Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

In what could be a boon for many people sitting on undeveloped domains (ones that just have placeholder pages, also known as parked pages or parked domains), Google has announced that you can place Adsense on such pages.

“Many publishers have approached us looking for a way to monetize their domains, and today, we’re excited to announce the expansion of AdSense for domains. This product allows publishers to earn revenue through ads placed on undeveloped domains.”

At the moment, you’ll need to be an “English-language AdSense publisher located in North America”. Google says, “we’ll expand to additional regions and languages in the future”.

It’s not as easy to get Adsense on your parked domain pages as it is for regular pages. It seems that you have to tweak the domain DNS settings to effectively turn the placeholder page over to Google, who then display a page with “Sponsored Listings”, “Related Searches” and “Popular Categories” along with two search boxes.

This raises two points…

1: How can Google justify creating a page with just ads and search boxes, when they say you can’t create MFA (”Made for Adsense”) sites? The unique content on these “Domains for Adsense” pages is zero. What was that famous guideline… something like… if you remove the advertising, does the page still offer value?

2: How these “Domains for Adsense” pages have any relevance to the visitor? The only thing Google can base the targeting of the ads on is the domain name. As an Adwords advertiser, would you want your ad displayed on a page with very little relevance to what you’re offering?

People liked my earlier post with a Best Of The Web (BOTW) Discount Coupon Code, so here’s a brand new one…

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Ah, December. The last month of the year but the first of the winter season. For some, it is a time to bundle up and prepare for cooler temperatures. But for most, it is simply a month of “giving.” A time to spread good will and holiday cheer. And considering the current economic status a little “giving” could go a long way. So this month, Best of the Web is greeting the season with a blizzard of savings.

From now until December 31st, you can Save 25% on All NEW Submissions and Sponsorship Advertising in the original Best of the Web Directory, the BOTW Blog Directory, and Best of the Web’s newest offering, the BOTW UK Directory!

To instantly Save 25% on all directory submissions, simply enter the following Promo Code when prompted:

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Best of the Web
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BOTW is one of the oldest directories online, and seems to be “trusted” by Google. Also, whether or not a site has a BOTW listing is reported by the “SEO for Firefox” plugin, along with DMOZ and Yahoo.

Enjoy the new Best Of The Web (BOTW) Discount Coupon Code!

Pownce (”Create a network of friends and share stuff. It’s free and easy”) is shutting down.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem that lack of funds is an issue (”Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart, the company behind such great blogging software as Movable Type, TypePad and Vox”), but I can’t help wondering if more “social media” sites, whose numbers have exploded over recent years, will shut down as a result of the “credit crunch”.

I’m not sure that many of the social media sites have solid business plans or are profitable. In fact, there seem to be echoes of the early dot com boom where the mentality was simply a huge, expensive grab for traffic and signups without profitability being considered to any great extent.

There’s always consolidation in any new industry as the more profitable players squeeze out the less efficient guys, but to what extent will this happen with social media sites? Will we see consolidation, or a huge meltdown?

In his latest issue of “Internet Marketing Secrets”, Michael Campbell indicates that the venerable old newsletter, where Michael has dispensed enough wisdom to launch a thousand newbies on the path to gurus, may soon close.

How typical of Michael that he puts the announcement near the end of the newsletter, after he’s given away more meaty content helping people brainstorm ideas for online business niches they can work in.

Here’s what he said…

“One More Quick Thing….

This newsletter is soon to be 10 years old. (That’s like 70 in internet years.) It’s had a good run, but after 150 issues, I’m thinking of retiring it.”

How about that? A decade of giving out free, quality advice… starting in 1998 or 1999, which is, like Michael says, the equivalent of 70 Internet years and WAY before most of today’s “gurus” had even heard of the Web.

Michael’s announcement introduces his Private Site where he’s going to create “an environment that’s free of hype and focuses on tested marketing strategies that are proven to work“.

While I’ll be sad to see the free Internet Marketing Secrets disappear, I will definitely be endorsing Michael’s private site. It’s the perfect time to launch a “hype free” member’s site, as the Internet marketing community drowns in an avalanche of offers, promos, hype and spam.

If you want to join Michael’s private site, get on the priority list because he’s capping membership at just 250 members. I’ve seen other private site’s cap at 1,000 members… so 250 is a small community and Michael will most likely hit the cap quickly.

Will Excess Blogvertising Kill Blogs?

Do blog “sponsors” pay so little that bloggers have to clutter up their pages with a gazillion ads?

The way blogs work, the homepage is usually a long page. It usually takes a little while to load, because of the multiple blog posts it.

When you then stick on TEN ads (shoemoney) or TWELVE (Yaro, I’m looking at you!), you make the load time even longer.

Perhaps the average blog visitor doesn’t mind.

But I remember when we had to crush GIF’s (image files) before putting them on our websites because they added to the page load time.

I also remember when Infoseek, Alta Vista and others switched from search engines to “portals” and cluttered up their pages with extra junk. Where are they now? Oh yes, killed off by Google and their super-streamlined homepage.

Is it just a case of blogging not being very profitable, and sticking a dozen ads on your blog’s homepage is a case of “getting $50 per month from each advertiser sure adds up if I can put on 3, 6 or 12 ads!”

Have you noticed an increase in advertising at blogs? Does it annoy you? Do you think bloggers are killing the golden goose by cluttering up their blogs? Don’t bloggers know about relationship marketing through the strength of their writing works better than traditional “in your face” ads sponsorships?

Will excess blogvertising stop you going back to a blog you like, or are you willing to put up with it because of the strength of the blogger’s posts?

So I guess I’m on a few lists of dofollow blogs.

I don’t mind that. If you leave a valuable comment, you’ll get a dofollow link.

Heck, I even offer software that searches for dofollow blogs at Real Link Finder Finds Dofollow Blogs. We’ve issued 13,341 unlock keys for that software, so it’s mighty popular… probably because I give it away.

But, please, if you want a link, follow the instructions when leaving a useful comment. Stuffing the “name” field with keywords will just result in your comment being deleted. Leaving a “canned” comment will just result in your comment being deleted.

By the way, I hope you also notice the lack of advertising at this blog. People have offered to buy links and I could easily add advertising for a bajillion products, but I haven’t. This is an advertising-free do-follow blog.

I hope to keep it that way, with your active participation.

It seems that kicking up a fuss can result in the desired action… even if you only kick up a fuss at your own blog.

The Rant at Commission Junction blog post received 56 comments, most of them in my favor. A lot of comments didn’t seem to think too highly of Commission Junction.

Presumably, someone at Commission Junction is using something like Google Alerts to discover rants and ravings about Commission Junction online, and this blog was picked up. As a result, I got the following email…

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Hi Neil,

I hope this email finds you well.

I’m emailing regarding your recent query by our network quality team. It was brought to my attention by our Director of Compliance & Support Operations, Jeff Ransdell.

In discovery of a potential issue, the necessary due diligence was not performed by our accounts team in the US and you received a warning you should not have received. For this, both myself and Jeff apologise. I hope you do not construe this incident as something that is business as usual from our side. Many folks have blogged on your site saying that this our normal way of operating. I can assure it is not.

We look forward to working with you further and I remain available to you as a contact for any and all questions.

Thank you,

Daniel Powel

Head of Account Management, UK and Ireland
==

Hooray. Hopefully, CJ now reviews the fact that they didn’t do “necessary due diligence” and change their system so that it doesn’t happen to other people.

Result!

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Update: It seems like people want the short-version of the story. Here it is:

A few weeks ago Commission Junction sent me an email saying I was in violation of their terms and conditions and that I needed to take down a specific webpage at www.incomemax.com or they would close my Commission Junction account.

The webpage they wanted removed framed a page from the babycenter.com website. I guess there’s a relationship between babycenter.com and Commission Junction. However, the page at Incomemax.com doesn’t use a Commission Junction link and was created back in the year 2000 in response to a request (presumably from babycenter.com). So the page was created before the account that Commission Junction was threatening to close even existed!

When I raised this point with Commission Junction they agreed that I was not in violation of their agreement. They didn’t apologise for being wrong. I think they used unnecessary bullying tactics and should take longer to investigate each incident before threatening to close accounts.
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If you’ve got a few minutes, here’s the movie version…

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(for a much larger version, click here)

I don’t think it’s right that Commission Junction can try to bully me into taking down a webpage when they were 100% absolutely, categorically, in the wrong.

What do you think? Should Commission Junction have done just a little bit of research before firing off a legal email threatening me with account closure? How long would it have taken them to work out that the incident they were complaining about didn’t even use a Commission Junction link?

Am I right to get worked up about this? Is it an important principle to defend, or am I over-reacting?

It usually takes a lot to get me into “rant mode”, but Commission Junction managed it!

Want to know more about Goobert, then check out Michael’s new Affiliate Marketing Podcasts… you’ll get the 13-page Goobert PDF report as a free bonus.

Michael calls Goobert, “the fastest way to get free traffic and start generating affiliate revenue within hours. Guaranteed” and, “In my tests, I can ramp up to 400 visitors per day in less than a month working only 20 minutes per day.” Wow! I’ve just reviewed it, and I think Michael could’ve sold the Goobert report for $67, easily.

Incredibly, Michael’s Affiliate Marketing Podcasts are just $15.95, and you get the Goobert report thrown in for free.

I was checking my Adsense stats recently and noticed that the “total earnings” didn’t equal the sum of the separate domains I have listed.

Hmmm, free extra Adsense income… can’t be bad, right?

Well, hold on a minute. The Web is pretty cut-throat when it comes to cash… lots of people will sell their grannies for a shiny dollar bill… so where is this unknown Adsense income coming from? Let’s look at some of the possibilities…

• It could be an old site I own that I hadn’t listed as one of my domains which has suddenly got lots of traffic.
• It could be a new site I added Adsense to, but forgot to list as one of my domains.
• It could be a “smart” person ripping off my webpages, putting them on their domains, but leaving my Adsense code intact. (not so smart)
• It could be someone who accidentally put my Adsense code on their pages.
• It could be someone trying to get me in trouble by putting my code on adult pages or doorway pages.

OK, so enough of the wondering… here’s what I did…

In my Adsense account, under “AdSense Setup / Allowed Sites“, I listed all of my domains that had got impressions in the last month and clicked on “Save Changes”.

According to Google, this will allow me to see which ads are using my code, but aren’t on the Allowed List.

“How can I tell which sites are using my AdSense code without my permission?
By visiting your Allowed Sites page, under the AdSense Setup tab, you can see the URLs that are using your AdSense code but are not on your Allowed Sites list.” (source)

If I recognise the domains using my code, I’ll add them in and “legitimately” earn from the clicks. If I don’t recognise the domains, I’ll leave them out in the cold, forfeit the revenue, but be sure my genuine Adsense income is safe and secure.

What do you think? Have you got “phantom Adsense cash”?

Michael just let me know that he’s slashed the price of his new product, the Affiliate Marketing Secrets Podcasts from $49.99 to just $15.95.

Incredibly, on the sales letter, Michael says that’s not cheap. Woah. I beg to differ. In a market where people ask $1997 for digital info products, I think $15.95 for several hours of interviews related to starting and growing an affiliate marketing business is very cheap. I would go so far as to say that adding this information to your marketing library is a “no brainer”.

You do have a library of products that you learn from and repeatedly go back to, don’t you? If not, start building one. All the experts and gurus don’t know every secret to selling online, that’s why you want to build up a library of products by the experts you trust, so that you get a wide-ranging overview of the subject, and lots of tips from many different sources.

Oh, and this isn’t a disguised “bait” offer with a high-ticket backend, an upsell, a continuity program or a physical monthly newsletter that you’ll be strong-armed into buying. Michael doesn’t do business that way, fortunately.

New coupon code for December 2008 posted here.

I just got this email…

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Attention Valued BOTW Members,

This Halloween, Best of the Web is offering a special treat that you don’t need to put on a costume to receive. As a show of appreciation for our loyal customer base during these tough economic times, we are offering all BOTW members a special 20% discount on all New Directory Submissions, BOTW Local Listings and Sponsorship Advertising for the entire month of October. Now that’s something to scream about!

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Get Started today and Save 20% on:

You may use the promo code multiple times for multiple products and services throughout the month of October. Remember to act now, this amazing deal ends October 31st, 2008 so be sure to take full advantage!
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BOTW is one of the oldest directories online, and seems to be “trusted” by Google. Also, whether or not a site has a BOTW listing is reported by the “SEO for Firefox” plugin, along with DMOZ and Yahoo.

Some of my SEO friends suggested getting my sites listed in BOTW for additional search engine ranking power, but I didn’t submit any in September because I was hoping for a new coupon… and now one’s arrived.