RAP Bank
I have just signed up for RAP Bank myself - call this a mini-review.
It seems to be one of the smartest ideas for a long time as a great way to consolidate 100s of affiliate programs under a single entity for promotion.
It is also one of the best implementations of WordPress I have ever seen.
It is not without its bugs, as this is effectively pre-launch. For example I just found a bug in the keyword based search RSS feeds (yes RSS feeds for any term will be hot), but it looks like they might be onto a winner.
Check it out - signup for the basic service is free.
> 
P.S. It is not immediately obvious who is running the site, but looking at my Paypal receipt (yes I signed up for Vendor Plus) I believe the site is run by Bill Ortell From Rap-Extras.com who is RAP certified and does the membership add-on that is highly popular.
Tag Archives: pagerank
PageRank Sculpting Isn’t Dead But Comments Can Kill Your PageRank
This post was originally titled "Is PageRank Sculpting Dead & Can Comments Kill Your PageRank"
Following a confirmation post from Google's Matt Cutts today, it seems PageRank Sculpting as practiced by many SEOs is effectively dead, and comments, even using links with nofollow CAN have a negative effect on the amount of PageRank that can be passed on to your internal pages.
Posted in SEO Blog Also tagged Google PageRank, matt cutts, PageRank Sculpting, search engine optimization, SEO Blog, WordPress SEO Comments closed
PageRank Update – Twitter Profiles – Tosh
Today we are going to face an avalanche of Technology bloggers who can't help blogging about every intricate detail of Twitter in one way or another claiming that Google has devalued Twitter profiles in the search engine results pages (SERPs) or reduced the PageRank of profiles.
Whilst this is theoretically possible, it is also unlikely.
To understand why the change has happened
- You have to understand SEO, external and internal linking, and have an advanced knowledge of how PageRank works. This gives me another chance to drop a very blatant affiliate link to Stomping The Search Engines 2 which is probably the best value (just a measly $1) high quality SEO training online. (http://andybeard.eu/Recommends/SEO-Training.html)
- You need to study Twitter Linking structure over a period of time - snapshot SEO is for cowboys - even what I am writing here isn't going to be highly accurate, because I don't have access to analytics, server logs etc, and telling a script to analyse every page of Twitter just isn't viable
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, web 2.0 Also tagged Google PageRank, linking, linking structures, twitter, Twitter PageRank Comments closed
A Geeky Look & Some Simple Solutions To Achieving First Link Priority & Referential Integrity With WordPress (Or Why WordPress SEO Themes Aren’t)
Think buying a custom premium WordPress SEO theme will give you perfect SEO? Think again...
I don't think there is one "premium" WordPress Theme that doesn't claim to be perfect for SEO "out-of-the-box", so I thought I would bash some theme developer heads around and maybe knock some sense into them.
They might achieve 50:50 of what could be expected of a true SEO theme (though I haven't seen the latest Semiologic Pro out in the wild), and potentially with the aid of 3rd party plugins currently available, they could reach 80:20.
However most claim they don't need 3rd party plugins to achieve their eminence in WordPress SEO
That doesn't leave WordPress SEO plugins off the hook, there isn't one plugin that gets beyond 60:40 or with some tweeking possibly 70:30, depending on what factors you feel are important, or are aware of.
Awareness is certainly one of the problems...
Posted in SEO Blog, themes, wordpress Also tagged first link priority, Referential Integrity, stompernet, wordpress, WordPress SEO, wordpress seo themes, wordpress themes Comments closed
So What Have I Done Wrong Now Google?
The restoration of my green pixel's didn't last long (just 1 week), and probably wasn't a full restoration anyway.
I had this feeling that PR5 was "Google Probation" as my link growth has been continuing and my Google Directory listing suggested PR6.
All paid reviews on this blog are blocked with robots.txt and I declare that is the case in my disclosure policy.
Thus we need to look at other potential problems (note these are potential problems, but nothing I can really change)
Linking To People Who Advertise
Some regular readers decided to purchase advertising - advertising links unlike many blogs are nofollow. I mentioned
Posted in SEO Blog, blogging tips Also tagged good, Google, paid links, paid reviews Comments closed
Site Structure – SEOs Going Fishing Without Any Bait
If you don't know what you are doing with nofollow, noindex and robots.txt you can royally mess* things up (face to face I would use a stronger term). Even if you do know what you are doing, you can still mess things up.
I can understand why Matt Cutts might want to change what noindex does, it is not just Koreans making occasional mistake, for instance I just noticed the whole WebProNews video blog is currently noindex nofollow. I am sure that is a mistake, it is easy to make in Wordpress… just one click and save.
All in one
Posted in SEO Blog, blogging tips, wordpress Also tagged follow, google juice, linking-structure, nofollow, noindex, SEO Blog, site structure, wordpress, WordPress SEO Comments closed
PageRank Update – Beware Of Link Exchange Offers
For the last few days there has been a lot of discussion on places such as Digital Point about a Toolbar PageRank Update that is happening. Barry reported yesterday about links being updated in webmaster tools, but the pagerank fluctuations are quite strange.
Lots of people are reporting strange fluctuations, and PageRank 7 seems to be appearing and disappearing for many sites that really don't deserve it.
I wouldn't have written anything at all, but then I received a message asking for a link exchange with a PR7 site, and knowing what was happening on Digital Point, I thought I
Lowering The Google Red Flag – Sidestep The Cash Hungry Bull
With all the previous discussion of paid reviews and my unwillingness to raise the white flag or bend over, this post is going to come as a bit of a shock.
I am lowering the red flag
Carry on reading to find out why this isn't the same as raising a white flag, and is far from surrendering to Google on paid reviews.
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, blog monetization Also tagged backlinks, goog, Google, linking, paid links, paid posts, paid_review, payperpost, SEO Blog, spam, syndication Comments closed
PageRank Is The Primary Google Search Ranking Factor
Yes it is time for another controversial SEO post, sit back and enjoy.
Every single time I write a post mentioning PageRank, I get comments about PageRank not being important for ranking.
These comments very rarely differentiate between toolbar PageRank and the PageRank of whatever kind Google stores on their servers and upgrades on an extremely frequent basis for every page. I know from first hand experience that the toolbar PageRank has very little to do with rankings, and is manually manipulated based on Google's commercial goals.
PageRank By Any Other Name…
The Ranking Factors article at SEOmoz in many ways skirts around
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, blogging tips Also tagged linking, linking structures, ranking factors, SEO Blog, wordpress Comments closed
IzeaRanks & RealRank – How Many Lies Can You Tell Your Advertisers?
Lets face it, bloggers love stats and rankings, even if they are based upon meaningless data. For some it is an ego thing, or just a measure of their own worth or progress to achieve whatever goals they have set for themselves, and for others it is monetary. If you want to sell advertising on your blog other than PPC or CPM based, you need to have some kind of carrot to wave at advertisers to encourage them to part with their advertising dollars.
Adage Power 150
Over the last few days for instance I noticed that Advertising Age have rejigged their
Posted in blog monetization, blogging tips, stats Also tagged alexa, analytics, blog_advertising, izea, izearanks, monetization, payperpost, realrank, statistics Comments closed
Wrong Reaction From Techcrunch On Paid Links?
I think this is one possibly for the water cooler on Sphinn, because I find it comical in a sad kind of way.
Ted Murphy rightly questions Google quite openly to explain why PPP bloggers are being punished for not using nofollow on links, yet many prominent bloggers post quite blatant pagerank passing links to their advertisers every chance they get.
Not only do they mention their advertisers in "Thanks To Our Advertisers" posts, but they also name drop them every chance they get as a form of disclosure.
As an example, almost every time PayPerPost was discussed, either Text Link Ads
Posted in Google, blog monetization, blogging tips, marketing, web 2.0 Also tagged goog, Google, izea, paid links, socialspark, techcrunch, techmeme Comments closed
ZeroRank – More PageRank Carnage (Round 5)
I have been receiving emails and comments today about yet another PageRank downturn for multiple sites.
Andrew Ooi has compiled a short list of Malaysian sites, many were previously as much as a PR5 previously, and currently show a PageRank of zero (a white bar)
Examples include:-
Colleen's Simple Kind of Life and 5xmom
The numbers seem to be stable across multiple data centers
There doesn't seen to be any change in prominent Search Marketing sites such as Search Engine Round Table and Search Engine Journal, and other popular bloggers such as Emom and Yaro still seem to
Posted in SEO Blog, blog monetization, blogging tips Also tagged goog, Google, izea, paid links, paid reviews, payperpost, socialspark Comments closed
Will Google Offer Amnesty To SocialSpark & PayPerPost Bloggers?
Since the first real information came out about Izea's (PayPerPost) new SocialSpark service, that is in testing but will formerly launch in January my excitement has been a little tempered.
As I wrote in my initial preview of SocialSpark, there will be new metrics for gauging the authority and influence of a blog, to help determine advertising spend, not only based upon traffic and demographics, but also on past performance with CPM and CPC data also being made available.
With SocialSpark, any required links will be nofollow, though there is an option for editorial links without a nofollow.
All the negotiation about
Posted in Google, blog monetization Also tagged goog, Google, izea, payperpost, ppp, socialspark Comments closed
The Pied Piper Of PayPerPost?
Over the last year I have given a fair amount of coverage to PayPerPost, who now house the service along with other endeavours under the name Izea.
There are multiple reasons why I have supported PayPerPost and similar programs so strongly, and yet at the same time have never reviewed a link buying / selling service.
I have mentioned link buying and selling in passing, and also a couple of Wordpress plugins, but those plugins generally allow you to sell links which have a nofollow.
My emphasis both in editorial about services and in the few reviews I have myself written is to encourage the writing of quality content with editorial links. Compensation in whatever form should be based upon the time involved, expertise, and possibly the size and influence of the audience, and not based upon any SEO benefit to a site or service being reviewed.
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, blog monetization, blogging tips, stats Also tagged advertising, alexa, blogging tips, goog, Google, izea, marketing, megite, metrics, monetization, payperpost, rating, reputation_management, techmeme, technorati Comments closed
Remarkable Traffic From Alexa Themselves?
Many webmasters would say that Alexa data is meaningless, and that there is no benefit in gaining in Alexa rating, other than possibly from various metrics used for advertising, and "meaningless" ratings charts to brag about.
But whilst we await an advertising metric which can't be gamed, there is certainly one measurable benefit of having a good Alexa score, or more importantly a significant gain in Alexa rating.
Alexa Can Drive Real Qualified Traffic
But where from? The Top 10 Movers and Shakers page.
Due to the sudden influx in traffic over the last week due to the Google PageRank updates, I was
Funny Difficult Decisions…
I just have to share with you the funny, even hilarious decision process that that guys over at Search Engine Guide are going through, removing links that have been in existence for longer than Google.
I could almost thank Google for destroying so many people's aspirations just for that post.
Almost…
Tags Lead To Related Content on This Site
Controversial Izea While I Slept
Sometimes I really hate timezones, especially when a company I closely follow (and even take a couple of punches for) makes an announcement.
PayPerPost and now Izea
Fittingly I think Colleen should have the first link, she has been a postie for a long time, is a top earner, and has been taking an equal amount of punches being on the firing line.
Colleen highlights the fact that PayPerPost have been planning to have a new domain for their Argus platform for some time, and it is only logical that Argus is not housed under the PayPerPost moniker, because PayPerPost will only be one of many services provided.
People who actually monitor the PayPerPost blog of course knew this was coming a month ago.
Dan, and investor in PayPerPost... well now the parent company Izea, seems happy about how money is being spent.
That is important, I am sure the Izea.com domain name cost a lot more than $9 from GoDaddy.
Here is a link to the official Izea Press release on the new corporate entity.
Mixed Reactions To Izea & PayPerPost
As always with anything related to PayPerPost, there is a lot of controversy, and mixed reaction. I have covered the more positive stuff so far, so what follows is the more neutral or negative opinion.Posted in SEO Blog, blog monetization, marketing Also tagged advertising, izea, marketing, payperpost, SEO Blog Comments closed
Google Reputation Management Disaster With Open Social
Google just walks into reputation management and trademark problems one after the other, and today is no exception.
Not too long ago it was their attempt to force people to give up domains legally registered using the acronym "g.m.a.i.l" or gmail, which Google uses for their email service.
The Polish Poets are still in business, and apparently Google also lost in other countries.
So today news is breaking about Google's new "Open Social" platform for social media web developers. The big problem is that Google don't own the trademark, or even a lot of the concept behind it, and they certainly don't own their own SERPs (search engine results pages)
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, marketing Also tagged defamation, goog, Google, opensocial, open_social, open_social_web Comments closed
Real or Fake PageRank Update In Progress (round 3)
Courtney stopped by to let me know about what appears to be a real PageRank update that is in progress, if there can ever be a real update again.
Many of the blogs highlighted in the update just a couple of days ago seem to have reverted to their previous position.
Now for anyone who might be thinking otherwise, there are still some obvious penalties on place for a few sites, but it is less obvious for the more vocal networks.
Some sites and networks still have a penalty, as do some sites.
Some of those penalties seem to be a carry over
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, blogging tips Also tagged goog, Google, Google PageRank, pagerank_update Comments closed
Google PageRank: Joke Of The Blogosphere?
Andy Greenberg of Forbes got it totally wrong when he wrote Google Scares The Search Crowd
In many ways Google should be a little worried about the blogosphere reaction.
I was the centre of attention more by chance and timing than anything else, as I am sure it wouldn't have taken my worthy SEO colleagues long to make a list of sites that have been hit by PageRank penalties and spot some patterns.
As almost everyone discussing the subject was linking to me, and I was trying to keep up with the Blogstorm, moderating trackbacks and comments, and even trying to respond
Posted in SEO Blog, blog monetization, wordpress Also tagged Google, humor, paid links, wordpress Comments closed
Digg Favorites Slapped By Google
For a company such as Google with a stock price based extensively on anticipated growth and public sentiment, it doesn't take a huge swing in goodwill to have a dramatic effect on valuation. Google has just slapped their biggest fans.
After the very controversial hit many sites took just 2 weeks ago for various degrees of selling PageRank or linking to clients, you might have thought Google would take a breather, but Google it seems hadn't even started its crackdown.
A number of sites have been hit yet again, including this one, but there is also a new element that has
Posted in Google, SEO Blog, web 2.0 Also tagged goog, Google PageRank, pagerank_update, page_rank Comments closed
Blogcatalog – Does Onclick Pass PageRank?
When Blogcatalog was relaunched, the links from the directory were nofollow.
In my initial review I suggested that it would be a popular decision to remove the nofollow from the links, and also use a different method of tracking clicks - Blogcatalog have to track clicks because it is part of their blog rating system, and might also help with advertising sales for premium positioning.
Most blog directories do not provide direct linking.
For better or for worse, Blogcatalog decided to use javascript and "onclick" for their tracking. There is a lot of confusion in the SEO community as to whether "onclick" passes
Posted in SEO Blog, web 2.0 Also tagged Blogcatalog, click_tracking, Google, javascript, mybloglog, onclick, search engine optimization, SEO Blog Comments closed
Google Didn’t Listen To Seth 18 Months Ago
I have spent the morning watching a number of contrasting videos which in some ways suggest that Google may have jumped the shark, and I don't fully agree with any of them. The Seth Godin Video is interesting, because he was telling Google what to do 18 months ago.
Seth Godin Speaks to Google
In this video Seth Godin is insightful, and explains to a bunch of Googlers all about Purple Cows and Flipping the Funnel on its side and embracing buzz marketing.
The concepts are sage advice, however there is one major pitfall.
If the perfect way to market a product is to flip
Get The Most From DoFollow | No Nofollow
So now people have calmed down a little from their running around like headless chickens leaving comments on every blog they could find that used Dofollow, and then linking through to unrelated content, lets start looking at how to link a little more strategically.
Posted in SEO Blog Also tagged affiliate marketing, anchor_text, dofollow, i_follow, linking, links, nofollow, podcast Comments closed
Matt Cutts | Pagerank | Supplemental Results
Matt Cutts has mentioned there is a pagerank export in progress.
Pagerank reflected on your toolbar has no effect of your search engine traffic, as the pagerank used by the various data centers is different to that used for your Google Toolbar. Toolbar OageRank is just historical data, often up to 3 months out of date.
Posted in Google, SEO Blog Also tagged matt cutts, search engine optimization, SEO Blog, supplemental_results Comments closed
Ultimate Tag Warrior SEO Tricks (pt 1)
On my blogs, I prefer not to use nofollow for comments and trackback.
It is my belief that if someone adds to the conversation on my blogs, the least I can do is offer them a backlink for their trouble.
I prefer people to write a post about me than to add me to their blogroll. I know a blogroll link theoretically gives me more Google Juice, but if they give 200 people a blogroll link, suddenly the value of that link from every page is greatly deminished.
Posted in SEO Blog, blogging tips, mininet, wordpress Also tagged blogging tips, Dynamic Linking, linking strategy, nofollow, search engine optimization, SEO Blog, ultimate tag warrior, utw, wordpress, wordpress plugins Comments closed
Climbing The Heights Of Mount Google
Climbing The Heights Of Mount Google
When you set out to climb a mountain, or rank for a competitive keyword term, some methods are effective. This is a simplistic look at climbing the heights of Mount Google.Human Pyramid
A human pyramid might be suitable for those low hanging fruit, but this method is unlikely to help you scale great heights. Not only is it hard to gain great height, but the weak construction is easily eroded by competitors.