1. Effective & Scalable Automated Content Generation Strategies

    4 months ago

    For years there have been a wide array of automated content creation solutions, from RSS recycling wordpress plugins, to open source content generators, to fake science paper generators, right on through to custom high end programming jobs used by financial firms like Thompson Financial.

    The downfall of most automated content solutions is the perception that because it is automated it is spammy. But that perception may have changed recently, when the NYT published an article about Philip M. Parker. Mr. Parker created a sophisticated set of algorithms which has allowed him to automatically generate over 200,000 books.

    He points out that once he has trained the computer to take data about past sales and make complex calculations to project future sales, each new book costs him about 12 cents in electricity. Since these books are print-on-demand or delivered electronically, he is ahead after the first sale, he said.

    This video explains a bit more of the process

    And when it comes down to content quality, a person who reviewed one of the books on Amazon.com, stated

    “The book is more of a template for ‘generic health researching’ than anything specific to rosacea. The information is of such a generic level that a sourcebook on the next medical topic is just a search and replace away.” … Mr. Parker was willing to concede much of what Mr. Pascoe argued. “If you are good at the Internet, this book is useless,” he said, adding that Mr. Pascoe simply should not have bought it.

    So this is a case of self-proclaimed substandard production, and because he is first to market it is fine. But the profit margins are probably bigger than Google’s. The commercial web is just over a decade old and this sort of technology already exists. Where will automated content generation be in 5 years? In 10 years?

    The best publishers are focusing on building large growing communities. Content is becoming a commodity, as content without subscribers is worthless. As failing mainstream publishers follow in Mr. Parker’s footsteps, small publishers stand no chance to compete unless they have an army of brand fans.

    Aaron Wall

  2. SEO Video Subdomain Clean Up

    4 months ago

    I recently glanced at our SEO videos subdomain and was disappointed with the layout and formatting, so I spent the last couple days adding videos, categorizing them, and adding introductory text. With that subdomain only having 1% of our overall traffic, it hints at how bad the old formatting was. Please let me know what you think of the new subdomain.

    Things have been going quite well since we formally launched the SEO community and training program.

    • I have been blown away by the quality of discussion on the forums. On more than one occasion I have opened up a number of tabs for answering different questions, answered a question, and then looked at how great another answer was by different members who answered quicker than I did, where I erased my answer to write “____’s answer was better.” It is inspiring to see the community work out that well so early on.
    • In less than 2 months since formally launching I have made over 2,000 forum posts, and it seems this business model scales better than the old model and offers much better interaction between clients and I. Rather than trying to rush to get through all the emails (as one does when they get 100’s every day) there is enough time to really interact with customers. The back and forth and variety of participants really enhances learning, and helps me focus on what training modules to create. Smilies.
    • Yesterday I figured out how to embed YouTube videos in the forums, and today we got cool new smilies (white hat, black hat, Google, spam, money, and a cheers mug)
    • The first month after launch I was able to make 4 video PowerPoint training modules. I got nothing but great feedback on those and want to see if I can create at least a few of them a month. Ideally I would make one a week, but eventually I will end up running out of topics at that pace. I have not been creating much video content for the blog because I want to make most of that stuff subscriber only. I probably need to figure out some balance on this front.
    • In the last 3 weeks we had 2 conferences and finished up taxes, and yet were able to keep up fine with both the forum and email. That bodes well for future growth potential and scalability.
    • I use Google Docs to take notes on what to update and what to add to our monthly newsletters. Google recently over-wrote one of these, but luckily I had a saved offline copy and was able to restore it.
    • Recently I did way too many interviews. I think it is important to be aggressive with self promotion when you do new launches, but I bet my interviews would have been better received if I spaced some of them out. I got to feeling a bit unoriginal because when you do that many interviews the questions tend to overlap, and so do some of the answers.
    • The developer of our Rank Checker extension just had another baby (or his wife did). So updates to that will take a bit. I plan on creating a bunch more software, but much of it will likely be decentralized due to the added reliability and cost benefit of decentralization. The decentralization does not lock in users as well as the centralization model does, but at the end of the day if the product is better that is all that matters.
    • In the background of all that I did a joint venture partnership with another big player in our space. I just saw the first version of some of that work and it is looking quite exciting. More news on that front coming soon.

    The percentage of site traffic that comes to our blog is now down to ~ 40%. I hope to keep growing traffic, but drive that down to about 30% by the time the year is out, through expanding our training program, community, and tools offerings. There is lots of growth opportunity in creating more tools and improving the integration between our training modules and our community forums.

    I have a couple more blog posts I want to make in the next few days, but I am going to start focusing more efforts on cross integrating the community forums with the training modules, and looking for other ways to add value to the membership area of the site.

    There are also a few lead content ideas kicking around in my head. I hope to have at least one or two of these done before the month is out. Thanks for reading even though my publishing has been a bit sporadic. Hopefully a few of those features will help make up for that.

    Aaron Wall

  3. Google is Quietly Consuming the Internet

    4 months ago

    TechRepublic asks “Will the Google revolution engulf IT departments?” Each time I write a newsletter, about 80% of the items are about Google. They keep innovating faster than other companies their size. Here are some examples of things they have done over the last ~ 2 months.

    • Changes organic search results based on prior search query.
    • Added a search box for site search inside the search results, giving Google a second taste at displaying ads even on navigational queries for a specific website.
    • Started crawling site search forms on trusted sites, which (along with sitelinks, universal search, Youtube, and branded video ads) distributes more traffic to large trusted sites and business partners, with less traffic going to smaller websites (search keeps getting more editorial).
    • Offered App Engine, which provides free hosting to developers (in exchange for being stuck on their network and letting them spy on your usage data and growth).
    • Created a marketplace for people building on the Google network.
    • Begun policing widgets not on their network, a topic that deserves its own post.

    Not only are dumb companies buying into the everything Google strategy, but even some semi-intelligent ones are. After logging into Dreamhost recently I was shocked to see them integrating Google apps and email on all customer domains. What happens if/when Google buys GoDaddy? How does Dreamhost compete when Google gives away hosting as a loss leader?

    There is big risk to Google consuming the web. The issue is not only information diversity and innovation, but what happens when your Google account gets hacked? I regret my reliance on Gmail, but am unsure how to fix it.

    Aaron Wall

  4. $100 of FREE Text Links

    Recently

    The friendly folks at Tet Link Ads are offering all new customers

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  5. Interview with SEOROI Gab Goldberg, Sugarrae, and Stuntdubl

    4 months, 1 week ago

    If you’ve ever wondered hey why should I go an SEO conference what the heck am I going to get out of it check out this interview with Gab Goldenberg, Sugarrae, Stuntdubl and myself from SMX West.
    I had never met Gab before that afternoon, but he came across as nice guy, he didnt violate […]

    Michael Gray

  6. From the Marathon to the Undies

    4 months, 1 week ago

    Ok so Mel Carson has finished the London Marathon, way to go Mel. So I was looking for a new cause then I remembered Tomima Edmark’s blog. Her site was covered in SES NYC (the bouncing sports bra one hehehe). Anyway her website Herroom, which sells everything from panties by Calvin Klein to ladies shapewear […]

    Dave Naylor

  7. Elsewhere…

    4 months, 1 week ago

    Adam Audette has been posting some great stuff lately. Check out his posts on link building fundamentals and internet marketing and the limitations of language.

    Dan Durick posted about how the economy can affect search behavior. Look at the numerous sources and graphics included in his post. It adds a lot of depth and credibility to the piece, because it relies on third party data and is more work than a typical spammer is willing to do (though many low level linkbaits do source 3rd party stats as a strategy). Anytime you add in 3rd party data you become a guy speaking truth and teaching rather than the salesman. Just by glancing at that blog post and knowing what you already know about search and market research data you have a big advantage over 99% of your market.

    Lee Dodd announced the “Biggest Webmaster Forum Contest Ever!” offering over $25,000 in prizes, and 5 chances to win a free 3 month trial of our SEO training program.

    Aaron Wall

  8. Why You Need to Be Concerned About Sloppy CSS

    4 months, 1 week ago

    If you follow me on twitter chances are you seen more than one rant on bad web design, bad CSS, and bad/sloppy coding. Sure I’m a reformed CSS Zealot who used write XHTML 1.1 valid code for kicks. I may have returned to slightly more normal life, but I still believe there’s value in writing […]

    Michael Gray

  9. Live Search Maps No more in the UK

    4 months, 1 week ago

    yes as the rest of the world shout about how great the new live maps are .. in the UK we only get MultiMaps.. on the plus side multimaps is a better mapping solution for the UK anyway,
    DaveN

    Dave Naylor

  10. How to Protect Your Business From Nefarious Subdomain Hijacking

    4 months, 1 week ago

    A couple days ago while I was at a conference news came about that Network Solutions was hijacking unused customer subdomains to post links to their other websites. It is getting really hard to trust *many* online service providers.

    A big tip for new websites is to use the www subdomain and 301 the non www version to the www version, for 3 reasons

    1. If some nefarious group tries to add subdomains to your site you can easily spot them with a Google search for site:mysite.com -site:www.mysite.com (you could subtract other subdomains if you liked as well, likeso). You can even set up a Google Alert to track Google indexing any subdomains by entering that search in a Google Alert. Once any new subdomain is discovered you can delete any of their nefarious activity and/or add the subdomain and 301 it to your site to reclaim any link popularity (if the domain was expired or re-purchased and the subdomain had some remnant link equity).
    2. Already owning the www and non-www means that they have fewer opportunities to hijack one of your most important subdomains.
    3. Some automated penalties that occur on subdomains do not flow back to the root. If you are using WWW you can move it to another subdomain, but if your core site is at the root (without the www) then you may be out of luck.

    Disclaimer: Microsoft Live Search is *really* bad at following 301 redirects. So if you are already using the non-www version and have built a lot of links, then it may not be worth the risk of 301ing it…especially if your site is really clean and you are not pushing any algorithmic limits with aggressive SEO techniques.

    In addition to the above tips, ensuring that you software is up to date and using your own non-shared host also helps mitigate the risk of subdomain hijacking. SEO Book reader Rich Atkinson also stated

    Another good tip is to create a wildcard dns ‘A’ record for your domain. Then config your web server to 301 all unrecognised hosts to your main site.

    This is good for picking up the ww.example.com typos too.

    Of course - you may or may not be able to do this on shared hosting.

    Aaron Wall

  11. Elite Retreat 2008 and Final Thoughts

    4 months, 1 week ago

    There’s always “take home” value that you can immediately apply after attending Elite Retreat. I, Giovanna have signed an NDA so I can’t go into deep details. Last year, I learned the various monetization models from Jeremy Shoemaker’s presentation and Lee Dodd introduced the idea of buying and selling website “real estate.” This year, Andy Liu’s presentation was very interesting because it had a different approach and it focused on team building, applying business formulas, metrics and attracting investors. A memorable quote by Andy about his way of investing was “Buy Based on Current Revenue and Sell for Strategic Value.” Although I have no intention to sell any of my sites, I now know what investors look for and the path to take for increased profitability. Had a short yet highly productive chat with Brian Clark about copywriting and conversion. There will be more posts on conversion because it’s my new homework and there really is no secret forumula —> Just hard work.

    I was bummed out for missing Shoemoney’s presentation this year because you always learn something new and cool from that guy…especially in exclusive and highly private groups like Elite Retreat. It was my loss. Aaron sat next to Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress during the lunch and I guess they had fun exchanging SEO stories. I actually use his platform on at least three of my sites. Aaron is so addicted to the web that his knowledge goes beyond SEO. He’s now tying SEO and marketing to the social networking theory. That’s not white hat, it’s more like clear hat.

    The Elite Retreat attendees are all pretty darn razor SHARP. Just being around incredibly smart people was worth the investment but being able to “pick” the brains of the industry’s top thought leaders is priceless. Ugh, that last sentence sounded too Mastercard-ish but it’s true. People who have attended in the past come for the 2nd or 3rd time.

    BOTTOM LINE: Knowledge is can be expensive but truly life changing once it’s IMPLEMENTED. If you really want to make it, you need to go out there and take immediate action. If the results are not what you expected, LEARN. If they are positive, RE-APPLY! :)

    Aaron Wall

  12. Top 10 passwords 2008

    4 months, 1 week ago

    I just had a client send me a password, which I have told them they need to change, what made me laugh was Becky my wife said “it’s better than the old password” which was password .. lol, then that reminded me of the top 10 passwords ..
    darkreading had these top 10 passwords :
    1. (username)
    2. […]

    Dave Naylor

  13. Why SEO Can’t Be Your Only Value Add

    4 months, 1 week ago

    In my early days I played a bit more in the darker side of the game. I fully admit that I built and ran more than 1 or 2 scrapers, aggregators, and MFA style sites, but as a business model those type of sites are really on the decline, and not something I’d ever recommend […]

    Michael Gray

  14. Yahoo! to Test Monetizing Their Search Results With Google AdWords Ads

    4 months, 1 week ago

    From their press release:

    Yahoo! Inc. a leading global Internet company, announced today that it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.’s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!’s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!’s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.

    Anyone who syndicates Yahoo! ads or operates a business that relies on selling clicks has to be concerned with this news.

    Aaron Wall

  15. Yahoo to serve Google Ads

    4 months, 1 week ago

    Yahoo is said to be in the final stages to carry search ads from Google. it’s report that the 2 week test which be limited to around 3% of the US traffic will be part of a test that could lead to a much bigger partnership.
    this test is designed for the 2 sides to evaluate […]

    Dave Naylor

  16. Are You More Entertaining than a Sock Puppet

    4 months, 1 week ago

    So my buddy Loren Feldman over at 1938 media has been having grand old time giving a parody of Shel Israel lately. While it’s all been pretty funny I think there are a few points to learn from this.
    Let’s take a look at one of Loren’s videos:

    Now lets look at one of Shel’s videos …
    viewNode(”b915bbb2c79a3″, […]

    Michael Gray

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  18. International SEO in 1 minute

    4 months, 1 week ago

    NO NO NO I was reading soloseo and this quote I disagree with and agree with !
    One aspect of doing International SEO is having your content available in other languages. Hiring a translator to translate your blog is cost prohibitive for most bloggers, running $50-$250 for each language per post
    yes the cost can be prohibitive, […]

    Dave Naylor

  19. No Optimizer Left Behind

    4 months, 1 week ago

    While I was off doing some work Jill and Lisa engaged in a debate over whether or not we need SEO standards. Even though I’m a day late and a dollar short I’m still going to throw my 2 cents in.
    The biggest problem with SEO standards is we’ll get some half baked, half assed, implementation […]

    Michael Gray

  20. This made me shake my head

    4 months, 2 weeks ago

    Googles part in driving up the spectrum price auction
    What would have happened if Google had won, they had already said they didn’t want to build any wireless infrastructures , but the killer thing for me is Google Adwords is an auction system and they hated it when people messed with it so why do they […]

    Dave Naylor


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