A Threat to Privacy on The Internet

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RED FLAG: The Government Wants Your Searches

A story came out today from the San Jose Mercury News via Techdirt about the government having subpoenaed Google and other Search Engines to turn over a week’s worth of records to see what is being searched for online. This all in the name of a Web fishing trip from US government lawyers trying to make a point about the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) being necessary. The law was struck down in 2004 because of it being too broad, but the courts gave the government another shot at trying to prove their case.

To date, Google has initially refused to comply with the government subpoena; vigorously defending its position. Techdirt has reported that, “Google is defending its decision by saying that it’s both a violation of the privacy of its users and that turning over the data would reveal trade secrets.”

Additionally, the Techdirt report also stated, “It’s now been confirmed that Yahoo, MSN and AOL were all asked and complied, though it appears that some (such as Yahoo) simply gave search terms with no identification information.”

These reports are very troubling for a number of issues. Certainly the first of which is Internet privacy concerns. The other major issue which quite frankly is a potential for more problems is the ease at which the other search engines have complied with the subpoena. It appears as though there was very little opposition given by Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. If this is true, then this is extremely troubling because they are not defending the privacy issues at all. Yahoo, MSN, and AOL should all be making the same bold moves for defending the privacy of their users.

Google has done the right thing in fighting against this government move. While the information that the government wants at the moment is not each individual’s search results, they are attempting to get the details of the totality of the searched for keywords. This all in their Web eFishing trip to try and give the courts the information to pass a law. The government has in essence made a supposition and is trying to use Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL to try and prove it.

These steps taken by the government are also very troubling. It seems as thought the government is using its powers to subpoena other companies for information that is not directly related to a problem. After all, none of the search engine companies are directly involved in the legal action.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government’s effort “vigorously.”

“Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching,” Wong said.

This will certainly be an interesting story to watch.

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The Internet Can be a Landmine

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The Internet is a dangerous place for those unaware of the landmines that exist.

Internet technology is a wonderful thing but placed in the hands of the enemy can wreck havoc on a business or individual. To be sure that the enemy does exist is to just look in your email box today and most people would have at least one or more forward looking scouts called the unsolicited email just waiting to report back to headquarters about the state of affairs of your computer domain. Many of these spam emails are disguised as Trojan Horses. They look wonderful on the outside but it is what is on the inside that counts.

Once a computer domain has been compromised through these forward looking scouts it is only a matter of time to another campaign is waged against individuals or corporations through hundreds of scams that try to rob an individual or business from just a few dollars to sometimes thousands of dollars. Other times there is more than money at stake. It is a person’s identity and in some cases it is even the business identity at risk.

Staying informed of the online perils is not an option any more. The Internet is going to become more prevalent in our world. Business owners and individuals need to be aware of the risks and have an understanding of the landmine areas online. Many of these Internet issues involve all types of unethical SEO marketing, advertising strategies, and sales activities all designed with the idea of preying on the unaware with grandiose Internet marketing promises and online advertising strategies to magically place you, with very little work on anyone’s part, at the top of the keywords search engine results for keywords related to your business. Don’t believe it! Or, don’t you believe it? See the Keywords Online Advertising Scam. Read how thousands of businesses have been taken in by this particular scam.

Getting to the Top of The Search Engine Results

More Sales For Your BusinessThere are no shortcuts on this path for any business to the top of the search engine results. All require lots of hard work in ethical Internet marketing and other areas related to SEO, search engine optimization. To be sure, it requires a much more strategic partnership arrangement with outside services, Webmasters, and through close confidential communications with the principals, top insider corporate individuals. This will require a strategic marketing approach to all aspects of a business; from not only the sales, marketing, and advertising but also to brand, customer and corporate communications, business planning, market research, public relations, and even investor relations. All are uniquely intertwined in developing a successful online web presence with a key understanding of where revenue growth will likely occur in the future. Capturing that revenue growth will be key to the success of a business.

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Internet Marketing and Advertising Matrix | Web 2.0

J. Warholic

Web 2.0 Marketing 2.0 Advertising 2.0?

Getting a handle on these terms is like pulling teeth. Web 2.0 seems to be some futuristic idea which seems to be evolving from the Web 1.0 structure. On the other hand, Web 2.0 seems to be occurring now on the Internet as it now is.

I have been reading for awhile now about this future of the Net. The following is from the Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia.

The term “Web 2.0″ refers to what some people see as a second phase of development of the World Wide Web, including its architecture and its applications. As used by its proponents, the phrase refers to one or more of the following:

  • the transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users
  • a social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and “the market as a conversation”
  • a more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture.
  • a shift in economic value of the web, up past a trillion dollars surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s.

However, a consensus on its exact meaning has not yet been reached.

Many recently developed concepts and technologies are seen as contributing to Web 2.0, including weblogs, linklogs, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many to many publishing; social software, web APIs, web standards, online web services, Ajax, and others.

In fact it seems to be some sort of matrix idea in the minds of the proponents in which the Internet becomes much more interactive in it’s nature than the current online structure.

Others have written complete articles of what they envision Web 2.0 to represent.

What Is Web 2.0
Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software by Tim O’Reilly
09/30/2005

…

The concept of “Web 2.0″ began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O’Reilly VP, noted that far from having “crashed”, the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What’s more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as “Web 2.0″ might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.

…

My gut reaction to all of this is that having a name stamped on a period of time like this will be like trying to place a classification on an entity where someone will ask, was that Web 1.0 or 2.0 architecture? And what about the evolution to the next level that is still to come? Will we have Web 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, etc etc?

Ok, If that is Web 2.0, What is Marketing and Advertising 2.0?

It seems to me that both of these terms reflect the interactivity and feedback mechanisms built into various types of analytics and forms of social networking through email, forums, comments, reviews, subject blogging, webcasts, podcasts, RSS feeds, news reports, affiliate referrals, and the entirety of the Internet as we know it.

See the following posts to have a better understanding of both of these terms.

As the Internet Matrix continues toward the next level we will see business take more notice of what it can do for them. Businesses that have not grasped hold of how a brand can be developed online or how their business brand image can be tarnished through the social networking (marketing and advertising 2.0) by the interactive online world will be shocked. The companies that strive toward excellence in customer service and operate with ethical responsibilities will continue to see gains in their brand acceptance and improve their market reach. In many ways, these companies that grab hold of the New Internet Matrix, will become like fine wines, that get better and better with age.

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Professional Web Services Launches Strategic Marketing Directory

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Strategic MarketingProfessional Web Services Launches Strategic Marketing Directory

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.

The New Strategic Marketing Directory is ideally structured toward building up, increasing revenue, and accelerating growth of a company through marketing communications, growth strategies, performance evaluations, sound marketing and advertising principles, ethics, branding, leadership training, sales processes, hi-tech public relations, National and International market development, Internet marketing, online advertising, and Global web branding.

San Ramon, CA (PRWEB) January 9, 2006 -– Professional Web Services, Inc., announced today the launch of a new Global Strategic Marketing Directory, with information, resources, and services geared toward building up and expanding the market reach of new or established companies.

“Strategic Marketing is probably one of the most important subject matters online. This area of business is so encompassing, especially in light of the Global Market Reach of the Internet. It touches every aspect of a B2B, B2C, and C2C business,” said James Warholic, President of Professional Web Services, Inc.

Professional Web Services, Inc., www.pwebs.net an Internet marketing services, online advertising strategies, web branding solutions, and consulting services company, has just compiled and completed an in-depth evaluation of numerous International companies for inclusion into a new Internet Strategic Marketing Directory.

The directory is a compilation of some of the finest Global and leading International companies for a multitude of strategic marketing, advertising and sales information, outsourcing, and out-tasking business services for established businesses, new businesses, entrepreneurial startups, Inventors, and Exporters looking for strategic solutions help to get their companies started on the right path to profitable success.

The directory has information about global and International strategies for reaching new customers, intellectual property rights, copyright policies, competitive intelligence, B2B and B2C regulations, International and National laws, e business legal issues, e mail marketing procedures and regulations for proper opt in and opt out subscriptions, along with ethical issues in business such as: privacy policies and privacy rights, patent laws, and authoritative information from attorneys, financial consultants, insurance recommendations, tax services, customer relationship experts, and Internet technology experts.

With the Internet causing the world to become that much smaller it is imperative for companies to have at their fingertips, trusted business resources to improve their marketing, advertising, and sales today.

“We see this Internet Strategic Marketing Directory source as a resource base for businesses, as well as a place where undiscovered gems can make their talents and marketing, advertising, consulting, and sales services known to the International business world,” said James Warholic.

About Professional Web Services, Inc.
Professional Web Services, Inc. focuses on marketing, advertising, and promoting businesses with web site development strategies to reach their targeted audiences and reach new market segments. The company’s understanding of the Internet, the inner workings of the different Global Internet business marketing agents, ethical search engine optimization skills, knowledge of online advertising, and National and International sales enables the company to increase their clients’ online exposure. The company enhances clients’ online presence with improvements to their foundational structure and through website analytics; while continually updating and improving the website design for reaching the desired market audience and accelerating growth. For more information visit www.pwebs.net

# # #

James A. Warholic – President of Professional Web Services, Inc.

To help get your company to the top of the search line with online marketing services; contact Professional Web Services today.

The Military HAARP Project

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What Is The HAARP? High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
By: James A. Warholic, President of Professional Web Services, Inc.

Antenna Farm Array
www.haarp.alaska.edu
HAARP Cam

What some might think is just a wild technology and an unbelievable story, is in fact based on some interesting research activities going on up in Alaska and other places.

Background Information

Remember the name Nicola Tesla? If you paid attention in some of those physics classes when the teacher was talking about electrical properties you might of heard of this guy.

Tesla, Nikola
(b. July 9/10, 1856, Smiljan, Croatia–d. Jan. 7, 1943, New York City), Serbian-American inventor and researcher who discovered the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery. He emigrated to the United States in 1884 and sold the patent rights to his system of alternating-current dynamos, transformers, and motors to George Westinghouse the following year. In 1891 he invented the Tesla coil, an induction coil widely used in radio technology.
www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/bio.htm

So Nikola Tesla was the father of AC Alternating Current along with a number of other inventions. Some of the concepts such as, transmission and radiation of radio frequency energy, high-voltage high-frequency radio propagation, and X-ray microwave technology that Tesla and another scientist by the name of Guglielmo Marconi, are what the HARRP Project is based on.

Guglielmo Marconi

The “Father of Radio”

Radio waves were known as ‘Hertzian Waves‘ when Marconi began experimenting in 1894. A few years earlier Heinrich Hertz had produced and detected the waves across his laboratory. Marconi’s achievement was to produce and detect the waves over long distances, laying the foundations for what today we know as radio.

www.marconiusa.org/marconi

Currently there is research going on with the HAARP Project from the University of Alaska as well as DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). It manages and directs selected basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.

DARPA established an MOA, Memorandum Of Agreement, with the Air Force for this program in August 2002. The HAARP technology is planned for transition to the Air Force and Navy in FY 2006.
www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/haarp.htm

So What Does The HAARP Project Do?

For starters, it is a massive antenna farm in which high power radio waves are beamed up into the ionsphere. Major amounts of power are used to generate directional frequency waves into the ionsphere.

Tactical Technology Office

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project (HAARP)

Program Manager: Dr. Sheldon Meth

Overview

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project (HAARP) will develop new experimental research capabilities and will conduct research programs to exploit emerging ionosphere and radio science technologies related to advanced defense applications.

The FY 1990 Appropriation Act provided funds for the creation of HAARP, jointly managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research to exploit emerging ionosphere and high power radio technology for new military systems applications.

Key to the current effort is the expansion of the experimental research facility that includes a 3.6 MW high-frequency transmitter and a variety of diagnostic instruments, to conduct investigations to characterize the physical processes that can be initiated and controlled in the ionosphere and space, via interactions with high power radio waves.

Among these are:

(1) the generation of extremely low frequency/very low frequency radio waves for submarine and other subsurface communication, and the reduction of charged particle populations in the radiation belts to ensure safe spacecraft systems operations;

(2) the control of electron density gradients and the refractive properties in selected regions of the ionosphere to create radio wave propagation channels; and

(3) the generation of optical and infrared emissions in space to calibrate space sensors.

To date, the facility has been developed to include a suite of optical and radio diagnostics and an advanced, modern, high frequency transmitting array that has a radiated power of 960 kW, about one-third of the 3.6MW called for in the original concept and plan. The current high frequency transmitting array has proven to be extremely reliable and flexible, and has shown the feasibility of the overall concept. However, results to date indicate that advanced applications-related research activities and new military system concept demonstrations envisioned under the program require that the high frequency transmitting capability at the site be increased from the present 960 kW level to the originally planned 3.6 MW level.

A recent study completed by an Air Force/Navy Panel also points to additional high-value functions that can potentially be accomplished with the a 3.6 MW capability, in particular, the exploration and refinement of scientific principles that could lead to the development and deployment of a system to provide protection for space-based assets from emergent asymmetric threats. DARPA established an MOA with the Air Force for this program in August 2002. The HAARP technology is planned for transition to the Air Force and Navy in FY 2006.

Program Plans

  • Complete the HAARP high frequency transmitting array at the HAARP Research Station, Gakona, AK.
  • Prepare the existing HAARP facility in preparation for ionspheric testing.
  • Conduct advanced ionosphere and radio science research and analysis of applications including space-based asset protection and phenomena related to its implementation.

In short, the government plans for HAARP are for research and testing out various Star Wars technologies along with the various related phenomenas associated with this techology.

That is quite an open-ended plan. Were it goes from here is anybody’s guess.

Some other thoughts on HAARP
www.haarp.net
HAARP Project News
HAARP Project Books
HAARP Project Scholar
HAARP Project Images

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The DMOZ ODP Report

J. Warholic
Strategic Marketing
World Wide Information

Strategic Marketing

An extensive research project on the category of strategic marketing in the ODP, Open Directory Project, also known as DMOZ was just completed.

The results were quite surprising. It was expected to see some of the marketing strategies websites listed in the directory to be outdated, poor selections, or not functioning, but not to the extent discovered.

The Open Directory Project is based on a team of volunteer editors who have been allowed to edit the categories assigned. The privilege of editor allows for the inclusion and exclusion, removal of websites, from the assigned categories. The editor also is responsible for the final description of the company listed. Editors can accept a website into the directory from a free submission, in which anyone can submit their website to the appropriate category, or the editor can do research on their own and add sites when deemed of value for the category.

Analysis Of Strategic Marketing Category

The strategic marketing category is one of the most important categories online. It is quite encompassing, in that it covers a broad range of business issues and strategies. As the Internet continues to expand, there will be a need for better sales, marketing, and advertising outsourcing, out-tasking, and collaborative team efforts from experts in various fields. Many startup companies as well as established ones need to contract with knowledgeable strategic marketing companies that can target certain areas of a business, provide opportunities to develop new markets, and better understand and communicate with their existing customer base, as well as the abilities to react to market changing conditions.

Research Tools Used In Conducting The Marketing Study

The tools used were mainly Google Search, ODP Strategic Marketing Source, Whois Source, and Internet Archives Way Back Machine.

Documenting The Study

In order to document the study, it was important to establish a new directory. The establishment of this new strategic marketing directory (since removed upon completion of the study) was started with the ODP Strategic Marketing list. All 187 descriptions for the entire Top: Business: Marketing and Advertising: Strategic category were removed and started with a fresh page of links only.

Internet Parameters For Determining Eligibility In The New Strategic Marketing Directory

The criteria for directory inclusion included, but not limited to, some of the following criteria:

  • Companies that offered intellectual value based on relevant information available from a website and would be helpful for a B2B or B2C business.
  • Companies that made some sort of online marketing effort themselves to maintain their website up-to-date. While some information is timeless in nature, not updating the site in several years was not a good reflection on the company or the industry in general.
  • Websites needed to be functional with little or no broken links. Ethics was also an important consideration.

Additional subjective parameters were analyzed with the following base parameter; strategically building up a company. Building up a company through communications, growth strategies, performance evaluations, sound marketing and advertising principles, ethics, branding, leadership training, sales processes, national and international market development, Internet marketing, online advertising, and web branding. Additional considerations were made for the international value that a company brings to the table. Relevant links to the company website or published documents were also considerations for inclusion, as well as, what current information was being written or speeches given by the principal business owners and associates.

There was one other very important factor used in the evaluation process; the copyright date. Copyright dates were used as a type of search engine bellwether for me to consider and were not necessarily grounds for exclusion with old copyrights posted on the website; however, the business was researched and reviewed with closer scrutiny in the case of old copyright dates being listed on the website.

Strategic Marketing Study Findings

The ODP had 187 companies listed from a broad spectrum of countries including: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, and others. The companies in the list all had English translations that for the most part were good website translations.

The number of companies that did not make the grade based on Internet parameters for determining eligibility were approximately 47 companies. Many of these 47 companies listed were determined to be simply of no strategic value because they lacked sustenance. Some of the companies were deemed ineligible because the website no longer existed. Other websites were not kept up with current information, copyrights were many years old, and other websites were not providing quality internal links to the company website.

The final results for the percentage of sites that should be removed from the ODP Directory for just this one category are 25%. Additionally while doing the online research there would have been added approximately 10 new website resources at the date of the study.

Interesting Notes

One of the interesting items to take note of is that of the lack of published copyrights in other nations. Typically most of the United States websites had copyright dates posted at the footer of the websites, though some were quite outdated. However, many of the foreign websites, including some sites from the United Kingdom had no copyright dates posted. It was as though UK websites gave very little attention to the copyright details. This made it much more difficult to verify the validity of the information and website. Much more time was required on additional research with these particular companies.

Another finding of significance was that companies that built their websites with an all Flash design were severally limiting their exposure in the search engine results pages. Many of these sites had useful content and would have performed better in the search engine results pages if the website had been developed using best practices website designs. Other sites built on Flash were of little intellectual value and were quite difficult to read because of the limiting of the font size.  In affect, the fonts were way to small to read, because some designer felt that the font text should fit only within a limited constrained space on the web page. There were however some good site designs that included just a Flash header that were well designed, and did not continually get in the way of the main body of content.

In Conclusion

While this was both an objective as well as subjective analysis, if anyone sees a company that has been removed from the new strategic marketing resources list that feels one of the original companies should be placed back on the list feel free to contact us. We will entertain the idea based on any new parameters that are of value for the B2B, B2C, or even the C2C community.

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Internet marketing services, search engine optimization, online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions to help create more sales for businesses today.

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Additional DMoz ODP Analysis

J. Warholic

I thought it might be good to give a update on some Internet marketing research details I have been conducting in the DMoz, ODP, Open Directory Project.

Since getting turned down to be an editor at the DMoz, I decided to analyze a particular marketing category in the ODP. At this time, I don’t want to spoil the fun and let everyone know the category.

Here is an update as to the ODP findings so far.

Starting with the online category in alphabetical order I have found the following:

Made it to the letter “G” so far. Approximately 65 websites.
Would have added five new sites.
Would have removed fourteen websites from the directory.
Most of the sites would have been removed because of little or no content value or the websites have not been promoted at all. Very few if any new links have occurred and the principal people of the companies had not been involved in any substantive way online or in the news. A few of the sites were all Flash. Although that in itself would not be grounds for removal except for the fact that several of these websites were of little online content value.

The Internet Marketing Mugshot Of A Mug Shop

One interesting story is about a marketing site that is a mug shop. I checked out the site from the Way Back Machine and it was only two years old, but was always a mug shop as far as I could tell. How this one got in this particular marketing category of the directory we will never know. The only place on the site with the word marketing was a small label at the bottom of the pages. Maybe this was one of those scraping sites, the kind where someone buys the website in order to try to attain links and Google PageRank value for their site. Or maybe someone was scratching someone else’s Internet marketing back.

Maybe stronger action needs to be taken. Read about a Google employee turning off France for a day. Read in French.

More to come

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Contrarian Internet Marketing Viewpoints

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Internet Marketing Viewpoints and Online Strategies for Web Success
By: James A. Warholic

Strategic Marketing
Strategic marketing involves deciding what links to place on your home page.

Is your business a household branded name image like Google, Yahoo, or MSN? Maybe it is, however, most are not.

Making a decision of what information and links to place on your home page definitely involves a lot of marketing strategy, search engine commonsense, and an innate wisdom of understanding of your business role on the Internet.

First off all, Google makes a decision on what to place on their home page with the understanding that their brand name is already getting a lot of household recognition. It is not like people have to go searching and shopping for google.com in another search engine for the Google Website to show up in the results. Most people either have it bookmarked, saved in their favorites, stored on a browser tool bar, side bar, set up as their own customized home page, or simply type it into the Web browser to go to the website.

Once on the Google home page, the most important items for Google are placed on the home page and have become customizable with the addition of iGoogle. Their decision of what goes here is based on a marketing strategy in which they understand their role on the Internet. Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing make their own decisions based on their roles on the Internet. Black and white comparisons of your business website to Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft without taking into account the full brand name realization and role that your business has online would be very foolish. Just because Google has a few items on their home page, doesn’t mean you should have a few items on your home page too.

Marketing Experts

Many seasoned marketing experts, but not necessarily search engine marketing savvy experts, talk about having a home page like Google for your business. If your business is one of the household name like Google, then that might be the way to go. However, the majority of websites online are some variation of a B2B, B2C, or C2C businesses or even personal sites all with many different aspects to consider when deciding what links and information to place on the home page.

Take a look at e-bay.com. At any particular time there are well over 150 links on their home page. How much sense would it make to only have 7 to 15 links on a website like this?

When people go to eBay they expect to look for items being sold, or intend to list certain items for bid themselves. It really is helpful to have a logical word link on their home page to take an individual to whatever subject matter they would like to see. When a list of categories are displayed online, it can actually help spur an individual’s mind into action. eBay recognizes their branded role on the Internet as being a place where people can buy and sell items online.

Google vs. eBay

Consider both Google and eBay as quite unique in their different online marketing approaches. Both of these companies are well known for different reasons. Google has a brand name image of a search engine first and foremost. Their idea is to catalog the world’s information and put it at the fingertips of the consumer, business, and research searcher. eBay on the other hand is a place first and foremost where people place items for sale and others can bid on the items posted. Certainly both of these companies could develop products or services that are similar. In fact, Google has recently come out with Google Base, a place to list items for sale, share information online, or even post employment ads. eBay could get into the search engine business if they wanted; similar to Amazon coming out with A9 Search. In that particular case, the company would have to rethink the logistics of how many links to place on the home page of the search division. Each one of these companies have probably invested into market research to decide on what is best placed on the home page. As the examples show, each company came up with a different marketing solution.

Marketing Your Online Business Identity Brand

Is your business a one product or service company? If the answer is yes, then having less links and text writing on the home page would make sense. However, if a company is multifaceted, and offers a multitude of products and services, it will require much more in the way of a body text description and links within the home page to portray the product or services information to a potential new customer. It also depends on the competitive market place.

Customers may actually see your business in a different light than you see your business. If certain B2B or B2C businesses try to portray themselves within a very narrow market spectrum, this might be alienating and disenfranchising a whole sub sector of the market place of buyers that views certain products or services by a different adapted application for what the seller intended the product to be sold for. Likewise, describing a company very narrowly on the home page may be creating this situation of alienation. Most companies will not realize the alienation imparted because they will be leaving out an extensive collection of keywords for the search engines to find from their website, and thus will simply not show up in the Search Engine Results pages. These businesses may not realize the different adopted keywords that might be used by certain business sectors or consumer groups simply because they failed to do the market research. The amount of information in the home page does not tell the whole online marketing story.

Website Is A Folder Of Information on the Internet

A website is not a book. It is a folder of online information. A search engine catalogs the information and through the search engine algorithms, places one or two pages into the search engine results pages for pertinent data pertaining to the keyword searches used by the end user. When a searcher online is looking for the specific keyword data that resides in the pages of text, a specific page will be displayed in the search engine results pages – SERP. If the search algorithm selects a specific page from a website in which the likelihood of it being relative to the search query, then it will be displayed in the SERPs. The likelihood of a specific page being displayed in the results for keywords not included in the body text is less likely than if the keywords are included in the text. For that reason alone, it is imperative to use the appropriate keywords throughout the site. That is not saying that every page should have the same keywords, but pages that talk about specific topics should include related keywords and phrases for the topic at hand.

Since a search engine does not necessarily display the home page when a search is conducted online, it is important to understand that someone will more than likely enter a website through a number of pages in the website itself. If your business website includes an extensive collection of information, multiple products and services, or manufacturing and technology equipment used to fabricate a wide product variety, then it is extremely important to build the website using all of the phrases related to your industry or industries.

Internet Marketing Strategy

So, if your idea is to have a very narrow internet marketing strategy, into a very narrow market segment, then do not include a lot of information on your home page. On the other hand, if you want to expand market reach, obtain more sales leads, and grow your business with new products or services provided, then it is much more important to develop the home page to try and represent these things as concisely as possible but to use industry specific terms for the search engines to find you. In my book, especially for businesses looking to expand market share it is important to develop the entire website to build on the information available. Only then, will pages start showing up in other search engine results.

Each business needs to ask the same marketing questions. For example:

  • Who is my target audience?
  • What am I trying to say?
  • What is the best way of saying it?

The answers for each of these key marketing questions are going to be different for every single company. This is stepping out of the written business plan environment and succinctly stating what your business is about on the Internet. For some businesses this will continue to develop and evolve, and for many businesses it will need to be continually updated and adjusted as prevailing market trends and conditions change, or as the company continues to expand into other fields of interest.

So, it is unwise to have the comparison of the number of links to Google or eBay vs. another B2B, B2C, or C2C business website since this is not the correct comparison when taking everything into account. Each particular website has its own unique set of variables for deciding what information should be placed online.

Inside Outside Strategic Marketing Evaluation

The only way an effective market evaluation comparison can be done is to take a look at the business as a whole, from both the inside, as well as the outside of the business focused inward. Looking at a business strictly from the outside, may produce a skewed strategic marketing evaluation. The process of developing, maintaining, and adding to a website will require significant market research, understanding of the different business variables, interviewing and spending time with the principal owners, managers, and sales people of the company, and maybe even market research into the type of customer and engineers that are to be targeted, along with obtaining an understanding of the products, services, and equipment provided to all of the various related industries for each specific business being evaluated online.

Professional Web Services, Inc.
James A. Warholic
Strategic Marketing
Internet Marketing Services, Online Advertising Strategies, Search Engine Optimization, AdWords Management, Website Branding Solutions, To Provide More Sales For You. Providing Services, Strategies, And Solutions For B2B, B2C, and C2C.

To help get your company to the top of the search line with online marketing services; contact Professional Web Services today.

DMoz ODP Internet Marketing Abuses

J. Warholic

As difficult as it is to get some Internet marketing sites listed Online in the DMoz, ODP, Open Directory Project there are many sites listed in multiple categories. In fact one website has over 230,000 listings.

Internet Marketing Abuses

Here are the top ten websites that are listed in the DMoz.
Internet statistics provided by: www.whois.sc

RankListingsDomain
1230,071CNN.COM
299,322GEOCITIES.COM
334,731TRIPOD.COM
430,133ANGELFIRE.COM
520,117AOL.COM
619,932TOPIX.NET
715,871FREE.FR
815,627YAHOO.COM
913,480NEWADVENT.ORG
109,554IMDB.COM

The list goes on further, with over 9000 websites having at least 20 multiple listings and most having more.

Search Engine Optimization Skew

I wonder, does this creating multiple listings have any affect on the search engine optimization of a particular website? If I had to lay a bet down, I would say it does.

How does this news sit with you? Are you working hard to add original content to your website and then see thousands of listings for the same website in the ODP and your B2B Or B2C eBusiness is still not listed?

I am sure there probably are solid reasons to have all the different listings, with different users having website accounts within a particular domain name, or having unique content related to a certain category. Never-the-less, having multiple listings has an affect on the ranking of certain websites. Maybe it has an across the board affect within the search engine algorithms themselves. Page Rank could very well be skewed by this effect. If we were to add up all the links that point to a site would this affect the outcome of the search results?

Here is an example of a website that ranks number one for Internet marketing on Google Search. In this particular website they have 16 listings in the ODP. Now, to be fair about this analysis, the website has approximately 428,000 pages in the Google Search listings. Given the sheer number of online web pages for content it may very well be reasonable to have more than one listing in the DMoz.

I guess these would be questions for the search engine engineers to answer. Maybe one will see this posting and respond.

If anyone else has any ideas on the subject feel free to post a comment.

James A. Warholic
Professional Web Services

Editor Application ODP – Open Directory Project – DMoz

J. Warholic

Instead of just talking about improving the ODP – Open Directory Project – DMoz I decided to see if I could help out.

Open Directory Project Editor

Applying for an editor position with the ODP is quite a connection process.

It is like giving your resume and doing an interview connection process right online.

They want to know your reasons for becoming an editor of a particular theme category as well as what you can bring to the table, along with your website affiliation history.

One of the areas that took quite a bit of research was coming up with some good quality sites that were not listed in the ODP area to begin with.

ODP Category Theme

Depending on the theme category that you would like to edit, significant time could be involved to do it properly.

For example here is what I wrote to them for the associated websites.

Here is the list of sites that I am associated with and have contributed to.

1. Professional Web Services, Inc. http://pwebs.net
2. Internet Marketing San Ramon CA http://sanramon.pwebs.net
3. The Power Of The Written Word http://blog.pwebs.net/marketing.htm
4. B2B and B2C Newsletters http://newsletters.pwebs.net http://newsletterstories.com
5. Pro Web Blog http://blog.pwebs.net
6. Professional Web Services -? Events http://professionalwebservicesphotos.blogspot.com
7. Above All – Tell It Like It Is, And Do It With Style! http://professionalwebservices.blogspot.com
8. Marketing Strategies For B2B And B2C http://marketingstrategies.backflag.com
9. Web Marketing Difference Between B2B, B2C, And C2C http://b2b.salesandmarketing.ws
10. Unsolicited B2B And B2C Emails http://emails.salesandmarketing.ws
11. Domain Name Registration http://domainnames.pwebs.net
12. Email Talk http://pwebs.net/email
13. What A Techno World http://pwebs.net/technology
14. Earth Moon And Stars http://earthmoonstars.pwebs.net
15. Email Marketing B2B and B2C Hot Topics http://emails.salesandmarketing.ws
16. Creative Marketing http://creative-marketing.pwebs.net
17. Real Estate Homes Technology http://realestatehomes.blogspot.com
18. Wild Wild West http://jimwest.wordpress.com
19. Comments Pwebs http://jimwarholic.com
20. Copyright Professional Web Services, Inc. http://copyrights.pwebs.net

Additionally I am associated with TransformTec, Inc.

Converting Intellectual Property Into Cash http://transformtec.com

You are welcome to read more of my bio from that website

http://transformtec.com/ transformtec_business_technology_leadership.htm

This was just one of the areas that was required for filling out the online application.

I spent approximately four hours gathering the information from the research and then writing the answers to the questions. The questions were all straight forward but I felt that in depth information was required.

At this time I don’t think it is appropriate to tell which open for an editor category I applied for, but if it is not against the policy, I’ll let the world know later.

We’ll see how long it takes to hear back from the ODP.

Later…

From James A. Warholic
Ethical issues for Internet users
Professional Web Services, Inc. Internet marketing services, Online advertising strategies, and Web branding solutions resulting in more sales for your B2B, B2C, or C2C business.

Response From The ODP

Response came quickly although for an open editor section I am somewhat surprised by the response.

Dear James Warholic,

Thank you for your interest in becoming an Open Directory Project editor! Although we would like you to join us as a volunteer editor, you have chosen a category that is already well represented, or is broader than we typically assign to a new editor. We would encourage you to re-apply for a category that has fewer editors or is smaller in scope, in order to increase your chances of being accepted.

Feel free to reapply by submitting an application in another area.

If you wish to re-apply, you must fill out another application.

Please do not reply to this email.

Regards,
The Open Directory Project

Additional reviewer comments: