IrishWonder’s SEO Consulting Blog

My friend Paul a.k.a. SEOIdiot has drawn my attention to the fact that Technorati places Google Ads on their home page and what’s weird is they are all seem linked to Technorati itself! However, having looked deeper into it (as deep as the source code), I noticed they are fake Google ads - the source code hilarity follows:

<div id="google-ads" class="prepend-2"><!-- need a better name for this div -->
        <ul>
            <li><a class="offsite current" href="">Ads by Google</a></li><!-- remove inline style later -->
            <li><a class="offsite" href="">Blog Directory</a></li>
            <li><a class="offsite" href="">Video Blog</a></li>
            <li><a class="offsite" href="">Blogger Photos</a></li>

            <li class="last"><a class="offsite" href="">Blog Gratuito</a></li>
        </ul>
    </div>

Have they forgotten to place the real Google ads in place of this bit? Have they even intended to? “need a better name for this div”? - who wants a better name for a div that will contain Google’s Adsense code? Are Technorati IT people experimenting on a live site with multi-million visitor audience? Do they intend to pass something else for Google ads in the future? If modifying Google ads code is a crime as per G’s AdSense TOS, then shouldn’t this be even worse? (haven’t been messing with AdSense for ages so can’t be sure but seems like G doesn’t like this much either)

Yea, talk about large online media giants’ screw ups… (Hits “Publish” and pings Technorati)

As some of you who were not too busy celebrating already know, Google has surprised us with a toolbar PageRank update just before the New Year. As a result, I have just updated my Directory Marketing Reborn ebook - 4,700 directories listed in it now have the most recent PageRank.

How did this PR update treat the sites? First of all, my list now includes a PR 9 directory - lii.org. It used to be PR 8 but got to 9 this update. Overall, I see many directories which had PR 0 or even n/a obtain PR 3 or even 4. Surely there are some that drop to 0 or n/a - but you get what you deserve. What I notice, though, is that Google has become much faster these days (the effects of Caffeine, I presume) and I have seen sites and pages created 2-3 weeks ago obtain PR 2 and 3 after the update.

Ok you may say this ebook update is not a voluntary New Year present from me since I promised I would update it every PR update - but here is something else many of you will surely like. I have been approached many times by those who ordered the Directory Marketing ebook and those only considering purchasing it, with the same question: are there directories in your list that would suit my [insert your niche here] site? Also, people have been wondering if there is a reliable service that would do manual directory submissions according to the principles described in the ebook.

Well, now you got it! I have just launched a manual directory submission service of my own for those of you who do not have the time or desire to do it themselves but would still like to benefit from the techniques I teach in the book. Since this is my own service, I can guarantee everything is done just like it should for the most benefit for your site. The directories suitable for your site niche are selected from the 5,000 directory list, then your site is submitted to them at the speed most suitable for you, with up to 5 different titles and descriptions, then you get a detailed report so you know exactly what you paid for and what has been done, and what results have been obtained. Nothing like those pseudo “manual” submission services that promise to submit your site to 20,000 directories the list of which you will never see and the links from which you may only be wondering about (and as I have reported already, there is not even such number of directories out these worth dealing with, let alone live ones)!

But it gets even better: for those of you who have already purchased the Directory Marketing ebook or plan on purchasing it, there is a special member-only discount code available. You get it either with the update (for existing customers) or with the purchased ebook download (for the new customers) and can use it to get $50 off the cost of your chosen manual directory submission plan as many times as you wish, for as many sites of yours you wish to submit through this service. Let me remind you that all the updates and goodies are free for the existing customers - all you have to do is check your email box for the info about the update (in case you did not subscribe to the newsletter when purchasing the ebook you WON’T get this info - so if that’s the case let me know and I’ll try to sort you out).

So buy the directory ebook and enjoy the manual directory submission service, and all the best to you in the New Year!

Webmasters and site owners, beware!

Lately I’ve been getting spam emails posing as correspondence from Google Adwords. They go like this:

We detected irregular activity on your Google AdWords Account.

Please use the link below to verify your account immediately:
https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=adwords

But the actual link leads to the phisher’s domain instead of Google. Of course when you enter your account details on the page they offer you, you just hand your Adwords account data (credit card info, all your campaigns data, your personal data, and so on) to the phisher.

There is one more way to see that this email comes from somebody other than they claim to be - if you look at the full headers of the message you will see this:

from copland.udel.edu ([128.175.13.92]:41061) by host02.localhostserver.net with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from )

- which means they are probably using some proxy running on a university server.

How to deal with such emails? First of all, of course, verify that you are on the actual Adwords login page and not somewhere else before entering your login and password. Secondy, I would surely love to see Google’s reaction to these phishing emails. Google has put a lot of effort into getting newbie webmasters involved in AdWords, now I guess it’s their turn to educate people who may not be very savvy about the dangers of phishing.