The Digg Effect

February 19th, 2007 by Chris

My literature site made it to the frontpages of both Digg and Del.icio.us this weekend. I know there is always a lot of speculation about what that kind of exposure that can give you so I thought I’d sum things up for everyone.

Let me say that I never actually saw my site on those pages. I know it was on those pages at one point from my traffic logs, but I cannot say if it was at the top of the page or the bottom of the page. Specifically to Del.icio.us too I know it wasn’t on the frontpage very long.

It all started Friday night with Digg. The listing quickly gained votes and sometime Friday night was featured on Digg’s homepage. I however did not notice. I do not check my stat logs daily, it simply takes too long. I rely on Adsense to inform me of traffic spikes. The problem with this approach is that my traffic naturally winds down on Friday nights for the weekend. Also my site’s traffic is large enough that a few thousand extra uniques does not create that large of an abnormality. So I didn’t notice. It was only later when someone reported my del.icio.us position that I later looked back and discovered this traffic. In anycase, being on Digg’s homepage netted me a total of 3,168 uniques. Additionally I received 1,411 uniques from the second page of news and 2,033 from the entry page itself. Adding in all the other minor locations I received 10,288 uniques from Digg over the course of the weekend.

On Saturday all the Digg attention had already started to snowball and spill over to Del.icio.us. For at least a few hours, though certainly for a brief time, I scored a place on Del.icio.us’s homepage and that got me 652 uniques. Other related Del.icio.us pages brought my total from them up to 958 uniques.

In looking through my stats I also realized I missed that I made it to the frontpage of Reddit.com back in 2006. That placement got me 3,379 uniques, and I’m not sure how long it lasted.

For contrast, when USA Today picked my site as one of their “Hot Sites” I received 1500 uniques the first day from their website (with tapering volume after that).

Incoming Links
While I drool at the thought of Googlebot crawling Digg & Del.icio.us at the moment when I was on their homepage and crediting me with such a link. I do not think that is horribly likely. However there will still be substantion benefit in the incoming link realm as most of Digg & Del.icio.us’s audiences are likely content creators, either through blogging or community participation and they’ll undoubtedly be peppering my link in all sorts of places. Additionally there is the possibility of a media source such as a magazine or newspaper doing a story and plopping a link down. All told a very positive experience in the link category.

Page Views Per Visitor

How valuable was the traffic really, did the people stay and look around or hit the back button? Unfortunately most of the traffic was to a poor landing page, as soon as I noticed that I put a message at the top of the page directing people to what is the better location. Here is how the sites stack up in the page views per visitor category, I’ve included a few others for comparison.

digg 2.42
wikipedia 3.44
google 4.32
del.icio.us 2.59
reddit 1.92

Do they click on ads?

Often you’ll hear discussion that while the traffic from social media sites is strong, and can build link popularity with a snowball effect, you will not make any direct revenue from such people. As I said above this really wasn’t a huge spike for me, so statistically speaking even on Friday night the Digg traffic was only a small portion of total traffic. As such it is hard to provide an accurate measurement of ad CTR for Digg visitors specifically. That being said, judge the data as you wish.

Friday the 16th my CTR for the first Adsense unit the Digg visitors would have seen was 0.59%. One week prior, Friday the 9th, it was 0.78%. That is fairly substantial. So one could say that Digg users are less likely to click on ads. However to be fair, the ads weren’t targetted well to Digg users, they were targetted to people working on homework for school or doing academic research. For all I know the Digg users might have clicked on the ads had they been better targeted to the Digg demographic.

So there you have it…

Special thanks to Google Analytics for providing the stats (really a good service). If I notice any snowballs or tangent traffic benefits I’ll be sure to post a follow-up.

Update…
6/30/2007, a different site made scored with both sites again, read more.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization, Website Management, Website Promotion by: Chris | 2 Comments »

Google finally releases more link data

February 6th, 2007 by Chris

Back in October I posted about doing link research and I recommended using Yahoo Site Explorer for your link research since it was better than Google. Google since its inception, had never delivered full and accurate link information…. until now.

As per a blog post at Google Webmaster Central they have vastly expanded their link reporting for people who have verified their sites with Google Sitemaps. They basically now offer the same data as Yahoo, but actually in a more usable way. They break down total links from external pages, from internal pages, they provide a total listing of all the links to all pages on your site, and provide lists of every page on your site with the number of links pointing to that page. All very good.

The only catch is this information is only available to the site owner, so you cannot use this to research competitors as with Yahoo, but still, it is a nice feature to have. Be sure to check it out by logging into Google Sitemaps and clicking on the new “Link”s tab.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization by: Chris | 2 Comments »

More on Content Bragging

February 5th, 2007 by Chris

I have posted previously on bragging about your content. It is something I really believe in now and I plan on writing a full article about it and other human optimizations.

I’ve been going through my sites the last year or so and doing updates and upgrades rather than building as many new sites. Many of my sites are built on public domain content, which is by definition almost always duplicated somewhere else, and so I have often worried about duplicate content causing a downfall. I work hard to add unique content to all my sites though and in anycase if my sites raise a flag with a directory editor, or a search engine human reviewer, I want them to feel validated in including my site.

So anyways this past weekend I was doing work on my wilderness survival site and I added a new forum to it, something I have been putting off. But also I decided to do a little more to brag about my content with this site. So, I moved the “As Seen In” mentions to the very top of the page from the very bottom. And I moved the network links (this site is one of 3 in a little “Training Network”) from the very top to the bottom of the left menu. I figure I’d rather have the text at the top telling visitors, editors, and reviewers, that this is a quality site. Then I don’t need the text links anywhere prominent, they’re worth the same to me regardless of where they are on the page.

I’m bringing this up and blogging about this because previously I really emphasized mentioning content statistics when bragging about them, but site accolades, something often are stuck in the footer, are worth mentioning prominently as well. I’m of course not talking about something like a “Golden Web Award” but rather real legitimate accolades or media mentions.

The fact is, people are gullible. If you tell them a site is good, if you show them other opinions of a site being good, they’ll believe you, and having their belief is important for obtaining directory listings, incoming links, repeat visitors, word of mouth traffic, and perhaps most importantly making sure you’re site is not mistaken for spam if a one of Google’s human reviewers comes across it.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization, Website Management by: Chris | 2 Comments »

New Type of Adsense Channels

January 25th, 2007 by Chris

Just a quick heads up for those who do not know.

Yesterday Adsense started using a new featured that allows you to define channels as more than just a way for you to keep track of earnings, but also as a way for advertisers to bid on your site. So when doing site targetted ads an advertiser can now, assuming you set these channels up, bid on only certain placements within your site. Hopefully this means they will be more likely to make such bids.

The official announcement, which came today, can be found here. Forum discussion can be found here.

This item has been in beta awhile, I seem to recall getting an email about that in the past, but the first place I heard of it being launched this week was in our very own forums. Thanks Michael for posting about it.

Posted in: Ad Networks by: Chris | 3 Comments »

One More Reason to Hate SEO Contests

January 22nd, 2007 by Chris

I think SEO contests are stupid. Honestly? What serious professional would waste their time trying to win a contest when you can use your link equity and abilities to rank your own sites to the point where they will earn you, every month, more than what the prize is worth?

In general as such these SEO contests end up attracting only amateurs, spammers, and unoriginal thinkers from all over the world who cannot think of any real website to make and so rely on such things as a way to make money. I think they’re a detriment to the industry in the way that they encourage spam and unprofessional behavior.

To give you an example, SE Roundtable reports that, because of the most recent travesty of a contest, they are adding rel=nofollow to all their links again. I have hundreds and hundreds of valid Wikipedia links, all of which were gotten purely by providing good content, so this seriously pisses me off.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization by: Chris | 3 Comments »

Adsense Gets Less Restrictive

January 20th, 2007 by Chris

There was some hullabaloo (is that a word?) with the issue talked about in my most recent blog post. Many saw it as Google trying to be monopolistic and forbidding the use of other contextual ads anywhere on their site. I surmised that maybe it was really there way of being more open because they changed the language to be “contextual competitors” to “similar looking competitors.”

Turns out I was right, Jensense got clarification from Google and yes, they now allow you to run other contextual ads on the same page, only if they look different. As for how different they have to look, specifics were not mentioned but it was said that publishers should use good reasonable judgement.

Score one for not overreacting.

Posted in: Ad Networks by: Chris | No Comments »

Adsense Policy Changes

January 18th, 2007 by Chris

Jensense has a summary of some new Adsense policy changes. The highlights include an explicity forbidding of images next to ads among other things.

Of the two biggest changes, the first is a change in regards to copyrighted material. It looks like Adsense is now forbidding their ads be shown in conjunction with any copyrighted material that you do not have permission to use (anything they could get a DMCA about) so content theives beware. Perhaps as part of this change, or from lobbying by teacher’s unions, Google also now forbids Adsense from being used on any site that sells essays to students. I find this change hypocritical because there are hundreds or thousands of such sites advertising through Adwords, and Google doesn’t have a problem with that. I get those ads on my site through Adsense all the time.

The other big change is an odd bit about not showing any competing/similar ad anywhere on your site if you use Google. So, supposedly, you cannot use YPN on one section of your site and Google on the other unless they look different. This seems stupid to me, and I don’t think it’ll be enforced that much. For one, maybe the person writing the terms thought “site” and “page” were interchangable, it happens. So maybe we’re reading it wrong. For the other, I don’t see Google pissing away money kicking out publishers for such a small infraction. I can only hope Google has a little more common sense than that.

The rule may have even been there way to allow more. Perhaps this was there way of saying you can run other contextual programs, just make sure they look different.

Like a new law, what this means will likely be defined by Google’s actions in regards to it.

Posted in: Ad Networks by: Chris | 3 Comments »

Discovering niches.

January 16th, 2007 by Shawn

While most webmasters are busy with their next arcade, lyric, cheat code, and Myspace template site, some webmasters are focusing on building content sites spanning a wide variety of topics. They’re always on the lookout for the next original idea for a site — I know I am. With every last medium to large market on the web completely saturated by companies, publishers, and affiliates, it’s becoming increasingly harder for web publishers to find a relatively untapped market.

The following are some ways to do just that:

Yellow Pages
This is by far the most effective one. All of the “old school” industries advertise here, as well as most of the new media companies. A great place to comb through page by page and section by section to find that one great market with very little competition online.

Billboards
While no where near as effective as the phone book, billboards feature a wide variety of advertisers spanning many different industries. Always keep that in your mind while you’re on the road. You can find billboards hosting ads for anything from truck driving schools to beauty schools.

Shopper Newspapers
These are the small newspapers that sit outside restaurants and grocery stores. From front to back the pages are filled with advertisements for local companies and services — a great source for ideas.

Paid Programming
Ever up at 4 a.m? Turn on basic cable. You have a good chance of learning how to consolidate your debt and how to buy real estate, but if you get lucky you’ll find some unique service or product being pitched. Research the industry and perform your due diligence — this is how I found mesothelioma.

How do you find ideas?

Posted in: Website Development by: Shawn | 6 Comments »

WebMythWorld Strikes Again!

January 16th, 2007 by Chris

I know it may seem like I rant on this issue a lot, but it frustrates me so much.

Brett Tabke is the founder of WebmasterWorld, better known as WebMythWorld. A really crappy webmaster forum that has been riding the first mover advantage for years. It was the first major webmaster forum, and that head start is the only reason it exists today. It spawns more incorrect and plain bad information about SEO than any other site on the Internet. Any once popular SEO theory that ends up proved wrong can usually be traced to a thread on WebMythWorld. Over optimization penalty anyone?

One problem is that the forums are by and large anonymous. Members are not allowed to give specific information about their business, as such you have nothing other than post count to gauge a person’s experience or proclivity to success. The end result is a case of the blind leading the blind. People latch on to coincidences and form theories and they’re believed, without any actual testing, without any actual proof, because the membership of WebMythWorld by and large needs to obsess about their SEO theory du jour to get through their day.

The other problem is that the membership idolizes Brett Tabke to the point where his thoughts are not questioned. This would be alright except he doesn’t know what he is talking about. I have never seen someone labeled as an expert who is so obviously undeserving of said title.

A while ago he had a top 10 list of factors for search engine rankings and high up on that list were outgoing links. He said they would be important for the future (people who predict things also annoy me). Such a future has never come to pass, no one, to this date, has ever offered any concrete evidence of outgoing links boosting you in the SERPs, and countless evidence to the contrary has been provided.

Today I read a post at Search Engine Roundtable that just really puts the icing on the cake. Apparently Brett now says that the age of the domain is one of the top 5 factors for SEO. Cue up Janice from Friends, “Oh, My, God.”

It just exemplifies the problem of WebMythWorld in taking coincidence and attaching significance to it.

Of course older sites rank better. They have more content, more incoming links, more diversity in their incoming links, and obviously if they’re still around after a number of years they can’t be half bad.

This again touches on the issue with PageRank and how so many so-called experts do not have a clue what it is. As I explain in the above linked essay, why would Google second guess their own algorithm and make something as arbitrary as domain age a primary factor in ranking sites?

Never mind the fact that there is no proof of this, and they’re he’s making this huge conclusion based on nothing more than coincidental observations. The fact is, there isn’t a single good reason for Google to do this. Their incoming link algorithms already appropriately award good older sites, and do not so award bad older sites. Whereas a blanket bonus based on age would award all older sites, good and bad.

Now I’m sure Google looks at things like domain age and whois information, especially when checking for spam. But to say that it is one of the top 5 most important factors? Some people can’t see the forest for the trees.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization by: Chris | 7 Comments »

..and the Golden Globe winner for best comedy: YPN

January 16th, 2007 by Chris

The incompetence of YPN reached a new height today.

I was one of the thousands of publishers kicked out of YPN for serving ads to international visitors. As I dicussed in the linked to blog post I find it absolutely ridiculous that YPN lacks the resources to implement their own geotargeting system. How do they expect to combat things like click-fraud if they cannot even discern different countries?

Anyways, today I received a cold call from a YPN telemarketer asking me to join with my literature site, the exact same site that caused my account to be terminated (with it’s massive 20% international audience). The call itself was somewhat funny, the script she was reading from made it seem like she thought she was talking to an absolute novice to online publishing and, even if she didn’t know who I was, had she even looked up my site she would have seen I already had ads on it and so likely knew how ads worked.

I explained I would love to join YPN with this site, and in fact had I not said anything I’m sure the woman would have created my account, but I mentioned that I had been kicked out previously for sending international traffic.

She had to go confer with an “account specialist” to see if there was anything she could do. 5 minutes later she called me back and said no, she couldn’t sign me up for that site.

However, she, probably desperate to get her quota, asked if I had a different site she could sign me up for. I gave her information for my wilderness survival site, which is 97% US, and she said I should be getting my account details in a few days. Of course YPN’s guidelines state that you can use their ads on any site you own once accepted, so long as the individual sites do not conflict with their selection criteria (no porn, spam, warez, etc). So guess what I’m going to do?

I think this time I’ll try out John’s geotargeting script, but I still do intend to give them a trial on my literature site.

So let us see, what good has YPN done?

      They failed to implement their own basic geotargeting system, and are constantly hurting their reputation and their pocketbooks by kicking out publishers who send in even small amounts of international traffic.
      After kicking me out they paid me $45 to take a survey about my satisfaction with their program… note, they were in error, they thought I was still a member.
      The program has been in public beta for what? A year and a half now? Do they ever hope to compete with Google?
      They cold call me to try to entice me to signup with a website that they previously kicked out.

Yahoo needs to get their act together, this comedy of errors they have going on belongs in the back of Business 2.0 with a big fat broken arrow.

Oh… if you search on Google for “Yahoo Publisher Network Review” guess who currently holds position #2? I do not claim to be that famous or influential, but come on? Surely my tiny bit of influence should be enough to make sure my account with them is handled with a little common sense?

Oh well, lets see if I get kicked out again.

Posted in: Ad Networks by: Chris | 4 Comments »

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