oldschool
I guess what Murdoch doesn't get it that web searchers don't need his content.
This is a stretch to say this is anything newsworthy in online marketing. It’s pretty clear that it is a self promoting article to lure someone into their home based business.
I feel like this article sends the wrong message about Social Media Marketing.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I appreciated the sentiments on having the DMOZ listing have slightly more value as the page sends out less links. Speaking of DMOZ (a topic I am bitter about), I would proabably rather see them go away rather than Geocities.
Great article. Hopefully corporate America will read it, take note, and let who know how to engage lead them along the way. One of my most frustrating experiences was trying to get a buyin from very old school managers that didn’t get the web, SEO, or social media. They wanted to have approvals for everything and didnt want to be in any way transparent. They also didn’t think it was worth it to have an employee invest time engaging the community as a "voice". I even showed them a video where an exec from one of the top competitors in their space was interviewed in the mainstream media discussing why they were embrcing social media. Needless to say, their competitors still outperform them in Social Media.My only satisfaction was knowing that I did the right thing by making recommendations. Overall, the online marketing plan was not a success because of their fear of what they didn’t know - and subsequent fear of letting someone who knew how to make it happen move their business in a direction where they had no control.
This is a very interesting concept and I expect that we will continue to see new forms of online advertising. In fact, I’ve got a great one myself and I won’t share publicly but I am waiting to see if someone beats me to it (and I am sure they will becasue I am not a developer). I may have to check it out, especially since they are offering it for free for the remainder of 2009.Great find David!
Chris, timing is everything. I was literally drafting this post http://sphinn.com/story/97107 minutes before you submitted yours. Glad to see C21 getting in the know.
Certainly a bad move. I can’t imagine they will keep serious affiliate at those rates. If anything, they should increase affiliate commissions given the low overhead vs. the potential sales.
Story: Elephant Links
I believe there is another lesson here. If you "suggest" that someone write a press release about you, it makes good sense to read it first before it goes out.
Condolences and prayers to Leif’s family, friends, and colleagues. It is never easy to lose a loved one, especially at such an early age.
Story: Apology to Guy Kawasaki
"I’m pushing SEO in the most positive manner all over the place"Sorry to call you on this Tad in spite of supporting some of your work including this recent article. Your quote from the message to charlieanzman stood out as a very odd statement to make in light of the fact that your comments in this thread are not upholding your standard of "pushing SEO in the most positive manner all over the place."
There is a huge difference between not providing a guarantee for SEO and promising an SEO deliverable and not delivering it. The former is a matter of business practice, and the latter is a matter of bad business (or fraud).Unless I am missing something, I am not sure why there is a debate going on about a company that clearly has failed to do it’s job by not delivering on a promise (of an actual deliverable). Secondly, I am not sure who in good conscience would think they are entitled to get paid for not delivering what they promised. Can someone tell me what I am missing here? The intro states "some" of the deliverables were not delivered, so I think we would need a clarification of that to make a true judgment call.
Is it me, or does anyone else think Google did themselves a disservice by releasing this before the kinks were ironed out? They had to know that the search engine marketing community would be among the first to "check it out" and the reviews I have read from reputable sources (and many other Sphinns) are less than rave.
A lot of the affiliate marketing and AdSense "alleged gurus" are using these crooked tactics. I was a victim of this once from Mike Filsaime and when I did a Google search, I found a similar issue at Rip Off Report. My guess is once enough corruption hits the market, the FTC will step in and regulate this more.
More proof that there is often more than meets the eye when it comes to "awards." Years ago (actually nearly two decades ago) when I sold real estate, I used to marvel at how every company could claim to be "#1". The fine print would say things like "we are #1 in selling single family homes listed by our own agents in the county."
Either they pulled the trigger and launched this too soon, or it just needs LOTS of work. On a positive note, I did see one of my sites in a #1 position. On a negative note, I found Viagra in the top ten results for "adoption agencies in arizona."
Story: SEO & Press Releases
For purposes of SEO (i.e. adding your content and getting inbound links) the distribution networks are great. For maximum exposure and ensuring that your press release actually gets covered, developing relationships with the media is far more effective.
Not impressed. My search for adoption agencies turned up "viagra" on the first page of results.
Story: Murdoch: We’ll Probably Remove Our Sites From Google’s Index