Posted July 3rd, 2008
by admin
In case you didn’t get the memo from the Google Adsense team, effective on the last week of August 2008 the Adsense Referrals program will cease to exist.
This is in line with their continuous efforts to find ways to “improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for (our) publishers,” according to its official statement in their blog.
It further recommends its publishers to consider the following alternatives in lieu of the referral spots:
* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit: www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.
* AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content (AFC) ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AFC ads.
What to do?
If you are currently running an Adsense referrals spot on your site, you do two things: one is remove the code from the site. They’re not suggesting right away but hold off until about the end of August, just don’t forget about it because after August, you will only be seeing an empty white space on your page where the ads were and you’re not earning anything anymore. Second is to run and save all referrals reports on your desktop so you can go over and review your campaign information.
Google? In Affiliate Networking?
So Google took interest to Affiliate Networking and acquired the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate program in March 2008 and decided that it was better than their existing referrals program. Now they’re entirely scrapping Adsense referrals and going the other way.
This is a really interesting move for Google going to the path of Affiliate networking. They are only now following the ways of leading affiliate network companies like Commission Junction, Share A Sale and yes, even Project Wonderful. The latter is a recent company joining into the affiliate network business and actually has a slightly different concept where there is actual buying, selling and bidding going on for an ad space in almost real time.
Being a giant in the industry, Google will have no trouble leveling the playing field of Affiliate networking. However, the fear is that they may not level it but may ‘wipe out’ the competition! Being a giant makes one dominate the industry altogether and we hope they will not crush the other companies but will just be there side by side, co-existing in the industry. Still, it isn’t called a business for nothing. Business is business, it has no emotions and it will do whatever it takes to succeed regardless of how they reach the top.
We are 50-50 on this move to apply for Google’s Affiliate Network program. As it is, we are with two others and we are very satisfied with the programs and their offering. We’ll have to wait and see on this one for Google.
Posted June 25th, 2008
by admin
We saw an article from USA Today that caught our eyes. It was an interview of Google’s Matt Cutts talking about the basics on optimizing one’s site. He didn’t really say things we didn’t know about already nor did he explain extensively on the hows and whats but it is a good read for those just starting to create their own websites.
He pointed out five ways to optimize a website:
1. Spotlight your search term on the page.
2. Fill in your “tags.”
3. Get other sites to “link” back to you.
4. Create a blog and post often.
5. Register for free tools.
To read the explanation for each. Visit the 
site!
Posted June 18th, 2008
by admin
Did Mozilla make it to the Guiness? We have yet to find out! We, along with the people at Mozilla are still awaiting final reports in their attempt to enter the Book of Guiness World Records for most number of software download in 24 hours. While there is currently no record to beat for that area, Mozilla hopes to be the first.
As it is, they already beat their own record for most downloads on first day release of their software from 1.6 million downloads of Firefox 2 in October 2006 to over 7 million downloads of Firefox 3 in June 2008. In the United States alone, Firefox 3 was downloaded 2.6 million times, with our download and our friends’ included! Germany had over 600,000 and Japan had over 400, 000 downloads.
What was disappointing was the downtime the website had experienced some parts of the day. At noontime, we couldn’t connect at all! We thought we couldn’t download the product because the server was just offline. Mozilla promoted this event big time, we hoped they could have been more prepared for it and expect millions of traffic from all around the globe.
Now comes the software itself. Was it a huge upgrade difference from Firefox 2? We’re getting mixed reactions from friends. Some don’t like the huge back and forward buttons on the toolbar which we think is really user friendly- as you want it big and easy to find! We like the fact that it is already Google integrated but some of our add-ons and extra toolbar aren’t compatible with the new browser yet! We had to disable them for now because we like what we’re getting from the new Firefox 3 so far. As promised, it is faster and really just feels better and secure overall.
The other thing major that’s totally debatable depending on your preference is the address bar itself where you type in the web address. Mozilla calls it the “smart location bar” as it automatically completes addresses for you as you type, then dynamically ranks the results and acts as an inside-the-browser search tool to find previously visited pages. We think it’s really smart! However, others think it’s annoying as the toolbar automatically slide down and cover half the browser page at the same time you are typing and the tool suggests earlier visted sites. Perhaps Firefox already thought of the mix reception of the new toolbar so they have as an add-on the option to return to the Firefox 2 look and feel.
Some people likes change, some people don’t, and some really need time to adjust to changes. We haven’t encountered any bugs yet or crashes. We’re sticking to the toolbar and we’re really digging Firefox 3 overall.
Posted June 16th, 2008
by admin
Mark your calendar. Better yet, do the countdown beginning now as we join and support SPREAD FIREFOX in its mission to set a Guinness World Record for the most software download in 24 hours. Kicking off at midnight June 17th 2008, Mozilla launches Firefox 3 to the world.
What are we downloading? It’s the anticipated upgrade to the award-winning Firefox browser.
If you are still stuck with Internet Explorer, now is the perfect time to switch! Please give Firefox a try. You will never be sorry and will probably hate yourself for holding on too long and settling for Internet Explorer when you could have had the best browsing time of your internet life.
We have long been Firefox web browser fan as early as 2005, even when it has glitches then on version 1.5, we hang on and believed in the product. We can’t wait for this Version 3 commencement.
Internet Explorer- NOT!
There’s no question on the huge difference between working on Internet Explorer and Firefox. From easy navigation, topnotch security, tabbed browsing, lots of add-ons, session restore, spell checker, live bookmarking, bookmarking favorites, password manager, availability of themes, built in download manager, and combining a search system that allows users to search from its desired search engine and many more, Firefox just blows away Internet Explorer by a long shot.
It is also an open source so there are always developers left and right busy improving the features for an even better browsing competency. From experience, Firefox has far less crashing statistics than Internet Explorer especially on Windows Vista!
We can’t convince you by just reading. You have to try and become a believer yourself! Join in the mission and download Firefox 3 by clicking on either of the image links posted here. You’ll thank us you did! 
Posted June 12th, 2008
by admin
Ever since Google introduced sitelinks two years ago, it remains a mystery to this day how one website shows sitelinks and the other none. What do we do to get the coveted sitelinks and why should we care?
First things first, what are sitelinks? Sitelinks is a term coined by Google to refer to the set of links that shows below some sites in the Google search results. It appears below a particular website offering more links to that website instantly without even leaving the Google search page.
In essence, it makes life of the searcher one click faster as they are “meant to help users navigate (a) site… that will save time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.”
Very well but how do we get them to appear on ours? Unfortunately after 2 years since they started implementing it, only a handful of blog sites has it while most popular company sites seem to be enjoying the added feature.
Google’s Take
Google’s explanation is short and vague: 
“Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts… If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them… Sitelinks are completely automated.”
Why should we care? because Google is saying that: “we only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user.” Ergo, if your site doesn’t carry sitelinks it means that your site isn’t important enough to have them! It means simply that your site doesn’t show any useful links so we will ignore putting them below your site in search pages. Our blog is less than a year old and doesn’t carry sitelinks; of course one day we hope to have that extra bonus from Google! Right now, from our Google webmaster tools links section it says “Google has not generated any sitelinks for your site.” Ouch!
Curious about a particular site we’re secretly following, we typed the keywords “John Chow” and was greatly surprised to find that his website johnchow.com is nowhere on the first 20-30 site results and so we clicked and clicked some more and there it was on the sixth page! Interestingly all the other 60 results shows his name being capitalized upon with johncow.com showing on the very first page at the top with sitelinks and all to boot! How did that happen? Only Google can answer.
Factors affecting sitelinks display
From our random search of keywords, here’s what we found out on those with sitelinks:
1. The site must rank no.1 on that keyword. Amazon, ebay, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. all have sitelinks and they’re no.1 on the result.
Our main keywords “Blogs That Follow” show us at no. 2 in search but even the no.1 doesn’t have sitelinks on its result.
2. Keywords with one or two words and rank no.1 on it seem to show sitelinks more than those with 3 or more keywords. “Yahoo!,” “Yahoo Directory,” “web awards,” “tshirt design,” “Pandora radio” have sitelinks. Keywords “make money online,” “Blogs that Follow,” “Do Follow Directory,” don’t.
3. Only websites with huge traffic (maybe based roughly on PageRank, Page views, backlinks, authority, etc.) will display sitelinks.
4. Age of site will be a factor as well. The older your site is, the more credibility you have on the web. We think two year old sites and below will not get sitelinks. Then again, it may be case to case depending on how much a website gets for traffic in its first 24 months being online.
5. The number of indexed pages counts! and the more popular that page is, the more likely it will appear as part of a sitelink. Our best bet is that links appearing on our navigation menu either as pages or pure links to articles, are the most likely to appear as sitelinks.
Bottomline
We all want that credibility and branding that associates with sitelinks. From an ordinary searcher or reader’s standpoint, the site with sitelinks appear more “trusting” than the ones without it.
While sitelinks have been discussed and explained time and again since it first appeared on Google search, there is still no way to decipher for sure what goes on with Google system analytics responsible for discriminating one site over another in displaying sitelinks. We can only follow the 5 guidelines we came up with and continue blogging and hope for the best!
Sitelinks info also appear on Google’s Webmaster Help center.
Posted May 30th, 2008
by admin
While professional bloggers and webmasters know a great deal when it comes to the value of duplicate content, we are still seeing a number of websites whereby they promote “my other” blog or “my other” site that shows exactly the same content as the other site. The only difference is the domain name. Our conclusion is that they may be newbies and simply unaware of the effects of their actions. So we come up with this article.
What is duplicate content?
Simply it is text content that is shown elsewhere in the internet- either in your other web pages or other people’s web pages. It is a copy of the same article found in another page in the internet.
More exposure of same content=More Traffic?
When we maintain multiple websites, there is the tendency to cross-promote published articles from within these websites- thinking it would promote the articles more and get added exposure. For most, a simple cut and paste of the entire article does the trick. It stems from the idea that “the more places I put it out there, the more people would see it, so my traffic will increase!” That line of thinking comparably, is like reproducing a book for distribution so more people could get to it.
Unfortunately, that only works in actual products or services for distribution offline. What we do online with our published articles has consequential effects in terms of search engine optimization and rankings. For the unaware, the simple syndication of our articles in feeds and aggregators already qualifies as duplicate content. Same goes as say, maintaining a blog in Blogspot and allowing your Multiply or Facebook account to show the same articles in the respective accounts.
Duplicate content matters to Search engines
Although there is no direct duplicate content penalty, you are making it hard for search engines to rank your individual web pages when it is also available from another source, either the same or nearly the same content. They may be considered duplicate even if they are not fully identical. In this case, search engines will only list or show one version of the content in their search results and you better hope it is your website appearing on the search and not some other sites that syndicated your article without a permanent link back to your original article!
When search engines find duplicate contents, their search algorithm will determine which one is the better article to show in the results. That is only understandable as you don’t want to be typing a keyword and finding four articles with the same exact content found on different web pages. Google and others will filter those articles out and pick the best to show in the result. They would base it on the number and quality of the inbound links connected to the content.
How to avoid Duplicate content
- If you must show the same article in your other web pages, choose which one you want Google and others to show in search results. Remember that search engines also see the printer version, mobile version when available on your site on top of your regular content version. Hide the others. How? By Adding a noindex meta tag to your duplicate contents. We showed you how in this previous article:
REP META tag: How Google and Other Search Engines Find Your Website
- Require back links from other sources. If you syndicate your articles, make sure the articles point back to your website so search engines know where the content came from. They may like the other content from another site not your own, then your article will not show up in search at all.
Some tips and more explanation on duplicate content from Google may be found on the Webmaster Help center.
What about snippets or quotations?
It’s all right to get a summary or some quotations and lines from your own original article to place it on another site of your own. We stress original article as copying someone else’s article and claiming it your own is a whole different issue- and a serious one at that. That is called plagiarism and original articles are in fact copyrighted and is protected by law. You can not just copy another else’s work. When you do, that is also a duplicate content and it will show.
Copyscape.com can detect duplicate content!
Make your own original unique content for your websites and avoid getting penalized by Google or by copyright laws.
Here is a tool checker we found to detect duplicate contents from two websites. They give our results in percentage and basically, the lower the percentage- the lower your chances of being penalized by search engines for duplicate content. When checking, you would want a lower percentage result and not higher.
Note: This tool when used will open another browser leading to the host’s website where it can yield the result and interpret it.
