Stuart McHenry - My Internet World

Has anyone done a search for gifts this year using Google? No wonder Google is doing so well ($$$$) this year. The last Google algo update should have been called Operation Adwords and not Jagger.

Go ahead and do a search for the digital camera, Barbie dolls or lockers. Try and find a site to buy things from… it’s hard to find one on the first page. Google has done an excellent job of ensuring they get maximum dollars this holiday season. If you own a shopping site and want traffic from Google you will more than likely have to pay via Google adwords to get your site some exposure.

I was talking with a friend today and we were discussing how Google is doing a poor job. Check out the SERPS for lockers. Now be sure to check out the sites on the first page. Let’s start with the # 1 site because it must be relevant since it’s # 1 in Google, right?

Not! It’s a survey that has nothing to do with lockers. In fact the “Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire” doesn’t even mention the word lockers even once.

Now the # 3 site doesn’t even have a page up. It looks like the page has be down for some time now… who knew what it was about. According to the cached of MSN back on 12/8 it had less than 10 words on the entire page. It must have been a great resource for lockers.

I think I could go on and on… the digital camera results all are about reviews of the cameras. Google must be bringing in the cash this holiday season with Operation Adwords.

There seems to be a shortage of good content writers these days. We have projects backed up do to lack of content writers. We use someone on a regular basis but we have more than enough work for one or two more article writers.

I went in search for some on a few forums but I’m having a hard time finding what I’m looking for. Here are some of the qualities/requirements I’m look for in a writer:

1) Delivers what’s requested.
2) Uses proper grammar and spelling
3) Able to meet deadlines (nothing makes me more angry)
4) Writes unique articles and doesn’t plagerize
5) Can handle multiple articles per day
6) Proper English is a must

If you know of anyone that can handle the above and has a passion for writing please have them contact me.

Last week we were contacted by a company looking for some Internet exposure. They don’t want to sell any products or make any money off a site… they just want their story told. A very large corporation (let’s call them Goliath Inc.) had an arrangement with this little company (let’s call them David LLC) about a new line of widgets. (yes, I know it’s always widgets) Well, to make a long story short Goliath Inc. took the new widget idea and made there own new widgets without consulting or compensating Davis LLC.

As you can imaging legal fees for these types of situations can run into the hundreds of thousands and take time. During this time David LLC looses more and more of it’s start up cost. So what do they do? What seems to be an effective new trend these days is to embarrass the company on the Internet and in trade publications. Notice I did not say slander… but rather embarrass by telling the real story. What would this accomplish???

By telling the real story over the Internet it provides a cost effective way to gain the attention of Goliath Inc. for one-tenth of the cost of what the legal fees would be. Given the short duration in which David LLC wants to accomplish this we are going to target a few areas:

1) PPC
2) MSN (organic search)
3) Advertising in trade magazines
4) News Stories

Will this work? At the very least it will get the attention of Goliath Inc. and could lead to an out of court settlement which would save David LLC time and money.

If you are in the Internet marketing/search engine optimization business networking is a crucial part of your job. There is always things you need from people and things people need from you.

Some of the easiest places to network are webmaster forums but the best places are conferences. Last month I spent a few days in Las Vegas at pubcon10 a search engine marketing conference put on by WebmasterWorld.

The confrence overall was OK. Some of the speakers were just not dynamic enough and I found myself day dreaming a few times. Don’t get me wrong some were great and hats off to Andy Beal who really knows how to give a presentation.

The best part of the conference was the dinners and nightclubs afterwards. Whether it’s hanging out at Pure with the guys from BOTW, having a great dinner with Shoemoney, Nitin and Doug or just playing blackjack with Jason until 4:30 AM… one thing is for sure there was plenty of networking going on… no really.

So I asked this question in our forums:

Where would you rather rank: #1 on MSN or #6 on Yahoo?

I think a few weeks ago I would have said # 6 on Yahoo since it would bring more traffic. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

So we have a site that is doing well in MSN and Yahoo. It ranks # 1 in MSN and # 6 in Yahoo for the same keyword. (one word) I was so happy when the site finally hit # 6 because I was thinking Yahoo would give us butt loads more traffic. Guess what??? It didn’t happen so I did some research and here is what I found:

MSN # 1 SERP = 65% of total visitors
Yahoo # 6 SERP = 35% of total visitors

This is out of an average of 1200 unique visitors a day… so it’s not a little keyword that people stumble on. I’m sure there are factors that cause this…

1) If the searcher finds what they are looking for in the first few results… game over no need to go to # 3 let alone # 6.

2) Related to the above but if someone goes to a site that has an affiliate or contextual ads they are then redirected away from the search results.

3) Theme of the search. MSN has a more mature user base and some search you can see the difference. i.e. real estate, finance, etc.

Now I’m not saying that MSN brings in more traffic than Yahoo. We have sites rank # 1 on both and Yahoo brings in double if not more of the traffic. What I am saying is that position dictates traffic and a few spots can make a big difference.

I must get a few emails and PM’s a week form people asking me how they can get there site back in Google. Here is an example of the type of email I get:

Dear Site Sift Guy,

My site was banned in Google a few days ago and Joe Blow (name changed) from Digital Point Forums said I need to speak with you. Can you tell me how I can get all 200,000 pages back in Google? My site is only a six months old but it would be nice to know how you got back in so fast.

Thanks,

Igotbanned

So my first thought is WOW 200,000 pages in six months probably why you got banned but who am I to judge the guy wanted to know how I got back in so here it goes.

First off there was a lot of speculation on why Site Sift Web Directory was banned. Nobody knows for sure but the people at Google and anyone that says different is guessing.

The first thing I did was send an email to Google inquiring about the ban. I got back a very template like email that mentions the common reasons why people get banned. Then I waited a few weeks after the ban to take in all the debates and to figure things out. In that time we worked on organizing some categories and taking care of what I felt might be the issues.

About three weeks into the ban I felt like we did a good job of identifying issues that lead to our ban. Around the same time I read a post on Matt Cutts blog about filling a reinclusion request. I also did a bit of research on what to say in the email for reinclusion.

I didn’t keep a copy of my original email but it went a little something like this:

Dear Google,

On Aug 26, 2005 my site www.site-sift.com was banned from the Google index. After careful review of the webmaster guidelines we have made the following changes to our site.

1) Change number one.
2) Change number two
3) Change number three
4) Change number four

The changes we made are permanent and we plan on strictly adhering to the webmaster guidelines going forward. We appreciate your consideration for reinclusion into the Google index.

Thank you,

Stuart McHenry
Site Sift Media, Inc.

So I sent a communication off via the Google form and labeled it attention: reinclusion request. I heard back from Google a few days later saying they had received my email and forwarded to the right department.

At that point I figured it would take a few months to get back in the index. A few days later I was doing my regular routine (checking Google daily) and I saw that Site Sift was back in. I really didn’t believe it at first and I thought something was funny and Google was serving up old data. Then I realized that Google is improving webmaster relations and this is proof of it.