Mitch Keeler interviewed me on the Web Hosting Show podcast today. This was my first ever appearance on any podcast and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My voice intonation sounded like something between Fred Thompson and Darth Vader, but that’s something I’ll have to work on.

Mitch has done a great job with the Web Hosting Show podcast over the years. The show has 500 subscribers to date. Mitch has a knack for wit and humor and explaining how to get things done in the sometimes “wild and wacky world of web hosting” we webmasters live in. If you want to learn about and stay up to date on web hosting, subscribe to the Web Hosting Show and you won’t be disappointed.

The theme of the show was web host reviews and I got a chance to talk about how we do web host reviews here at Clickfire. I’ll be writing more about this in the future because I want to elaborate on some of the answers I gave Mitch. Enjoy!

Show Notes | Download

What’s going on with web host advertising lately?

Earlier this year Clickfire News broke the story about the questionable Media Temple ad that appeared in the Web Host Industry Review. Some wondered whether it was degrading to women and why a mainstream web hosting company would risk their brand with such an ad. That one is still kind of hanging out there unresolved, at least in my mind.

Not long after this, I picked up my copy of PingZine and saw the above HostGator ad, I believe on the back cover. I thought it seemed, well, not your ordinary web hosting ad. It features the blue and yellow HostGator mascot next to a burning skyscraper that represents “Leave a Message Web Hosting.” The Gator is getting ready to take a bite out of it, hence the title of the ad:

“We eat up the competition, Run… Web Hosts Run”

Anyway, I scanned the pic so I could think about it and post my thoughts. I kind of forgot about it and the picture of the rather unusual HostGator ad has been sitting on my desktop since January.

Today I stumbled upon my friend and fellow web host blogger Dimitar’s blog and saw that he’d posted about the ad. He has a lot to say about the “cubbish” ad, so do check it out. But before you do, take a look at the pic above, ponder and post your thoughts. I’d like to know what the ad communicates to you. I’ll eventually post my thoughts in more detail as well.

One thing to note is that I am not showing this image to denigrate HostGator. Goodness knows these hosts get enough pummeling, deserved or not in the comments of our web host reviews here. I am not saying anything here about HostGator’s products, but their advertising. HostGator has been one of the few hosts to receive a perfect rating of 5/5 stars in our review of their shared hosting service not too long ago.

So tell me, what does this ad say to you?

Digg has it’s share of viewpoints, but this error message is an argument in itself.

Wade Tonkin of Christian Affiliate Marketers (CAM) is giving away free T-shirts and stuff. All you have to do–and this is incredibly easy–is follow CAM on Twitter and answer any of the trivia questions he asks. Someone just won a copy of a book called “A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing” by Geno Prussakov by answering the first question:

“Which gospel was written first?”

The CAM site in Wades own words is:

“…a Christian community for people in the online and specifically the affiliate marketing industry.”

I’m a fan of the site and of trivia in general, so I’ll be popping in I’m sure.

Original title: Don’t know what you got til it’s gone

I just had some fun making up fictitious Google technologies on April Fool’s Day. I left out one product that is not funny and just might be real: Google Rollercoaster. A better amusement park analogy would be one of those rides that takes up hundreds of feet in the air, stops for a while, then drops you suddenly like The Great Gasp. That’s what happened to me. Let me explain.

March 22: I realized that something really strange was going on with the Google search results. Not only had Clickfire lost most of its rankings, but other sites appeared perched atop the first page where we once sat. Here is what I observed for searches on brand names:

• First and second pages flooded with brand subdomains, some very odd
• Third party registered domain names that include brand names (still seeing some of this)
• Commission Junction affiliate domains–not affiliate sites, but pointing directly to jdoc..-whatever .com

For any keyword phrase that did not have a brand name in it, the results look much better (except for the fact that I wasn’t there anymore). I was starting to get worried. My traffic had dropped by around 70%. Affiliate and AdSense revenue had shriveled to nearly nothing. Is it me or is it Google? Will I ever know? I would give my right navigation to know what aspect of my site might have tripped this filter of grief. Worrying wasn’t helping, so I hit the forums and blogs in search of an answer.

April 2nd, Barry Schwartz of SEO Roundtable posted that that Matt Cutts was seeking feedback on a new update called “Dewey.” Uh oh. But Matt seemed to be seeking differences in SERPs on 2 datacenters and not so much on poof cases like mine, where pretty much all rankings from aged white hat sites had disappeared. However, I did notice a few posters here and there who had reported cases similar to mine. I felt a little better. Was this mysterious google update an algorithm update? Was it a software upate. Was it a… hmm… could it be? No… was it a datacenter update? Bigdaddy, yes, I’ve been here before. I remember that during the Google Bigdaddy datacenter, I saw the exact same goings ons in the SERPs during almost the exact same time period in 2006. Had Bigdaddy come back to haunt me?

April 9th: whatever this misery was, it began to go away.

This experience was a reminder that we who rely on organic search results are just one update away from a brick and mortar job.

That which does not kill me, only serves to make me stronger.

Nietzsche might have been a good SEO.

A new product from the search engine giant…

I don’t normally post a lot of news, but I heard that Google Bedroom beta is slated for a 2Q release!

This one has been kept under the covers, but from I understand, Google Bedroom is best described as a giant digital baby monitor for Internet users. Originally conceived as a highly extensible component of Google personalized search, the new product creates a trackable, search engine friendly, XML compliant live feed of every event that occurs in user equipped bedrooms from snoring to pillow fights. The new product has kept privacy advocates up late trying to figure out how far Google will go to deliver relevancy. The FBI is reportedly interested in learning how the new technology can be applied to politicians. A later phase of Google Bedroom will be integrated Google revenue generating products like AdWords and AdSense. There’s already a WordPress plugin. It remains to be seen if Google Bedroom will be the sleeping giant that delivers the final wake up call to the competition.

Other Google Products Due This Year:

• Google Colonoscomy
• Google Personalized Frisk
• Google Girlfriend
• Google Afterlife Ads
• Google Lost Dog Search
• Google Snipe Find
• Google “Where’s the Remote?”
• Report Yahoo/MSN Link
• Google UFO Search
• SEO ID Card
• Google Yahoo

And another batch just in…

• Gmail Custom Time
• Virgle
• Google Wake Up Kit

A friend of mine asked an interesting question the other day…

Have you ever come across any information stating that Google may increase a certain listing if it all of the sudden starts to receive a lot of clicks? I’m working on a search reputation management thing for a client. He had a negative result from an old article ranking on the second page, and since we have been working on it over the past few weeks the result has slowly increased to the number 2 position. Could this be because we have been clicking on the link a lot? Thanks a ton!

The famous Google March 2005 patent talks about measuring clickthroughs in organic. I have never seen anyone prove that Google is actually doing this, but seems they’d be crazy not to take it into account at some level. Instead of trudging through the patent application itself, I recommend reading this SEOMOZ article that breaks down each component and explains it well. Researching and understanding the patent stuff back in 2005 really helped me see the direction that Google was going in and probably helped me avoid making some mistakes that could have hurt me in the long term.

So, I’d say yes it is possible, but I doubt anyone will ever be able to game Google by clicking their own results. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that an old dead result could come to life if it suddenly got clicks vs. a top result for a competitive keyword. But, then again, who knows, it’s just a patent application.  It would be very interesting to try and test this. Find a bunch of old articles from the same site that appear in search results. Use one set as a control and give the others a sudden bunch of clickthroughs from many different IP addresses. See if it has any effect.

I am beginning to get an eerie feeling when I visit social bookmarking sites. The feeling is part nostalgia, part de ja vu, and part dread. It’s actually more than just a feeling. When SMO Bookmarking in Delicious, Magnolia or Mister Wong, I hear a voice that whispers: remember me… It’s sort of the same sense you get when you hear a new tune on the radio and recognize the guitar chord progression–”Hey that’s “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynard Skynard, but the band doesn’t even realize that they have subconsciously plagiarized those chords. They think they wrote the melody themselves!

Once upon a time, there only a few web directories. Moment of silence for Yahoo, DMOZ, Zeal (I miss Zeal), et. al. Then, over the years, we all know what happened. Directory scripts proliferated. Submission software blossomed.  These and the other original directories that remain have all been spammed into commercialization (paid directories), dormancy or death. I shut down submissions to my own directories quite a while back. Then Google deprecated web directories in search results.

Social bookmarking sites have cool features that traditional web directories never really incorporated. There are many differences. These are two very high level differences I see:

• Community  - I like seeing what my friends are bookmarking. I like adding friends to my profile.
• Organization - I am all but done with browser bookmarking. It’s unwieldy. Delicious will probably be around longer than my current PC hard-drive that I didn’t back up. I like tagging. I like checking out the highest rated sites.

Now, here we are in the Web 2.0 era with AJAXy social bookmarking sites showing off their frontends: clean rounded corners, gradient reflective logos, speech bubbles, rss icons like freshly waxed aerodynamic sports cars. And, unlike in the directory days, they are offering you more than a link. They offer a network of friends. They offer friends’ links to scour, bookmark and improve your Internet life. They give users a reason to come back (other than to submit another link, haha). But, look underneath the surface. Do you see what I see?

• Submit/Add Link = Save/Post
• Categories = Tags
• Comments = Notes
• Recent = Newest Links
• Auto Submit = Import XML File

Do you get the same eerie feeling?

For quite a while I have been reading about Google Sitelinks and seeing them appear for large established sites and competitors, but never for Clickfire. I hear that Google has expanded the number of sites that show Sitelinks in their results. Not long after hearing this, I noticed my Sitelinks appearing in Google Webmaster Tools. Today, for the first time, I am seeing Sitelinks for Clickfire!

To prove I am not hallucinating and just in case they get yanked, here is what I am seeing in my browser for a Google search on the word, “clickfire.” I don’t see Sitelinks appearing for any other terms, but I’ll take what I can get!

Praise the Lord and Pass the Biscuits!

I had a chat with my new friend, Wade Tonkin of the Christian Affiliate Marketing Association the other day, and he filled me in on some interesting happenings at this year’s Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas, February 24-26. I kept bumping in to Wade in various places on the Internet and was glad to finally get to know him a little better. Wade is a fellow Christian believer, affiliate marketer and blogger.

I’ve haven’t had the opportunity to go to an Affiliate Summit yet, but it is at the very top of my list for conferences to attend. From what I have heard from those who have attended, Affiliate Summit is a very rewarding experience. It kind of goes against what I would have thought, that affiliate marketers would be competitors and therefore suspicious about socializing and giving away secrets at conferences like Affiliate Summit. I guess I’ll find out first hand one of these days when I have a chance to attend one.

Wade has a passion for bringing Christian affiliate marketers together in fellowship. Wade told me that CAMA is organizing the second annual CAMA Gospel Brunch Sunday, February 24th from 9:15-11:30 AM at The House of Blues at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Anyone can attend (I just heard it is sold out) to share food, fun and fellowship. Wade says CAMA is “expecting 50 attendees that represent a cross section of the online marketing business: affiliates, merchants, agencies, search professionals, media will be in attendance.  We have attendees coming from as far away as Singapore and South Africa to attend.” He says the goal of the event is to “present a spiritual kick off to the Affiliate Summit event and provide a Fellowship opportunity for Christians  in the industry who are away from their home church.”

I got permission from Wade to mention that one of the high points of the event will be the unveiling of the “CAMA Certified” badge, a program that will certify merchants with legitimate Christian values, sites and offers.

The badge will serve to provide Christian marketers with a source for offers that they can be proud to promote on their sites or blogs. merchants that would like to be “CAMA Certified” will submit an application that will be reviewed by a panel of industry professionals of faith. They insure that the merchant is truely one that aims to advance the gospel with their products and services and looks to the Christian consumer as more than just “another niche to monetize” and that the structure of their offer and business practices are in keeping with Christian values (fairness, integrity). They also look to offer an  Affiliate Membership which will certify the affiliates site or sites and hopefully earn Member affiliates additional commissions and benefits from member merchants.

Sounds pretty cool, huh? Wade also said:

I am expecting great good, inspiring fellowship and networking and really incredible music that will send  all attendees - believer or non believer into the rest of the Affiliate Summit on a spiritual high note. It’s really an awesome event.

Wade said last year’s CAMA brunch was a blast. He expects to get some footage as he’s bringing his flip cam. Also, he expects Jim Kukral and Sam Harrelson to have their cams with them as well–if you listen to these guys on WebmasterRadio.FM or elsewhere, you know they are great marketers and lots of fun.

I am looking forward to hearing more about the CAMA event as well as the usual Affiliate Summit goodness. Hopefully there will be a third annual CAMA Gospel Brunch and I’ll be able to attend and meet some of these interesting folks. In the mean time, I am praying that this year’s brunch is a success.

What could be more stimulating than reading a web host review? How about a host vs. host comparison of two highly rated web hosts? This benefits webmasters who suffer the angst of having researched and narrowed their choices down to just two web hosts. If you’re in this difficult position and especially if you are considering HostGator, don’t flip a coin. Check out some host vs host comparisons:

• BlueHost vs HostGator
• HostGator vs DreamHost
• HostGator vs Lunarpages
• HostGator vs 1&1

Thanks to my favorite web hosting personality and friend, Mitch Keeler of Mitchelaneous.com and the Web Hosting Show for asking me some really interesting questions in this interview. This is my first interview ever and I enjoyed it so much that I’m thinking of asking some of you for interviews. That’s what blogging is all about, isn’t it? People. Here’s a sample, but I suggest spending some time exploring Mitch’s sites to get the full impact of who he is as well.

How did you get your start on the Web?

Emory: My path into the web began in the mid 1990’s. I was a fairly uninspired surfer and email user until I discovered online multiplayer gaming. Meeting others and competing with them in a virtual world fascinated me. I spent a lot of time gaming back then when I should have been reserving domains like games.com. Looking back, I guess you could say that playing multiplayer games was my first online social networking experience. But, instead of the polite introductions we have with today’s social networking sites, you broke the ice by joining a game and chasing people around, taunting and blowing each other up.

Same Error, Different Search Engine

There’s something scary about enountering a number 999 Yahoo error message. The error looks a lot like the Google Error that has been the subject of much discussion here. The error is reported to occur when automated software programs scrape search engine results. I encountered the error when doing a Yahoo search in Internet Explorer. Others report encountering it while using other Yahoo products. I looked through Yahoo’s Search Content Quality Guidelines and didn’t find any language forbidding the use of automated rank checker software programs. I’m sure Yahoo doesn’t like it. Google doesn’t.

The full text of the Yahoo error reads:

Unable to process request at this time — error 999
Unfortunately, we are unable to process your request at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later.

Unfortunately we are unable to process your request at this time. This error is usually temporary. Please try again later.

If you continue to experience this error, it may be caused by one of the following:

• You may want to scan your system for spyware and viruses, as they may interfere with your ability to connect to Yahoo!. For detailed information on spyware and virus protection, please visit the Yahoo! Security Center.
• This problem may be due to unusual network activity coming from your Internet Service Provider. We recommend that you report this problem to them.

While this error is usually temporary, if it continues and the above solutions don’t resolve your problem, please let us know.

Return to Yahoo!

Please try Yahoo! Help Central if you need more assistance.

There are many hundreds of Half-Life 2 servers to choose from on any given night. This night, I joined WebViper’s Skul’Shock South server. Like a lot of PC gamers, WebViper creates his own custom maps. He even has his own mod of Half-Life 2 running on his server. A custom map maker creates his own environment, placing weapons, determining respawn points and inserting his own props to maximize gameplay. Custom map making can consume a great deal of time. I know because I made a few maps for Duke Nukem 3D a long, long time ago when I should have been doing things like, oh, say reserving domains such as business.com. But, that was a different stage of my life. In-game advertising just might be a sweet way that mappers and modders can get paid for all their hard work and creativity.

Unlike other servers, we don’t beg for money. It’s 100% free!

So, I join the game and begin fragging my opponents and what do I see on the billboard in front of me? Someone wants me to know that a company called GH1.com offers web hosting services. I took some of the screen shots below to share with you. In fact, I risked my virtual life to grab these images as several times I found myself respawning after curiously staring at these web hosting ads which would have been ignored had I seen them on an actual Web page. There is not much leisure time for sight seeing in Half-Life 2, if you know what I mean.

GH1 web hosting site — the website image in the bottom left corner does not appear in the actual game, I just superimposed it over the screen shot here so you can see what GH1.com looks like in a browser should you visit the site. Read the rest of this blog post »

Dear Webmaster
I would like to take the time to thank you for your free templates. I downloaded the gaming template and it is so cool it is going to help my game site. I have just one question for you. Can you please tell me how I code the search box so my vistors can find my games by searching my site or were I can find a code for it?
Thank you,
Ron

PS as soon as I get the template uploaded on my site I will send you a link to it.

Hi Ron,

Thanks very much for the kind remarks about the template. I hope template serves you well.

The search box is there in case you have an existing database you can connect to. How the search box is coded would depend on the type of database installed on your web server. There are also search services hosted offsite that can return results from your website. The easiest thing to do to make your site searchable is to create a Google Custom Search Engine with Google Co-op.

You can even see your search stats with a Google CSE.

I use Google Custom Search on Clickfire at the top right of every page. You can even use it with Google AdSense if you have an account. Let me know how it works, if you try it.

Thanks again,

Emory

“You see that link?”

“Yeah, that’s a good’un.”

Every webmaster seems to be talking about his new Google Sitelinks. I am seeing more of these, are you? We had mentioned Google’s recent display of generosity. Well, finally, after being in line for 10 years, I got ‘em! Did you hear me? I said I actually have those little shortcuts generated algorithmically by Google when I rank number one for my brand name! Or do I? Now that we can all log into Google Webmaster Tools and view Sitelinks, I see them. There. But, I do not yet see them where they count: the search results. Below is what appears in Google Webmaster tools, but alas, a search for “clickfire” returns the same old results.

For those of you who have achieved Google Sitelinks, how are you finding them?

This metallic web template is one of my favorite designs and I assure you that I have spent long periods of time starring at her silvery white metallic finish. This is also the last of six free website templates released for the Clickfire 10th anniversary. I have a feeling more free web templates are ahead.

What is this, you ask? I’ve been having some much needed fun over the holidays with the late night bread and circuses of online pc gaming now that I have a respectable machine. There is a phenomenon in the Half-Life 2 PC Game known as “spray logos” that allows HL-2 players to create their own custom graffiti images to spray around the map locations. The purpose? To taunt or humiliate opponents or aggrandize ones own image during gameplay. Spray logos can also be just for fun or a way to mark your territory.

Enter my arch gaming nemesis and occasional Clickfire blog commenter and sarcastic cousin, “Clapper.” There is much to say about my opponent and his annoying gaming tactics but now is not the time. Be assured that I will say more about my nemesis at a time of my choosing.

So, I enter our usual Half-Life server for a night cap or two and what do I see? A spray logo defiling our very own Clickfire 10 year anniversary cake with the mocking words ”Viewpoints, Tools and Content for Hombre Respawnmasters.” You can see the Clapper war face has been Photoshopped over the image of Duke Nukem. I have to admit it threw me off balance for a while. If you have any suggestions for countering this, please comment.

O! You better link out
You better not buy
You better nofollow
Or your pr will die
GoogleGuy is coming to town

He’s making an index
And caching it twice
Gonna find out who’s buying PageRank
GoogleGuy is coming to town

He crawls you when you’re sleeping
He scores you when you’re awake
He knows if your hat’s black or white
So wear white for Google’s sake!

O! You better link out
You better not buy
You better nofollow
Or your pr will die
GoogleGuy is coming to town

With little ten SERPs and little toy tools
Ranky tank tanks and linky link juice
GoogleGuy is coming to town

Ten years ago on this day, I registered the Clickfire.com domain and began what has been my most satisfying website creation experience ever. When I started out, I truly had no idea what I was doing and where it would go. As I think about it, one of the most important things to me was to establish a web identity. I wanted a little piece of Internet turf where I could live and play and totally be my creative self. I want to put forth a little history of how things began and evolved over the decade.

Let’s dust off the old hard-drives and see what we can uncover from the Clickfire archives. Read the rest of this blog post »