Monday 31 August 2009

Thanks pjaybee

In response to my post yesterday on the topic of Traffic Exchanges pjaybee responsed:
"Hi,  new traffic exchanges are springing up all the time, unfortunately most don't last the distance. The Big owners have the dominance in this game.
Personally I surf more of the smaller exchanges as the surf ratio tends to be a lot better.
I do agree with you that a lot of the owners could do more for their members, to be a success you need happy customers."
Thanks pjaybee for your comment and I do agree that owners in many cases could do more for their TE clients. It is also good to know that the smaller exchanges tend to give better surf ratios. Obviously in what is a very competitive market they need to attract customers. I, like pjaybee, have also noticed that the whole traffic exchange issue seems to be divided among a few big players (whom I shall not mention). These are the people who have the power and the credibility and the numbers to market new exchanges and to succeed. If that is good or bad is another issue.

Sunday 30 August 2009

Want to own a traffic exchange? - a few tips

Traffic exchanges at the minute seem to go from one extreme to the other. Either you are bombarded by follow up emails offering products after signing up or you are ignored. I believe in fact that the good and profitable TE's are those that are follow-up their signups.
Let me just give you one example of what I find extremely frustrating and which gives a very bad impression of a Traffic Exchange. I recently signed up and when I added the websites I wanted rotated, I had to wait for their approval by the webmaster. When signing up I had already upgraded to purchase credits as I simply do not have the time to spend in sitting for hours with the mind-bending task of surfing other sites, Well I waited, waited and waited and even after one week my sites had not been approved. This to me is an immediate sign of a webmaster of traffic exchange owner who has lost interest in what he or she started. It immediately gives me a negative impression of that traffic exchange. That is simply the way things work on the Internet, it is fast, here today gone tomorrow.
Do you haev similar experiences to mine with TE's that are so slllllllllllllloooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww to respond? Leave a comment and let me know.

Thursday 27 August 2009

Learn about your phobias!

This may seem a strange thing to say but many people who suffer from phobias are totally at their mercy partly because they feel totally exposed and at the mercy of phobias. Learning about phobias, in general, is a good idea because it does help you understand what is happening to you and it demystifies the whole thing. One always has a greater fear of the unknown, this is common knowledge.
So, my advice is read literature on the matter, look for and join Internet forums and discuss your phobia(s) with others. You will very soon discover that these terrifying situations you are experiencing are being experienced by thousands of people just like you every day.
In fact, phobias and panic attacks are extremely common and seemingly all the more so in today's stressful and hectic way of life. You would be surprised about the number of people who takes the stairs at work and not the elevator becuase they panic at the mere thought. You would be surprised about the number of people you know who prefer to eat alone and deliberately go to eat earlier or later than the rest - simply because they have a phobia of eaiting in company. You would be equally surprised at the number of people who do not go on that training course they would love to go on just in case during the class they might be but in a position of having to answer a question or get up and say something in front of others. So do me and do yourself a favour - read up a little on panic attacks and phobias and come back and tell me how this has affected you.

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Google and caffeine?

Google has announced it's next step to keep ahead of the search engine battle - no doubt there is little coincidence that this comes at a time when Yahoo and Microsoft have stated their intention of giving Google a run for its money in the search technology race. It is interesting to note what Google officially says what it is going to focus on with the new Caffeine technology:

size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.

These sparse words from Google are of course open to all sorts of interpretation but you do not have to be a rocket scientist to make some educated guesses at what they mean. "Size" probably is a hidden admission of Google that it is having a hard time to keep up with the number of web pages in existence and that they have to index more in a shorter period of time. This also ties in well with the reference to indexing speed as this would point to the importance of fresh content. It has become a web cliche that "content is king" but this statement from google would seem to infer that new rich content is what they are looking for. This could be good news for the little guy as it is already very evident, particularly with the increase in blogging, that there is a lot of fantastic content out there in every conceivable niche but it is hard to find as the small sites do not have the visibility of thh larger sites on search engines i.e. good content is not getting the search rewards it deserves. The use of the term "accuracy" would seem to back up this statement - info is becoming less generalised and more pinpointed - google wants to get at this rich info and give more accurate results for its users.

This overall strategy could see a major step in the maturing process of search engine technology. There are many already who believe that many of the traditional SEO criteria are redundant - i.e. keyword desnity. Google is perhaps going to take the emphasis off the importance of the number of inbound links and focus more on the relevancy and quality of the information it finds. That of course is going to be easier said than done.

Tuesday 25 August 2009

Who can recommend how to learn to make and set-up a splash page.

I am interested in trying out the success of splash pages on a number of traffic exchanges. Can anyone point me in the direction of a website which explains in non-technical terms how to create and set up a splash page. I assume also that for a splash page to function I will also need to be able to set up an auto-responder. Likewise can anyone let me know what is the easiest way of doing this.
The idea of setting up a splash page is to build a list of emails addresses for my newsletter. Are there websites or companies on the web that will build a custom splash page for me and have you any idea how much this could cost?

Friday 21 August 2009

Can your enemies destroy your presence on the web - Oh Yes!

I just found out this morning when my Google Adsense account was suspended. Click fraud is the accusation. Not guilty I reply. Can I proove it. No how could I? So what does a person do to keep dear GOOGLE happy. I have 10 blogs depending on my Adsense account.
I think it must be easier than I suspected to get Adsense advertisers a bad name. If I got to a blog which has Adsense and make a point on a daily basis of clicking feverishly on the google ads I bet within a short space of time teh owner will get the same email as I did this morning. ACCOUNT SUSPENDED.
Worth a try but I will be back to tell you how I got on.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Belt and braces - traffc exchanges and social media


Whish is the more prductive source of traffic today - traffic exchanges or social media sites such as twitter or facebook. And in terms of traffic which is the best source for targeted traffic to your site. Personally I fail to see the great importance currently attacked to a site such as twitter in spite of its current popularity. It seems to reflect that we are basically lazy and that 140 characters is about as much as we can say or digest in one go.
However sites such as delicio.us and diggit do bring real results in terms of interested and targeted users to the site.
As I stated in an earlier posting I fail to understand how traffic exchanges can advertise that they bring "targeted" traffic to your site. I understand that the traffic can come pretty quickly once joining and surfing a traffic exchanges and I understand that the TE can be useful for getting a list of email addresses but again how is traffic targeted?

Tuesday 18 August 2009

Imagine you had a birthday party and nobody came?


Many many people fall prey to the idea of simply setting up a website. This is mistakenly seen by them as the end and not the beginning of a journey. Unlike other media, the Internet is dynamic and this is what few seem to understand. Your site cannot be a static element in a dynamic whole. if we consider how how the Internet has evolved in five years, the thought of setting up a site and leaving it to catch visitors as a sort of fait accompli is simply ridiculous. This, I believe, is the largest mistake among site owners today and one which is likely to persist for some considerable time.
This is simply a mistaken mindset. If I advertise in printed media I don't have to change it every 5 weeks, same for a television advert. So why shoudl I have to do so just because I am using the Internet as a marketing tool. Again the answer is simple, you are working in a dynamic medium, one that is constantly changing.
Who had heard of social networking 24 months ago? Who had heard of twitter 18 months ago? No one I believe.
Hence, figuratively speaking, why today are so many people still organising birthday parties (web sites) and then getting disappointed that no one comes?

Monday 17 August 2009

Traffic exchanges a waste of time - No way!

If one takes as a point of departure that traffic exchanges are not a viable means of getting trgeted traffic to your site but are a means of building a list of emails of possible clients for your service or your product then I believe that you are on the right lines. This is a means which does work for traffic exchanges and of course the better your splash page, the more traffic exchanges you are visible on, the greater exposure you will have and the greater the number of emails you will collect over time.
What I have seen as a result of traffic exchanges is that some of them use the emails really aggressively to bombard you every day with "exciting new offers". This I find overdone and ultimately inflationary with the result that I personally see such emails psychologically as spam and pay no attention to them.
I believe th proper way to open doors is to do so carefully in terms of sending non-commercial, serious emails to your sign-ups and definitely not on a daily basis.

Sunday 16 August 2009

Blame our spelling on spellcheck


Excellent point that I never thought of made by Cara Powers. She comments:
"I blame it on spellcheck. I almost never look anything up anymore. I don't even think about spelling when I type. I just give it a go and watch for the little red underline."
. Yes, Cara you are right, I forgot completely about spellcheck as I never use it but basically you do not need to be able to spell. The software will do it for you. So things would seem to point to the fact that our ability to spell may be rendered redundant by the Internet. This may be true when writing online but what happens when you have to write a letter, fill in a form when there is no computer available? Or do you think we will reach the situation where all our written communication is done online or by computer and spelling should no longer be our concern? Could happen but ....
I firmly believe that language is closely connected to our culture and is in fact to some degree a mirror of our culture. An inability to spell also indicates that we are losing the connection to where words come from. It is interesting to note, for example, that 51 802 words in the English language are derived from the Greek language. I firmly believe we should never lose interest in the roots of our language - ultimately we will become all the poorer for this.

Monday 10 August 2009

Mr Google I cannot spell


Off topic again but a story which I think is one which may have some truth and which I find of interest - and from a source which is not a sensationalist one - the Economist. It claims in this week's edition that google, sites like facebook and twitter are having a disastrous effect upon the spelling ability of our children. This set me thinking and basically I came to the conclusion that I have never seen as many misspellings in my life as on the Internet. I have been made consciously aware over the past years that the average level of spelling on the Net is poor. But is this the fault of the Internet? I believe not.
While I do agree that if you are confronted constantly with bad spelling then you will never learn how to spell a word properly if 9 times out of ten you see it misspelt. But I do not believe that it is at fault, I think we must look first and foremost at our school systems. I came from the old system where every night in elementary school I had to learn to spell 20 words. This is a exercise which I think today has vanished from the school curriculum.
Of course, to be fair they are individuals who would also claim that many of us learn visually and that if we are constantly confronted with a common mispelling we will assume eventually that this is the correct spelling. I have no argument to counter this as I do believe that we all learn in very different ways. Yet the social networking sites I visit are mainly populated by adults like myself and they did not learn to spell or misspell only through their use of the Internet in the past ten years.

Tuesday 4 August 2009

A millionaire overnight - and we still believe it?


Why as reasonably intelligent beings do many of us still fall for the soft sell of the promise of buying something on the Internet and start earning a five figure salary overnight. It does not happen in the real economy, does it? So why do so many of us still swallow this hype in our inboxes and, in addition, since it is a limited special offer, it is best to buy immediately to secure our position.
I mean, let's face it. If some guy were earning a 5 figure sum, he's going to show me how to do it for $47 just because I am a nice guy.
As a serious internet user, I believe we are prey to falling victim to too much extremely well written hype. But all things said and done, why then do they need to show us their testimonials, why do they show us copies of their paypal or clickbank accounts. Answer, they want to sell or, saying it another way, they want me to buy. And I have done a lot of this in the past. It is all - without exception - a lot of money-grabbing crap that I fell for.
Let us get a grip on ourselves and start deleting our membership to these guys and deleting our subscriptions to their convincing scam newsletters. They ar enot going to make us any richer, for sure. Always just ask yourself one question, why am I being offered this? Why does someone promise me a fortune in weekly income, and not just do it himself and stop dragging as many customers as he can like me into a $47 dollar sale......and another disappointment?

Monday 3 August 2009

What makes a good traffic exchange?


What in your view differentiates a good traffic exchange from a bad one? Why are some traffic exchanges hugely successful in terms of membership numbers while others never seem to gain popularity?
Having looked at the main stream traffic exchanges, it seems very clear to me that their support for new traffic exchange launches has a lot to do with their prospects of success. Why? The answer is simple, if I contact 160 000 surfers on my exchange telling them how great some new traffic exchange is, I will obviously have some degree of success. Firstly you are receiving that news from someone who has credility in your eyes as far as traffic exchanges are concerned. Secondly, traffic exchange surfers are constantly on the look out for new exchanges and new offers. There is no TE surfer who is only surfing one traffic exchange.
So first priority for joining a traffic exchange is the number of members that a particular exchange has.
Secondly, I believe that the easy of use of a traffic exchange also is a contributing factor to its popularity. By ease of use I mean (a) the length of the timer in seconds for surfing, (b) the number of credits earned per view, (c) the number of website/splash pages you are allowed simultaneously.
The simple fact is that anyone today can for very little money (next to nothing) purchase a traffic exchange script and set up business. Yet the profits from such an exchange depend on traffic as does everything on the Internet. That is where the small start-ups fail. It is a vicious circle. Not sufficient adverising power without the advertising support and added credibility of the "big boys", little traffic, little interest. The traffic exchange fails. The secret to the success of any traffic exchange is the number of surfers/members as this is a sign of the exposure you would get by joining such an exchange. If you are on a traffic exchange and see there are currently three people online you can estimate that you get zero exposure, If, however, you are on a traffic exchange and see there are currently 324 other members surfing then this is a very different story in terms of the amount of exposur eyour website will receive. I believe it is increasingly difficult to get a foot in the door in the traffic exchange business and - I may be wrong - I suspect that the big and successful exchanges are using their power and credibility to create the new exchanges and by that I mean the new exchanges that will survive over time.

Saturday 1 August 2009

Internet and blogs - quo vadis?

The recent rise in social media and social networking through the Internet has interesting repercussions, not all of which are positive, I believe. Let me give you an example of current research which makes me, a simple webmaster and search engine optimizer, feel like a fly trying to scratch its way from the surface to the core of the Internet world - sorry, wrong perspective as we are all being told the Internet does not have a core of center.
I would deny such a statement when I look at the increasing spread of pervasive technologies with companies such as g00gle which, with its myraid email, blogging, search, news services etc. is trying to make itself the center - or one center, of the Internet - and making a damn good job of it if I may say so.
The Internet playing field is no longer level, it is very much tipped to the side of those who have the BIG money - like everything else in life. Basically, it is at present difficult to estimate what is really going on in the Internet and I see it reflecting equally the cycles of the REAL economy. Let me give you a small example.

I just discovered a company which I shall not name. This company can give you any data you want from blogs - it has indexed the full content of some 20 million blogs and is filtering and analysing the content with astounding success in terms of predictions. Blogs, basically, are an expression of individual opinion and with 20 million of them around this opinion covers a lot of topics. Blogs are equally a way of influencing and representing people. So Company X strips off the html and looks at the content, let us say of all blogs about movies. There are a lot.
Then using software which can identify what one would call positive sentiment - simple language parsing I assume - it can actually produce data from these 20 million blogs which gives a fair indication of what people are saying about a particular movie. This info can actually predict what the popularity of a particular movie will be in one week's time and has a success rate of some 86%.
Such is the current state of data mining from a blog like this one, amplified 20 million times. Now, without being paranoid, I can understand why we are all encouraged to blog, why we are given free tools to do so. The result is a billion dollar industry which is predicting successfully the future in the way I describe. What level of sophistication can such technology achieve? How ethical is such work? Are we busy creating monsters that are going to destroy us? I assume what applies to movies, as in the example I give, can also apply to cars, food, fashion - you name it.

Is it a good idea to join a blog network



Looking around to explore the various means of getting traffic to my website, in addition to traffic exchanges I have found what are called "Blog natworks". Basically these are a numbe rof blogs and owners who share something in common and who visit each other in much the same form as in a traffic exchange. Please correct me if I am wrong.
To me these are something which have grown out of necessity in the little of it getting increasingly difficult to get traffic to a website.
While such formulae, such as the Shiny Media group in the UK, seem to have lacked success - the latter has gone into administration - there do seem to be several others which are doing OK.
Recently, however, I see reports from bloggers that g00gle has virtual launched a Jahad on blog networks treating them in much the same way as link farms. Several of the leaders have had their PR sliced by g00gle in recent weeks.

Who can help me - what is autosurf? and why?


To date we have looked only at manual traffic exchanges, by that I mean traffic exchanges where you receive credits for the number of other sites you surf. This is usually on a one to one or one to two ratio. My question is: what is the point of autosurf traffic exchanges. As I understand the issue - correct me if I am wrong - an autosurf traffic exchange is one where automatically you see a new site every so many second without having to physically click after a certain number of seconds?
My question is why would someone want to do this? It means virtually your site is rotating but basically although being visited no one actually looks at it.
Maybe I am stupid but I cannot understand why someone would want to do this. Sure it is also a means of getting traffic but if no one looks at the content of your site what is the point of this traffic. G00gle will realise where the traffic is coming from and will not reward you in terms of improving your page ranking. So I come back to the same point, what is the use of auto surf exchanges? Answers very welcome!