Irony: Andrew Orlowski, Google, & The Register

Andrew Orlowski is probably the most ill informed and biased Google commentator walking on 4 or less limbs. Am I the only one who notices the irony of the new layout of The Register?
Andrew's articles make Google sound exceptionally evil. Yet if you look to the right of his Google API article you will see the largest ad set offered by Google. The Register is an AdSense ad provider which is using 160 of their 790 pixel wide page to serve Google ads right at the top of the page.

I could ignore those ads, because they are not the ads that disturb me. Recently there has been some controversy about whether it was ok to place multiple AdSense ads on a single page. The Register decided that it was ok.

They are using ad additional ad block of 4 AdSense ads in the center of their articles. These ads are eating up an additional 336 pixels of screen space. I will be the first to tell you I LOVE ADSENSE!!!! There is a balance though, and any newspaper knows that they make money through distribution. If I provided a bunch of ads at the top and center of every page of my site I would not expect you to read my articles, let alone read my articles about how bad the company is that set up the ad network which is all over my website.

When you search Google for an expensive word such as casino you see 8 ads. In this Orlowski article I saw 9. I could describe how awful the reading would be, but you can view for yourself.

ps: Google also linked into this casino article (by providing free news feeds to their searchers) along with search results. Unbiased comprehensive news, including the biased crap that Mr. Orlowski prints.

Hide Your Email Address

If you look off to the right side of the home page I now have a rather simple and easy way to contact me. Instead of throwing a NOSPAM string in my email or using the [at] technique I can now safely hide my email address from spam bots thanks to this free email address hiding script.

Those who spend most of their time reading marketing books get exceptionally annoyed when they see piss poor marketing. Thus I truely appreciate this cool hiveware product. Hide your email address today!

(Yet another cool thing found at Search Engine Blog. I emailed Peter and dared him to use the word "sesquipedalian" in his blog - we will watch attentively and report our findings.)

Where to Submit Internet or Marketing Articles Free

Articles as links The fundamental base of the internet is not the page, but the link. A great way to accumulate links is to write articles and submit them to places interested in quality articles. Where do I submit articles in my field? Some places will accept articles automatically and some require editorial approval. If you know your industry well you should know some places that accept articles. I know within the search engine field I can submit articles to sites like Lil Engine, ISEDB, SearchGuild, and a variety of others.

Where do I submit general articles? There are also sites which take general articles such as Idea Marketers, Buzzle, Ebooks n Bytes, Article Central. The list goes on and on.

How do articles give me links? When you write articles for free you are typically given a by-line or author bio which you can link to your website.

How long should my articles be? Typically it is a good idea to review the editorial guidelines of websites before submitting articles. Most sites like articles around 600 to 900 words since the internet is a quick medium. Some sites like articles up to 1500 to 2000 words so they can split up the content to show more ads. Reading a few articles from the site should give you an idea what they are looking for.

Article resource location tips: A good tip to finding more might be to search for the name of a search engine copywriter. Karon Thackton is found on over 1,000 documents!

In addition to searching out people in your field you may want to use some of the Yahoo Announcement Groups and other article resources. Feel free to submit article resource locations in the comments :)

Submiting articles to Ezines is not something I generally do. I find that if you write an ok article and submit it to a few of these places people will just pick you up. You want to be careful about seeming spamy when trying to submit articles to ezines. A few good Ezine lists would be Ezine Universe, Topica, the Ezine Directory

Additional article resources from Jeremy Gossman are listed below.

http://goarticles.com/
http://ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://amazines.com
http://www.articlecity.com/
http://bpubs.com/
http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.promotionworld.com/
http://promotenewz.com/

Yahoo Announcement Groups

Eventually if you do a good enough job with your articles people who syndicate your artilces will have those same articles syndicated from there! Here is another small list of Ezine directories.

<update>here are a few more sites you can submit articles to:
www.purplepages.ie
www.stickysauce.com
www.certificate.net
www.freesticky.com
www.bullmarketer.com

Here is another free XLS articles checksheet which shows over 70 sites where you can submit articles. Thanks Zoran

[update: here is more article submission locations]

</update>

The search for "Google Sells Christmas" will show you that about 40 web pages reference my second article. Before I wrote those articles my site was not popular, now it kinda is.

You can also look at content provider networks in DMOZ or the Yahoo! Directory.

Also a while ago somebody spammed me trying to promote "marketing blaster" and "search engine geek." If people publish articles that were sent to them via spam then odds are they will likely want to publish your articles too, so you may want to search for a few variations of those names such as "marketing blaster" or "marketingblaster."

Online Branding through the Eyes of a Schmuck

Stay Cool "Don't be a Schmuck" - Rob Frankel.

Read On Just finished reading "The Revenge of Brand X," an awesome book on branding.

Right on, (or is that write on)...My article "Online Branding by a Schmuck"

Cheesy my incorrect use of bolding

Dreaming - wish I was more like SearchEngineBlog, he does the bold thing right.

Custom 404 Error Page

Many sites do not have a custom 404 error page. When a site visitor clicks on a dead link the visitor is most likely gone. Here is a perfect article about creating the perfect 404 error page.

Search at MSN vs Yahoo vs Google

Why must people who know absolutely nothing about search write articles about search engines? A recent Zacks article by Steve Harmon states "In my opinion Google has replaced Yahoo (YHOO already. More people use a search box than want to use a `directory` style hierarchy that Yahoo built."

Where has this guy been? Has he not seen Yahoo branding its search product? Their directory is more of a novelty now. When you go to Yahoo its Yahoo Search they are pushing, not the Yahoo directory.

Also has this guy failed to notice Yahoo gobbling up 3 of the 5 biggest crawler based search engines and the number one pay per click engine?

Google may be ahead, but it is certainly not because of Yahoo promoting its directory.

Later he asks "Remember Netscape?" - building a competitive search engine for the entire world knowledge database is most likely a tad bit harder than building a browser.

Then he states "Best bet is for Yahoo and Google to merge and take on Microsoft before Microsoft`s next version of Windows -- nicknamed Longhorn -- debuts with search and other features built in everywhere."

It does not matter if they make search accessible everywhere...it is the quality of the search the led people to Google. If nothing else, pushing MSN search on people will cause more negative press from people critical of MSN.

Top Ten Usability Errors 2003

The more you read, the more you realize how narcissistic many top professionals are. Everyone believes that what they are doing is not getting its fair share of coverage.

The experts are usually viewed as the experts for a reason though. While they may say some incorrect or far reaching ideas, most of their ideas are "Spot On."

With that being said here are Jakob Nielson's "Top Ten Usability Errors of 2003."

Going Going ...Gone

About a month after a management shakeout, GoGuides is on sale to the highest bidder.

On their home page it reads "Notice: GoGuides.Org is for sale! If you think you have what it takes to run one of the fastest growing and most popular human edited directories on the net then this opportunity is for you. Offers will be accepted till 12-3-03. If the minimum reserve price is not met the directory will not be sold. If the directory is sold the buyer must agree to continue running all advertisement, all listings, and agree to continue developing this directory as a spam free community. Minimum Bid Price: $10,000.00 US Dollars. All offers must accompany a 20% down payment of the bid amount via paypal to be considered legitimate. For more information contact us at teamsupport@goguides.org with your offered bid."

Also this is a continuation of my old school blog that was part of my other site. To it, this blog pays homage.

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