SeoBlackhat.co.uk » Cookie Stuffing

Legal ClickJacking Code

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:49:17 +0000

***REPLACE “SAMPLE” LINK WITH YOUR AFFILIATE LINK***
***YOU MAY NEED TO ADJUST HEIGHT AND WIDTH OF PIXELS DEPENDING ON PLACEMENT***
** PUT THIS BLOCK OF CODE AFTER THE TAGS**

onmouseover=”document.location=’http://www.SAMPLELINK.com‘;”
style=”position:absolute;width:8px;height:7px;background:#FFFFFF;border:1px”>

***PUT THIS BLOCK OF CODE BELOW THIS LINE ON YOUR PAGE WHERE YOU WANT TO HAVE YOUR LINK. CHANGE THE DOMAIN TO THE DESIRED NAME YOU WANT IT TO SHOW AS. CHANGE “Click Here” TO WHATEVER YOU LIKE ***

http://www.SAMPLELINK.com” onclick=”updatebox(event)”> style=”font-family:arial;font-size:16px”>Click Here

BlackHat New Identity = unlimited resources -

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:39:11 +0000

As some people know im big time black hat.. on the net and off..

There are various ways to either take an identity or create your own with alot of ease.. its just knowing how to do it.. and its good to keep your actual name / identity clean

I call it beating the system

Im from the UK so I will explain where and what entails and what can be gained from changing your personal info:

Years ago I was in the British army, came out with alot of debt, but worked with intelligence officers.. so I know a thing or two..

method 1#
It is legal without using deed poll, you can just resume any name that you think off, its best putting this in your local newspaper and letting resources such as you tax office know that you have done it.. it is that simple:

this is done in stages,

NAMECHANGE = BILLS = BANK ACCOUNT / PASSPORT /

the problems with this is you need ID’S and thru this method it can be hard, because you will need a national insurance number: or bills to get bank details to resume more proof

Method#2
Deed poll, change your name, but this will be tied to you address.. so its always best to use a family or close friend address, BUT do a credit report on the address, make sure the address is not black listed, if it is you cannot get credit, or credit cards.. once your name has changed then you can go for bank accounts, but the low down on this, is that you do actually change your name by law.. so I wouldnt use this method.

Method#3
My favorite, Using fake documents.. There is a site out there, (pm me for the site) which charges 300 for a UK driving license.. they do utility bills, bank statements.. ok all at a price but you can setup a virtual identity..

Ive tried this, the photo id of the driving license was on TV approx 6 months ago, they showed an actual official from dvla a fake license and he couldnt tell the difference.. these have the hologram logo on them, the dogs bollocks.. then there is utility bills, rent statements, landlord agreements.. all with the info on that you choose.. all that is real is the picture of your mug shot..

Once you have all this, you could have real credit cards, real bank accounts, under your fake ID. You then can move to the internet setup your paypal , **** and scam or make a fortune..

problems come accross is national insurance, a freidn of mine changed his last 2 digits on his NI, and after several months, contacted NI, saying his boss told him his NI was wrong and why he didnt have a ni number.. they asked for his birth certificate.. he didnt have one.. told a cock and bull story he lived on a farm, in a remote area..and was brought up by his aunt and didnt know his real family.. he got his NI number 6 weeks later and his NI card came a further 2 weeks later

I personally know a few people making new accounts every 6 weeks, spending like hell, , making shops on **** with virtual stock, making a small mint then closing everything they have..

my brother is setting up a mortgage with a fake ID.. he wants to do property management, to sell and move on..or to let properties..

Unlimited resources

Blackhat – SES Wrap-up

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:25:22 +0000

While I know there are a ton of summaries from the sessions, I went to very few due to the content was heavily centered around beginners. I spent most of my time in the hallways and foyers getting key information.

Just a quick reminder of the story I shared last week at SES: At the Google Dance at the GooglePlex, all the SES attendees were given black t-shirts and all Google employees were given gray t-shirts. An interesting thing happened when I arrived and was given my black t-shirt. A Google employee stopped me and asked me if I’d be willing to trade my black for his gray shirt.

Why not? Works for me. I just didn’t realize how well it would work later.

I went into the restroom and changed shirts and walked around and took pictures. I needed a break and I went and sat down in this lounge area. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by about a half dozen “gray shirts” (Google employees). One of them motioned to me. “They stuck you with picture duty, huh?” Without really thinking, I replied, “Yeah, you know Lumberg.” (In reference to the idiot boss in the movie “Office Space”). “You have a ‘Lumberg’ for a boss too?!?!?” said another. And then comments were made in how stupid their bosses were. I was now a part of the club. I then casually asked each which department they were in and then asked, “What are you guys working on?” Their responses are detailed below …

I also got answers to your questions.

In all, SES was, well boring. No worries. I kept myself plenty busy. Here are some cool tips that you may not have been aware of:

Tip #1: Has Google tagged your site as suspicious? Run a check yourself:

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.webmarketingnow.com/

Just substitute your URL for mine. It will not only tell you the last time GoogleBot visited the site, which is more accurate than the cache. This tool states the page was last visited by GoogleBot on the 27th (two days ago) as opposed to the Google Cache which shows the 23rd (6 days ago).

Tip #2: Make sure you have a Google Webmaster Tools account as within the next 30 days they will show where your links originate (more below) and they may possibly show the weight and anchor text as well. According to the product manager, it was “number crunching hell” getting it to work, but they got it done.

Tip #3: Perform a Site Audit. This is vital as Google has new technology coming out which will allow them to better determine links from “bad places” and these links will get more hammered than ever before. There is hope the links will be discounted altogether. Make sure you go through my Site Audit process.

< http://www.webmarketingnow.net/site.php/arti/read/seo-site-audit/ >

Tip #4: Link Networks Beware. The Google “anti-spam team” is getting more aggressive when it comes to link networks. While there aren’t going to be any new filters, the current ones will be injected with new algos to sniff out and find link networks and discount the links coming from those areas. While the only penalty given will be to the site selling the link (which is currently the process), the site buying the link will not receive the benefit they thought they were purchasing.

Google is getting VERY aggressive with link networks, but no matter how aggressive they get, my links with Link Worth have always done well and have never been filtered according to my testing. Just don’t go nuts with it. A word of caution, they have been showing up at search engine conferences (they were at Webmaster World last year and they were at SES last week) so their profile may be on Google’s radar now.

Tip #5: If you use the Google Website Optimizer start small with testing three main changes. Chose three of the following: Headline, Call to Action, Offer, Price. According to the product manager, by starting small and getting a good feel for what really works for your page with the “big stuff” you can then get granular and test smaller things. She was very adamant about focusing on a few changes and getting the “big picture” first before diving in and testing the small stuff.

I have been following her advice and so far I am finding I am having more success with the Google Website Optimizer.

Tip #6: Google admitted to compressing the PageRank scale which caused many sites, mine included, to go down in PageRank despite their link profile going up. An engineer I spoke with went through my site and when I mentioned my link profile went up by my PageRank went down he typed a bit on his laptop and said, “Hmmm … you’re right and you’ve been busy lately.” I don’t know what that comment meant as my link building hasn’t really changed much this year with the exception of Web 2.0 properties.

Bottom Line: PageRank has little real power anymore. Focus on your traffic and conversion levels instead and build links for your sub pages. Also, don’t forget to monitor your cache dates.

Tip #7: Google Local Results have been known for years to be primarily focused around the “city center”. Simply find where the big arrow was pointing in the map and get a business address near there. You also needed a site with traffic and you would often be in the top three, if not #1 for your main targeted phrase.

It was that easy.

But then something happened and it wasn’t so easy anymore and the listings would seem to be all over the place. After discussing this issue with a few top SEOs and also asking the right questions to the Google engineers, I did a little test in the Bay Area. I woke up early and drove around San Jose, Milpitas, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Saratoga, Los Gatos, whew. And they all checked out.

What is the secret?

The post office. That’s right. In major cities there is usually one post office per ZIP code, and in cities where there are numerous ZIP codes, it is the post office that is closest to downtown that is key. Now, I also checked businesses who had post offices boxes and they do NOT come up at the top. The same is true for boxes at the UPS store too. You actually must have a physical business address.

So if you are having issues with Google local, just sign up for a free account, get verified and make sure your address is close to the post office downtown and you’re in good shape.

Tip #8: Check your niche category in DMOZ for 404 domains or “Site Under Construction” and look to buy those domain. Yeah, this tip has been around for awhile, but it is one you often forget. Just one domain could help turn around a campaign, as DMOZ still carries a lot of weight.

Tip #9: Look for competitors who have dropped services and pick up those links. For example, if you are in the email autoresponder business and your competitor drops that service, do a backlink check on their autoresponder page, hire someone with a great phone demeanor and have them start dialing. “Yes, good afternoon, you are currently sending your customers to a dead third-party page and we’d like to be the company your refer your customer to. We’ll also give you a referral fee for every customer we get for as long as they remain our customer.”

Bingo. Suddenly, not only are you getting a good link, but you are getting a good affiliate to help boost your business and a new relationship to work on.

Tip #10: Mess with People’s Sites for Fun. As I was talking to another affiliate he asked me what my main domain was and in just a few minutes he showed me my site with his name in big letters at the top. Initially, terror set in thinking he had somehow hacked into my site, when in reality all he did was change the browser page to be editable. He wouldn’t show me how he did it so I did some searches and found the code. Just insert this code into your URL address bar:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable=’true’; document.designMode=’on’; void 0

You can then edit away.

Bonus Tip: Google Health

Okay, fine, this isn’t SEO related, but it is very cool and I spent nearly a half hour with the project manager at the Google Dance going through it. It can integrate your health records and with your permission share your data with certain health sites to help you overcome health issues.

Q&A

Q: Tell me more about Google SiteLinks. How do they determine which links are used?

A: First of all, make sure you review my article about SiteLinks I published last year. SiteLinks: How to Get Them.

< http://www.webmarketingnow.net/site.php/arti/read/sitelinks-how-to/ >

I have tested SiteLinks algo pretty hard and the one thing I have learned is that the algo is NOT easily influenced. In other words, attempts to “steer” Google to the links you want included doesn’t work on a consistent basis.

As far as getting certain keywords to appear as SiteLinks for your domain, it has mostly to do with your site being “the” landing spot for that search. It isn’t as easy as you might think. For example, I am getting a Mac this weekend. It is my ritual, a new laptop every Labor Day, and this year, I’m going Mac … let’s see if it sticks this time.

If I do a search for “Apple” … apple.com has SiteLinks. However, it does NOT have SiteLinks for the following phrases: iPhone, iTunes, iPod, Mac. The only phrase I could get to come up for Apple.com with SiteLinks was “macintosh”, and that was really one of my “last gasp” phrases to try.

So, as you can see, even the large companies have issues when it comes to getting the right keywords tagged with SiteLinks for their domains.

Q: Does the geographic location of the web host matter for search? Organic? Local?

A: I had a great discussion about this with three Google engineers. The actual location of the server does not matter. Even though there is some “chatter” that it does matter, the choice where to host is clearly yours as a business owner. However, where people tend to get into trouble is the TLD (Top Level Domain). For example, if you had a web business in Portland, Oregon, it wouldn’t make too much sense to have a co.uk domain would it? And the same is true the other way around. If you want localized traffic, and you’re in the UK, get both the .com and .co.uk domains. Build out the .co.uk and 301 redirect the .com to your localized domain. This way you keep your brand, but you are far more likely to get localized traffic with the proper TLD than without it.

Tip: If you are in the US, you don’t need a local host to rank well locally. Your “dot com” doesn’t need to be hosted in Portland if you are also in Portland. You can host in Miami and rank just as well in the local search.

Q: What changes is Google working on right now?

A: I was able to get some info when a group of Googlers thought I was an employee by accident. The biggest issues was a new filter they are working on which would “kill half the businesses here tonight.” The individual who said that was pretty young, and I have learned over the years in this industry that young people like to talk and say bold things in order to get attention and have a feeling of “betterment”.

I don’t believe that statement for many reasons, first, he has no clue about the level of people at the party … as SES attracts mainly newbies. And I followed this comment up with a few Google engineers that I am good friends with and they basically laughed it off. I was on the Organic SEO panel with Aaron (he’s on Matt Cutts’ team) and there are no big filters being worked on currently.

So what is being worked on?

1) They just launched some new features with Website Optimizer which now allows you to remove criteria without having to create a new campaign.
2) Webmaster Tools will be adding a function in the next 30 days to allow you to view the domains which are linking to you and their “order” of importance. Note: I would be VERY surprised if they really did order them by importance as Google is very protective of their data and ranking algorithm.
3) “Universal Search” will continue to be a priority.
4) Ridding the index of Search Spam is one of the top priorities and will continue to be.

Q: Why does a page bounce from #5 to #20 and back to #5? Is this an algorithm alteration?

A: This can either be different datacenters being hit based on traffic levels or your ISP (if it is a national ISP) connecting to different datacenters. It could also be caused by either the domain or the page not having enough authority and getting small “bursts” of links but they aren’t enough to sustain it at #5, therefore it slides back to #20. Due to the complexities of the algorithm, it is too difficult for us (Google) to make a determination of ranking changes for just one keyword phrase.

Q: How should video be SEO’d? If they were going to put video on their own personal site, what would they do to ensure it ranks well for the targeted keyword phrases?

A: Google is adding by this weekend (according to talk at SES) about 70+ pieces to their algorithm. Most of the additions are in the video / Web 2.0 space. I talked to A LOT of engineers about this and you know that glazed look in people’s eye when they have NO CLUE how to answer a question, but they keep talking? This is what happened when I asked this one. They knew all about video, but wouldn’t give any specifics. I am testing this right now, so when I have some solid data, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, if you use YouTube (owned by Google) to post your video and then embed them in your site it gives you some of the best tags for video right now.

Q: What gives with Froogle showing up in the #3 spot?

A: The engineer I spoke with was obviously new, as the name “Froogle” threw her off … as it no longer goes by that name. Instead, it is known as “Google Products” and including these results in the SERPs is based on the Universal Search process which has been implemented inside of Google for some time now.

You can read more about Universal Search from my test results.

< http://www.webmarketingnow.net/site.php/arti/read/universal-search-uncovered/ >

Their plan is to continue to test and to see how the SERPs are reacted by the users. That is one thing Google does very well. Instead of trying to guess what people want, they present it, test the reaction and then they make changes accordingly. There have been many changes Google has implemented over the years, that were quietly removed because they were negatives in the user experience.

Know this: Google is NOT going to sit still, they will continue to change things, test and see what makes for a better experience for the end user.

Q: Why does Google show a different number of indexed pages? For example, doing the “site” command returns 1,600 pages, however, scrolling to the end the number is 350.

A: This is a mix of both pages in the Supplemental Index and duplicate content pages. Mostly, the issue is duplicate content. While Google has removed the ability to actually see “only” pages in the Supplemental index, it does still exist.

It is recommended that if you have a high range as given in this example that you analyze the information in your Google Webmaster Tools account. Chances are good there are issues with duplicate Titles and/or Descriptions which are the main reasons for duplicate content.

Know that when you see discrepancies like this the issue is with your site and not a reporting problem by Google.

Blackhat – Link Building

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:24:30 +0000

Community Hacking – 96 Baiting Strategies You Can Employ

This was a near repeat of the session from last year. This is a classic example of marketing hype. They didn’t go over 96 Link Baiting strategies. How did they come up with 96? Well, there are 12 types of links and eight types of link bait. 12 x 8 = 96. Yeah, I know, I thought it was lame too. Basically they covered only 8 strategies, and sadly, not all 8 were not worthy of covering.

“Link Bait” isn’t without controversy. If you aren’t familiar with the term,

1. Bill Hartzer, Search Engine Optimization Manager, Vizion Interactive

Regularly create Link Bait on your site and encourage everyone to participate. JW: This is called a Blog. I would reserve for Link Bait in a “conversational” mode to be placed in your Blog.

Respond to breaking news immediately, post quickly and submit to social sites. This will help you boost your organic rankings, as more pages are created and you have a better shot at getting links if you get in the conversation early.

JW: And in “classic fashion” of using the same presentation as last year and not verifying the links, Hartzer recommends using Blogstorm Tracker, which offered the service last year to track a Blog’s most important posts based on incoming links. The problem is, they don’t offer the service anymore. I am checking into the possibility of adding a tool like it to our tool set.

2. Jane Copland, Search Marketing Consultant, SEOMoz

It is always a good idea to enable comments as readers comments add value to your site and make your site more interesting. You should only disable comments when comments are inappropriate. JW: And this was the only decent piece of advice given. I highly advise using the Spam Karma plugin for WordPress. It has greatly reduced the amount of Spam comments to my Blogs.

3. Todd Malicoat, Independent Marketing Consultant, Meta4creations, LLC

Focused a lot on Digg and how you need a strong network of “friends” or “buddies” to “Digg” your stories.JW: Things are more complex than that now. That may have been easy to do a year ago, but not today. I will have more information in the Social Media write-up.

4. Ian Ring, Application Developer, IGLOO Inc.

Measure all page elements: clicks, purchases, subscriptions, sales leads, registration and duplicate those that thrive.

Real-World Low-Risk, High-Reward Link Building Strategies

1. Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting

Social News sites give opportunities for links if you keep the audience interested and create valuable content.JW: “Valuable Content” is oversold at these conferences. It is MARKETABLE content. There is a difference.

Always build content that will build your reputation. Be authoritative and make sure you exude the right image. JW: Examples of this would includes: always check your resources for accuracy, make sure you look at the “other side” of the story, admit when you are wrong, downplay when you are right, give credit to others when possible, etc.

Pay special attention to your title. Your title must be compelling and interesting. Your keyword needs to be in the title and in the Digg submission title.

Blackhat – Market Share Numbers

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:22:15 +0000

This information is killer for your business and well worth the read. Digest the important info in about twelve minutes, as I not only give you the numbers, but more importantly, what to do with the information.

Often when we create sites or focus on a market, we tend to forget to check the trends and how they have evolved. I have taken the numbers so far this year and compared the numbers of 2005 and 2006. The hope here is to see “trends” and the path visitors are headed with technology so you can stay ahead instead of being in constant “chase” mode.

Many people ask me what I feel is one of the things which gives me an edge in the affiliate space. This is one of them. Now, the one thing about web stats is it’s great information, but it can also suck your time dry.

The data below is taken from REAL affiliate sites. Real sites with real visitors. These are US based sites only and do not include any foreign properties. The YTD numbers include the change from the August numbers so you can see the trend from the last three months. To make this data real easy to digest, I marked any key data, which increased in BLUE and decreased in RED.

On to the information… (Note: If you have a text reader for email – you will need to login to the back office in order to view the numbers correctly).

Visitor Return Frequency

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
1 Day	31%	29%	34%	38%
2 Days	10%	10%	9%	10%
3 Days	7%	7%	8%	9%
4 Days	5%	5%	5%	4%
5 Days	4%	4%	4%	4%
6-10 Days	12%	13%	14%	10%
11-20 Days	11%	14%	10%	10%
21-30 Days	10%	9%	6%	6%
31+ Days	10%	9%	10%	9%

Commentary: This refers to the frequency of visits by a user. You want your sites to be “sticky.” The idea of making a site “sticky” has been preached in the Internet community for about a decade now. I know, it is a “yawner” but it is still an issue you MUST consider.

As you can see from the data, visitors coming back everyday is strong, and in showing a strong upward trend over the last two years. My testing shows that Blogging and “email drip” systems are pushing these numbers up. Think about it; if one-third want to come back everyday how would that change your content development schedule?

As stated above, this is where a blog can come in handy. Also, keeping in contact with your visitors via email is a good move … and I have seen no fall out by contacting my lists on my affiliate sites every five days with new information, even if it is to tell them about a new blog post. Just keep the emails short, to the point and make sure there is great content for them to read. Nothing is more disappointing than being taken by an “evening news hook” trick … you “stay tuned” through the commercial only to be served lame content.

If you contact your list via email, don’t give them the information in the email. Instead, give them a link to your site or blog. Get them back to your site whenever possible. Your goal is to get them back to your site over and over again until they buy or buy again. What is really interesting is the consistency of the numbers in the 2, 3, 4 and 5 day returns. What is also good to realize, the numbers are still strong 6-30 days out. This means if you remain in contact with your list, even if it is on a monthly basis, you are likely to get them back to your site.

Fact: I can tell you from my testing if you stack your return visits within a few days of the original visit, your conversions ratios will surge. I have interviewed dozens of buyers who said, “You kept in contact with me and it seemed that the questions/concerns I had with the product were answered in your follow-up emails. It was highly professional and engaging.”

What You Should Do: Do you have new content to show new visitors on a daily basis? A weekly basis? If your answer is “no” then you need to get a plan in place to get new content on your site that will assist in converting those visitors into buyers. Look at your own numbers and see how they compare with the numbers above. If they are a lot lower in return visits within the first five days, you need to revamp your approach so you can get them to come back more often.

1) Make sure you have a Blog (Get “Fantastico” for your web server, which allows basically a one-button install for WordPress).
2) Email your list at least once a month (I use 1AutomationWiz and swear by it).
3) Add new, engaging content at least once a week (Hire a Ghostwriter through eLance, Guru.com, oDesk.com or RentaCoder).

Organic Search Engine Market Share

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
Google.com	50.5%	54.1%	51.2%	58.7%
Yahoo.com	12.1%	7.2%	10.2%	6.0%
MSN.com	2.7%	10.1%	10.0%	3.7%
Google.co.uk	8.5%	7.1%	8.3%	9.6%
Google.ca	4.3%	3.6%	5.1%	3.4%
Google.com.au	2.1%	2.0%	1.7%	2.0%
Google.co.in	1.6%	1.5%	1.3%	1.6%
Google.nl	1.6%	1.5%	1.0%	1.3%
Google.br	na	na	0.6%	0.9%
Google.de	1.6%	0.9%	0.5%	0.9%
Google.es	na	na	0.6%	0.8%
Google.pl	na	na	0.6%	0.8%
Google.fr	1.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.4%
aol.com	1.1%	0.9%	0.4%	0.2%

co.uk – Google United Kingdom

.ca – Google Canada
.au – Google Australia
.in – Google India
.nl – Google Netherlands
.de – Google Germany
.fr – Google France
.es – Google Spain
.pl – Google Poland
.br – Google Brazil

Notables
dogpile.com – 0.23%
alexa.com – 0.14%
altavista.com – 0.16%
alltheweb.com – 0.04%
hotbot.com – 0.02%
lycos.com – 0.01%
mamma.com – 0.01%

Note: These figures are based on ORGANIC traffic, not from paid search. This is why these figures will be different than any other “market share” report you see. Knowing market share for PPC is a waste because you can easily figure that out when you set up your account. What you want to know is the click-through rate of organic search. So what if a search engine has a 20% market share if their organic listings are pushed so far down the page no one ever sees them? That is why these numbers are vital for every Webmaster and SEO consultant to have.

What about Ask.com? Ask is not listed on purpose as I “block” their bot from all of our sites. According to testing, very little traffic comes from their organic search, and their bot sucks the lifeblood from my servers. To me, Ask is nothing more than a glorified site scraper.

All Google Properties YTD: 80.4%

Commentary: Google continues to literally crush the competition and I have some niches where over 90% of my organic traffic comes from Google. And look how Yahoo! and MSN are falling. This can be directly related to how much Yahoo! and Microsoft are focused on PPC ad revenue as they strive to push the paid ads and concentrate less on organic rankings.

Now back to the data. As I said earlier, you won’t see these types of numbers anywhere else. The numbers I am reporting aren’t “searches” they are organic click throughs. To me, these are real numbers and ones you can base your marketing campaigns on. From other reports you will see confusing percentages, ones that add up to over 100%, as they take into consideration “all searches” on the Internet. Seriously, you don’t care about “searches” – you care about “clicks”, right? Let’s look at the “market share” as reported by comScore.

	Jul. ‘06	Dec. ‘06	Sept. ‘07	July ‘08
Google Sites	46.2%	47.3%	57.0%	61.9%
Yahoo! Sites	29.8%	28.5%	23.7%	20.5%
Microsoft Sites	12.4%	10.5%	10.3%	8.9%
Ask Network	5.0%	5.4%	4.7%	4.5%
AOL LLC	6.6%	4.9%	4.3%	4.2%

Here is where I have difficulty with the numbers. We look at these market shares and then focus our efforts in organic search in regards to the engines that have the most market share, right? Right. Above is comScore’s data, and Google has nearly two-thirds of the market, followed by Yahoo! with just over 20% and Microsoft trailing with about 10%. Ask and AOL are on the map with about 5% share each.

Is that really true? Is that really accurate? Should you base your marketing plan on that information? I hope you don’t.

Let’s look at the real numbers that actually produce organic click through traffic. We all know we can open a PPC account today and have traffic in a few hours to a few days depending on whom we use. That is a no brainer. But the organic traffic, the unlimited source of clicks based on our own abilities and not the size of our budget is what we are mostly interested in. That is undeniable fact.

Google US has control of over half the market and when you look at the total Google share, with all their foreign indexes, they control over 80% of the organic market. Look at your referral traffic and you should see similar numbers.

Why are the numbers so different with Yahoo!? One of the main reasons is Yahoo! continues to stack PPC ads at the top of the search results, which means more clicks occur on their PPC listings than their organic listings. And Microsoft? Let’s face it, they have a great looking search portal, it is just unfortunate that no one uses it.

Let’s move onto Ask and AOL. While comScore states each has a market share of 5%, check your log files. Seriously, check your log files. Do you have 5% of your referral traffic from either of these properties? If you do, please send me a screen shot because none of my properties have anything close to a 5% share. AOL barely registers, and the traffic from Ask has been so pathetic and their bot so “indexing happy” I finally had enough and blocked Ask completely.

Forums, conferences and ads on television promote Ask often. Well, fine. Publicity and commercials just don’t matter – it is clicks. Clicks drive your business. Why optimize for an engine that doesn’t produce clicks? You shouldn’t. Don’t waste your time.

What You Should Do: Continue to focus solely on Google and hope the optimization work you do gains favorable rankings in Yahoo! and MSN. At this time, it isn’t worth it to optimize for any other engine but Google. There just isn’t enough share to get a positive ROI.

Notable: How effective is the Yahoo Directory for clicks? – Average of 78 clicks per site in 2005, 54 in 2006, 59 in 2007 and so far this year the average is just 22. That’s less than five clicks per month. Ouch. Figure the CPC and you may have heart failure.

Browsers

A total of 8 unique browsers were detected.

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
Internet Explorer	73.1%	64.7%	61.6%	51.5%
FireFox	20.3%	29.5%	32.6%	39.4%
Safari	2.8%	2.7%	2.9%	4.4%
Mozilla	na	na	na	2.8%
Opera	1.2%	1.4%	1/2%	1.1%

Commentary: This is the first report in some time which FireFox has lost market share. While it is just a slight decrease, IE picked up a healthy 1.5%. It is recommended you begin to test your sites in FireFox to ensure they look proper. We have a strong belief (and apologies to Mac Safari users) that unless a browser has over a 25% market share, it is not cost effective to be compliant.

Browser Versions

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
IE 7.0	n/a	4.8%	28.1%	32.5%
FireFox 2.0	n/a	2.1%	27.4%	32.4%
IE 6.0	70.2%	59.1%	33.2%	19.4%
Firefox 3.0	n/a	n/a	n/a	6.1%

Commentary: A total of 118 different browsers were detected. IE 7 and FireFox 2 are now neck and neck and basically dead even. Those are the two browsers you should verify your site looks perfect in. FireFox 3.0 has had too many negative issues for it to be a player until at least the beginning of next year.

Cookies

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
Enabled	87.0%	89.9%	88.7%	90.4%
Disabled	13.0%	10.1%	11.3%	9.6%

Commentary: We’ve been waiting for years for this figure to move past 90% and it finally has. While this number isn’t entirely accurate as it probably is factoring in requests by a search engine spider or bot scrapers, which don’t accept cookies. If you run an eCommerce shopping cart that is cookie dependant or if you are an affiliate and your commissions are tracked by cookies, this is excellent news.

What this means: There are a very small percentage of users who do not allow cookies at all. Many use FireFox extensions that alert JavaScript calls. JavaScript is how a cookie is set on a visitor’s computer and cookies are the way affiliate links are most often tracked. Now, if the shopping cart being used requires cookies to process the order, the user may turn them on for check out, but surveys show the users are more likely to either call a toll-free order number or cancel the purchase. If you or your merchant has a toll-free order line available, make sure there is a method in place to track your leads coming in.

JavaScript Version

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
1.3	66.7%	62.7%	57.9	48.9%
1.6	0.5%	24.3%	33.1%	45.1%
2.0	1.7%	1.4%	1.1%	1.5%
1.5	24.1%	8.8%	3.1%	0.7%

Commentary: Why does this matter? If you are using a 2.0 version script, only about 2% of visitors may be able to view it properly. It is advisable to keep your JavaScript to level 1.6 or below. I used to recommend keeping it at 1.3 or below, but with the added market share of 1.6, you can now step up. Yes, you may sacrifice some functionality, but deliverability is always more important.

For your information, we use JavaScript 1.2 for most of our functions and we are operating just fine. If you don’t know, ask your web designer/developer.

Operating System

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
Windows	93.7%	92.9%	91.1%	86.5%
Macintosh	4.6%	4.7%	5.9%	8.4%
Linux	1.5%	2.2%	2.7%	4.8%

Commentary: Wow. Check out the growth from the Mac. Nearly doubling their market share since 2005. Windows continues a downward trend, and it has experienced is sharpest decline this year due to the problems with Vista. Consumers are moving away from Microsoft and are looking for more stable environments to work in. Depending on your industry, you might want to take notice at the changes Apple has done, especially with their Apple Stores. They are the most profitable stores in America (per square foot of retail space) and they understand usability, customer service and delivering a solid product.

OS Version

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
Windows XP/Vista	81.3%	82.3%	78.8%	68.5%
Windows NT 6.0	n/a	n/a	5.8%	14.4%
Macintosh OS X	4.2%	4.5%	5.9%	8.2%
Linux	2.1%	2.2%	2.7%	4.8%
Windows 98	2.0%	1.7%	0.8%	0.4%

Commentary: Even though Windows XP/Vista is moving down in market share, NT is growing. And it looks like Windows 98 is about dead and Windows 2000 isn’t far behind with just 3% of the market and dropping fast.

Screen Resolution

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
1024 x 768	50.6%	46.5%	41.2%	31.1%
1280 x 1024	17.5%	20.8%	19.2%	18.9%
1280 x 800	3.0%	5.6%	9.4%	14.1%
1680 x 1050	0.8%	1.9%	4.3%	8.1%
1440 x 900	2.2%	2.4%	4.8%	7.8%
800 x 600	12.9%	8.0%	7.1%	4.1%
1152 x 864	4.7%	4.2%	3.5%	3.1%

Commentary: The best news continues to be the drop of 800 x 600 … the WORST resolution for web designers. Despite a sharp drop since 2005, 1024 x 768 continues to be the dominant resolution.

Countries

	2005	2006	2007	YTD ‘08
United States	55.1%	56.8%	60.2%	53.9%
Great Britain	9.4%	8.8%	7.5%	9.1%
Canada	6.2%	6.1%	6.6%	6.4%
India	3.5%	3.9%	3.5%	3.7%
Australia	2.6%	3.2%	2.6%	2.5%
Netherlands	1.6%	1.4%	1.2%	1.4%
Germany	1.7%	1.0%	1.1%	1.4%
Spain	0.9%	0.9%	0.7%	0.9%
Italy	1.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.8%
France	1.2%	0.8%	0.6%	0.8%

Commentary: The sites that were built and used in this study were all sites built for a US audience. Of course, the sites are available worldwide. So, based on these numbers, would it make sense to offer the site in another language? These numbers do not indicate it would produce a positive ROI. The strongest non-English country has less than 2% of the referral traffic. However, if you notice the US-based visitors account for just over half the overall traffic, it does raise concern, as most of the products offered make international shipping impractical due to the expense.

This means only about half of the visitors to the sites can realistically order product. That isn’t good. Because the visitors are all organic, I’m not losing money bringing them in, however, I do have an audience that cannot purchase. Therefore, I must brainstorm to figure out ways to monetize half of my traffic.

What You Should Do: Here is a checklist of what you should be doing with your sites based on these numbers:

Update your content at least once per week, but preferably every other day.

Look into getting a Blog started on your site; you can post it as a sub directory (http://www.domain.com/blog/) or sub domain (http://blog.domain.com/).

Contact your mailing list every 5-15 days, but at least once a month. Get them to come back to your site instead of giving them the information right in the email.

With your organic traffic, focus on Google heavily.

Ensure your sites display properly in IE 7 along with FireFox 2.0.

If you are an affiliate verify your merchant has telephone ordering options to track and credit you with sales.

Check the version of JavaScript you are using for your site and verify it is version 1.6 or lower as about 2/3rds of the market may not be able to display higher versions of JavaScript consistently.

Test your offers. Are they easy to understand? Verify your Calls to Action can be seen “above the fold” in resolutions 1024×768 and 1280×1024.

Even if you are targeting US citizens for your marketing, just over half your visitors will be from the US. Verify you have other options for them.

Set aside a block of 2-3 hours this week to tackle the above and you might be surprised to discover some very simple flaws in your site(s) that are resulting in lower conversions. Correct those and your revenues will be up without any increase in traffic.

VIP Service Finally Added & Cookie Stuffer Complete

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:31:16 +0000

Finally I have got my finger out of my arse, and installed the cookie stuffing script

I have had alot of people asking about Forums and VIP service So once again here we go. I have alot to add and to update.

The VIP service will get access to tools not seen in the SEO Community, and alot of quality Info ect..

People wanting to Buy VIP status can go here: BUY VIP or Just click the bottom banner on the blog. Payments can be made through paypal, wire, cheque and Credit Cards via Plimus.

Previous Followers & Members Contact me for Discounts

Also the Cookie Stuffing Script is Complete, which can enable forum stuffing , Image stuffing, SWF Stuffing & Fake the referrer , plus live statistics all with front end and backend login. Possible the best Cookie Stuffing script made to date.

New CPA Facebook Application nearly Developed

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:36:02 +0000

I have currently been building a new Facebook script that works like super rewards. It has been merged with another script I was currently using however I will be targetting users of such games as Farmville and mafia wars , to then undertake the Aquired CPA offer to gain special game bonuses. Of course all they will get is sweet FA , apart from making me money.

It works but still has a few bugs.. and should be launched within the next week for testing..

I will keep people updated on this.

Blackhat Cheat Sheet

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:10:02 +0000

Quick Reference Cheat Sheet

	Google	Yahoo	Live
Avg. time: submission, index, cache	1-5 weeks	2-3 weeks	2-4 weeks
Deep Crawls Websites Every	30-45 days	4-6 weeks	5-7 weeks
Title Characters Displayed SERPs	66*	71	70
Title Indexed	Yes	Yes	Yes
Level of Importance of Title Tag	Average	High	Very High
Description Characters Displayed SERPs	156	169	200
Description Tag Indexed	Yes	Yes	Yes
Description Tag Used as Description	Varies	Yes**	Yes
Level of Importance of Description Tag	Average	High	Average
Meta Keywords Indexed	No	Yes	Yes
Meta Keywords Characters Indexed	n/a	500+	500+
Level of Importance of Keyword Tag	n/a	High	Average+
Support Frames	Partial	Partial	Partial
Indexes NoFrames Content	Yes	Yes	Yes
Indexes all Visible Content	No limit	No limit	No limit
Meta Redirect	Spam	Spam	Spam
Supports Robots.txt file	Fully	Partially	Partially
Indexes Heading Tags	Yes	Yes	Yes
LSI Support	Partially	No	No
Word Count Minimums (Recommended)	None	100	None
Keyword Density	2-6%	4-9%	6-9%
Word Stemming (position = positioning)	Yes	No	No
Word Capitalization (search = Search)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Search Case Sensitive	No	No	No
Plural vs. Singular Difference	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exact Keyword Order (buy car = buy car)	No	Yes	Yes
Comment Tag Indexed	No	No	No
Link Popularity	Very High	High	High
Link Reputation	Very High	Average	Average
Anchor Text Indexed	Yes	Yes	Yes
ALT Text Indexed	Yes	Yes	Yes
ALT Text Importance	Poor	Average	Good
Hidden Text Penalty	Yes	No	No
Hidden Text in Form Indexed	No	No	No
Form Option Text	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dynamic Page Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Accept cookies or Session IDs	No	No	No
CSS Indexed (On Page / External)	Yes/Yes	Yes/No	Yes/No
JavaScript (On Page / External)	Yes/Yes	Yes/No	Yes/No
Keyword in Domain Importance	Average	Good	High
Older Pages Increase in Rank	Yes	No	No
Reviewed Sites Preferred	Yahoo Directory, ODP, Best of the Web,	Yahoo Directory	None
Authoritative Site Preference	Yes	No	No
Indexes Multiple Levels	Yes	Partial	Partial
Click Tracking Influence	In Place	No	In Place
Indexing Limits (Number of Pages)	None	None	None
Supports nofollow	Yes	Yes	Yes
Follows Image Maps	Yes	Yes	No
Index Flash pages	Use PPC	Use PPC	Use PPC
XML Site Map Support	Yes	Yes	No

* Google will cut off the display in the Title not on a specific character count, but on a
word break.

** If the site is listed in the Yahoo! Directory, the description in the directory takes
priority.

*** MSN will use the first 100 characters of the description and then it will shift to the
first text in the body of the document.

Switch to PHP – Keep All Your Rankings

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:05:07 +0000

If you have, or are planning to, changing to PHP (or any other file extension), this article will be well worth your time. I made the switch on quite a few of my domains, including my main domain. The reasons for making the switch are pretty simple:

- more flexibility
- using “includes” reduces your file sizes by 40%
- make a change in just one file instead of every file on your site

However, the biggest drawback is keeping your search engine ranking. Face it, doing a ton of 301 redirects isn’t fun for anyone.

In order for me to show you how this can be done, and done well, as I said earlier, I did the switch on my main site: Web Marketing Now. The new design is live and it is completely PHP driven.

“You Liar!” you say, “All the files are HTML!”

Oh, you only think they are. They are all PHP and I will show you the trick I used, but first, let’s review the sites that have STUPID webmasters and whom you can contact to give them the “fix” and make a quick $5k as a consultant.

Yahoo! owned Blo.gs

http://blo.gs/ping.html is a 404 error page. They switched to PHP but didn’t even bother to do a 301 redirect. Whoops.

Just change the file extension to php and you get the right page: http://blo.gs/ping.php

WebConfs

http://webconfs.com/anchor-text-analysis.html is a 404 error page. Aren’t they supposed to know about this stuff?

They also switched to PHP: http://webconfs.com/anchor-text-analysis.php but didn’t bother to do a redirect.

Andy Hagans Messed Up?!?!

Yep. Check it out: http://www.andyhagans.com/link-building.html is a page I linked to years ago now shows as a 404 error, but the php version redirects to: http://www.andyhagans.com/link-baiting.php.

The examples are endless. What blows me away is their webmasters aren’t even looking at their 404 error report in their logs. Big mistake.

So, what should be done? Well, the fix is easy, and I’m going to walk you through it. You’ll love it.

1) Following the switch to PHP file extensions you will have two copies of each page, one in PHP and one in HTML. You will need to delete all HTML versions of your files, as they are duplicate.

2) So you don’t lose any “clicks” from your search engine rankings and incoming links, you want to do a “mod_rewrite” in your .htaccess file. This is because all references to your site are with the HTML extension, not PHP. Here is the code to do it:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*).html $1.php

I know what you are saying, “That’s it?!?!? That’s the code?”

Yeah, that’s it.

And the best part is that even though your files are in PHP, they will display in the browser as HTML, just as they were before. And Google is none the wiser. Unless…

3) Your designer did all the internal links as PHP, not as HTML. Oops.

Why This is a Problem: I did this for testing purposes, and what happens is Google has all of your HTML files indexed, and now it comes to your site and starts eating the PHP files. Even though the mod_rewrite was there, the link it followed was “php” and not “html” and I noticed my rankings starting to drop.

Solution: Have your designer do a global search for “php” in your site and replace with”html”. There is one more step as you will need to do a search for the include statements and change those from HTML back to PHP so the inclusion works properly on your site. After I did this, all of my rankings came back within just a few days.

What do the include statements look like? Here is an example:

This can work with any extension change. For example, if you are moving from .asp to .html. Or from .php to .html. You can keep all of your rankings and your traffic is unaffected. And the best part, you don’t have to work the entire weekend doing hundreds or thousands of 301 redirects. Just post the code I gave you in your .htaccess file and do the global find and replace and you’re done.

Update: A few members wrote in and informed me there is an easier way to do this, through the config file. Yes, while that is true, it didn’t work on a few of my servers, which is why I presented the above method. However, if you want to do it through the config file, just include the following code:

AddTypeapplication/x-httpd-php .html .htm

Image Stuffing, with Flash and Javascript

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:20:31 +0000

I will be releasing my new image stuffing script coming soon. You will be able to cookie stuff forums using the /img tag and fake the referrer. This will be in the download section within the next couple of weeks.

So some brief info to add to make this post up..

Step by Step Forum Stuffing

Step 1

Make a Forum List

Use the Google searches from Lesson2 to make a forum list that is targeted to the affiliate program you want to stuff. You should start off with at least 20 forums to see what works but some people start with 50. I recommend using an Excel file to keep track of your forums and usernames. You can also keep track of the rules for each forum. An example would be that some forums requires 10 posts before you can post an IMG.

Step 2

Prepare your IMG links

Use your cookie stuffing script to generate your IMG links from your affiliate program links. Double check everything and make sure you are using the correct affiliate link and image url. Do a few tests and make sure it shows up in your stats log. If some of your forums allow HTML you can also prepare a flash code to use in those forums if your script allows it.

Step 3

Start posting!

BHW, WarriorForums and WickedFire are not good forums to stuff as they know all about cookie stuffing.

Start posting in the forums and use your IMG link in either the sig or right after the post text. Be careful on the forums and do not over do it. A few posts a day per forum is usually fine. If a forum is big enough and moves fast you may be able to do more posts. You will need to use the [IMG] [/IMG] code to insert the cookie stuffing IMG URL in your post.
If you want to stuff in QUANTITY of cookie stuffs you can reply to a lot of posts on the forum every day (you need a well thought out response) and hope that the forum does not notice. If you want QUALITY cookie stuffing you need to make a thread about what you are stuffing, or you can just reply to other threads about it. I would recommend waiting until you have a reputation on the forum before starting threads.