Monday, June 27, 2005

Online Traffic School - Interactive!

from Review-of-the-week.com

Here is an Interactive! Internet Traffic School that is actually FUN!

Interactive! Internet Traffic Schools

The InterActive! Traffic School program has SOUND, which is not required, however it makes your traffic school experience more enjoyable! The program is also enhanced throughout with ANIMATED CARTOON games and movies.

You MAY do the InterActive! Traffic School program WITHOUT watching the cartoons, however, the cartoons give you a VERY QUICK overview of the review material!

At Interactive! Internet Traffic Schools we have added fantastic new content and InterActive now offers the ONLY 100% INTERACTIVE traffic school program for California on the Internet!

Don't want to spend hours and hours READING?
You ARE in the RIGHT place!

Most online traffic schools are dry reading and testing. InterActive! has become the #1 Internet traffic school for people who want to participate in a program that is unique. InterActive! is an ....EXTREMELY QUICK....EASY......ENTERTAINING....
FUN and CHEAP traffic school online!

The PRICE is GREAT (from just $14.95!) and the PROGRAM is UNLIKE ANY OTHER WEB TRAFFIC SCHOOL. Why settle for less when we offer you a great traffic school for less?

UNIQUE!
This is the only traffic school online with funny, HIGH QUALITY,
animated CARTOONS and CARTOON GAMES throughout our program.

INEXPENSIVE EXPEDITED PROCESSING:

Out of time? We will process your certificate the same day you complete your traffic school program. If your court requires that your certificate be mailed,we will mail your certificate via regular mail for FREE and we charge only $7.50 for 2-3 day priority mail and just $20 for overnight delivery. (Some online traffic schools have hidden fees for regular mail and charge as much as $35.00 for overnight service!)

For more information visit our Interactive! Traffic School website.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Is it time to get rid of the Page Rank system?

by Rick Hendershot, The Linknet Network

The most widespread and most conventional view of what a "link" is holds that it is a kind of endorsement. This view says if I link to your site I am "recommending" it in some important sense. Google entrenched this idea with the Page Rank system. But the development of link farms, automated link exchanges, and anonymous link "directories" has resulted in a degrading of the practice of linking. What we need is to rethink the concept of the "link". The best way to restore the value of links is to think of them as advertising.

Most web-savvy people quickly learn the importance of inter-linking their sites with others having similar interests and subject matter. Your "inbound" links are one of the most important ways of getting yourself known in your field, at the same time as generating traffic to your website.

When Google burst onto the scene in the late 90s they entrenched the importance of links in the Page Rank system. A page's PR became one of the most important measures of a its value, and is still one of the things that many web promotion people (including me) chase after.

In creating the Page Rank system Google entrenched the idea that a link is a kind of "endorsement". This idea has been kicking around since the beginning of the web. The concept is pretty simple: if I put a link to your site on one of my pages, I am recommending your site -- I am giving you an endorsement. This is why we have "Resource Directory" pages on websites. More or less like the "Recommended Reading" list at the end of a magazine article, a website's "Resource Directory" is, in theory at least, a list of other websites that the webmaster recommends.

But the founders of Google went a step further and formalized the concept of the link as an endorsement. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the idea that a link is an endorsement was based on the citation system used in academic circles. An academic's value as a researcher and writer is (at least informally) based on the number of times he or she is "cited" by other writers and researchers in their own published works.

Linking has been degraded

Most web marketers quickly learn that Google places a high value on inbound links. The knee-jerk reaction of many webmasters is to create a "link directory" and start looking for "link partners". Automation quickly follows, along with submission to hundreds of "directories" that are nothing more than link farms.

Google sends mixed messages about these practices. On the one hand they make a lot of noise about how they will "penalize" webmasters engaging in questionable linking practices.

But in reality, since it is often very difficult to tell the difference between a "valuable resource" and a site filled with spam, we find that directories with no inherent value are given a high Page Rank. Many of these directories are attached to websites having very little legitimate content. These sites feed off the Page Rank of their directories and gain impressive PR of their own.

So Google ends up supporting the spamming practices they claim to be condemning.

Page Rank is like "central planning"

Google's Page Rank system has the same problem that all "planned economies" suffer from. They impose a scheme of evaluation based on some preconceived notion of what is good and bad. Since this system does not reflect what people actually value, it is open to serious abuse, and is unlikely to ever line up with what is happening on the ground.

The alternative to making pre-judgements about the "rank" of web pages is to let people decide for themselves through a process of discovery, trade, and exchange of goods and services which web sites are good and which ones are not worth visiting.

In other words, forget about assigning arbitrary "Page Rank" to web pages and let people decide for themselves whether a web resource is valuable.

Selling Links for their Advertising Value

It is ironic that the king of web advertising -- Google -- does not (seem to) approve of the sale of links. Do they have something against advertising? Obviously not, since, as I've said, they are heavily dependent on Adwords to bring them most of their money.

No, they oppose the selling of links because this practice takes advantage of the artifical evaluation system they use. Having created a "market for Page Rank", Google hypocritically looks down on people who would buy and sell it as a commodity. In other words, we have the classic clash between a "free market" and a "planned economy". The system of evaluation imposed from on high is not consistent with the freedom of real people to try to manipulate it for their advantage.

The solution is the throw out the high and mighty preconceived notion that links are endorsements and are therefore "valuable" in themselves. The most tangible way to make such a statement would be to get rid of Page Rank as a standard of evaluation.*

This would have the immediate effect of eliminating the sale of Page Rank. No more ads saying "Get your link on a PR7 home page." This kind of pitch would immediately become pointless and obsolete.

It would also put an immediate end to most anonymous link exchanges. The practice of piling up thousands of inbound links from sites that nobody ever visits would lose much of its raison d'etre.

Instead, webmasters would focus on the more "traditional" methods of getting links to their sites. The most important would be advertising on other sites likely to generate the kind of traffic you want.

Links as advertising.

This does not mean that all links would be seen as advertising. Endorsements would continue to be valuable. And getting "free" links would continue to be an important source of potential traffic.

The search engines would also continue to value the quantity and quality of the links pointing at your site as an important indicator of its visit-worthiness. But the practice of acquiring links would cease to be focused on building the phony indicator of value called Page Rank. Instead it would be focused on building a network of relationships that brings traffic.


*Many experts claim that Google has already seriously downgraded the importance of Page Rank. If so, why do they keep it in play with the Google toolbar? If Page Rank is not important anymore, why do they give the impression that it is important? Is this nothing more than a manipulative marketing ploy?


Rick Hendershot is a writer and internet publisher. You can increase your visibility on the web by advertising on The Linknet Network.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Online Ticket Sales Ideally Suited to Web

from Review-of-the-week.com

Selling event tickets online is the kind of service the web is ideally suited to provide. With the development of services like Golden Box Seats Ticket Sales one website can be your source for event tickets of all kinds. This kind of service demonstrates the ability of the web to bring together large amounts of data, and present it in a way that is informative, entertaining, and easy to understand.

Whether you want to see the Cubs play in Chicago, a Celine Dion show at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, a Rolling Stones concert in Toronto, or an off-Broadway show in New York, Golden Box Seats can tell you when and where things are happening. Detailed schedules for all sorts of events are available in one location -- sporting events, big name concerts, Broadway shows. Want to see Paul McCartney in Portland? No problem. How about the British Open, or NASCAR at Watkins Glen, or the Dallas Cowboys? It's all there...

Then with a few clicks of the mouse you can reserve your seats without ever leaving the comfort of your office or home.

Buying sports tickets or concert tickets demonstrates the awesome ability of the internet. Sites like GoldenBoxSeats.com pull together large amounts of constantly changing information, present it in an easily understood and easy-to-navigate format, and then make it incredibly easy to make a purchase.

Just a few years ago this kind of "one stop shopping" for event tickets was not even imaginable. As with so many other services, it used to be that buying concert tickets, tickets to a sporting event, or theater tickets was a major ordeal. But sites like GoldenBoxSeats.com have made buying event tickets a breeze.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Create a Clear Product Description

from 10 Things You "Must Do" to have a Website that Sells.

If you want to sell things on the web, then there are several things you must do to make your website ready to sell. Here is the first...

1. Create a Clear Product Description that Emphasizes Benefits

Make sure your product is clearly defined. Make it obvious what you are selling, why prospective customers should be interested in buying it, and how they can buy it? Don't beat around the bush. Be clear and straight to the point.

Describe your product or service from the viewpoint of your customers. Think benefits -- "what's in it for me" -- rather than features. People do care about product features, but only after they can see the benefits and have decided they are interested.

It is a bit surprising how difficult it is for many of us to simply spell out what we do. We think it is clear until we sit down and try to define it. Try it right now. Create a snappy one or two sentence description of your main product or service. Try to make it sound interesting, and try to stay away from cliches like "We create ecommerce websites" or "We sell nutritional supplements".

These stock answers sound fine to someone who knows the jargon. But everyone else is going to have difficulty putting your description in a context that makes sense. You should provide the context -- possibly something like:

"We create websites for companies that want to sell their products on the web"

"We sell nutritional products like vitamins and minerals to people who prefer the convenience and lower price you can get when buying on the web."

Remember: try to think like your prospective customers.

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Monday, June 13, 2005

Norton AntiVirus Scan Software protects your PC

from Review-of-the-week.com

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Friday, June 10, 2005

Home Business Opportunities

If you are looking for a very useful home business opportunity site packed with home business opportunities, affiliate programs, and web marketing advice check out Home Business Opportunity Directory.

Another home business opportunity worth looking at is Cesar Crespo's Free Card Business Card Display concept. Learn more at Business Card Displays.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Major Google update underway

According to a report in WebProNews, Google is doing a major backlink and index update over the next few days. Contributing writer Jim Hedger reports in Tasting Bourbon - Major Back-link and Index Update Underway, that serious Google watchers have noticed "a major shift in back-links and in pages indexed starting early this morning (Wednesday)."

This is likely to be the first major update that reflects the algorithm changes suggested in the much discussed patent application released earlier this year. That document suggested Google will be looking much more seriously at linking history and linking patterns in an effort to give greater emphasis to fresh, relevant content, and to foil illegitimate link stuffing techniques.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Cory Rudl dies

I received the sad and shocking news a few days ago that Cory Rudl, one of the most influential and most successful internet marketers, died in a car crash on June 2. The crash happened at the California Speedway in Fontana, California, where he and a friend were racing. This is the same track where Greg Moore was killed in 1999.

In spite of the fact he was only 34, Cory Rudl was a pioneer in internet marketing and set the tone for thousands of others to follow. His was one of the first and most successful affiliate programs, and he brought many principles used in direct marketing to the relatively new world of online marketing.

My condolences go out to his friends and family, and especially to his wife of only a few months.