I love my double or indented listings, but it was not to be.

We have been together for a long time, but fate has determined that at least for the present, we must separate.

The Google giveth, and The Google taketh away

For my site, on a search term such as “Andy Beard” the second listing doesn’t make a huge amount of sense unless it is a fresh post, as most people would be just doing a navigational query.
Maybe in the future Google would add a most recent post as a replacement.

I am not sure this is new or normal, I don’t spend a huge amount of time studying US SERPs recently, and in Poland I still have an indent.

I highlighted the paid results because I have also recently noticed the linked page appearing higher in my SERPs for Andy Beard. IMReportCard at least attempt to write something useful, though I am not sure their writers have enough specialist knowledge to delve into SEO topics and I have noticed that the financial incentive to post one fo the first 3 reviews often encourages people who haven’t got a clue to write really flimsy reviews.
All the reviews are intended to be factual, without expressing a specific opinion, and are written by their staff. They say they are not going to use affiliate links for the products, and have added some Adsense to cover the cost of paying for reviews, comments and other participation. Interestingly enough, you also earn credits for all your referral’s activities.
I have seen a few negative comments, so it might not be heavily moderated, though it is hard to determine the ownership of the site which I think should be more transparent.

It would be great if I could use a referral link to link through to my review on IMReportCard – they would get a lot more deep links with anchor text that way.

WordPress SEO Tips & Hacks

Subscribe to Comments Hacks – I am including this at the top of the list because it is highly important. Emails sent out from your domain could cause you problems with email delivery or spam complaints, and the plugin by default doesn’t comply with CAN-SPAM if you or someone else (a spammer) includes a marketing message in your emails.
The danger of overloading your server with emails being sent faster than your host allows is also worth thinking about. I know multiple blogs that have problems delivering all subscribed comments and I am sure the owners are not aware of this.

Just imagine you have 20 people comment on a post, and then you get 5 new comments in the space of one hour – that would put you over the limit on most shared hosting.

Mine are set up to be delivered by Gmail by SMTP – which email host is going to block Gmail totally?

Spam Karma latest release, and I also speculated that I get less spam using it than if I was using Akismet.

My Ultimate List of Dofollow Plugins first published in February still gains links on a daily basis, and has helped convert 100s of people into removing nofollow from their comments and trackbacks.
I have a followup project planned that I will launch within the next week that will provide a way of highlighting blogs that wish to be highlighted as supporting DoFollow.
The page also now includes information on how to remove NoFollow from blogs using Blogger and I hope to be able to include detailed Typepad and MoveableType instructions (I know of 3 people working on this)

How linking to social media and bookmarking sites could affect your search engine performance. The discussion that followed on is just as informative as the post.

Tagging and How Tagging Can Help SEO is one of the primary topics of this blog. I have written a lot of posts regarding the benefits of using Ultimate Tag Warrior (that is a link to the tag).
My analysis of the Google BlogSearch Patent didn’t gain a lot of links from SEO blogs, but then most SEO bloggers don’t understand the benefits of tagging and are too worried about duplicate content (another tag link)

Do you get linked to by the press? I also highlighted how bad some press agencies are with linking.

My attack on Top Commenters plugins caused some uproar. It is great to provide a way to thank the people who comment on your blog, but I prefer to do that by using DoFollow.
If you can understand my milk bottle analogy, you will go a long way to improving the SEO profile of your blog. If you do use a Top Commenters plugin, at least include it using some WordPress logic functions such as is_home() and is_single()

Top WordPress Plugins

I will be opening up the voting for the first round of my cash donations for best wordpress plugins later today (I need to decide which plugin or service to use). I am giving away real money in large chunks to help support WordPress Plugin Development.

Monetization & Blogging Tips

Warning about using Amazon Contextual Links

PayPerPost vs Jason Calacanis turned into an in depth discussion regarding ThisNext vs PayPerPost on Disclosure (you really have to read the comments)

Performancing Metrics Is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing for Niche Website owners and why I recommend Clicky instead.

I write a lot about disclosure in affiliate marketing and blogging. Whilst PayPerPost is constantly being highlighted, the people doing the highlighting are actually as guilty of poor disclosure and unethical practices themselves.

Maki asked a number of bloggers why they display a feed counter and I gave what I believe is the most in depth answer. There are some good tips there for those people who already have an existing mailing list to jumpstart their blog subscription for an insane amount of social proof.
Why don’t Aweber and Getresponse offer a decent email subscription to RSS feeds that reports numbers to Feedburner? Anyone who uses their services misses out on the social proof benefit.
They should also offer their own social proof icons for email subscriptions.

In some ways I hate product launch formula style marketing of services. The scarcity factor makes it hard for a potential buyer to make an informed decision despite all the proof.
Sometimes the materials left over are of huge value, and I recommend you watch the videos from Rich Schefren.

Product Reviews

Stampede Traffic

Sponsored Reviews – with this service you can negotiate with me for paid reviews :)

Volusion Shopping Cart – was I too harsh on them?
Auction Ads

Web 2.0

Is this the Future of MyBlogLog when we finally get an API? Smart internet marketers should already be planning on how the data could be best integrated into other applications.

Tips on using Reddit and Stumbleupon. The StumbleUpon post lists my membership details to a number of social networks… lets be friends. I really should include those in my sidebar.

Sometimes it is amazing the knock-on effect of what you blog about.

My How To Use MyBlogLog post sent Cord some traffic, but the important factor is the quality of traffic sent. Eric from MyBlogLog saw the post, read Cord’s 2 part guide, and then listed it on the MyBlogLog blog, along with some more tips.

I wrote a fair amount about Twitter, partially because it was the talk of the blogosphere, and partially because as with all emerging technology, there were a lot of ethical problems in using it for commercial use. The best way to read full coverage is to use my Twitter tag.

I love Technorati, but they really have problems coping with all the new kinds of RSS and micro blog services such as Twitter, and co.Comment

I had some Digg success earlier in the month, with a story I submitted to Digg actually reaching the front page. The discussion is well worth reading with some insight from Michel Fortin and others.

As always I am not a lawyer, and this is just for entertainment purposes. I am sure WOMMA have some lawyers though, so they really should take a lot more care with what they state and how they state it.

They were referencing the recent story in the LA Times about Pay Per Post and disclosure.

In the article they criticise the disclosure policy on Colleen Caldwell’s blog, which is fairly standard for Pay Per Post bloggers, a DisclosurePolicy.org badge “I disclose”, along with a disclosure policy based on their generator.

The “prominent disclosure” that PayPerPost purports? If you click on the icon in the sidebar it tells you:

The fatal flaw in their argument is that they are providing Jeff Jarvis and Jason Calacanis as examples of flawless business bloggers, and as I pointed out just a few days ago, and openly challenged, there may be no such thing as an A-Lister who has every legal and ethical concern covered.

Focusing on Orlando-based PayPerPost, Friedman notes concerns that such business models blur the ethical line between unbiased opinion and product placement. Jeff Jarvis and Jason McCabe Calacanis, two of the nation’s most respected business bloggers, are included amongst the critics.

You would expect these respected business bloggers who certainly earn a huge amount more than your typical Pay Per Post blogger, to have absolutely beyond reproach disclosure and other legal statements on their websites.

Please note that the WOMMA association and the LA Times effectively picked these two gentlemen as an example, effectively the pinnacle of excellence, because they are able to criticize Pay Per Post bloggers.

The LA Times

Why does the LA Times associate WOMM with paid reviews and not affiliate marketing. Where is all the coverage about Google Amazon or Ebay affiliates not disclosing, and not being required to explicitly?

How explicitly should sites like the LA Times declare their financial relationships with sister sites?

Smaller websites have to try to compete on a level playing field with sites that practice massive interlinking between their sister sites, and “partners”, they are all financial links.

I would link to the LA Times, but that is against their Terms of Service, which I would also link to, but again that would be breaking their terms of service, already broken by the WOMMA and Jason Calacanis (well unless they asked for specific permission)

Yes those terms of service are in the footer, but the LA Times obviously gets an exemption that work at home mothers don’t qualify for.

Jeff Jarvis

Lets take a look at Jeff Jarvis

Jeff does do a very good job of disclosure within posts, at least the few I looked for specifically about Daylife, I didn’t check all his content, it would have taken me a solid month.

Jeffs primary disclosure however is a link in his sidebar, that is only accessible from his homepage and date archives.
If you go to the “single” page of one of his posts, there are no sidebar links, and thus no link to his disclosure policy. There are also no easy to follow links from his single pages to the home page. You can follow a link to one of his tag pages (which he uses instead of categories), but that isn’t obvious.

In fact Jeffs blog layout is almost what I would regard as sacrificial SEO, intended to drive as much link equity to one particular URL.

I hope they are paying thousands for that sitewide link, certainly $3K+ a month based on the sacrificial nature of the site – I don’t know much about text link pricing in bulk, that is a guestimate, but the links are probably worth more.
I can understand why there is a WordPress sitewide link, most people publishing on WordPress give them a sitewide link, but very few would give their hosting company a sitewide link.
Jeff makes no mention of the hosting company anywhere on his site, such as saying how great they are to justify the link.

Jeff is collecting email addresses every time you place a comment, so you would expect some kind of privacy statement, especially with the amount of tracking going on.
You would also expect some kind of physical mailing address, because in some ways his blog is performing WOMM for the various businesses in which he has involvement.

Who has ownership of comments on Jeffs blog? Does he claim the right to republish or syndicate them? No comments policy in sight, though he does have an extremely limited rules of engagement, though not visible on single pages.

I didn’t look at his feed content, but most people don’t have a disclosure policy link in their feeds, and most people don’t have a physical address in case people read their feeds by email (CAN-SPAM).

Jason Calacanis

I can’t give you an example of Jason Calacanis’ disclosure policy, he hasn’t got one. In fact he has:-

I’m an “Entrepreneur in Action” at Sequoia Capital.

His about page is about his past, not about his current. It is well known that he has financial connections with www.ThisNext.com which is present all over his website without disclosure.
He is still running his blog on Blogsmith, yet supposedly he doesn’t work for AOL now, though he is probably still a shareholder… undeclared – he certainly touts everything AOL, specifically Netscape do right.

He also has tracking with Sitemeter and Google Analytics, plus more demographic data being supplied by Quantcast.
He collects email addresses, in fact you have to confirm that your email address is correct before a comment is posted. Great for spam control, but it is still personal information.
No privacy statement of any kind.

Jason’s ThisNext connection is also important, because in many ways ThisNext is a competitor to PayPerPost, and online reviews sites are not immune to problems with shilling reviews. A very recent example was the reviews Ben found yesterday on Home Depot. Disclosed paid reviews at least everything is out in the open.

When Jason attacks PayPerPost is it really just because of ethics and his concern?
He has a habit of making poorly researched statements for what is known as linkbait, another recent example was his attack on the SEO industry as a whole, which was thoroughly debunked by Danny Sullivan @ SearchEngineLand.

WOMMA Suggesting Regulation?

Now here is an interesting titbit from the WOMMA FAQ:-

5. Why aren’t there specific rules about what people say?
We work with real people, and the honest opinions that they form on their own. There is a fundamental complexity here — if you respect consumers and value their genuine opinions, than you can’t tell them what to say. We don’t script consumers; we ask them to share their opinions. Similarly, we can’t control the second- and third-generation conversations, what friends tell friends. But we can instruct them well about ethics, encourage them to be honest and open in all downstream conversations, and create a culture of ethical communications.
Some principles are absolute, however, such as our recognition that the consumer is fundamentally in control in this new environment and that marketers cannot lie or deceive.

This totally contradicts their recent statement

WOMMA will continue to monitor these issues, urging not only clear standards for ethical disclosure within sponsored blogs, but also strict guidelines on the method and mode of disclosure. Current guidelines are too weak and we therefore encourage their revision according to standards already set by the WOMMA Ethics Code.

Links Anyone?

What is with all these ethical sites and links?

The LA Times didn’t link through to Colleen’s site
Jason Calacanis quoted Colleen, but didn’t link through to her
Jason Calacanis did link to the LA Times, breaking their ToS
The WOMMA link through to a search result, and not a permalink.
WOMMA also link through to the LA Times, breaking their ToS

If you are quoting someone’s website, it is questionable practice not to link through to them with a followable link.

Conclusions

Everyone seems to be twisting stories to suit their own agenda, and no one in this discussion is 100% clean and free, and I am sure I have my own flaws. Everything I write has some level of commercial interest.

As I said just a few days ago, A List Bloggers in Crystal Palaces Shouldn’t Throw Stones, though the challenge in that post is still on if any A-Listers think they have everything covered.

I wonder if the LA Times charge more than Krak.dk for commercial deep linking without permission.

Thanks to Advertising for Success for the WOMMA link I followed.

Update:-

Dave Utter has just covered this story on Web Pro News, and I wish to thank him for highlighting the story to a more mass audience. It also shows how easy it is to make mistakes, and that maybe it is wrong to highlight a work at home mother for things that professional writers do by mistake on a daily basis. Dave though he quoted me extensively, forgot to link through to this post.

Though it is mentioned in the comments, I think it is important to highlight Ted’s recent post highlighting his discussions with the WOMMA.

Jason Calacanis continues to attack PayPerPost but have obviously read this post though wouldn’t link to it, because that would be balanced reporting, and Jason doesn’t really believe in ethical blogging, it is all just hype.

How do I know he has read this post but wouldn’t link to it?

Because he has added something to his sidebar

I would like to congratulate Jason on a minimal concession to ethical blogging, but how about some full disclosure at the head of every post about a competitor, PayPerPost, at the top of every post you write about them.
Also make sure you back date this disclosure through all the content you have previous written about them.
It is great you are going to have Ted on the Calacanis cast, but that isn’t enough to correct all the previous inbalances in your reporting.

Update2:

I have just left the following comment on Jasons most recent post regarding WOMMA. I am posting it here just in case it doesn’t appear on his blog.

I would like to congratulate you on your minimal concession to disclosure (the change in your sidebar disclosing ThisNext) but how about some unbiased reporting.
You should really include a disclosure in the first line of every post you have made about PayPerPost (a competitor), ThisNext, AOL, Weblogs Inc and Netscape (you no doubt have some financial interest still)
Surely you have the resources to do a better job of disclosure than a work at home mother.
A blogger with class, such as Robert Scoble, does link to people with differing opinion than himself, and has the balls to admit when he makes mistakes.
Where is your post stating why you changed your sidebar disclosure?

Update 3:

Just so there is no question that a change has been made, I just pulled this screenshot of Jason’s sidebar from the Google cache.

Just so there is no question that the comment I posted was posted, here is a screenshot of the results page after posting a comment. I assure you I am checking my email frequently, my emails are coming through with no problem (I use gmail), and the usual confirmation has not come through.

I would also love to highlight this previous post on Jason’s blog

Paying the top DIGG/REDDIT/Flickr/Newsvine users (or “$1,000 a month for doing what you’re already doing.”)

When Brian and I started Weblogs, Inc. the idea of paying bloggers–heck, even making money from blogging–was considered offensive to many. Blogging was, as the case was stated, a highly personal activity that should not be trivialized by the forces of commerce and greed. I don’t have a complicated relationship with money or capitalism: I love them both and see them as simply as fuel and the process by which fuel is produced. Money to me means time, time means quality, and quality means success.

Talent wins, and talent needs to get paid. I love paying talented people so they can sleep well at night doing what they love. That’s my biggest joy in business: gettin’ people paid.

The concept of “free” content producers, which I think WIRED called crowdsourcing, is going to be a short-lived joke. A loophole in the content business that will be closed by savvy startups which identify the top 5% of the audience and buy their time.

As we say in Brooklyn: everyone’s gotta eat

Update 4:

Tino Buntic has a thought provoking post on product placement, as long ago as the film “E.T.”
I bet they had some mention in the credits that it was a product placement, as films do these days, rather than a big warning sign on the screen whilst the product is visible.

Note to anyone linking through: don’t forget to use trackback, links are automatically reciprocated because I use the dofollow plugin.

ReviewMe, the pay for review service initially stated that they were going to be updating site information on a monthly basis. As many people might have noticed they didn’t quite manage that, in fact it has been over 2 months since my first, and only review for them, of Aaron’s Search Engine Glossary. (I still have to make an affiliate site from his content).

When the service launched, this blog was less than one month old, so whilst I had already gained a reasonable number of subscribers, and for a new blog, reasonable traffic, I didn’t benefit from the attention the service was receiving.

This is how my ReviewMe profile looked up until possibly just a few days ago:-

I didn’t receive an update email, but I did notice something in my referral stats that someone was “checking me out”, so I popped onto ReviewMe to see what was happening.

My stats have now been finally updated:-

It certainly looks like a much more credible site to perform a product review, which might be why someone was checking me out. Combined with the 50% discount ReviewMe are currently offering (coupon code: trial) then it might be an offer too good to refuse.

I am actually quite happy to review stuff for free, or if someone wants me to run my eye over their blog and offer some kind of critique, I am more than happy to do it. I am not a professional SEO. If I can drop in an affiliate links for something, even better :)

I certainly won’t review or link to risky products, and if I am asked to review something, it is going to be published whether positive or negative irrespective of whether I will get paid for it.

I Hate Snapshot Ratings

Don’t you hate stats that are an inaccurate snapshot. They don’t portray the potential growth or decline of a site.

Since the snapshot was taken I am mow close to 13k in Technorati and my 1 week Alexa was 20k.

RSS subscribers is hard to measure now. This site tends to attract newer users to RSS and blogging, and thus Google Reader and Email are the primary method of subscribing. We might even see bloglines subscriptions declining in the near future – it seems their site traffic has fallen more than 20% in the last 6 weeks.

Set Your Own Price – Massive Shock

I just popped by the ReviewMe blog to grab a graphic, and I noticed a new announcement.

You can now set your own price for reviews. This is a very good feature, because that allows you to take into consideration blog growth. I must have been very close to the $150 bracket as it was, and honestly expect to be below 10K Technorati and solidify my below 20k Alexa in the next week. I also should hit 550-600 subscibers in that time.

It gets even better, you can even manually tell ReviewMe to update your ranking

The fun thing about Technorati is that the data is based on 6 month stats, and this blog only went live 17th October.

Of course that heavily depends on how many people are going to go dropping their subscriptions because they didn’t read my widely promoted disclosure policy.

I feel I am an honest guy, I tell things straight, and if people want to pay me for reviews I would most likely do for free because it is on topic, and they just asked, I am not going to throw the money away.

However I strongly believe my reviews and time are actually worth more than ReviewMe currently are willing to pay me by default.

I don’t intend to use text-link-ads on this site, I much prefer links in the body of the content, in exactly the same way I much prefer people to link to me from a post occasionally than add me to their blogroll. There is also another reason, they have an “exclusivity clause” for text based advertising. It doesn’t affect ReviewMe, but it would affect other text links – possibly they don’t enforce it, but this is the year of freedom – Google have relaxed on what is allowed, maybe Andy will relax the terms for TLA as well.

Well anyway here is the TLA link value calculator – just see what links in my content should be worth… per month, not lifetime, and that is without any work in reviewing.

I should also state that at least 6 splogs also pick up most of my content, with all the links live. No they are not mine, and I am not going to hunt them down, as they are actually giving me better than full attribution. I doubt my paid reviews will end up on WebProNews, they would have to make an editorial decision as to whether they added value to their site.
With the various archive pages and tag pages here, any review ends up being links from 10 pages, of semi duplicate content, much of it LSI linked.

At the beginning of March I will be raising the price to $150, of which I will receive $75, and I will probably raise it again at the beginning of April.

Currently you can get a review, after the 50% discount for $50 – or free if you have something highly relevant, are a regular reader / commenter, or just if you ask nicely and are a worthy cause, or an embarrassing victim.