Internet Marketing Course BLOG

By Brian Quinton
DirectMag.com

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): LookSmart has been off my SEM “radar” for YEARS. Now it seems they’re actually doing some interesting “search engineering”, according to this article on DirectMag.com. Well worth the read.

“LookSmart, the online media content and technology company that has been struggling for a place at the search table since losing its search contract with MSN in 2003, has launched 161 new vertical “channels” in 13 categories such as health, home, automotive, food, cities, sports and travel.

The new verticals join 20 sites already in place in the money and education categories, launched last The company’s hope is that advertisers will find the highly targeted sites a good place to place ads aimed at readers who are more qualified than those at general search portals.

Dave Hills, LookSmart CEO, compared the state of search today with the television industry before the rise of cable TV. “You’ve got a vibrant distribution system, you’ve got a lot of advertiser demand, and consumers continue to show their prowess at being able to manage many different media choices,” he said. LookSmart decided that consumers would use—and advertisers would value—a set of sites that crawled and aggregated the topical content on their interests more quickly than a broad search of Google, Yahoo! or MSN.”

Read the entire article at:
Vertical “Clusters” Key to LookSmart Turnaround

Technorati Tags: Business, Internet, Marketing

By Brian Livingston
Datamation/Earthweb

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): If you’re involved with Affiliate Marketing, whether via Commission Junction or another company, this is a very interesting article to read. Learn about “cookie stuffing”, “forced clicks”, and “security exploits”, and how using these techniques can steal an Affiliate Marketer’s dollars.

“The large e-commerce affiliate network known as Commission Junction (CJ) is gearing up a campaign that uses automated searches of the Web to catch dishonest participants.

The network has contracted with Cyveillance, a firm that monitors the online use of trademarked terms, to “spider” the Internet seeking affiliates that generate commissions without legitimately earning them.”

Read the entire article by clicking on this link:

Commission Junction Hires Web Detectives

Technorati Tags: Business, Internet, Marketing

By DAVID KESMODEL
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
October 19, 2005; Page B1

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): Guess I haven’t been at blogging long enough. Just saw this article about “splogging” in the Wall Street Journal (free section) and thought I’d share it with other blogging “newbies” like me.

“Spam, long the scourge of email users, rapidly has become the bane of bloggers too.

Spammers have created millions of Web logs to promote everything from gambling Web sites to pornography. The spam blogs — known as “splogs” — often contain gibberish, and are full of links to other Web sites spammers are trying to promote. Because search engines like those of Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. base their rankings of Web sites, in part, on how many other Web sites link to them, the splogs can help artificially inflate a site’s popularity. Some of the phony blogs also carry advertisements, which generate a few cents for the splog’s owner each time they are clicked on.”

Read the rest of this article by clicking on this link:
‘Splogs’ Roil Web, and Some Blame Google

Technorati Tags: Business, Internet, Marketing