Users are able to search accounts and follow each other, as well as re-post other users content. You have the option to post text, images, video and audio for each post which is pretty awesome. I am not sure on the character limit for text posts, but its pretty big, not like twitter’s at all.

Photos can be uploaded from the local computer system or by pasting a link into the upload form directly.
Videos are currently only accepted from Youtube and Vimeo and music can be pasted as a link that needs to point to an mp3 file on the Internet.

At the moment, Yahoo Meme is in testing mode, so you can only get access if you are invited by someone else who already has an account. A new user is getting 15 invites to pass out right now.

So…..who wants an invitation? There are loads of good user names still available, so now is your chance to sneak the cool ones before everyone else!

Link pirates are guys who try to trick you into linking to their website. The way it works, is that you will receive an email requesting a 3 way link exchange with one of your sites. 3 Way links are better than straight link exchanges, so many people jump at the chance of setting these up. The person emailing you will try to make the email look as legit as possible with a request for you to link to their site, and might even include the html for you, to make your life easier.

The scam comes when they link back to your site from another site (the third site in the 3 way link setup). This part is actually pretty clever, but just plain wrong. They will include the details of the page where they are linking back to your site, where you can check your link. The ingenious part, is that the site linking back to yours, has absolutely nothing to do with them! You assume that they have placed the link back to your site, when in reality, they are showing you a page where your link already exists. This is easy to pickup if you dont have many links, but when you have websites with hundreds of inbound links, and you are NOT using any link management software, its easy to forget a site that linked to you a year or more back.

Over the last few months I have even had a few cases where the link that was provided, showing how they have already linked back to me, was actually one of my own other sites!

The sad thing is that loads of people actually fall for it, and give these guys a link back to their website. This sort of underhanded link building is not cool, and really pisses me off.

I think what these pirates do, is visit your links page, and pick any one of the sites you are already linking to, OR, simply do a search on google for your domain name, and an unassuming site linking to yours. They then ask for a 3 way link exchange, and tell you they have already linked to you, and provide that link as proof.

What steps to take?

I have noticed that most of these guys use free email accounts, so immediately question requests from these guys.

Check how far down the list of links on the page your link is positioned. If your link is genuinely new, its more likely to be right at the top or bottom, not lost among loads of others on the page.

See if you can check when the page where you link has be ‘placed’ was last updated.

If all else fails, ask that the person changes the title of your link to something else, if they can do that, then you will link back. This is a sure fire way to check that the person really does have control of that links page.

On a final note, I have seen at least person using the same technique to build links, who actually has a real domain registered, so they dont use a free email address. The emails in question (I have received several dubious emails from them on different sites I manage) have come from a domain seohunts.com. I checked up on the domain and it is registered to an indian company. If you get any requests from people using the domain seohunts.com, BEWARE!!! Every email I have had from them, has been a pirate one. They have a lame ass website which is obviously designed just to give them more credibility if and when you check up on them.

The solution would probably be to be VERY careful who you link to (which seems to be good practice anyway), or maybe to use some software to manage your link exchanges.

I would be interested to see what link exchange software some of you use to manage your links….post a comment and let me know.

Cheers for now

You only get to choose your username once, and it cant be changed or transferred, so you MUST choose wisely.

On the Facebook blog:

Username selection is now live at http://www.facebook.com/username/. Remember, choosing a username is optional and will give you a distinct Web address for your profile. It will not change the name that appears on your profile, in search or elsewhere on the site.

Facebook go on to say:

Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web. People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google

This is pretty interesting, as FB is a really powerful domain name, it could be great to have a keyword or phrase as your username for one of your Facebook pages, or even your own username. Surely it will display a URL from Facebook in the search results for that term somewhere, and any little bit helps right. Even if the username pages are not any help for google searches, time will tell if it will help with internal searches on Facebook, and hey, if you give out your profile to clients, wouldnt it be cool if they could see your product/services etc in the name, more professional I think.

Usernames allow public entities to easily promote your presence on Facebook with a short URL (http://www.facebook.com/companyname). This username can be used in your marketing communications, company website and business cards.

I was able to get: facebook.com/searchengine.optimization.expert for myself, so I can now give that out for my personal profile. I also have loads of Facebook pages, and tried securing names for them, but was not able to for all. At the moment, FB knows there are going to be loads of people trying to secure names for their pages, so they have set limits.

The limits are temporary, and are to allow pages with more than 1000 fans, that were created before 31 May 2009, to get first dibs.

Check out the rules here: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=900

If you are new to Facebook, you will only be able to choose a username for yourself on or after June the 9th, 2009.

So….get cracking! Go out and secure your names, using the keywords that you want to be found with….let me know what you choose.

I use websites like Twitter all the time, and see loads of shortened URL’s being used, and every time I see one I dont recognize, I go check out the website, to see what they have to offer. Some of the websites simply create a shortened URL, that redirects to your website link, these ones sometimes expire after a certain amount of time, so beware!

I absolutely hate tinyurl.com, and think the only reason it has been so popular, is because it was one of the first, and because it was super simple to instantly shorten a url, no login or account required.

That being said, one that I have come to really like is called Trim (http://tr.im), and is one of those ‘no hassle’ websites we all like. Its possible to sign up for free, and be using their services in no time whatsoever.

What I like about their service, is that you have a record of all your shortened URL’s, and can see stats on them at any time.  Another great feature, is the option to automatically tweet your links as you make them, which is pretty sweet. For me though, the icing on the cake is the ability to custom make your url! Yep, you heard me, you can customize your URL, eg http://tr.im/FrancoisHarris will take you through to this blog!

Another really good one is http://bit.ly, which seems to have the same functionality as http://tr.im, also allowing you to also create a custom URL, and track the click through stats, as well as giving you the option to tweet your shortened URL. It also seems that bit.ly and twitter are good friends too, as twitter is using them for url shortening now.

One downfall Trim and Bitly both seem to have, is that I am not able to edit the destination URL AFTER it has been created.

I would like to be able to use affiliate links for instance, so that they are shortened and I can track the clicks, but what happens if I want to change the destination URL to a different provider, but keep the custom URL I have created? It would be far better to edit the destination URL, than to go through all my old websites, changing all the shortened URL’s. ClickAudit was able to do this, and it was one of their great features.

I do realize that these services are designed primarily for shortening the length of a URL, and NOT for tracking affiliate clicks, but why cant they be used for both?

I would love to hear what services you are all using, and what makes them so special, please feel free to post a comment.

Cheers for now

We began by cleaning up the coding on the website. A couple of years of subtle changes, tweaks, script changes etc had taken its toll, and due to laziness or bad workmanship, the code was splattered with snippets of left over code.

We cleaned up the code, removed all unnecessary coding, made sure the site validated as valid xhtml and css on W3C and streamlined the site. We wanted to also reduce the number of http requests to the server, so we combined images and used hotspots on the images to link to pages. The load time difference after changing the images was not noticable, and the file sizes were similar, but the http requests was cut in half.

We created a favicon image for the site, our reasoning was that we didnt want any errors when loading the site, and Google has the option of showing search results witht the icons of the sites displayed.

We combined all the javascripts in the site into one external javascript file, and moved the script to the base of the html.

We optimized all the remaining images on the website, making them faster to load, and streamlined the text, optimizing it for the target key phrase.

The good news is that in a two week period, the site jumped from page 3 position 6 on Google, to Page 1 position 10. Obviously the ranking is changing all the time, as Google re-crawls each page in the top pages and re-shuffles the sites, but hopefully the site will carry on up the charts.

The main changes to the site allowed it to load in half the original time, with fewer requests, and more valid and streamlined code. Score!

According to the Google help page:
(https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6100&hl=en_US)

What are keyword matching options?

There are four different keyword matching options, each specifying a different way for a keyword to interact with search queries. With some options, you’ll enjoy more ad impressions, clicks, and conversions; with others, you’ll get fewer impressions and more narrow targeting. By applying the appropriate matching options to your keywords, you can best meet your ROI goals.

Your options are:

Broad Match – This is the default option. If your ad group contained the keyword tennis shoes, your ad would be eligible to appear when a user’s search query contained tennis and shoes, in any order, and possibly along with other terms. Your ads could also show for singular/plural forms, synonyms, and other relevant variations. For example, you ad might show on tennis shoe or tennis sneakers. Run a Search Query Performance Report to see what keyword variations trigger your ad. Check out this blog post to learn how broad match can help you reach more customers (English only).

Phrase Match – If you enter your keyword in quotation marks, as in “tennis shoes,” your ad would be eligible to appear when a user searches on the phrase tennis shoes, in this order, and possibly with other terms before or after the phrase. For example, your ad could appear for the query red tennis shoes but not for shoes for tennis, tennis shoe, or tennis sneakers. Phrase match is more targeted than broad match, but more flexible than exact match.

Exact Match – If you surround your keywords in brackets — such as [tennis shoes] — your ad would be eligible to appear when a user searches for the specific phrase tennis shoes, in this order, and without any other terms in the query. For example, your ad wouldn’t show for the query red tennis shoes or tennis shoe. You likely won’t receive as many impressions, clicks, or conversions with exact match as you would with broad match. However, if you’ve carefully constructed a comprehensive keyword list, the traffic you do receive may be more targeted to your product or service.

Negative Keyword – If your keyword is tennis shoes and you add the negative keyword -red, your ad will not appear when a user searches on red tennis shoes. Negative keywords are especially useful if your account contains lots of broad-matched keywords. It’s a good idea to add any irrelevant keyword variations you see in a Search Query Performance Report or the Keyword Tool as a negative keyword. Learn more.

Remember, no matter which matching options you use, it’s important to only use keywords that accurately describe your product or service.

What I like about this whole system is that if you use these options together, you can creat an embedded match, which is able to help you run an incredibly effective campaign.

Setting up an Embedded Match

To start a basic embedded match campaign, setup three different adverts for the same website, these adverts are going to be shown at the same time, but to different users, depending what they search for. As such, each advert should be targeted for that specific user/visitor profile.

Advert 1 = Exact match advert

Make sure all the key phrases in this advert are in [square brackets]

Advert 2 = Phrase Match

Make sure all the phrases in this advert are in “quotation marks”. Once you have these setup, also add negative -[exact match] key phrases, use the same ones as in your first advert. What you are doing here, is targeting the phrase, but NOT showing the advert at all for the exact matches on advert one. So advert 1 and advert 2 will always be shown seperately.

eg: “key phrase 1″, “key phrase 2″, -[key phrase]

Advert 3 = Broad Match

In this advert, simply type the target key phrases without the square brackets or quotation marks. Once you have all your key words, also add negative “key phrases”, so that your advert is not shown when a user searches using your exact phrase. eg: key phrase 1, key phrase 2, -”key phrase”

By doing all of this, you have segmented your target audience, and can create adverts specifically for each demographic. If you think of a dart board or target, your bulls eye is the traffic from advert 1, the second ring is the traffic from advert 2, and the third ring, is the traffic from advert 3.

That is how you setup an Embedded Match. Hope you find this useful, it works like a charm for me

Cheers for now

Google describes PageRank as:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.

For more information on PageRank, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

Apparently the actual update was on the 30th of December, so many people will start to see changes on the search engines over the new year and the beginning of 2009. If anyone is interested, SEO Company has a page showing updates, I dont know how accurate it is, or how up to date, but it has some interesting info anyway.

Sadly, not everyone is going to benefit from the changes, there are many sites that will drop in PageRank, but I suppose not everyone can be a winner, there has to be a loser too

The sites I noticed the biggest change on, were the ones that I have been working hard on with on-page SEO, as well as making them faster loading, valid xhtml and css, cross browser compliant.

Lets hope that 2009 is a good year for all our websites, good luck to all!

I have been trying to make a bit of money online for a while now, and am thrilled with this new website that allows you to instantly install a blog, ready for monetization, and has over 1000 templates to choose from!

This is a dream come true for people who dont have much experience with earning money online.

I thought I would share the info, obviously if you are a Pro, then you may prefer to do things the way you know how, but for newbies, this makes it so unbelievably easy to setup a website and start earning immediately, dont forget its free too!

The website is being run by the creators of the Thirty Day Challenge, a website that teaches you the basics of how to make money online for FREE! Their website is http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com. If you are new to internet marketing and making money online GO TO THIS SITE NOW, they will teach you all the basics 100% FREE of charge.

They have setup this awesome site called WordPress Direct, which has free and paid areas. (http://www.worpressdirect.com)

Simply put, Wordpress Direct will allow you to create SEO-Optimized, Content-Stuffed Websites Instantly!

No More Wasting Your Precious Time with Setup, Search Engine Optimization, or Maintaining Your Site . . . WordPressDirect has been designed to handle all the setup, SEO and maintenance functions for you.

The free area allows you to setup 3 fully functional sites, while the other pay areas let you do more.

Trust me, once you have tried this you will NEVER worry about finding wordpress hosting, templates etc ever again! Best of all is FREE for the basic version, awesome hey!

Do yourself a favour, go check it out, and start earning money asap.

Benjamin Ling from Facebook had this to say (Benjamin is the Director of Platform Program Management at Facebook):

“By surfacing more recent and relevant information, and by cleaning up and simplifying the site, we think the new Facebook makes it even easier to connect and communicate with your friends.”

To see the new layout, you can test it out by clicking the link which should now appear on the top left of your browser when you are logged in on Facebook.com. If you don’t see that link, try going here: http://www.new.facebook.com/

I am glad it has finally changed, the site has been in need of a re-vamp for a while, and the new look is a breath of fresh air.

According to Mark Slee (the Product Manager for the new profile):

“The Wall now surfaces the most recent and relevant information—in the form of posts of stories—about you. We believe that having a constant stream of information, or “feed” is the most effective way to learn about and keep up with friends. Just as News Feed helps you know what is happening in your social circle, you can use the Wall as a way to give your friends the full story of what’s happening with you.

A big piece of the Wall is the Publisher, which enables you to publish content—photos, notes, your status, and so on—directly to your Wall. The Publisher works with most applications so that you have one place to go to add content to your own profile or to a friends’.

The profile is very personal; it’s important to us that everyone have control over their own profile. Along those lines, once you’ve published stories or posted content, you can adjust the size to promote the things you care about most, and demote the stories you don’t find as interesting.

One of our key goals of this project has always been to make the site simpler and cleaner. The new tabbed profile should help a lot in this respect, breaking your information into tabs by type. The Wall tab displays most recent and relevant information both about you and by you. The Info tab shows information about you that doesn’t change frequently. The Photos tab shows photos of you as well as your albums. The Boxes tab features all of your existing application boxes. You’re also able to add tabs for your favorite applications.”

Basically here is the deal…with some marketing magic written by Mike…

Back in February of 2007, Mike Filsaime held a secret Private Workshop at an undisclosed location.

Over 100 people paid $5000 for the Workshop.

He then took those DVD’s (Which now sell for $1297) and sold it out in record fashion in under 7 days to 2500 people. Since then… over 3000 people have paid for that information.

The success stories that followed have changed the face of Internet Marketing.

(Filsaime, along with his 37 Staff Members, will do $10,000,000 this year in sales and is credited with showing other marketers how to grow a 7 figure Business.)

BIG DEAL! Big Deal?

Recently, Mike hired a “TOP GUN” Internet Marketing Expert and Copywriter (That also attended the event.)

Mike Paid this “TOP GUN” $25,000 to watch all 16 DVD’s of “The 7 Figure Code” and condense it into a Masterpiece…

THE RESULT…

An 85 Page report, no fluff, with all of the Gold nuggets, Pearls of Wisdom, and action plans for you to get in a 1 hours’ read.

That’s right, what 100 people paid $5000 for, and had to sit through 3 days, you will get all of the information crammed into 1 report that you can read in 1 sitting.

=============================================
NOW HERE IS THE INSANE PART – IT’s FREE
=============================================

That is right, Mike Filsaime was going to sell it for $297.00 and was planning on selling 3000 copies in 7 days.

They are already printed, spiral bound, and sitting at the warehouse ready to ship.

But Mike has decided to ship it to you for…

*** Free ***

(Only While supplies Last.)

All Mike Asks is that you pay the shipping (about $8 or so)

That is it. You do NOT have to buy it. You simply tell him where to ship it and he will send it to you for…

nothing, zip, nada!

But… IT GET’S EVEN BETTER…

>>> Mike was going to upsell the 18 Full Color Process Maps. ($197 Value)

Mike hired the best Internet Marketing experts on Process Mapping, Rich Schefrens’ Strategic Profits, to produce these process maps based on each DVD… 18 in all.

Mike has decided to move the FREELINE even further and give you access to these for Free too (also VERY limited time)

And to prove that Mike has lost his mind (and has clearly landed on the North Pole of Mars,) he is also giving you is best selling

“The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript 2.0″ ($97 Value) for Free as well!

So here is a RECAP of what you get Free

- The 7 Figure Secrets Printed and Shipped to you Door
- The 18 Full Color Process Maps
- The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript Version 2.0

It just went live for a Limited Time and ONLY while supplies last…

So, if you want to be THE FIRST TO GET your hands on The 7 Figure Secrets, go NOW to:

http://the7figuresecrets.com/yours-free/9377

PS – The site just went live , so make sure to get your copy ASAP shipped to your door because when the pre printed copies are gone, you will not be able to get your hands on this.

Secure your copy here…

http://the7figuresecrets.com/yours-free/9377