Matt Cutts posts on some blog and ping RSS Announcer. A few months ago I also stated my disgust with some of the blog spam salesletters.

For those thinking of investing in blog spam software or other useless related crap, search engines can look at far more than the [delete this pink text] and other obvious software footprints. The Link Spam Detection research paper stated:

A number of recent publications propose link spam detection methods. For instance, Fetterly et al. [Fetterly et al., 2004] analyze the indegree and outdegree distributions of web pages. Most web pages have in- and outdegrees that follow a power-law distribution. Occasionally, however, 17 search engines encounter substantially more pages with the exact same in- or outdegrees than what is predicted by the distribution formula. The authors find that the vast majority of such outliers are spam pages.

It's funny to see the star internet marketing crew being too lazy to even change out their bogus testimonials. But at least in the short term there is far more money is the following model:

• launch a shitty software product

• use hype affiliate marketing and joint venture opportunities with internet marketing expert hucksters
• opt in list
• then email spamming (either directly or via affiliates)
• repeat process

than in creating real value. Maybe eventually people will get a clue.

On the web there are a large number of people who will try to help you along to doing well, and then there are hollow middle men who want to take your money to shit down your throat. Since it costs virtually nothing to make most software or sites you see far more of the latter in the internet marketing realm.

There was recently a WebmasterWorld thread about why people hate Google and other successful companies. Some chalk it up to jelousy, but I just think it is disappointing when sleeze marketing and / or other dubious business practices bring better returns than honest ones.

Here is a perfect example. So about a week ago I gave away one of many copies of my ebook to a charity and recently got this response:

Hi Aaron,

Great book, I finished it a few weeks ago and now need to take notes on all the highlights. And WOW, with all the resources you have, that was in itself would be worth the price of the book, oh wait, it was free for me, :) lol

I have read quite a few books over the last 1 1/2 years on internet marketing, etc, and I really believe you are one of the few guys out there that truly want to help others and not just try and milk their list, as I heard one big name internet marketer say and that's exactly how I feel when im on his list. It really came through in your writing and the fact that you update the book on a continual basis says enough.

I would like your opinion on http://www.xyz software.com/ from what I can tell, it appears to be a great piece of software but I always like to get a 2nd opinion before I buy. (btw, I was referred to this by one of the guys I consider that will sell any and everything, every week it's a new cant miss product some of these guys are hawking so its sometimes tough to tell the gems from the duds)

I responded (roughly):

Hi Name
thanks for liking the ebook

xyz software = crap
here is why...

-qpw ($30 or so) is great
-you should mix stuff up
-sites that accept automated type submissions will tend to be
bad neighborhoods

see also
http://www.search-marketing.info/newsletter/articles/trustrank-company.htm
http://www.martinibuster.net/2005/11/link-development-is-dead.html

FYI, I recently was bogusly sued and my lawyers are raping me, so if
you feel like you got tons of value out of the ebook donations are
accepted
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001130.shtml

Cheers,
Aaron

From that I got no response or donation. Give a guy your business model and your knowledge and get nothing in response. That's pretty useless considering I just saved him $97.

I find people that have no money to support people who help them but want to spend money on the latest interent marketing scam software to be greedy and/or stupid. It's not uncommon for business people to take the low road though.

Traffic Power Sucks saved people over a half million dollars and did not get much in donations from the people they helped when asking for donations to fight the bogus lawsuit they got.

I have about 700 emails in the inbox and I likely will be changing my charity policy soon to be more accomidating to paying customers. I don't expect to profit from helping charities, but the semi shady charity requests weigh on my time and spirits. And I still haven't said thanks to all the people who have helped me fight off the internet marketing scam that is Traffic Power :(

I have not tried this idea out yet, but St0n3y has a new content exchange link exchange idea.

Some people who would be willing to trade content are too lazy to write an article for your site, so what you do is write an article for their site which links back to your site and then write most of an article for your site to link to them.

Leave out a section for pointers or tips and let them write a pointer or two including links back to their site.

Xooglers - a blog about working at Google. Lots of interesting stories. [via SEW]

In other Google news, it appears they are testing click to call and are looking deeply at print ads.

WSJ: Getting an Oil Change Off eBay [sub req]

EBay is aiming to take over the phone book's customary role as the first place people turn to find local services from housecleaners to accountants.

While eBay Inc.'s focus for now is on auto services like oil changes and brake jobs, its goal may be to connect consumers with local businesses of all kinds. This could signal a major shift in the way consumers shop for such services and greatly affect pricing and competition among local shops.

Does eBay have any sort of a map? How are they going to do local without one? Craigslist (which eBay owns part of) links off to Google and Yahoo! maps. I think Google and Yahoo! get information from the same source: Navteq. Not sure if Navteq is going to go after local search as well, but they recently partnered with Zagat.

Any chance someone would want to scoop the leading map company? Are there any other high quality digital mapping companies?

Froogle was recently upgraded, and without a hitch! Google's Froogle Drops eBay for a Day.

When Paypal was upgraded in June Google overshaddowed the news with the announcement of Google Wallet.

Here is yet another article about who should be afraid of Google.

Andrew Goodman says there is an Easter egg feature in the new AdWords system:

And did we mention pay-per-call, separate content bidding, an obscure nameless easter egg feature that I don't wish to comment on but would like to thank Google for adding apparently in response to a wish list entry I think I posted long ago at Webmasterworld and SE Watch Forums...

Anyone know what egg Andrew is talking about? A bit hard to search WebmasterWorld right now, but SEW has What are your Top 5 AdWords feature or tool requests?

Based on a bit of thinking and Andrew's posts in that top 5 features thread I think some of the cool things you can now do with AdWords are:

• Run site targeted content ads without paying CPM rates by bidding on the official site names or common phrase matched page elements of sites you want to advertise on.

• Target ads against competing products without competitors being able to prove you are using their trademarks or product names to trigger your ads. This prevents you from taking needless large sums of crap that I took about a year or so ago.
• In the past Andrew also hinted at - trailer park geotargeting and Googleplex-cam.