10 Rules to Keep Your Website Visitors Engaged

Do you know that most visitors leave a website within 10 seconds of landing on the home page? And they may nevër return to the same site. To keep your website visitors stay longer, you need to engage them. Follow these 10 simple rules to build a set of core loyal visitors who will return to your site frequently.

1. If you have a brick-and-mortar business and you want an online presence, don't just hand over your printed brochure to the web developer for your site's content.

2. Get good text, picture, and video content related to your products or services and organize them into categories for your website publication. How do you get content? You can ask your kids to write content for you. Today's kids are information savvy and know how to do research on right topics. They can help take pictures and videos of your products and provide narrations. If you cannot leverage your kids talents and you don't have time to develop content, buy them from online sources, like distributors of private label rights to articles and stöck photographs. You need a small content set to launch your web site.

3. Ask your developer for some sample websites he has developed in the past and review them. If you find clutter, music, unprofessional graphics, etc. in those sites, run away from the developer. Tell your web developer to use basic search engine optimization techniques for your web site. Use a developer who uses content management systems (CMS) to develop websites. You or your kids and spouse will be able to maintain and add content regularly to a CMS without much effort.

4. You must have an About US page in your website that explains the expertise of your company and your unique selling proposition. Also, you should provide a telephone number and an e-mail address for contact.

5. Publish a weekly tips section in your website. If you are in a business for a long time, you have a wealth of knowledge about your business, market, and technologies related to your business. Make it a habit of jotting down one tip every day. You will have plenty of tips for your weekly publication.

6. Don't use guest books, testimonials etc. These are so Web 1.0 concepts. Use a forum. Let your customers interact among themselves. Develop a value network. You get into the insights of your customers' minds by reading their posts and your visitors know your products and services by talking to each other. As a result, you will be able to provide improved products and services and ask for a premium price.

7. Promptly answer all your visitors' e-mail. This is one thing you should nevër delay. Use your visitors comments, e-mail, and other form of communications to generate ideas for new articles and tips.

8. Tell your web developer to include an RSS feed on your site and publish filtered news related to the market you serve and emerging technologies in that market. Don't use a weather report. Nobody comes to your site to chëck the weather.

9. Publish a frequently asked questíons page related to your products and services. It helps save your visitors' time and effort when they are looking for information on a particular topic related to your website.

10. Did you know that the average person must be exposed to an offër around seven times before they will make a purchase? Make your website an advertising platform for your most popular items. Advertise them throughout your site but don't use any 'in-your face advertising' techniques. You can use side bars for this type of advertising with interesting anecdotes, pictures, etc. Be creative and use your imagination.

Your website is your publishing medium. It is not your online catalog. You want repeat visitors who spend their time at your site for valuable information. The possibility of visitors turning into a paying customers improves when they stick around your site longer.

Top 10 Tips for Using Web 2.0 to Promote Your Business

We hear a lot about "Web 2.0" these days. It sounds neat and it's trendy to talk about blogging and social media. But does it really affect our businesses? Is Web 2.0 just for kids and tech-hipsters or is it something we business owners should use to help promote our businesses?

I can't tell you if Web 2.0 is right for your business, but I can tell you it's something to be aware of. Ignoring it means ignoring a possible tool that could be valuable in helping you get more customers.

So, to help you get started in thinking about Web 2.0 for your business, here are some things for you to consider.

1. Have a plan

Don't dive in just because it's cool or because you read an article about it. Be clear about what you're trying to accomplish, how much you're willing to invest and what time frame you are working on. Like any aspect of your business - plan ahead.

2. Make sure your target audience is online

Web 2.0 tools are fun but useless if the people who see your stuff don't want what you offër. Or if they don't look to the Web for information to help them buy what you sell, then your efforts will be less effective. Like any marketing channel, it only works if your prospective customers are there to see (or hear) your message and they are receptive to it.

3. Create good content

Web 2.0 is the social web, but it's still content-driven. Lousy content leads to lousy marketing, no matter how flashy it is. Make your content relevant, interesting and real. Put yourself in your customer's shoes and answer their questíons with your content.

4. Don't sell

Help, inform, educate but do not sell. Web 2.0 is all about people connecting by helping each other. No salesmen allowed! Think education, not advertising. Deliver useful, nuts and bolts stuff or honest opinions they can believe. That's how you build credibility and trust that lead to new customer relationships.

5. Start with a free hosted blog

Wordpress and Blogger both have very useful and simple blogs you can setup for frëe. Use them to start blogging and get a feel for how it works and how people use Web 2.0. Dip your toe in the water before diving in.

6. Talk to kids

Chat with some kids (ages 8 to 18) and find out how they use the web. They are the trend-setters. What they're doing now, the rest of us will be doing soon. Learn what they do and why. This helps you understand the web from a different perspective.

7. Do it yourself

Web 2.0 is about being real. It's real people connecting with each other. It's okay to hire a pro to advise you. But to keep it genuine, make sure you or your employees create the content and do the work. Otherwise people will know you're faking it.

8. Buy a camcorder and start shooting

Go to Best Buy or Radio Shack and buy an inexpensive camcorder, tripod and lapel microphone. Buy 20-30 tapes too. Then take a weekend and shoot film. Practice, practice, practice. Get comfortable being on camera so you're not nervous or dorky. Then, write a funny or useful how-to sketch and film it. Use Microsoft MovieMaker to edit and then upload to YouTube.com.

9. Buy an inexpensive audio recorder

MusicBarn.com has a package that includes M-Audio's MobilePre USB recording interface. Add a microphone and you have a high quality setup to record podcasts and MP3 audio files whenever you want. Then buy NGWave sound editing software to make it sound professional and you're in business.

10. Surf 'till it Hurts

Surf blogs, YouTube, Google Videos, Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Technorati and other social media websites. Get a feel for how they work and who goes there. Become part of some social media communities. Make new friends online. Immerse yourself in the Web 2.0 culture so you know how it works and if it might fit your marketing plans.

Some Opensource Softwares with thier categorization

Medical Practice Management-MirrorMed, ClearHealth, OpenEMR
GroupWare-eGroupWare, Horde-GroupWare
Shopping Cart-Zencart, CRELoaded, osCMax, osCommerce
CMS-Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, e107, XOOPS, Xaraya
Course Management-Moodle, ATutor
CRM-vTiger, XRMS
Blog-WordPress, b2evolution
Wiki-TikiWiki
Forum-phpBB

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CK-ERP is an open source accounting / MRP / ERP / CRM system

CK-ERP is an open source accounting / MRP / ERP / CRM system
that runs on top of multiple middlewares. It provides accounting and
back office functionalities to SMEs and utilizes the underlying
middleware to administer accounts/groups.



It comprises 22 modules - Administration, Multilingual Facility,
Contact Management, Customer Relationship, Customer Self Service,
Vendor Relationship, Material Requirement Planning, Warehouse,
Inventory, Service, Accounting Ledger, Bank Reconciliation, Accounts
Payable, Accounts Receivable, Purchase Order, Sales Order, Quotation,
POS for Cashier, POS for Manager, Human Resources, Staff Self Service
and Payroll.



Operating platform can either be LAMP or LAPP. Backend database engine can be anyone of MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite.

Supported MiddleWares:	Category	List of MiddleWares
	Medical Practice Management	MirrorMed, ClearHealth, OpenEMR
	GroupWare	eGroupWare, Horde-GroupWare
	Shopping Cart	Zencart, CRELoaded, osCMax, osCommerce
	CMS	Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, e107, XOOPS, Xaraya
	Course Management	Moodle, ATutor
	CRM	vTiger, XRMS
	Blog	WordPress, b2evolution
	Wiki	TikiWiki
	Forum	phpBB

Important Note:



Most mainline ERP software suffers from the common pitfall of trying to
please every single user or potential user; thus, creating a huge set
of parameters and a complicated customization, installation and
deployment process. These accumulates into the requirement to employ a
ERP consultant costing more than the software itself. Therefore,
irrespective of user requests, features that are too complicated or too
difficult to maintain will not be designed into nor implemented with
CK-ERP. Specifically, minimal documentation will be made available to
users of CK-ERP.



At the same time, to avoid being involved in lawsuits and/or wrangling
with legal attorneys and/or lawyers, CK-ERP tries to be up front about
its weaknesses, so please read through carefully in detail the content
of the index page of each CK-ERP module before diving into CK-ERP.

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Affordable Solutions For Internet Marketing

Do you have a website that is getting very little or no traffic at all? Well, there are ways that you can change that even on small marketing budget. We will review each of the strategies you can use to promote your website, and then we will try to assimilate them into a single, uniform strategy that is both highly effective and affordable.

First of all, TV commercials, radio ads, and print advertising are very expensive. This is undoubtedly the best way to launch a business, but the costs are prohibitive. A full page ad in a prominent magazine or other publication can run as high as $50,000 per ad. TV
commercials can run just as high; if the commercial runs during a popular television show or sporting event, the cost will be enormous. So, if you do not have enough money in the coffers for traditional advertising, you will likely have to use online marketing. This is not a bad thing. Offline advertising (i.e. radio, TV, print ads) is sometimes not effective. Marketing
on the internet is cheaper, and if done correctly, can give you much more bang for your buck.

Obviously, the cornerstone of internet marketing is search engine submission and optimization. There are hundreds of different search engines and directories on the internet where you
can submit your web site for a listing. This is fairly easy to do. Simply sign up for a monthly submission plan with a credible search engine submission service. There are literally hundreds of these submission services on the internet; you can find them by performing a search on Google.

However, be wary of submitters that claim to be able to submit your site to 75,000 search
engines. Such services are scams, and they will submit your web page to FFA pages and bogus link pages that can actually get you banned from the search engines. You should only do business with submission services that submit to the major search engines and directories.

Now that we have covered submission, we need to talk about search engine optimization (SEO), which is even more important. To optimize a site, you need to maximize keyword
density and optimize the positioning for the words or phrases that best characterize the subject matter of your site, and you need to use proper Meta tags so that the searchengines can interpret your web pages.

If you do not know how to optimize your web site, you should search for an optimization
professional on Google. Steer clear of SEO experts who want to charge $1,000 per month or more. Their goal is to bleed you dry before you figure out that they really can not help you get to the top of the rankings. Stick to providers who will optimize your site for a one-time fee.

More important than SEO is link popularity. Link popularity is the number of web sites that currently link to your site. The more inbound links you acquire, the higher your search engine ranking will be. There are more than a few ways to acquire links, but I have a certain strategy that worked well for me. My advice to you is to write articles and press releases and submit them to article directories and press release distribution services who will then distribute your articles and
press releases to other websites who will publish them and in return link back to you. Also, you can submit your site to bloggers through a popular service called Blogitive (Blogitive will get blogs to post one-way anchor text links to your site in their blog, which will greatly enhance your search engine ranking).

If you are not patient enough to wait for your search engine ranking to improve, you can
attract visitors to your web site instantly by using pay-per-click advertising (PPC). With PPC, you pay a certain cost per click to have an ad for your web page run at or near the top of the search engine listings for certain keywords. This can be extremely costly and ineffective. It is not uncommon for webmasters to blow thousands of dollars on PPC advertising and make only a few sales.

The best way to promote your site, if you are actually selling something, is through an affiliate
program. You need to provide an affiliate code to other online merchants so that they will place your banner on their site; every time you make a sale that resulted from an affiliate referral, the affiliate gets a commission. Some internet companies have thousands of affiliates, and get all the business they would ever need or want this way; and it costs you nothing.

To recruit affiliates, you should submit your affiliate program to as many directories as possible (there are directories where you can list your affiliate program for free). The best way to find affiliates is by listing your program on forums or message boards visited by webmasters who are looking to generate additional revenue for their online business. You will have to consult with an experienced programmer who can set up the affiliate program so that the codes used to track sales for each affiliate will work properly.

So, to summarize, you should first optimize your website and submit it to search engines. You should then begin submitting articles and press releases to article directories and press release distribution services. You should also submit your site to Blogitive so that bloggers will write a review of your site and link to it, further boosting your link popularity. You might want to join a link exchange, but trading links often proves fruitless. Also, you should set up an affiliate program. And finally, you should budget a small amount of money to spend each week on pay-per-click.

If you are persistent and use all of these methods, you will continually increase your traffic over a period of time. It will probably take approximately 3 years of performing each of the tasks outlined in this article, on a daily basis, to get where you want to be. Just stick with it and your efforts will be rewarded in the long run.

Improved Search Engine Rank - Google Page Rank Misconceptions

Improved search engine rank is attainable through good search engine optimization, part of which is the maximizing of your Google Page Rank through intelligent linking with other web pages. In this first part of 2 on the subject of Google Page Rank, we will look at the argument for attaining high listings through a linking strategy.

Google Page Rank is a buzz term at the moment since many believe it to be more important to your search engine listing than search engine optimization. If we ignore for the moment the fact that Page Rank is, in itself, a förm of SEO, then there are arguments for and against that belief.

Before we investigate these arguments, let's understand some fundamentals of search engine listings. First, most search engines líst web pages, not domains (websites). What that means is that every web page in a domain has to be relevant to a specific search term if it is to be listed.

Secondly, a search engine customer is the person who is using that engine to seek information. It is not an advertiser or the owner of a website. It is the user seeking information. The förm of words that is used by that customer is called a 'search term'. This becomes a 'keyword' when applied to a webmaster trying to anticipate the förm of words that a user will employ to search for their information.

A search engine works by analyzing the semantic content of a web page and determining the relative importance of the vocabulary used, taking into account the title tags, the heading tags and the first text it detects. It will also chëck out text related contextually to what it considers to be the main 'keywords' and then rank that page according to how relevant it calculates it to be for the main theme of the page.

It will then examine the number of other web pages that are linked to it, and regard that as a measure of how important, or relevant to the 'keyword', that the page is. The value of the links is regarded as peer approval of the content. All of these factors determine how high that page is listed for search terms that are similar contextually to the content of the page.

Without doubt, there are web pages that are lísted high in the search engine indices that contain very little in the way of useful content on the keywords for which they are listed, and have virtually no contextual relevance to any search term. However, a careful investigation of these sites will reveal two things.

The first is that many such web pages are frequently lísted highly only for relatively obscure search terms. If a search engine customer uses a common search term to find the information they are seeking, they will very rarely be led to a site that has little content other than links, but it is possible. The second is that they contain large numbers of links out to other web pages, and it can be assumed that they have at least an equal number of web pages linking back.

It is possible to find such web pages for many keywords. An example is on the first page on Google for the keyword 'Data VOIP Solutions'. There is a website there that is comprised only of links. The site itself as little content, but every link leads to either another website that provides useful content, or another internal page full of more links and no content. That is how links can be used to lift a web page high in the SE listings.

Such sites frequently contain only the bare minimum of conventional search engine optimization, but the competition is so low that they gain high listings. You will also find them to contain large numbers of internal pages, every one of which contain the same internal and external links.

It is true, therefore, that it is possible to get a high listing without much content, but with a large number of links. However, is that a legítimate argument for those promoting links against content? Could you reasonably apply that strategy to your website? Could a genuine website really contain thöusands of links to other internal pages and external pages on other websites, and still maintain its intended purpose?

In the second part of this article, titled 'Search Engine Rank: Google Page Rank Misconceptions' I will explode some myths about Page Rank, and explain how many people are wasting their time with reciprocal links, and perhaps even losing through them. It may be that a linking strategy is not so much an option, as a choice between the type of website that you want: to provide genuine information or to make monëy regardless of content.

Improved search engine rank might be synonymous with Google Page Rank, but perhaps only if you want to sacrifice the integrity of your website.

Part 2

Improved search engine rank is difficult enough to obtain without you having to trawl through all that has been written about Google Page Rank in order to find the truth. There are many misconceptions about Page Rank, and Part 2 of this article dispels the most common of them, the first being that Yahoo and MSN have their own version.

In fact this is not so. Yahoo had a beta version of a 'Web Rank' visible for a while, ranking complete websites, but it is now offline. MSN has no equivalent as far I can ascertain. The term 'PageRank' is a trade mark of Google, which is why I refer to it as Page Rank and not PageRank. A small difference, but a significant one.

If you are one of those that believe that the more links you can get to your website the better, then you are wrong. When Google started the Page Rank frenzy by putting that little green bar on their toolbar, they didn't realize the consequences of what they were doing. People fought to get as many links to their website as possible, irrespective of the nature of the websites to which they were linking.

That is misconception Number 2. You do not link to websites, you link to web pages, or should I say, you get links back from web pages, not websites. It is, after all, the link back that counts isn't it? The link away from your site doesn't count. Wrong! Misconception Number 3. The link to your web page counts no more than the link away from your web page. In fact, it could count less. You could löse out in the reciprocal linking stakes if your web page is worth more than the other person's.

Let's dispel that misconception right now. When you receive a link from a web page (not web site) you get a proportion of the Google Page Rank of that web page that depends on the total number of links leaving that page. When you provide a link to another web page, you give away a proportion of your Page Rank that depends on the number of other links leaving your web page.

The Page Rank of the website you get a link from is irrelevant, since that is generally the rank of the Home Page. You will likely find that all these great links you think you have from PR 7 or 8 websites are from a links page that has a PR of ZERO! So you get zilch for the deal. If you are providing them with a link from a page on your site even of PR 1, then you löse! Most people fail to understand that.

No incoming link can have a negative effect on your PR. It can have a zero effect, but not negative. However, if you have an incoming link with zero effect, and an outgoing reciprocal link with a positive effect to the target page, then you will effectively löse PR through the deal. Every web page starts with a PR of 1, and so has that single PR to share amongst other pages to which it is linked. The more incoming links it has, the higher PR it can have to share out.

If your page has a PR of 4 and has three links leaving it, each gets twice the number of PR votes than if 6 links leave it. Your page with a PR of 4 has to get a similar number of PR votes incoming as it gives away to retain its PR. In simple terms, if your PR 4 page is getting links from a PR 8 page with 20 links leaving it, you löse out big time! It's simple math.

No page ever gives away all of its PR. There is a factor in Google's calculation that reduces this to below 100% of the total PR of any page. However, that is roughly how it works. You don't get a proportion of the whole website ranking; you only get part of the ranking of the page on which your link is placed. Since most 'Links Pages' tend to be full of other outgoing links, then you won't get much, and will likely get zero.

That is why automated reciprocal linking software is often a waste of time. If you want to make the best of linking arrangements, then agree with the other webmaster that you will provide each other with a link from equally ranked pages. That way both of you will gain, and neither loses. Some software allows you to make these arrangements.

Another misconception is that only links from external web pages count. In fact, links between your own web pages can be arranged to provide one page with most of the page rank available. Every page has a start PR of 1, so the more pages you have on your site then the more PR you have to play with and distribute to pages on your website of your choice.

Search engine rank can be improved by intelligent use of links, both external and internal, but Google Page Rank does not have the profound effect on your search engine listing that many have led you to believe. Good onsite SEO usually wins so keep that in mind when designing your website.

Keyword Research for Organic SEO

So you have decided to venture out into the world of SEO.
The first thing you will need to do is determine the direction of your campaign
in relation to the key phrases you are choosing to target. This article will
focus on how to find keywords for your organic campaign, as the process is
slightly different for PPC.

Many site owners know immediately what phrases they want. If you
feel like you know what you want, before you start take a brief step back and
assess if this really is the best phrase for your site. Yes, it just may very
well be the perfect phrase, but if it isn't, you could wind up spending a lot
of time and monëy pursuing a ranking that either will nevër happen, or will
provide very little value to your site.

There are a few key areas to look at when
choosing a target phrase:

1. Relevance – Is this phrase even relevant to your site and its
content?

2. Search Frequency – Are people even searching for this phrase?

3. Competition – How competitive is this field? Is it even a feasible
target?

Where to start – Create a Líst of Phrases

So where do you even start with all this keyword research. Before looking up
search frequencies and competition you need to create a líst of relevant
phrases. Open up an excel sheet and type out all relevant phrases that come to
mind, do a little brainstorming as there are no wrong answers at this stage.

After you have exhausted your thoughts, move
over to your website. Open it up and navigate throughout recording any keyword
phrase ideas that spring up checking your title tags and body content. Once
this is done, do the same thing with your competition. Visit some sites that
you know are in direct competition with you and go through them recording any
relevant phrases you see.

By now you should have a long líst of
potential targets, a líst that will grow further as you look into their search
frequencies.

Find a Keyword Tool

The next step is to open up your favorite keyword research tool. There are many
to choose from, two of the more popular being WordTracker and
Keyword
Discovery, although many still use the free, Overture tool. It is important to
note that no keyword tools give you 100% accurate search figures. In most cases
you will get numbers representing a sampling from various search engines. These
numbers are best used in comparing one phrase to another to find out which is
more popular, rather than determining specifically how much traffíc to expect.

Review the Search Frequency

Once you've opened up a keyword tool, begin entering your keyword phrases and
record their noted search frequency. Be sure to scroll through the results
recording any additional phrases that are both relevant and have acceptable
search frequencies. The exact number of searches required to make a phrase
acceptable depends widely on industry, and even the search tool being used. A
phrase with only 100 searches per month may be perfect for a secondary target,
but in most cases may not be the best bet for a primary phrase.

Sorting Your Líst

You now should have a very exhaustive líst of potential target phrases and
their corresponding search frequencies. Sort this líst in descending order
based on the number of searches, so that the most popular phrase is at the very
top. In many industries, the top few phrases may be completely impractical to
target due to the competition, but we'll determine that a bit later.

Review the Competition

The next step is to get a feel for how competitive these phrases are. In the
next column in your spreadsheet, place the number of results returned by Google
for each individual phrase. The lower the number of competing pages, in most
cases, the easier it may be to achieve rankings. (Note: this is not always the
case, but it is an indicator).

At this point, you will have a long líst
sorted by search frequency, along with the number of competing pages. If you
are fortunate, you will see one phrase immediately that jumps out – solid
searches with low competition. This just may be the most ideal target phrase.

Does this phrase fit well with the theme of
your site? If so, go to Google and take a closer look at the ranking websites.
Does your site fit in with the general feel of these results? In some cases it
may not, as your phrase could have different meanings (especially true if using
acronyms). This phrase may represent a completely different part of the world
if geographically targeted, or simply may be littered with mega competitors
such as eBay, Amazon, WikiPedia, and others. If you can see your site fitting
in with these results, it's time to assess the general feasibility of this
phrase.

Take a look at the number of back links, and
indexed pages each site has. Do your numbers compare? If you find that the top
10 ranking sites all have back links well into the tens of thousands, and your
site has a dozen or so, you may want to consider a different phrase. If the
ranking sites are in the high tens, or low hundreds, and your site has a dozen
links, then you have something to work with, if you are willing to work on
increasing your link counts. The number of pages indexed is less important than
links, but if you have a 6 page site and you are planning on competing with
thousand page sites, your chances of success will be much lower.

The real key is to try to find a phrase that
offers relevance, decent searches, and competition that is not way out of your
league

. Pick a Phrase to Drive Qualified
Traffíc

For organic SEO it is usually best to focus on one primary phrase that best
suits your site, while targeting more specific secondary phrases for relevant
sections of your site. With organic SEO, how many phrases you should target is
somewhat limited by the size of your site, the largër the site, the more
phrases you will have the ability to work towards.

The phrase with the most searches is not
always the best fit. This is largely true with the real estate market.

Because everyone has frëe access, I will use
the Overture Keyword Selector Tool for an example. The phrase "real
estate" saw 3,057,037 searches in January of 07. On the surface this
phrase seems like a dream come true, but you have to consider the geographic
issues.

If your office serves the Seattle area, is someone searching in Orlando likely to be a qualified visitor to your site? In
most cases no. Targeting the phrase "Seattle real estate" with 12,441 searches, seems like a
much better choice as it would deliver more qualified traffíc. While this
phrase is still quite competitive, it is not nearly as difficult as simply
"real estate". Take a look at the big picture and determine not only
how likely it is that you may achieve rankings, but whether the traffíc
generated from such a ranking would actually have a positive impact on sales.

Conclusion

Doing some research to find the best target phrase is the groundwork for your
SEO campaign. Without it you'll be flying blind with no clear direction on
goals. Take the time up front to do a little research and determine whether the
dream phrase you have in mind is a worthwhile target or not. If it turns out
that it's not, it's better to find out before you invest your time and monëy on
an SEO campaign. Knowing the level of competition and search frequencies for a
target phrase beforehand will help you make informed decisions and give you the
best chances for success.

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SEO and Politics

From Graywolf's "How to Be a Dirty Digger" to Greenberg's "The
Saboteurs of Search" we learn that online marketing and politics play
on similar grounds. That the search engines can be manipulated is no
secret, but most SEO's try a positive approach and define their
strategies as ethical or "white-hat."



In Aaron Wall's dictionary, there is no such thing as ethical SEO
because, no matter how you look at it, once you employ a technique
(any) to manipulate the search engines, you "SPAM." The only question
is what kind of spam is acceptable from a Google perspective?



Part of the answer comes from Google's Webmaster Guidelines (quality
guidelines - specific guidelines), more comes from Bruce Clay's SEO
code of ethics, and if that's not enough you could always rely on an
answer from authority SEO professionals.



Now back to SEO as a dirty business.



Strangely enough in real life it is a lot easier to harm than to heal.
Somehow supremacy and power are achieved faster through war than
peaceful negotiations. No surprise here: negotiating peacefully takes
time to find compromises which, in many situations, are not what the
parties involved hoped to achieve.



SEM is quite similar. For every winner, there's a loser, and many
companies that rely on Google for traffic employ questionable SEO
tactics to achieve good rankings for their most competitive keyword
phrases.



But this is nothing compared to those that employ "political tricks" to
harm their competitors. Forbes lists in "The Saboteurs of Search" two
techniques (out of seven): Google bowling and Google insulation.



Google bowling is pure evil and it deals with how to frame a
competitor's site as a spamming site to convince Google to drop its
rankings. This type of negative SEO deals with links -- and many links
at once. These links are generated automatically, over a short period
of time, using special software. They'll mostly come from bad neighbors
and they'll all have the same anchor text, to make the spam picture
complete. Google is just a machine, so there's no real way for this
machine to know who is behind the link spam. The "guilty" site might
lose its position in the SERP or even get banned. Some sites never
recover after a Google ban, others see their rankings vanishing and
their pages landing into the supplemental results and they never learn
why.



If something like this has happened to your site, all you can really do
is to find out who hates you this much. Google bowling is not the only
negative SEO technique that might hurt a competitor site.



Tattling, as correctly identified by Forbes, is something that even
Google's Matt Cutts encourages, by asking people to report sites that
buy links. I really wonder how Google verifies such complaints.



Basically anyone can assume that a contextual link in one of my blog
entries is a paid link (what if I monetize my site with V7 contextual?).



There are many other questionable SEO strategies to demolish
competition. I happen to consider them a waste of time and energy. The
Forbes article quoted above contains a pretty interesting statement:
"Matt Cutts, a senior software engineer for Google, says that piling
links onto a competitor's site to reduce its search rank isn't
impossible, but it's extremely difficult."



If negative SEO is difficult, we are prone to believe that it seldom
happens. I think that, in some niches, it happens quite often. But
these are simple theories. As long as I do not have the data to back
them up, I prefer to keep my analysis to a minimum of delivering
information.



There are simpler ways to harm competition. Scrapper sites harm writers
by copying their content. And it is not that difficult to understand
where that "harm" lies.



For example, when a scrapper copies the content of your site, your
rankings are harmed, especially if the scrapper site happens to have
more authority than yours. There is not much you can do to protect your
rankings and your copyright. But if you decide to report the guilty
site to the search engine (file a compliant) the search engine will
remove the site from its index for 10 days, to give you (the copyright
holder) the time to sue for infringement.



Many bloggers wake up one day to find their articles duplicated on
obscure sites, MFA (made for adsense) sites and so on. They are often
frustrated and they ask in forums the classic: what can I do if someone
copies my content. Well, now you have a possible answer: you don't need
to go to court to punish a site for copyright infringement. It is
enough to file a complaint at Google and you've got the guilty site out
of the Google SERPs for at least 10 days.



Careful though, a fraudulent copyright complaint can get you in
trouble, and not just with the search engines. So don't just go around
filing complaints. The Google ban theoretically lasts for just 10 days,
but the trust rank of the accused site will lower. Another similar
complaint and the site's integrity will be seriously questioned. Just
remember: what goes around, comes around.

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SEO as a Dirty Business

In real life, presidential election campaigns are run behind closed
doors and their actors often play dirty tricks on each other; for "All's fair in
love and war." The final purpose of the game is political supremacy. Power. In
SEM... the top of Google's SERP.

From Graywolf's "How to Be a Dirty Digger" to Greenberg's "The Saboteurs of
Search" we learn that online marketing and politics play on similar grounds.That
the search engines can be manipulated is no secret, but most SEOs try a positive
approach and define their strategies as ethical or "white-hat."

In Aaron Wall's dictionary, there is no such thing as ethical SEO
because, no matter how you look at it, once you employ a technique (any) to
manipulate the search engines, you "SPAM." The only question is what kind of
spam is acceptable from a Google perspective?

Part of the answer comes from Google's Webmaster Guidelines (quality
guidelines - specific guidelines), more comes from Bruce Clay's SEO code of
ethics, and if that's not enough you could always rely on an answer from
authority SEO professionals.

Now back to SEO as a dirty business.

Strangely enough in real life it is a lot easier to harm than to heal.
Somehow supremacy and power are achieved faster through war than peaceful
negotiations. No surprise here: negotiating peacefully takes time to find a
compromise which, in many situations, is not what the parts involved hoped to
achieve.

SEM is quite similar. For every winner, there's a loser, and many
companies that rely on Google for traffic employ questionable SEO tactics to
achieve good rankings for their most competitive keyword phrases.

But this is nothing compared to those that employ "political tricks" to harm
their competitors. Forbes lists in "The Saboteurs of Search" two techniques (out
of seven): Google bowling and Google insulation.

Google bowling is pure evil and it deals with how to frame a
competitor's site as a spamming site to convince Google to drop its rankings.
This type of negative SEO deals with links -- and many links at once. These
links are generated automatically, over a short period of time, using special
software. They'll mostly come from bad neighbors and they'll all have the same
anchor text, to make the spam picture complete. Google is just a machine, so
there's no real way for this machine to know who is behind the link spam. The
"guilty" site might lose its position in the SERP or even get banned. Some sites
never recover after a Google ban, others see their rankings vanishing and their
pages landing into the supplemental results and they never learn why.

If something like this has happened to your site, all you can really do is to
find out who hates you so much. Google bowling is not the only negative SEO
technique that might hurt a competitor site.

Tattling, as correctly identified by Forbes, is something that even
Google's Matt Cutts encourages, by asking people to report sites that buy links.
I really wonder how Google verifies such complaints.

Basically anyone can assume that a contextual link in one of my blog entries
is a paid link (what if I monetize my site with V7 contextual?).

There are many other questionable SEO strategies to demolish
competition. I happen to consider them a waste of time and energy. The Forbes
article quoted above contains a pretty interesting statement: "Matt Cutts, a
senior software engineer for Google, says that piling links onto a competitor's
site to reduce its search rank isn't impossible, but it's extremely
difficult."

If negative SEO is difficult, we are prone to believe that it seldom
happens. I think that, in some niches, it happens quite often. But these are
simple theories. As long as I do not have the data to back them up, I prefer to
keep my analysis to a minimum of delivering information.

There are simpler ways to harm competition. Scrapper sites harm writers by
copying their content. And it is not that difficult to understand where the
"harm" lies.

For example, when a scrapper copies the content of your site, your
rankings are harmed, especially if the scrapper site happens to have more
authority than yours. There is not much you can do to protect your rankings and
your copyright. But if you decide to report the guilty site to the search engine
(file a compliant) the search engine will remove the site from its index for 10
days, to give you (the copyright holder) the time to sue for infringement.

Many bloggers wake up one day to find their articles duplicated on obscure
sites, MFA sites and so on. They are often frustrated and they ask in forums the
classic: what can I do if someone copies my content. Well, now you have a
possible answer: you don't need to go to court to punish a site for copyright
infringement. It is enough to file a complaint at Google and you've got the
guilty site out of the Google SERPs for at least 10 days.

Careful though, a fraudulent copyright complaint can get you in
trouble, and not just with the search engines. So don't just go around filing
complaints. The Google ban theoretically lasts for just 10 days, but the trust
rank of the accused site will lower. Another similar complaint and the site's
integrity will be seriously questioned. Just remember: what goes around, comes
around.

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