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

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!

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.

<h2 class=”hd“>Search Results</h2>

.hd {

height:1px;

overflow:hidden;

position:absolute;

top:-1000em;

width:1px;

}

Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”

Disallow: /search

I am happy to announce the third release of my Directory Marketing ebook. After the PageRank update that happened a few days ago, I have updated the directory list, and I have also added some more information about the tools my readers may find useful for their online marketing efforts. The book is now 69 pages long and as usual, the update is available for free to my existing customers who had purchased its previous versions!

As for the last PageRank update: it’s been an interesting one. A number of directories with PR 1,2 or even 3 have lost their pagerank altogether, while a good number of PR 0 directories acquired PR 2 or 3. This is all reflected in the updated directory list, of course. I had to remove those that have lost their value - while, in the meantime, a number of new directories have been added.

You may be wondering how complete my directory list is. We have made some statistical estimates - and it appears that there are only about 450 directories existing in the Internet that are not included into the Directory Marketing Reborn list. Mind you, however, that a large part of these are most likely very new or banned directories with no PageRank (a.k.a. “grey toolbar”) - hence their value for your directory marketing efforts is low to none.

So, my existing customers should be getting an email with the info on how to obtain their free update (check your mailbox!) - and if for any reason you have not purchased Directory Marketing Reborn yet do so before your competitors did and beat you at the SEO game!

Looks pretty much like an Ask ripoff to me - but at least it’s a sign of some progress and clearly shows us Yahoo is not dead yet. I am pretty sure that even earlier today as I was using Yahoo I did not see this sidebar - but to be sure, I have also checked Yahoo’s Search blog - nothing there concerning this update. Anybody heard anything?

UPDATE: what’s much worse regarding this change is Yahoo also stopped displaying the total number of results for a query - arrgghh!

I tried digging into the issue a bit today but it’s not very obvious (to me, at least) how to quickly fix or rewrite my commands. Yet’ it’s something I use on a daily basis and hence need them fully functional. I know some of you have adopted these commands as well and will probably suffer just the same without them so here goes an alternative fix that will let you use the commands for now.

When you update Ubiquity to version 0.1.9, it offers to download Ubiquity 0.5 which is the newest release. Either do not do it or if you have downloaded and installed Ubiquity 0.5, go to Settings (in your Ubiquity window, type “help” or  type “about:ubiquity” in your Firefox address line, then click “Settings” in the Ubiquity help page), scroll down to Language Settings and uncheck the checkbox “Use Parser 2″. Restart your Firefox and you’re all set.

One interesting thing about it I’d like to share as a sort of a teaser before the official release announcement that’s coming soon: while updating the directory list that goes with the book, we decided to check how it compares to the existing lists provided by everyone else keeping them. Well, I am extremely pleased to announce that we only found about 10 (!) directories that have not yet been included into our now almost 5,000-strong list, mentioned elsewhere! Impressive or what?

As for the new services: I’ve launched an article writing service and a manual  article distribution service. This has been a huge effort requiring a lot of my time and kept me really busy lately.

Article writing, like any content writing, has been in high demand  - I have been asked often if I knew any good service providing it. Well now I not only know it but own and operate it. The content quality is great, the service is reliable, the prices are affordable and better yet, bulk discounts are available - so feel free to use it whenever you need any articles.

Article distribution may seem like something of yesterday and not effective any more. The market for it is seemingly over-saturated - so why did I decide to start yet another article submission service?

Well there is a huge difference. Most article submission services offered these days are either automated article submissions done with scripts and standard same old lists of sites not checked for years whether they are even alive still, or lists of cloned PR 0 sites that do not bring much value, or cheap sweatshop type of manual submissions to those same lists that, again, do not cater much to your individual needs and do not bring you much value. What you get when using these services is the long list of sites they meant to submit your article to - but no data on whether those submissions were successful. Moreover, how many links do you get off these submissions? - hardly any. The service I have launched uses a completely different approach - everything from your market niche, through your keywords, through the specifics of your product, to your marketing budget is taken into consideration. The sites are manually selected to be topically related to your site that is being promoted, the submissions are done carefully, attentively  and in accordance to all the requirements of each site where the submission takes place. The results are tracked and the client gets a complete report of what exactly has been successfully done. See the difference?

Surely, article submissions, however high is their quality, are just a part of a healthy SEO strategy. But if you are looking to have a quick start with a tangible effect, then you absolutely should consider this service. This is especially true if you run an affiliate site - the service was designed with affiliates in mind first of all and will help you not only build quality links for your site but also establish your authority in your targeted market.

Well I am happy to inform everyone that this issue has now been resolved and I have just emailed you all the update download link! Please check your email and get the free update.

In case you have not subscribed to my newsletter when first purchasing the book, I had no way of contacting you. There were not many of you - but if you’re one of these people please ping me and let me know the email you have used when buying the book - I will send you a newsletter subscription link.

Hope you enjoy my updated directory ebook with a refreshed and expanded directory list as well as a special worksheet to track your progress. As always, your feedback is more than welcome so let me know what you think of it and send me all your comments and suggestions.

Compete.com lists the following sites as top sites by traffic volume:

1      google.com
2     yahoo.com
3     live.com
4     facebook.com
5     msn.com
6     ebay.com
7     youtube.com
8     wikipedia.org
9     amazon.com
10     microsoft.com

Quantcast.com lists pretty much the same sites though in slightly different order, save for Amazon that goes missing in its list and MySpace appearing instead:

Alexa’s Top Sites list has only 2 entries for Microsoft’s sites instead of 3 like the other two sources. Two new entries also appear - Blogger.com and the Chinese search engine Baidu: