Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category
Monday, September 1st, 2008 |
On the heels of my cookie tracking concerns with IE8 and my call for more cookieless affiliate tracking I’d like to point out a program that does it right.
The Best of the Web offers an affiliate program for their product that uses a direct link referral based tracking method. This method is easily the best way run an affiliate program today because it not only eases some of the affiliate tracking concerns but it also gets the program direct links with juice (assuming people like me don’t nofollow them).
As an affiliate used to long string parameter links the idea is a little head scratching when you first see your affiliate url is a direct link. In reality the method couldn’t be much simpler. All you have to do is claim a site you’d like to promote from and you’re set. This is done by verifying ownership through a meta tag or file upload similar to Google’s Webmaster Tools. Once your site is claimed all tracking is done via click-through referrals which means the affiliate doesn’t have to worry about any cookie stealing or blocking. Easy enough right?
Affiliate Managers please take note. 
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, SEO | 4 Comments »
Friday, August 29th, 2008 |
I’m going to preface this post by stating I have more questions than answers regarding the topic so if you have answers by all means post a comment.
It is pretty well known that Google does give some preference to a ccTLD site when searching from Google in the same country. As an example, a local business in the UK will have a bit more preference in Google.co.uk SERPs with a site based on the .co.uk (or other UK ccTLD) extension. I think the concept very solid and really gives a better overall search experience.
Does the .US extension fall in Google’s search algo?
I ask because I don’t know and haven’t been able to find any information regarding the question. Google.us redirects to Google.com so by default US users get Google.com as their search engine. I have have no problem with this but from all the searches and comparisons I’ve made I don’t see any bump given at all to sites on the .US extension. This leaves me with a few questions.
Is .COM assumed to be the native extension of US users?
Is there any .US preference when searching from the US?
- If no, is this because the .US ccTLD hasn’t caught on as heavily as other ccTLDs?
-If no, will .US ever get Google search preferences from searching Google.com from inside the US?
As an internet marketer and “domain collector” this topic is fascinating to me. I’ve never been too public about it but I am a fan of the .US extension and think it will become a solid option for US citizens as an alternative to .COM over .NET and .ORG. The extension is already much more relevant from a business perspective and as all TLD registrations continue to rise it may be the only option.
My Opinion
I personally do not think that Google currently gives any preference in it’s algo to .US sites for US based searches. However, I think that as more and more US based businesses see the .US extension as the best alternative to .COM we will see a lot more small to medium sized businesses in the US running on the .US extension. Because of this, I feel Google will eventually make a tweak in the algo to provide a better search experience for US users by giving some preference to .US based sites.
Unless there is some info out there from Google that I have missed or unless Matt Cutts responds to me directly I’m not going to get a definative answer on this any time soon but I’d love to hear what experts in the SEO industry have to say about it. If you feel I’m way off by all means let me know.
Posted in Domains, SEO | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 |
As a domain nut it’s no surprise that acquiring a good keyword domain is a top priority for me in any new venture. While .com is always my primary objective other extensions are also an option. This is especially true with affiliate sites where branding isn’t as much of a concern. With all other SEO aspects being equal a nice keyword domain can give you the edge in the SERPs for very competitive terms and can allow you to dominate tight niches.
Here are a few examples:
The Long Tail Search Term
Earlier this year I went on a big domain regging spree picking up several thousand 2-4 keyword terms based on search volume. I knew I would end up dropping many but at the same time I also knew I would find a few nuggets. I parked all the names at Fabulous.com as they seem to have the longest window with the SEs before getting the parking ax. The goal was to see which terms would rank and what returns they would bring. So far there have been several winners which I’m not going to disclose because they are such tight niches.
One domain in particular was very strong and showed good potential for development as an affiliate site so I spent about a week researching and making affiliate relationships for the niche.
Today I dominate the term and related terms in Google and Yahoo. That hand reg from earlier this year with about 30 hours of development work is making over $150/day from SE traffic.
The Other Extensions
In early 2007 while doing some of my regular traffic research I noticed a keyword domain that got a lot of traffic and didn’t have any site up, MySpaceLayouts.org. Upon further investigation I saw that it was once a website. The domain was no where to be found in the SEs but did still have some incoming links. I contacted the owner to see what the deal was and if he was interested in selling. Come to find out he was a first time webmaster and had gotten a bit overwhelmed with the whole experience and had let the site go down about 5 months earlier. I’m not a big fan of the MySpace niche and I know the traffic isn’t overly valuable but I also knew there were several people bringing in over $1000/day with resource sites so I was interested. While the MySpace niche is arguably the most saturated on the internet the term “MySpace Layouts” is also one of the most searched terms making a good opportunity to pull the Keyword Domain trump card (Note: it also helped that .com and .net were not developed).
After backing the owner off his $200,000 asking price we finally came to a deal at $16,000. Pre-Development the domain was getting about 2,000 uniques/day with a large majority coming from direct type in. A couple of months later and about 30 minutes of work per week the site was starting to rank and has been holding steady with about 15-20,000 uniques/day. MySpaceLayouts.org has enjoyed a top 3 spot for the term in Yahoo for quite a while but is unfortunately in some sort of penalty with Google and doesn’t rank well. Even with Google problems the site still gets over 70% of it’s traffic from SEs and obviously there is potential for more. The site easily clears $200/day and has for a while making the investment quite sound.
Even in one of the most saturated niches on the internet a non .com keyword domain can pull the Keyword Domain trump card. 
Posted in Domains, SEO | 2 Comments »
