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- Posted by Jordan
- 23 September 2011
Now I am not trying to say that these auctions were ever out of the online webmaster community but there seems to have been a vast increase in the number of ‘premium’ domain sellers that are looking to try their luck in one of the oldest possible ways, and its working!
Online forums are riddled with webmasters that are constantly looking to sell domains, whether they are legitimate, dropped, aged, new or just that they need the funds from the sale to pay the bills, whatever the reason, there are thousands of domains listed for sale each and every day.
Lately I have been looking at expanding a football news network that I have even toyed with the prospect of adding dropped domains into the network in a move to help to expand the surface area of the site, so having one generic football news site and then club specific like Chelsea news, Arsenal News…
Today I have been looking about for ways in which I can further the size of my network and it seems that there is a huge number of Google PageRank domains being listed for sale over on DigitalPoint forums, a well known online webmaster site that seems to attract a huge variety of people.
With everything from hints and tips to scammers and complete and utter deceit, there is never a quiet day on the forum, there will always be some sort of confrontation or angry exchange in at least on of the threads on there.
Today I have had to offer up my opinion on a matter where one seller was looking to sell his “Valid PR7 Domain” and as I am always on the lookout for something with such high equity, I chipped in to see what sort of price the seller was looking for the domain.
After looking at the backlinks on the site, it soon became obvious that the site was not supported on high authority backlinks or anything even remotely close to that, instead the links into the site were little more than comment spam on posts that were carrying no PR what-so-ever.
I politely told the seller that I was not interested in the domain based on this fact and was told that the domain had survived the previous PR update (done in early August), puzzled I thought I would check the WhoIs information.
Just as I thought, it was a dropped domain that had been registered 15 days after the update, so that to me says that the links that must have given the domain the PR in the first place had been removed within the time between the update and me checking the backlinks.
So again I advised the seller on my findings and again I was told that I was wrong…
“Okay, you sell it to some other sucker then”
Yeah it was a little blunt but questioning my findings on the site when I knew that they were right really got under my skin.
So there I go, heading off to look at other potential gold mines and I get news that there is someone else adding their opinion on the sale thread, someone defending the seller for his antics and saying that he had bought many domains from him before and that people like me need to “go away and learn something”.
Right! Time to give this guy a dressing down and leave him feeling a little disorientated.
20 minutes of writing a reply and the job was done, fake PR domain once again avoided.
This got me thinking about many of the domains that are listed on the site, so I decided to have a look at 5 high PR domains that were listed for sale on the same site, see if the domains are legitimate or whether again these are the good old 301 redirect and then break redirect after PR update additions…
What a shock, 80% of the domains were little more than fake PR domains yet they were selling to webmasters on the forum for as much as $220!!
It seems that although there are a few webmasters out there that are able to avoid buying these domains as they look into a number of things to do with the domain but there are also so many people that are being mis-sold domains.
If you are on the look out for high PR domains, remember to:
Check the backlinks on the site – There should be a number of backlinks that are higher in PR than the domain in question.
Check the WhoIs information – Have a look at the creation date, is the domain aged or has the seller picked up the domain the day before and now they are looking to sell?
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- Posted by Jordan
- 01 July 2011
Google have this week announced the release of their new social networking sector, Google Plus, a site that seems to be geared towards trying to rival online networking giant Facebook but it seems that in their rush to develop the site, Google could well have undone themselves.
With Google users flooding to enter through the Google Plus doors following their announcement, extensive testing of capabilities has been under way as users across the globe look to find faults and flaws in the site, only hours after the site was brought into circulation to the public.
Our own research has revealed a huge potential issue within the release of the site that could potentially cause security issues for millions of email users after it was revealed that you could auto subscribe email users that were not using the Gmail emailing platform into updates that you make on the site, locking them into the updates without any way in which they can opt out.
The issues do not simply stop at the email contacts that you have within your contacts either, Google Plus offering a strange ability to be able to send out messages, links, pictures and videos to contacts that you have never even spoken to…
The result is that all of the emails that are featured within the ‘social circle’ that you are targeting all receive an email from Google, sharing your latest addition.
Okay so you think that that’s not too big of a problem, after all the internet is full of spam emails and we can simply unsubscribe from them, not this time!
Due to the fact that non-Gmail users are also receiving these emails, they do not have the capability to be able to click on the unsubscribe link within the email because of a resulting 404 error page that shows:
Okay it all seems a little bit strange but where is the danger?
The likelihood is that Google are going to work on rectifying the issues within their new release but in the meantime, malicious internet users now have a huge opportunity to be able to quickly and easily spread viruses, Trojans and botnets across the globe, meaning that anything within one of these updates could potential be fatal to your machine and in certain circumstances, you.
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- Posted by Jordan
- 27 June 2011
Search engine giants Google have today announced that they have rolled out the addition of their +1 button into the search engine results page, placing their latest effort to rival Facebook into the public domain.
The announcement which has been made via the Google Webmaster Blog revealed that the addition of the +1 buttons would be able to be seen within the search engines from major extensions of their domain, such as .com, .co.uk and .de.
The blog post that has been released into the public eye also points out a number of sites that are about to roll out the button within their site, highlighting some of the biggest names online.
With the release of the news that the +1 implementation will be phased into their results from today, Google have advised websites that are based within the United States that if they are going to use the button they should look to start to use the button on their site from now so that they are ready in time for the time that they add the feature to the US based site.
The +1 button is known to be a new version of the popular Facebook Like button, allowing visitors to a website to offer their own personal recommendation of a certain page that they are believe to be worth sharing.
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- Posted by Jordan
- 25 June 2011
- Miscellaneous
According to Mashable, online domain registrar Godaddy have been looking to sell their company since September 2010 and so far have attracted three interested parties in what would be a $2.5 billion purchase.
Godaddy are thought to be the biggest domain registrar of domain names on the internet and it seems that they are now looking to cash out of the market with a proposed sale thought to be worth billions of dollars.
The story has been a pretty closed one of late but the Wall Street Journal have announced that the sale of the company could well be done within the next 7 days, claiming that KKR & Co, Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures are hot in the running to purchase the domain company and brand associated with it.
According to the reports, Godaddy were thinking about accepting a $1 billion offer back in September 2010 but opted to hold out for more and it seems that their resilience may well just be about to pay off, awarding their patience with over double that amount.
Godaddy have become a globally recognised brand but has had it’s fair share of negative exposure following a number of ‘too hot for tv’ advertisements as well as a leaked video that showed Godaddy CEO Bob Parsons apparently shooting an elephant during a visit to Zimbabwe.
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- Posted by Jordan
- 24 June 2011
Online giants Google are constantly looking for new ways in which they can further improve their advertising network both for advertisers and ad publishers and news reports today reveal that the US brand have rolled out a new alteration to their existing Google Adwords offering that will benefit advertisers.
The latest addition to their Adwords advertising platform is that they are now able to offer advertisers the opportunity to promote their product or services to potential customers based on their previous search activities, also known as behaviour.
This means that you can now promote whatever you are offering to anyone across the globe, or within your chosen geographic placement, to any Google search engine users that have been browsing a subject close to your niche market, a step further away from the past, a time where the ads that were served on a site were purely based on the content it has present on the page.
Although the feature will seem like old news, especially since they have had this in beta testing since 2009, Google have officially announced that the features are now available within their platform for usage,
The announcement of the release of this alteration should help to increase advertising return of investment (ROI) as the search engine will quickly look into the history of the user, determine whether the ads will be of interested to them based on their search activity and display the ads if deemed to meet their search query.
Google offered an insight into the new targeting that the addition has to offer, saying that one brand saw 400% more conversions from their adverting and at a lower cost per click rate (CPC).
The release looks set to draw even more advertisers to the Adwords platform as the company look to continue their attraction of custom from rival advertising platforms from across the globe.
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- Posted by Jordan
- 15 June 2011
Online giants Google have today announced their latest effort at trying to improve user experience while using the internet, this time targeting the speed at which a website loads within the internet browser.
The creation of ‘Instant Pages’ is a move which has seen the search engine creators pre-load the website based on what they think is the most relevant site for your search, enabling you to see the information on the site quicker than ever before, highly optimised sites offering instant viewing.
The news that Google are looking to enhance user experience online is one in which will look to improve internet interaction, allowing viewers to be able to find information at lightning speed.
Google have said in their official blog that they are “obsessed with speed” and the video proof of what ‘Instant Pages’ has in store seems to depict that perfectly.
Within the video Google show two forms of search browser, both powered through Google Chrome but one with the ‘Instant Pages’ facility enabled and the other without, designed to show you the difference in page load speed.
The move to enhance the speed at which websites are displayed will be a huge step forward not only for Google but the entire internet using population, a development in the making that hopefully should be made available to all browsers within upcoming years.
Check out the Google Instant Pages video below and see for yourselves exactly how much of an improvement seems to have been made…
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- Posted by Jordan
- 10 June 2011
- Miscellaneous
Angry birds if you don't already know is a game that was originally developed for mobile phones and has pretty much set the standard as far as developing mobile gaming apps goes.
The company behind the game Rovio managed this colossal success without advertising the game at all. It was purely down to the games play, graphics and overall addictiveness that it grew to what it is today.
One thing we like here as SEO's is viral marketing and it seems that Angry Birds have started to step up their advertising game as they teamed up with T-Mobile to offer this awesome YouTube viral video;
The effects of this video so far?
Well as we can see from YouTube this video was uploaded on the 8th June, as I site typing this post in the very early hours on the 10th June the video has already reached 1,400,000 hits.
Another company we like to talk about is Google... who have also seen the potential in angry birds they've actually managed to strike up a deal where they can offer the game now online through their Chrome browser.
We all need a little break sometimes anyway... so next time your on yours why don't you play angry birds
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- Posted by Jordan
- 10 June 2011
Well there have been a number of interesting alterations made to the Google search engine results pages over recent days but it seems that although many have credited that to another roll out of the Panda update, that is not the case.
According to Google’s Matt Cutts, Panda update 2.2 has not yet hit the search engine but will be doing so very shortly, Cutts saying that the roll out had been approved and we could see the update happen soon.
So what has the latest Panda update got in store for the web?
Well it seems that Google are looking to crack down on ‘scraper’ websites that simply look to duplicate content from a number of sources with the use of automatic content extraction and a simple copy and paste style re-posting.
Google have had a huge amount of complaints about scraper sites in the past and now it seems that they are about to make their biggest step yet in a battle to de-value sites found to be guilty of using this technique.
Matt Cutts confirmed that scraper sites were about to be the target of the new Panda update, saying that the next version of the change, given the name Panda 2.2, will look to “help with that issue”.
During his answering of questions from webmasters, Cutts also pointed out that Google will continue to look to work on Panda, altering the algorithm to improve the ability of the poor content prevention method and also revealing that there is no set time as to when Panda will be set to happen within non-English language searches.
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- Posted by Jordan
- 10 June 2011
- Miscellaneous
Apple iPhone users will soon be able to keep a better tab on the host of iPhone applications that are available to them following the news that Bing are set to include relevant apps into the search results within their mobile internet platform.
The new addition will heavily increase the visibility of applications that are available to iPhone users, offering suggestions of applications that may be of use to the user based on the search terms that they use.
According to sources at Bing, the appearance of apps within the search results will not only help to improve application visibility but will also increase sales for app creators, leading to more apps being created in a bid to improve user experience while using the mobile internet.
As well as offering suggestions of apps that may be able to aid in your search for information, apps are tipped to be opened automatically should you already have the relevant app on your handset, opening up your eyes to the features that you already possess within your handset.
Here are a couple of screenshots of how the apps will show within the Bing search results, pictures taken from official Bing blog:
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- Posted by Jordan
- 10 June 2011
According to reports yesterday, Google have made a bold step towards improving their advertising revenue following the $400 million purchase of advert optimising company Admeld.
Admeld are a company known to build technology in order to help advertisers get the maximum return of investment from their advertising budgets, a service that millions of advertisers are thought to be willing to jump onto at the soonest possible opportunity.
According to the original report of the purchase by TechCrunch, the information in regards to the purchase has come from “multiple sources”, leading the industry to believe that this is true due to no official comment from Google been made as of today.
It seems that Google do not want to divulge any information about their strategy over the deal, a representative of the online giants saying that the company do not “respond to rumours or speculation”.
A look at the history of Admeld shows that the company were created in 2007 and have since worked to develop ways in which advertisers would be able to have more control over their advertising campaigns, a sure fire requirement for the Google advertisement platform that seems to be slowly developing.
