Archive for the ‘Weblogs’ Category

Google Funding Terrorists

Do you recall when the “funding terrorist” campaign was targeting Marijuana, online gambling and Porn? Almost everyone was happy to stand by and let that bullshit be spread around without questioning it – even many of those who understood that this was nothing but political scare tactics.

Who cares what the ignorant masses believe? It’s not your business – right? No need to stand up for intellectual honesty. That whole “slippery slope” argument has no merit and those same tactics couldn’t be used against a real company – Right?

Well it now appears that those same sheeple are now looking at a new target and for the “Google Funding Terrorists” connection.

So for those of you that haven’t figured it out, the whole “funding terrorist” thing is total bullshit. If you buy into it, you’re a fucktard. When I wrote the Poker Bann Would fund Terrorists post, I did so because Frist is just the kind of asshole that would play the “terrorists funding” card for anything; just like when Gonzales said that illicit businesses (copyright infringement) are used, “quite frankly, to fund terrorism.”

You know how much it cost to take down the World Trade Center, put a hole in the Pentagon, and take down 4 Commercial Airlines? About $50,000. You know how much Bin Laden had in his personal fortune at the time? About $600,000,000. To put this in perspective, with the personal funding of just that one guy, they have enough funding for 12,000 similar attacks.

The Terrorists don’t Need Funding – They’ve already got it.

Is Google adsense being used to fund terrorists? Yes. All someone has to do is set up a damn adsense account like anyone else and send traffic to it. The argument is just as valid as saying that buying Marijuana or playing poker funds terrorism; it’s not valid at all.

So the next time someone says that pot, poker, Google, or Porn is being used to fund terrorism, knee them in the groin, sweep their legs out and start kicking them in the head until they stop acting like a such fucktard.

Do you Brandverb?

For a long time, we have not had a term for when a company’s brand becomes synonymous with an action. Today we do: brandverb.

The brandverb you will be most familiar with is Google. When someone says “Google it” or “I got the answer by Googling it” they are using Google as a brandverb. As you can see, the brand “Google” is being used to replace verb “search” becoming a brandverb.

Yesterday, I used Jetblue as a brandverb. While contemplating going out to Los Angeles for New Years, I said “Maybe I’ll Jetblue out there.” Once again, the brand replaced a verb (fly) and became a brandverb. Here is how the term brandverb was born:

[23:49] QuadsZilla: my flight to RIO is on the 4th from JFK
[23:50] QuadsZilla: maybe i’ll jetblue out there
[23:50] QuadsZilla: for like 3 days or something
[23:50] QuadsZilla: if that’s cool
[23:50] Jeff Random: I just made up a word based on your word
[23:50] Jeff Random: brandverb
[23:50] Jeff Random: example jetblue out there
[23:50] Jeff Random: aka to google
[23:50] QuadsZilla: nice
[23:50] QuadsZilla: i like it
[23:50] QuadsZilla: i’ll blog it

If you are going to photocopy something and say “I’ll Xerox it” you have used a brandverb. If you want your maid to vacuum your bachelor pad and ask her to “Hoover the place” you have used a brandverb. When you advise your grandmother to get rid of some junk and say “Ebay that crap, some idiot will buy it” – you have brandverbed ebay.

Want an important signed document delivered to finalize a deal? Fedex it over – you sexy brandverber!

By understanding the power of brandverbing you will become a better marketer. If you are thinking in terms of “How can I brandverb my company?”, your marketing will have a longer term impact. Especially if you brand becomes engrained in culture.

Do you brandverb?

Google and “Spammy Requests”

This morning I did a search on Google for:

inurl:.edu photoshop class

The first results included tons of non edu sites that did not have .edu in the URL. Strange. So I figured maybe I needed to troubleshoot a little and after changing the language preferences from portuguese to english and the number of results to 100, I got this crap:

Spammy Request from Google

We’re sorry…

… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

The thing is, this wasn’t an automated query! It was just me typing on my keyboard and clicking with my mouse. I know, I know – Only an evil black hat spammer could want photoshop classes ONLY from edu sites. Clearly there can be no legitimate use for this query.

Better sound the alarm and tell me that I probably have a virus or spyware!

We know in the past that Google decided to cripple their backlink checker to reduce “spammy requests.” Now they are going to cripple thier inurl command?

I have this feeling that some day I’ll be sitting with my (still-to-be-concieved) son and he’ll turn to me and say:

“Dad, Tell me about back in the day when Google didn’t suck.”

The Best SEO Articles of 2006

Do you blog about SEO or Making Money Online?

If so, here is your chance to get more links and more readers. Submit the best article you wrote this year in the comment section in the Format of:

[Hyperlinked title] [0-200 character description].

Comments not in this format imply that you have poor reading comprehension skills and/or cannot follow instructions.

Remember, this is your BEST post for 2006 about Search Engine Optimization or Making Money Online.

People will read what you submit here and judge your worth as a blogger. If it’s a great article, you will get links and more readers.

Limit one submission per person.

Think of it as an Open Source “Best of” List that you’re all invited help create.

Disruption Causes Opportunity in the Marketplace

It’s not just adult. This past weekend represented a huge shift in Google. This Disruption has created opportunity in the marketplace.

Learn what has changed, figure out what is happening and adapt. These disruptions may seem bad at first, but if you’re ahead of the curve you should be able to ride these changes all the way to the bank.

I haven’t seen the outside world in days . . . this is like an ever shifting video game on a global scale.

I’m sure you’ve heard the JFK quote

“There is a Chinese curse which says, “May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not, we live in interesting times…”

Funny thing is, that was just more hoax marketing. The Chinese never said that.

Change is good.

Free Porn on a Porn Free Google

If you Google for porn today, you may not find it.

That’s because this past weekend saw a huge shake up in the online porn world. A change in the Google algorithm caused almost all TGPs to fall out of the top results for single-word porn search phrases.

If you Google for any of the following words (as of this writing), you won’t find much free porn in the top ten:

Last Monday:
Pussy Last Monday

The last 10 days:
Last 10 Days

Yesterday (after the weekend update):
Yesterday

The lesson for everyone here is this: Don’t focus on just a few competitive keywords for your long term sites: if you have plenty of Long tail combinations, Google Twitches that look like they could kill you may actually increase your traffic.

Update: The “Porn Free” filters in Google seem to have reverted partially to where they were.

Google Properties to Appear #1 in all SERPs

“We’re a search engine . . . no wait we’re a portal . . . and Gootube!”

It’s scary: Google can decide at any time to steal the top spot for itself . . . like it did for finance, travel and most recently for movie searches:

Stolen SERPS

“Sorry IMDB but we’d rather just have all those top spots for ourselves. 2nd is not that bad though.”

Will it stop? I doubt it. Google’s going to take the top spots on every vertical they want.

I’m not so sure I welcome our new Robot Overlords anymore.

I Just Got a Linux Car!

Last week I got fed up with having to make car payments. Cars should be free! Then someone told me about this thing they have called the linux car . . .

The great thing about the linux car is that it’s free and it never gets flat tires. I’m all about saving money and I love free. While everyone else pays huge companies for their car, or taking the bus (which sucks!) I got a car without spending a dime.

The first bad news came when I tried to actually get in the car and drive; I received an error message on the dashboard that said, “No tires detected.”

WTF?

I knew I saw tires when I got into the car. So I got out and checked, and sure enough there were tires on the car. So I got back in and banged on the steering wheel a few times before deciding to check the manual.

After a few hours of poring over the manual I discovered that I had to tell the car about what kind of tires I had.

So, after some digging, I found the button to initiate tire declarations (for some reason it was called INI RUBBER-BASED ROAD INTERFACE LIB EZ). I pushed it and a little sign lit up saying, “If your Linux car is a 2006 model or better you may need to install a rubber-based road interface synchronizer before attempting to declare tire status to the vehicle.”

I went to the hardware store and bought one, but it was the wrong size so I had to go back again. The instructions were in German but I still managed to get in installed. I pushed the button and went on with my tire type declarations, after which the car finally decided to recognize my tires.

Great!- now where’s the gear-shift?

After hours of searching I gave up and called up a friend who’s a real car expert. He chuckled. “Dude, only idiots use gear-shifts. Linux drivers use gear modulating paddles located on the sides of the driverseat. Don’t you know anything about cars? Jeez.”

I made fun of him for being a virgin and then returned to my car. Indeed, the gear modulation paddles were conveniently hidden under the edges of my seat.

I decided to take the car for a spin, so I pulled out of my driveway and the car stalled. A message on the dashboard said, “Before initializing for road driving, please specify your exact model of Linux car.”

It then gave me a list of four hundred vehicle types, each with just a slight difference in model number. I was eventually obliged to take apart a substantial part of the engine in order to see the little model number on the side of the block. Satisfied, I inputted this number into the dashboard once I’d put the engine back together and started off on my first Sunday drive with my brand new Linux car.

After going to the supermarket, which my linux car did more faster and more securely than any car i’ve been in, I decided to drive to the football game. When I got within 3 miles of the stadium, the car started to shake, stalled out and said “Football games cannot be visited in this car.”

So I checked the manual and, sure enough, the linux car will not go within 3 miles of any baseball, football basketball or hockey game . . . but you can take it to a lawn dart tournament or to compatible bowling alleys. Sigh . . . well that sucks.

Finally, when I found out my car wasn’t compatible with my iPod I put the damn thing up on cinderblocks in my front yard and decided to just take the bus.

The bus sucks, true, but you know what? It’s a no-brainer.

I put the reddit button up cuz this is a reddit type of post. Problem is, I don’t think many of you use reddit yet. Give it a try if you haven’t – there’s some great stuff on there, it’s way faster than Digg, and you’ll see a different set of what’s popular on the web.

This little bit of geek humor is because of Pubcon/ light SEO news and a /. comment – hat tip to cheesburger brown. The comment was open source – right?

Elite Retreat – For Real this Time

In this post we’ll go over my relationship with other SEO bloggers and take a serious look at the Elite Retreat.

Why?

Well, I got tons of IMs about my Pink Hat SEO post last week: people wanting to know if I have some kind of gripe with Shoe or Aaron or Lee Dodd. One blog commenter even asked if “frosts [my] ass to see them make this kind of money?”

No. I’m not that type of person.

Getting upset or jealous because someone else is making money is negative energy that should be removed from your life. Business is not a zero sum game. If someone else is making money, that doesn’t mean that there’s any less money for you to make. If someone else is successful, I look to see what they are doing right and emulate it.

Here’s my take on the elite retreat:

For the right audience, $5,000 is a bargain. While the presentations about PPC, Blogging, SEO and community will probably be useful in and of themselves, the real benefit here is going to be from the interaction.

The “Strategy Session” and “Group Discussions” will allow attendees to get inside the minds of how successful online entrepreneurs think. More than anything, thinking the right way and learning innovative ways to tackle various projects are the keys to success. Many . . . I would say MOST . . . people in the corporate world do not have their heads around what it takes to create a successful online business. That’s where the interaction with people who are successful can make the biggest difference.

Even starting to learn something like that is easily worth the 5 grand.

When you read the fine print of the elite retreat, that’s when things get juicy. See where it says “Action Plan Follow-Up”? That means to me that attendees are going to be able to fire off quick questions to the speakers for a couple months to come. Getting high level input on strategy from people who have done it is one of the real benefits that I’m sure many have overlooked.

How do I know this is such a benefit? Because two of the speakers are already in my Instant Messenger. While I don’t chat all that much with Aaron, Shoemoney has given me advice that has helped me make literally tens of thousands more dollars. It cuts both ways, though, one of the things I showed him . . . something that took him about 20 mins to change . . . is now making him an extra $14k per month.

If you don’t have the contacts it’s hard to get the attention of the right people. The elite retreat is a step in the right direction for people who need to build connections.

Do I have a gripe with any of the Speakers? Of course not. The Pink Hat SEO post was a harmless joke. Most people thought it was funny – including Shoemoney and Aaron.

The real URL for the elite retreat is

http://www.eliteretreat.info/

.info? They must be spammers. ;)

Got .gov?

As you may know, cetain .gov sites have a ton of weight in the SERPs. They are trusted because . . . well <sarcasm>shouldn’t we trust everything the government does?</sarcasm>

If you are familar with parasite hosting, you know that getting access to a premium domain can yeild some incredible returns very quickly.

What if I told you you could get access to a 10 year old plus .gov domain with over 3 million backlinks? What if the backlinks included over 80k .edu and .gov links?

What if I told you that you could get a mini site on said .gov domain that is NOT orphaned (ie it has a link from within the site going to the mini site)?

Would you be interested?

Well you’re not alone.

Right now someone is auctioning off just that type of access and the bidding is up to just around $10,000. Since one could make that back in a day with the right type of spamming, I expect that price to go considerably higher before the auction closes.

If you’re a serious spammer, this is one opportunity you may want to take a look at.

Check out the details of the .gov Parasitic hosting auction here on eBay.