Free Traffic Tips

The first thing I’m thanking them for is, I was published on Site Pro News this Wednesday and Thursday, unwittingly debuting a new site with news about Google Blog Search. (It wasn’t meant for public launch for another two weeks.) Thanks Mel!

The second thing is, today’s great article “Create a Web Epidemic in 3 Easy Steps“. Not only does it contain some sagely advice for webmasters. (Those of you taking the High Profile Article Marketing course will instantly understand the importance of what is being said and see the first step to implementing one of our branding plans).

But just being published in the same publication as this author is an honor.

No I’m not telling you who it is. What fun is that?

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Clip n Link ==> “ Top search engines in September 2005: Google – 56.9%, Yahoo – 21.2%, MSN – 8.9% by ZDNet’s

ZDNet Research — SearchEngineWatch points to September 2005 OneStat survey of search engine usage. MSN Search’s global usage share has risen from 8.6 % to 8.9 %. Google’s global usage share has decreased 0.3 % the last 8 months. Yahoo’s global usage share remains stable. The second largest search engine on the web has a global usage share [...]”

Thoughts ==> Why is this important to you? Because it’s showing you that a certain percentage of searchers surveyed are using thos top three engines, world wide. That doesn’t mean they are the only search engines people use, but it can help you understand the scope of these brands. And if you’re attempting to leverage search engine terms, it can help shed light on the fact that submitting to 15,000 search engines (if indeed, 15,000 even exist) is probably not worth the time it would take.

There are other places to submit your sites, both search engines and directories alike. Just know where to focus.

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So yesterday was Google’s birthday. And they had a gift for us – apparrently, size does matter.

Come on. You saw that one coming, didn’t you?

Mini-clip ==. “For our seventh birthday, we are giving you a newly expanded web search index that is 1,000 times the size of our original index.”

Link ==> Official Google Blog: We wanted something special for our birthday….

Thoughts ==> I’ve shared my thoughts on Google’s size before so I won’t go too deeply into repeating myself. Suffice it to say that while size makes a heck of a difference to me – if Google’s index was a piece of junk, making it bigger would just mean it’s a bigger piece of junk.

Meaning that, I’m happy they’re got the whole quantity thing going on – so long as someone keeps their eye on the quality. (more…)

To top off this portion of the Content Theft coverage, take note of this really important point from Plagiarism Today.

Clip ==> “Simply put, RSS feeds are designed to be used. They are created to be read. However, when lawyers aren’t completely certain where the line between personal and commercial use is drawn, we can’t expect laypeople to immediately understand it. Also, not everyone is going to be completely certain what a “news aggregator” is, especially since a lot of Web sites, such as Bloglines, serve the same function.”

Thoughts ==>That said, my mother always told me that if I should always ask before using someone else’s stuff. I’m pretty sure that applies here – if you’re smart enough to redisplay my feed, you’re smart enough to ask me what’s okay and what’s not.

Plagiarism Today brings many really interesting viewpoints and cautions against some comment methods being used to thwart plagiarists online. I’d say the site warrants feed subscription.

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Here’s a few more suggestions on how to deal with the reprint of copyrighted material from loriswebs.com – meant to help you head them off at the pass before legal action becomes necessary:

“You can’t prevent others from stealing your copyrighted content off your web site but there are steps you can take to get your property removed from the offending website. Every hosting company has very strict rules for it’s clients about copyright infringement. If the hosting company don’t uphold those rules they can loose their license so this can work in your favor. If one of their clients breaks those rules, you can ask them to remove it and if they refuse you can report it to their hosting company which will usually either enforce that rule or in some cases even remove the offending website itself. There are of course legal actions you can take but the following steps may save you that expense.”

Read more :Stop Those who are Stealing Copyrighted Content off Your Web Site.

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Joel Walsh has a very direct way of dealing with the Content Theft problem:

“Simply file a DMCA complaint with Google, Yahoo, MSN, other search engines, any advertising programs of which the site is a part, and/or the site’s host. I just filed a complaint with Yahoo the other day. They responded within two days.”

Read more of the 3 Myths ofBusiness Web Content Theft .

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There’s a free version and paid version of Copyscape – a Website Plagiarism Search. That’s one thing you can do to find people who are copying your site.

In the Make Easy Money with Google blog, you’ll find another free technique that uses Google Alert and a nifty phrase called SIP:

“In my AdSense book I devote a small section to discussing plagiarism and copyrights, including a tip on regularly using Google to find sites who are copying your content without your consent. This is good advice, but you can also get Google to monitor the Web for you automatically using the Google Alerts tool.”

Read more about what SIP is and how to combine it with Google Alerts to see who’s been ripping you off in a blog post entitled “Using Google Alerts to check for content theft“.

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Quote from Duct Tape Marketing :: “These sites have no user value as they are often written by robots and don’t make much sense to the human eye. They do however, generate some cheap search engine traffic and AdSense clickthroughs for the owners.

I guess these folks figure that since you publish an RSS feed, it’s not really stealing. These are the same people that would reason, ’since you left your door unlocked I thought it was okay to take your new big screen.’”

Thoughts :: John has some great thoughts on how to deal with blog content theft, that basically amount to two things. 1- Imitation is the highest form of flattery. 2- When it gets out of hand, just ask them to stop.

I pretty much have the same approach… but sometimes I wonder if the free information I give is in vain. Because anyone who reads this blog knows that there isn’t an inherent search engine benefit in reprinting another blog verbatim. You’d get more of the desired effect from republishing their headlines only…

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