Google can be your best friend.  It is still the biggest search engine out there and if you run a website or blog I can guess that a big portion of your traffic comes from Google.  That is why we install the SEO plugins on our blogs and try to make everything SEO friendly.  If you are one the first page of search results for a given topic that can mean thousands of hits a month from Google alone.  Now what if Google changed their algorithm and now your site was blacklisted or not indexed correctly?  This is what has happened to my site and not only is it costing me traffic, but revenue as well.

I own and operate ThinkComputers.org, a computer hardware review site.  Up until a few years ago our traffic was about 35% search engines and 65% referrals.  Now it is about 65% search engines and 35% referrals.  This was mainly because I finally moved the site over to WordPress.  With WordPress I was able to customize my permalinks, add SEO plugins and easily create a sitemap for Google to read.  This of course made the site show up better in search results for the products we reviewed and that increased our traffic as well as revenue.

As far as SEO we really did not do that much else.  The plugins we had running were only the All in One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps.  The only other SEO we really did was change the permalink structure to thinkcomputers.org/%postname%/.  This still gave us really great results and I was happy to see the increase in traffic over time.

This all changed right around February, I started to see an immediate decrease in traffic.  At first I thought it was normal because January is always our biggest month because of CES.  After still seeing a decrease over the next 2 months I knew something was up.  So I went digging in our site stats only to find that our traffic from Google was practically cut in half.  To give you an idea here is our traffic from Google in January 2011.

And in July 2011.

As you can see the traffic was basically cut in half.  This is a huge amount of traffic and something that you can’t replace.  Obviously since many of our ads are CPM-based our revenue has gone down tremdously as well.  This is a killer and can potentially put websites out of business.

After doing some research on the February algorithm change it seems the change was made to weed out content farms.  Obviously ThinkComputers is in no way a content farm as all of our content is 100% original.  We also do not do any black-hat SEO, the only SEO we were doing is what I mentioned above.  So why were we hit? I really cannot even tell you.  So what are we to do?  After reading around I found that I could submit a reconsideration request on how Google indexes my site.  So I tried that and I received this response:

“Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.thinkcomputers.org/,
We received a request from a site owner to reconsider http://www.thinkcomputers.org/ for compliance with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

If you’re still unable to resolve your issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team ”

Basically this means their new algorithm screwed me over and there is nothing I can do about it.  So my only real option is to continue to work on SEO and pump out new content.  If you have experienced a large change in traffic caused by Google’s algorithm changes let me know in the comments.

Many aspects of Web hosting affect SEO, from the choice of a backend like cPanel or Drupal, to server downtime, to shared hosting and geolocation. These four elements affect SEO to one degree or another, depending on the actions you take and don’t take. Let’s explore a few options in these categories, the upsides and downsides, and separate fact from fiction.

1. Choosing a Backend UI

Two of the most widely adopted backends are cPanel and Drupal, each with a following as diverse as that of the Linux and Mac operating systems. Most users choose to remain with either CMS out of habit or because of company policy, while a handful of vocal users religiously advocate one while staunchly opposing the other. What matters ultimately is the usefulness of a particular tool for specific circumstances; in this case, SEO.

A module named SEO Checklist is available for Drupal users. The latest stable release for version 6 is 3.0. The beta for version 7 was released May 27, 2011. This module is maintained by Volacci. The module contains a checklist of SEO-related tasks to accomplish, but does not perform these duties on your behalf. Another module named Vertical Tabs improves the interface of SEO Checklist, allowing you to expand and collapse portions of the checklist.

For cPanel users, there is SEO Tools, maintained by Attracta. Unlike the SEO Checklist for Drupal, this tool does more than make a checklist. It runs some checks, generates a dashboard report, and creates an XML sitemap. It can upload the XML sitemap to the search engines for you.

2. Effects of Server Downtime and Stability on SEO Efforts

When Googlebot tries to crawl your pages, but the site is down because of server issues, this impacts rank negatively. It only takes two occurrences before Google starts to lower a downed site’s rank. Google doesn’t know if the site saw any uptime between crawls, and that is bad news. A quick tip: In robots.txt, make sure there is no “Disallow:/” on pages you want indexed.

Server stability issues affect SEO. One technique used by malicious hackers who compromise Web servers is inserting Iframes into your pages to download malware onto visitors’ computers. Keep updated with the latest security patches, and check for such Iframes. Google’s Safe Browsing Diagnostic tallies downloaded malware, and this will harm your site’s rankings until the issue is resolved. Google’s resolution process is not very swift, so always keep on guard against tactics that could compromise your server.

Another stability issue is the improper use of redirects. Intermediate and hanging redirects can cause problems with rank as well. When moving several pages, Googlebot needs to encounter a 301 (moved permanently) code, and you can forward PageRank with basic HTML links. Also, try to avoid “hanging” redirects. This is when a URL issuing a 301 redirect points to a page giving a 404, or not found, response. Lastly, Bing especially doesn’t like redirect chains; i.e., from URL1 to URL2 to URL3, or the destination. Try to redirect in just one hop.

3. Shared Hosting and SEO – Fact vs. Fiction

A number of problems that arise in a shared hosting environment are not due to the shared hosting model per se, but to administrator choice. For example, 200 domains share the same server. The problems arise when every one of those sites crosslink to each other. That is suicidal in terms of SEO, even if the content of those sites is closely related enough to justify linking to each other. That may be unfair to those who have a legitimate reason to link those pages, but that’s just the way it is currently. This rule may change in the future.

The “bad neighborhood” argument has been around for a while. The premise is that if your website lives among spammy IPs on the same class C subnet, your rank is in danger. This isn’t entirely true, but you can use this tool to check your links at any time. Google and other search companies understand that shared hosting is a reality for a large number of people, and that condemning an entire subnet hurts only legitimate users. Why? Because, once penalized, the spammers will migrate to another subnet and continue their deeds. These “bad neighborhoods” shift among different IP addresses all the time. Penalizing the good websites along with those who flit about the system, as it were, is simply an ineffective method of rooting out spammers.

The Caffeine update Google released in June of 2010 added website speed and performance to ranking factors. Make sure the host you choose, or have chosen, can meet your website’s current traffic demands. Equally important is ensuring that your host provides the scalability that will meet future increased traffic needs. If the memory footprint of the CMSs and other processes on a shared IP is too much, then “premature end of file” errors pose a problem. Many shared hosting plans give you the option to increase memory, so that’s a good investment if you are happy with your current provider.

4. SEO and Geolocation

The argument that physical server location affects SEO states that if your site is hosted in one country, but targets the market of another country, this discrepancy impacts rank negatively. In other words, geolocation matters. Opposing arguments exist, but the truth is somewhere in the middle. You can give Google information about your site.

Two factors that Google uses in this regard are the website’s IP address and top level domain (TLD), unless you provide Google with specific information via Webmaster Tools. If your website’s TLD is country-coded (a ccTLD like .co.nz), Google relies on that instead of geolocation. If your website’s URL is international or generic, such as .com or .net, then location is indeed a factor.

To inform Google about the location of your website, open Webmaster Tools. Click on your website, then click Settings under Site configuration. Choose the option you desire in the section labeled Geographic target. Use the “Unlisted” option if you do not want your website to be associated with a specific geographic area.

One sure effect webserver location has on SEO is the “speed and performance” factors the Caffeine update added. You want to deliver content as fast as possible, so try not to host files on a slow server, no matter where it’s located.

This is a guest post by David Murton.

Google+ is Google’s answer to Facebook. The service is in closed beta right now. The only way to try it is by an invite. Getting an invite is simple enough: just get a current Google+ user to invite you.

I’ve been playing with Google+ since it went live and so far, I’m liking what I see. The service is a like a very clean version of Facebook. I don’t know about you but I think Facebook has been getting more and more clutter with each redesign. Google+ is extremely refreshing with its minimalist layout. Sometimes, less really is more.

If you’re a Google+ users, I like to hear how what you think of the new social network? Do you think it has a shot against of Facebook or will it head the way of MySpace?

WordPress has released version 3.1.4 of the world’s best blogging software. This is a maintenance and security update for all previous versions. All users are recommended to update to this newest version.

This release fixes an issue that could allow a malicious Editor-level user to gain further access to the site. Thanks K. Gudinavicius of SEC Consult for bringing this to our attention. Version 3.1.4 also incorporates several other security fixes and hardening measures thanks to the work of WordPress developers Alexander Concha and Jon Cave of our security team. Consult the change log for more details.

Download WordPress 3.1.4 or update immediately from the Dashboard → Updates menu in your site’s admin area.

WordPress 3.2 Release Candidate 3

The next great WordPress, version 3.2, is right around the corner. However, if you’re feeling brave you can test out the latest release candidate 3.

This release was about all that stood in the way of a final release of WordPress 3.2. So we’re also announcing the third release candidate for 3.2, which contains all of the fixes in 3.1.4; few minor RTL, JavaScript, and user interface fixes; and ensures graceful failures if 3.2 is run on PHP4. As a reminder, we’ve bumped our minimum requirements for version 3.2 to PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.

To test WordPress 3.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here.

With more and more people on the internet everyday, it is now possible to make a profit teaching just about anything. It’s also no secret that the most successful teachers are the ones that target a specific problem, desire or action.

You can do the same thing, you can teach something and get paid to do it. It’s nowhere near as impossible as you might think. It is just a matter of applying the steps you’ll read in this post.

1. Find Something Useful To Teach People

The best topics to teach are the ones where you teach people how to solve a problem or how to achieve a strong desire. As a general rule of thumb, a good topic must have some competition. There should be at least a couple of websites teaching exactly what you’re going to teach.

Get ideas from Amazon books

This is a great way to find a topic. Just go to Amazon.com, and use the category system to surf around book categories. Carefully observe the book titles, the table of contents (below the book photo) and its reviews. These are books that are published by big companies and go through extensive market research before being published and this is great because it is like a confirmation that the information has demand and there is an audience for it.

Go niche!

I suggest you avoid big markets like weight loss because there’s too much competition there and it is very hard to get noticed. Instead, focus on smaller segments of that market, like a specific age segment. So for example, how to lose weight becomes how to lose weight for young people.

Your topic can be anything that has a real demand such as how to become a game tester or how to improve your English pronunciation. Although it is useful, you don’t need formal education about the stuff you want to teach. People don’t care about diplomas, they care about results.

2. Teach It Online Using A Membership Website

A membership website allows you to protect your content or services, showing it only to members that pay a one-time or recurring fee. The membership model is great for teaching or training websites because it allows you to be very flexible and dynamic with your learning environment compared to a book. This is great for your members experience and it helps you make more money.

The website model

There are several different types of teaching models but the simplest one is to create a complete step-by-step course a fixed duration and plenty of multimedia content which you would deliver in weekly modules to your members. This coupled with a forum and a nice e-mail support can be the perfect learning environment.

Create video training

Although it doesn’t work with all topics, videos and multimedia content in general, have a high perceived value which is great to use as training material. Use software like Camtasia and Power Point to create high quality instructive videos. Put yourself as talking head on the screen to make it more personal!

Create a forum

This will enhance your members learning experience by leaps, although keep in mind that it can be a lot of work and only do it when you already have some members, otherwise it can look dead and actually damage your membership.

Use content marketing to attract visitors

Content marketing is the act of creating and sharing free content with the goal of converting visitors into buyers (members, in our case). It’s the best technique to use with a teaching website because it creates a natural flow from the free to the paid membership and therefore, it increases conversions!

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and start to teach!

Peter Almeida is the blogger behind Buzzrain, the Membership Website Builder. Check out his free 48 page e-book on How to Build a Profitable Membership Website to learn more about him and Membership Websites!

As part of the head up to the Affiliate Summit East show in New York city, affiliate Summit has released their 2011 Affilate Stat Report, which shares the survey results of 1400 affiliate marketers. The report is the most objective and comprehensive survey of its kind.

For the last nine years, AffStat has delivered annual affiliate marketing benchmarks that are crucial to the development of any affiliate marketing program.

The research has been designed to increase awareness and foster best-practices in the affiliate marketing industry.

The annual AffStat report is available for the entire affiliate marketing community to benefit from and data from the AffStat survey will be published in future editions of FeedFront Magazine (get a free subscription).

You don’t really need a subscription to FeedFront in order to read the report. Affiliate Summit co-founder, Shawn Collins, uploaded a copy to Scribd. It’s well worth reading, especially if you like pie charts.

The 2011 Affiliate Stat Report

This is part eight of my series on advanced email marketing for bloggers. In case you missed the past articles or need a refresher course. Here are the links to the past posts:

• Email Web Analytics
• Working with Filters & Suppression Lists
• How To Really Clean Your List
• How To Do Behavioral Targeting
• How To Get Personal
• How To Geo-Target Your List
• How To Segment Your List

In this article I’m going to introduce you to one of the most powerful, yet most unused, features of Aweber: the email parser.

What is an Email Parser?

When working in your AWeber account, you may notice a menu item titled “Email Parser”, under the “List Settings” tab. If you click on it, you’ll find a page filled with checkboxes next to the names of many third party services.

An email parser is a technology that allows you to integrate your email campaigns with other services so that when a transaction is made with that service, a subscriber can be added to your list.

For example, you might use PayPal as a shopping cart for your products. You can use an email parser to automatically subscribe customers to your list when they make a purchase from you. Just think how powerful a list of PAYING customers is worth. Here’s how to do it.

How To Integrate PayPal With AWeber

First, you will need to get your list’s email address. This email address is used by PayPal to let your account know when someone makes a purchase. When logged into your account, on the left side of your page, you’ll see a dropdown menu labeled Current List.

Your list name appears in the box. Make sure you are in the right list, then write down your list’s name, followed by @aweber.com. This is your list’s email address. In the above example, the email address of the list is your-list-here@aweber.com.

Next, you should turn on the PayPal parser in this list. The parser is what does the work of reading the messages that PayPal sends to your list and adds people to your list after they make a purchase. To do this, first go to the Email Parser page under the My Lists tab.

Now just scroll down the page until you find the check box labeled “PayPal Orders” and click on it.

Now, you will add your list’s email address to your PayPal account. This will allow PayPal to send the message to your list.m Log into your PayPal account, and make sure that you are working under the “My Account” tab. On the right, click on Profile, then Add or Edit Email.

Enter your list’s email address, then click the Save button.

Once you add the address, PayPal requires that you confirm that you are the owner of that address. You’ll need to go back into your AWeber account, and make sure that you are working under the “Home” tab. Go to the Search Subscribers box under the Home tabe and search for “Email” “contains” “paypal”.

This should pull up the “service@paypal.com” address (Note: if this does not work, you may need to wait a few minutes for that to show up in your account. Also, if you are setting up parsers in multiple lists, make sure that the correct list appears under the “Listname” column). Click on the email address to access more information.

Now, further down on the page, find the line that reads “Confirmed?” and click the “No” link.

This will provide you the text of the email that PayPal sent to your list. Look for the URL that comes after “click the following link and insert your password.” Highlight the whole link and copy it.

Once you click that link, or copy and paste it to your browser, you will be taken to a page that prompts you for your PayPal password. Simply enter your password and click the Confirm button to activate your list’s email address.

Now all that you need to do is create your Buy Now Button from the Merchant services tab of your PayPal account.

After setting up the item name and price as normal, scroll down and make sure that you have selected “Use my primary email address” and chosen your list’s email address from the drop down menu.

Now you can use the code that PayPal gives you to place the button wherever you would like, and anyone who makes a purchase using it will be automatically added to your list. If you have multiple products, and want customers added to a different list for each product, just follow the steps above for each button that you would like to create.

The Tip of the Email Iceberg

This is just one example of how to use the Email parser to grow your list and increase your business. You can use the feature to integrate Aweber with dozens of services, like Clickbank, 1 Shopping Cart, Google Checkout and even the Costco Auto Program.

If you’re selling any product online and you’re not using an Email parser to capture the leads, you’re leaving a ton of money on the table. The sooner you set this up, the better off you’ll be.

Try Aweber for Only $1.00

If your blog doesn’t have an email list, you are leaving a ton of money on the table. My mailing list is the number one reason my blog makes income that it does. Aweber is the best email service I have ever used. Their feature set is beyond anything else in the industry and the Email Parser is another reason why they’re the best.

Aweber offers a $1 trial account for all new customers. The account is just like a normal Aweber account and includes unlimited email campaigns, newsletter, broadcasts and follow ups. It’s a great way to test drive Aweber to see what it can do for your blog. Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If you find that having an email list is not for you, contact Aweber within 30 days and they’ll give you the $1 back.

Do you really want to go to Affiliate Summit East in New York but missed out on winning one of the ten Gold Passes I had up for grabs? Well, all hope is not lost because Affiliate Summit is holding a sweepstake to give away 50 Gold Passes!

Entries for the Affiliate Summit Ticket Sweeps can be made by Facebook or Twitter.

There will be fifty Gold Passes to Affiliate Summit East 2011 given away, each valued at $549 per pass. Winners will be notified by email or Twitter DM.

Some details on the Affiliate Summit Ticket Sweeps:

• Prize Eligibility: Only persons residing in United States who are at least 21 years of age can enter.
• Sweepstakes Starts: June 23, 2011 @ 02:01 am (EDT)
• Sweepstakes Ends: July 23, 2011 @ 02:59 am (EDT)

The passes cannot be transferred, and the pass codes can no longer be redeemed in the event the conference sells out.

Also, anybody registering for a complimentary pass who neither checks in at the conference nor cancels will be ineligible for future complimentary passes.

Read the Affiliate Summit Ticket Sweeps Official Rules for more details. Affiliate Summit East 2011 takes place August 21-23 in New York City.

Following four years of a highly successful affiliate programme on the buy.at network, O2 has expanded its partnership with Digital Window through the launch of their programme with Affiliate Window. This alliance will provide O2 with advanced reporting solutions, more frequent affiliate payments and facilitate introductions with a large breadth of publishers. Additionally, O2’s product offerings will be separated into individual programmes, allowing easier optimisation and clearer reporting for O2 and their affiliate partners.

O2’s strategy is to harness as many new technologies as possible, specifically Affiliate Window’s proprietary platform, Darwin, which showcases detailed affiliate profiles, comprehensive user dashboards, and allows direct communication between all parties. The migration will present new opportunities to O2’s existing affiliate base while broadening the range of publishers they work with. The client will retain their existing buy.at account management team, whose knowledge and experience in the mobile and broadband sector has proven invaluable to the success of the programme.

Sammy Elazab, Online Partnerships Manager at O2 says: “After successfully working on the buy.at platform for a number of years we felt that moving to Affiliate Window would be a great opportunity to re-launch the O2 Affiliate programme. This will allow O2 to work smarter by adding new affiliates and taking advantage of the Darwin platform along with other technologies that our affiliates will benefit from. Naturally we’re all very excited to be taking these next steps to improve and advance O2’s affiliate programme.”

Anthony Clements, Client Services Director atAffiliate Window & buy.at adds: “We are delighted that O2 has taken the significant decision to move their programmes onto the Affiliate Window platform. It is a great endorsement of the work we have done building our new interface, and in particular we hope the addition of our Affiliate Directory will open up a new set of potential partnerships. We are confident that the additional technology and robust platform will bring continued growth and success to O2’s affiliate programme.”

Moving into Q3 2011, O2 plans to introduce new and exciting campaigns through the performance channel, further setting them apart from their competitors.

For press enquiries, please contact:
Lisa Chaikin
PR Manager – UK & US
Affiliate Window & buy.at
e: lisa.chaikin@digitalwindow.com
t: 020 7553 0333

Holiday Extras, the market leader for airport parking and hotel packages in the UK, has signed an exclusive five year contract with Affiliate Window.  This partnership will introduce the brand to a larger breadth of publishers and allow them to grow through the support of the Affiliate Window network.

While UK airport hotels, airport parking, lounges and travel insurance remain the core products of their business, Holiday Extras’ hassle free add-ons also include airports by rail and a new foreign exchange currency card.

In addition to holiday ancillaries, Holiday Extras offers UK leisure holidays providing a variety of theatre and theme park breaks, as it is the official breaks provider to the Merlin group. These short-break products operate under Show-and-Stay, Play-and-Stay and Legoland Holidays with more brands launching soon.

Affiliate partners can benefit from the range of promotional opportunities available.

‘As the UK’s market leader for pre-booked airport parking and hotels we are proud to be working with a market leading affiliate network. This new long-term partnership allows us to invest in our key affiliate partners to further drive volumes to our airport parking and short-break brand programs. We are keen to also expand our current product range which includes car hire and new short-break brands which we will be launching in the near future,’ says James Lewis, Key Strategic Partnerships Manager for Holiday Extras.

The new affiliate programme will see a competitive commission structure whereby affiliates can earn up to 20% on selected services.  Last year, Holiday Extras reported paying more than £2.3m to their affiliate partners proving the level of profitability and value of the programme. New products and services will be added to their portfolio throughout Q3 and Q4 2011 combined with European expansion plans.

Richard Plumridge, Head of Account Management at Affiliate Window adds: ‘We are delighted to be working with Holiday Extras. Utilising our dedicated travel executive we will build relationships with existing affiliates and recruit new travel publishers, strengthening Holiday Extras’ partnerships within the performance market. Combined with their comprehensive product range and their engagement with the affiliate channel, we believe Holiday Extras will become a must-promote programme within the sector. ’

To learn more about the Holiday Extras affiliate programme, click here.

For press enquiries, please contact:
Lisa Chaikin
PR Manager – UK & US
Affiliate Window & buy.at
e: lisa.chaikin@digitalwindow.com
t: 020 7553 0333