yourself where you want to be, and see if you can find a path from a tiny specific niche to a slightly bigger niche and so on, all the way to your desired goal. Sometimes it's easier to take a series of smaller steps instead of jumping to your final goal in one leap.

And remember, it's best if you move with the cheese.

The Three Basic Keys of Search Engine Optimization

With search engine optimization on the rise, there are many mind blowing theories that are circulating about what will get you high up in the search engines. From having your keywords in bold font, to having your text as close to the top of a page, along with the famous 3% - 7% keyword density rule, we can scrap them all since it comes down to three basic key points.
1. Keyword Selection

The most important point out of the three is keyword selection. If you end up selecting keywords that do not have any/few searches, then you are simply wasting time by optimizing for them. There is no point in being ranked number one for a keyword when there are no searchers for that term.

A good place to start is by using keyword research tools such as “Wordtracker”, “Overture Keyword Assistant” and “Keyword Discovery”, to find out what people are typing into search engines. Once you have found those terms, the next step is to work out the level of competition and effort it will take to get a reasonable rank for each term.

The best way is to look at the number of competing pages in search engines for each keyword and how many incoming links the top ten websites have (“Marketleap link popularity checker” is a good tool for that). If you have the knowledge and time, you may want to go for the slightly more competitive keywords.
2. Good On-the-Page and Off-the-Page Structure

For on-the-page factors, making sure that there is a sufficient amount of text based content, title tags and a strong internal linking between all web pages, is a good start. Title tags and content should contain keywords provided that they are not “stuffed” into the text. For example, if your keyword is “dog supplies”, this sort of writing should be avoided:

“We base our business on dog supplies and have a great range of dog supplies. Check out our latest dog supplies today!”

A visitor will be immediately turned off from this sort of writing and will question the credibility of your site. Keywords should be written around the content, not the other way around.

Off-the-page factors relates to reducing code within your web pages (placing code into external files, such as JavaScript and Style Sheets) and having a website design where search engines can index all your content.
3. Incoming Links

Attaining incoming links to your website has become a more heavily relied upon factor in last couple of years. Each incoming link is seen by search engines as a vouch from another site. The more incoming relevant links you have, the more trusted your website becomes by search engines. This does not mean you can simply acquire a bunch of links from any site. Links need to relevant in the sense that the website linking to you has some sort of affiliation with your theme otherwise the links will not benefit you.

Provided you stick to the three basic key points of search engine optimization, in time you will notice a stronger website presence in the search engines. Whist it can be done on your own if you have the knowledge and time, hiring an SEO agency is one avenue to success if you have the budget. Having said that, time should not be spared in taking advantage of the vast opportunities the internet can bring you and your business.

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Sales representative:
Mas Dini Bin Muzammal
YM:Abg_hensem1 at yahoo.com
Gtalk: Adfunk
MSN: reckno6 at hotmail.com
AIM: prdeal at aim.com
Email: adfunk at gmail.com
Phone: 60136679137
URL: http://www.prdeal.com

Undersell Your SEO Service, Overachieve Results

You've heard of people that are so good at sales that they could sell ice to an Eskimo, water to a fish and prescription glasses the blind.

Every company wants to employ such a salesman for their products or services. Big sales producers such as this are invaluable to the companies that have them.

For many companies, the sell-at-all-cost approach can often come back to bite. The good salesperson is doing his job, but a problem arises when the products or services don't live up to the sales rhetoric being to entice the buyer. It's the result of a salesperson that oversells and over promises but the products or services don't (or can't) meet the expectations of the buyer.

This happens frequently with search engine optimization companies. It's easy to tell people what they want to hear: "19 days to #1!", "Ranked in the top three!", "First page placement for all your key phrases," it's something more to actually be able to fulfill such promises. In a previous article I debunked SEO top ranking guarantees. Others in the industry have discussed this topic, quite extensively and even Google has weighed in with their own statement, saying "no one can guarantee a #1 ranking". Still there are lots of "SEO" companies out there that insist that they'll magically make your site appear in the number one position. The truth is that they actually might be able to achieve this, but for keywords that nobody really searches for, or for a very limited time until getting your site ban!
ned in the process. And if the SEO doesn't live up to these promises, he or she simply points you to the many loopholes spelled out in small print in the contract.

The SEO industry is aggressive; every SEO's motive is to convince potential clients that the services he or she provides are a cut above those offered by competitors. This is why so many oversell with the promise of spectacular results that may or may not be achievable. Few SEOs go out of their way to provide a truthful assessment of what is possible and on what kind of timeline. New sites will take a year or more. Competitive industries require a bigger budget. And, poor websites well, top rankings can be achieved, but you may need to make drastic changes if you want to improve conversions.

SEOs that are honest with potential clients find that they lose many who are looking for the quick fix, instant results or a guarantee. But they'll also discover that those who do become clients have a much better grasp on what's at stake, how long it'll take and what kind of results to expect. And if you're both honest and capable, you'll always be able to meet and often exceed the client's expectations.

My firm makes it a point to let our clients know that we set benchmarks for achievement throughout the fist year of their campaign. Currently 70% of our clients are performing better than expected and over 80% are performing at or above expectations. Yes, that means 20% are currently performing below expected levels, but this isn't necessarily a failure rate. In reality it reflects the percentage of clients that are not performing as strongly as we hoped, but many of them have shown significant improvement in targeted traffic and ROI since the campaigns inception.

But this is something most SEOs won't tell you, especially those that make pie in the sky claims. They know that they have oversold their service and largely underperformed in results. When our clients call asking about their ranking performance, we give them an honest assessment, which includes letting them know if we feel they should be performing better. We also let them know that their site is being aggressively analyzed, tweaked and linked and we expect to bring them up to perform at or above benchmark levels soon. We are rarely wrong.

We go by the Scottie Principle, based on Scottie of the original Star Trek series, which is all about underselling your capabilities and then overachieving in results. While the client might be expecting certain results in top rankings, you can overachieve by having actually helped them increase their sales and return on investment. If you can do that, top search engine rankings don't matter as much because the client is busy handling the new sales that they are getting as a result of the optimization and marketing efforts.

SEOs don't need to oversell by making promises and increasing expectations beyond their ability to deliver. Those that educate clients, providing a truthful assessment of expectations, then work aggressively to achieve results beyond those expectations will find they have to worry less about getting their next client to replace the three that just left. Focus can instead center on developing and maintaining a strong and profitable relationship with each client for years to come.

Web Host GMP Adds SEO Consulting

Web hosting provider GMP Services (gmpseo.com) announced on Wednesday it has added search engine optimization consulting to its service offerings.

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"Over the years I became disenchanted with the costs of online advertising, and decided to find alternative ways to gain website traffic," says Allen Harkleroad, CEO and Owner of GMP. "Of course search engine referrals where the answer. For the last five years we have relied solely on search engine traffic and direct links for our traffic. Gone are the days of high advertising overhead."

GMP Services says it offers affordable, professional SEO consulting services to small and medium-sized businesses and individuals.

Founded over 12 years ago, GMP Services begin as a business consulting company, Internet publishing and hosting company. The company also writes Internet enabled software application such as content management systems and e-commerce applications.

retsambew dash klat for Charity

This is a contest website for the retsambew dash klat for Charity webmaster contest. The contest is being held by Webmaster-Talk.com and this is their thread about the
retsambew dash klat for Charity contest.

The Theme: To Entertain, To Educate, To Give
The Keyword Phrase: "retsambew dash klat for Charity"
retsambew = "webmaster" backwords dash = a "-" klat = "talk" backwords. You could perceive it to mean a couple different things. One being that if you are talking about the contest you are probably a "webmaster" "talking" which it may be in essence helping out a Charity.


Sales representative:
Mas Dini Bin Muzammal
YM:Abg_hensem1 at yahoo.com
Gtalk: Adfunk
MSN: reckno6 at hotmail.com
AIM: prdeal at aim.com
Email: adfunk at gmail.com
Phone: 60136679137
URL: http://www.prdeal.com

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Contact Us

Sales representative:
Mas Dini Bin Muzammal
YM:Abg_hensem1 at yahoo.com
Gtalk: Adfunk
MSN: reckno6 at hotmail.com
Email: adfunk at gmail.com
Phone: 60136679137
URL: http://www.prdeal.com :$:

The Key challenges of Search Engine Marketing?

Today we have summarised the key advantages and disadvantages of Pay Per Click advertising.

PAID SEARCH ADVANTAGES

> Predictability. Traffic, rankings, returns and costs tend to be more stable and more predictable than SEO. It is more immediately accountable, in terms of ROI, while SEO can take much longer to evaluate.

More straightforward to achieve high rankings – you simply have to bid more than your competitors, although Google also takes the Quality Score of your ad into account. SEO requires long-term, technically complex work on page optimization, site restucture and link-building, which can take months to implement and for results to occur.


> Faster. PPC listings appear much faster, usually in a few hours (or days if editor review is required).


> Flexibility. Creative and bids can also be readily modified or turned off for particular times. The results of SEO can take weeks or months to be achieved. Content modifications to existing pages for SEO are usually included within a few days. PPC budgets can also be reallocated in line with changing marketing goals (eg: a bank can quickly switch paid-search budget from ‘loans’ to ‘savings’).


> Automation. Bid management systems can help financial predictability through using rules to control bidding in line with your conversion rates to reach an appropriate cost per sale. However substantial manual intervention is required for the best results for different search ad networks.


> Branding effect. Tests have shown that there is a branding effect with Pay Per Click, even if users do not click on the ad. This can be useful for the launch of products or major campaigns.


PAID SEARCH DISADVANTAGES

> Competition. Since Pay Per Click has become popular due to its effectiveness, it is competitive and because it is based on competitive bids it can get expensive. CPC/bid inflation has led to some companies reducing PPC activity. Some companies may get involved in bidding wars that drive bids up to an unacceptable-level – some phrases such as ‘life insurance’ may exceed £10 per click.


> Higher costs. If SEO is effective it will almost always deliver a lower CPC.


> Favours big players. For companies with a lower budget or a narrower range of products on which to increase lifetime value it may be not possible to compete. Large players can also get deals on their media spend through their agencies.


> Complexity of managing large campaigns. PPC requires knowledge of configuration, bidding options of the reporting facilities of different ad networks. To manage a PPC account may require daily or even hourly checks on the bidding to stay competitive – this can amount to a lot of time. Bid management software can help here.


> Missed opportunities. Sponsored listings are only part of the SEM mix. Many search users do not click on these, so you cannot maximise the effect.

Getting the most from local search engine marketing

Square Meal is well recognised by businesses in the City of London, if you are looking to go out to a restaurant or hold an event it’s your first port of call. Containing extensive high quality reviews and ratings it is an important and long running guide for where to go out. However Square Meal provides information for the whole of the UK, and wanted to significantly raise its regional profile.

An audit was conducted to highlight the key indexation and rankings issues with the website. Based on this an optimisation roadmap was devised that balanced implementation cost with Square Meal’s overall objectives. Based on the detailed report, developers implemented a number of upgrades to both the website architecture, information organisation within the pages and content management system. Search term research of user habits using sophisticated tools ensured that “real world” search engine behaviour is now reflected in the website content. All of the above was delivered using an enterprise optimisation suite with skilled search engine optimisation specialists working hand in hand with Square Meal’s developers.

Since the work was initiated in June 2005 the results have been dramatic; Google traffic has increased by approximately 30% per month. The site gained number one rankings for “Christmas parties” in time for the festive period, which brought them significant increases visitors.

6 Point Checklist before investing in SEO

Investing in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is expensive and time-consuming and is not suitable for every company or business sector. To determine whether your company should invest in SEO, there are a number of things you should consider to make sure it will be a sound investment. This checklist will help you ensure you do not fall into the trap of being sold SEO services when the return on investment case is not clear.


The 6-Point Check List

1. Are there enough searches being done on relevant phrases to justify investment in SEO?

The justification for SEO depends on several factors including; how broad your products/services are, and the size of target market using search engines to locate your type of product/service.

For example, a software company with a broad product range, selling globally would naturally have much greater potential Return on Investment from SEO than an office cleaning business that operates within a small local area.

If you invested in an expensive SEO campaign and achieved some great first page rankings for relevant search phrases, at first you might be happy - but if these phrases are not being search for sufficiently to drive enough visitors to your site, then you will gain little benefit.

Let’s assume you have an Office Cleaning Company and have some good first page rankings for the search term ‘commercial cleaning services’. This term on Overture UK generated only 38 searches in December 2005, (and assuming Overture UK accounts for approximately 30-40% of UK searches) you could estimate that the total number of people in the UK using ‘commercial cleaning service’ is approx 100.

Therefore, with excellent first page rankings on this search term, at best you might expect 5-10% of these 100 to click-through to your site. So on average, you might get between 5-10 new visitors to your site resulting from this search term – and is this enough to justify an expensive SEO programme? Probably not!

2. Is your site of a high enough standard to convert traffic to enquiries or sales?

Investing thousands of pounds in SEO to drive potential customers to your site is pointless unless this traffic converts to a desired action on your web site. If you website converts 0.4% of visitors to an enquiry, then from 1000 visitors you will get 4 enquiries. Compare this to a quality site that looks good and has been built with conversion systems in mind and converts 5% of visitors – and you’ve got an extra 50 enquiries. As a result the case for SEO varies drastically just by having a quality site geared up to convert its visitors.

The difference between conversion rates of sites on the web are huge and can vary from 0% up to 20%. A good SEO company should have experience of conversion enhancement strategies and should include this as part of their SEO proposal.
Conversion enhancement strategies can include copywriting tactics, advanced conversion reporting, call to action tactics and site usability. If an SEO company can improve your sites conversion rate, as well driving relevant traffic, this is a powerful and winning combination.

3 What positions do you currently have on natural search engine rankings?

This seems pretty obvious but an overlooked point. Before investing in SEO, you should run a detailed positions report showing rankings for ALL phrases relevant to your business (that have high search counts!). This will allow you to benchmark where you are currently, and make decisions on the potential improvement that could be made.

4 What is the average value from resulting enquiries or actual sales generated from your web site?

The sales value of your products/services has a huge impact on the potential returns from an SEO campaign. For example, for an ecommerce site selling vitamins and minerals at an average value of £10-20 per purchase, may have much lower returns from an investment in SEO services compared to an ecommerce site selling washing machines and cookers at an average value of £150-£600.

Both of these ecommerce businesses may be able to justify investment in SEO services, however, the return on investment figures will be very different. Other factors to consider are the relative margins made on the products.

5 How much competition is there for natural rankings on your relevant search phrases?

The level of competition on phrases you wish to drive traffic from is a hugely important factor. For example, compare the level of competition between two phrases in two business sectors, for example, if you run a search on Google for ‘recruitment services’ you will find 77,900,000 sites listed, whereas for ‘financial services’ there are 709,000,000 sites listed. Taking this further, doing a more specific search on ‘financial services nottingham’ brings back 2,610,000 sites.

The relevance of this question to reviewing whether to invest in SEO services, is that the more niche and less competitive the search phrases you are targeting, the quicker you will see results from a managed SEO campaign. For example, if you are a financial services company wanting to target ‘financial services’ then it will take much longer to achieve results from this than for a Recruitment Company wanting to target ‘Recruitment Services’ phrases. As a result, a Financial Services company may need to calculate potential returns from SEO on a much longer term basis, plus the work required is likely to more intensive and expensive when using an SEO agency.

6 How well optimised are web sites in your sector?
While the above is a valid model to use, it is quite simplified. There are other issues to consider with regards to the competition in your sector, in particular is how well optimised the other sites are that you are competing against.

For example, if you look at the natural listings for the search term ‘counselling services’ compared to ‘insurance services’ you will find that the sites on the first two pages are far more well optimised for ‘insurance services’. Also you will find that the sites listed have much better ‘link popularity’ scores and better overall optimisation.
Therefore, irrespective of how many competing sites there are for each search phrase, taking things a level further the quality of the competition in optimisation terms is a far better indicator of how long it may to see results from a managed SEO campaign.

Any diligent SEO agency (like Rossiter & Co!) should consider these factors before starting an SEO campaign on your behalf and will give you an indication of how long it may take to see results.