Menu

• Dictionary
• Hot Shots

Directory

• Sponsors
• Billing Options
• Content Providers
• Web Hosting
• Traffic Counters
• Website Designers
• Resource Sites

Of Adsense, belief and humility
There's no doubt, this has been one very interesting week for us and we certainly hope it has been for you guys too. We've had some very productive days and then we had some days that have been far less productive than we had hoped for. But then that's often one of the hidden costs of working from home.

When tradesmen come in to make repairs or family drop by just because they know you're home and if you're home then you couldn't possibly be working then being productive can be a bit of a problem.

Google Adsense - but wait there's more
Undoubtedly the biggest news running around the Net for any marketing Webmaster at the moment is the changes Google have made to their Adsense rules. There have been two major changes but only one seems to have received a lot of attention.

The layout of ads and the use of other types of advertising on the same site as Adsense is the rule change that seems to have caused the most excitement but it's the other rule change that may ultimately cause Webmasters the most problems. That other change, in case you missed it says this:

'Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content. Please see our DMCA policy for more information'

That rule change is directed at scraper sites and potentially it's a great idea. Of course, if you're a scraper then you may not see it in the same light but if you're one of those Webmasters who are always getting their content taken by others this change is wonderful … or is it?

How will Google be able to identify which site holds the original content and which site is the scraper site? What if you happen to have the original content but Google nails you as the scraper and kicks you out of their Adsense program?

Remember, once your removed from their program they don't even talk to you so what hope have you got of ever getting back in?

And will they apply whatever filter they are going to use to find these scraper sites to their general search results? Once again, what will happen to all your hard work if you get nailed as the scraper when you're really the owner of the original content? Will your sites disappear into outer darkness until you have served your time and grovelled enough to get your site allowed back into the listing?

Belief or certainty
On one SEO board that was discussing the scraper issue one person expressed an opinion based on his ‘belief' about what Google does. At the same time another Webmaster in another place was asking everyone whether they had engaged in wishful thinking when it came to the search engines or do they base their work on certainty.

I'm know I'm not prepared to trust what Google will do with this scraper issue based on my 'belief' or that other guy's 'belief' either. I want to be certain about my future and not base it on uncertainty.

Google or Live - it's all in the figures
This morning I was reading another interesting comment by an SEO writer who I believe has a huge amount of credibility. He was discussing the matter of measuring search success and he pointed out some interesting figures concerning Google and MSN's new search service - Live.

Undoubtedly people do a lot more searching on Google than Live but, with 65 million monthly visitors Live is now receiving 66 per cent of the visitors that Google receives each month. Yet Google sees a lot more searches by each visitor than Live does. So what does that mean?

Could it mean that people who search on Live find what they're looking for more easily than those who are searching on Google? For at least the last six months one of my savvy Webmaster friends has been telling me that he has been using MSN/Live because he gets more relevant results.

There is a lesson there for us and it isn't just about which search engines we should be targeting. We also need to be carefully analysing the figures that are thrown at us day after day by just about everyone we do business with. Sometimes big figures don't really mean what we think they mean.

It all depends
Why is it that some people can do everything right and yet they still fail? Why is it that people who write books like 'Good to Great' and look for the keys that made good companies become great companies don't look at the companies that failed miserably despite the fact that they used those same ‘keys'?

The answer is there are things that can make you succeed but there are a hell of a lot of variables that you can't identify so, it all depends.

It depends on luck, it depends on people you have never met and never will meet, it depends on whether they came to work in a good frame of mind or arrived feeling shitty and wanting to be somewhere else. It depends on whether or not those people make the right decisions that will affect you.

So if you're succeeding be humble because your success might depend on things that you have absolutely no control over.