Well I not sure whether to laugh or cry today but I favor the latter.    With the bulk of my income coming from Yahoo and next to nothing from Google/MSN/Live/Bing,  I fear the worst.  Why does anyone think combining these two search engines will dent Google?  More likely, it will drive more traffic to Google.

Bing is the new kid on the block and it has no track record – it should have been allowed to stand on it’s own two feet for a couple of years before being pushed into the spotlight.  It is now going to power the Yahoo and MSN websites ultimately giving the consumer less choice and creating a duopoly in search.  In the UK this deal would be up in front of the Office of Fair Trading as anti competitive.  I only hope the USA has a similar body and that they will refuse to rubber stamp the deal.  In no way can this deal be in the interests of consumers/browsers/searchers.

I find it extraordinary that Yahoo doesn’t see search as a key component of it’s business model. I remember reading a couple of years back that every 1% of search was worth a $1 billion turnover so Yahoo apparently doesn’t see $15 billion as that big a deal or it cannot figure out how to turn a profit (in which case it’s entire executive team deserves a pink slip).

I always felt that 3 search engines were insufficient to ensure a competitive market place and now we’re down to two with Bing barely out of BETA.  It’s like Yahoo and Microsoft turned out the lights and waved the white flag.  Oh yeah, I noticed that white flag was emblazoned with Google’s logo.

I’m at a loss for words.

So I’ve been catching up on some of the latest news and I see a whole bunch of people have received an adwords slap on their review sites and suffered from falling quality scores which begs the question does Google hate affiliates?

There have been many responses and more than a few people have pointed out that Google has it’s own affiliate network so it shouldn’t be looking to make affiliates suffer unnecessarily.  What are your thoughts on this?

For my part I don’t really get it.  If someone puts up a review site and then wants to drive traffic to it via PPC for which Google gets paid is there really a need to penalize?  If the site is crap it won’t make any money and the cpc and lack of conversion will ensure it soon disappears.  If the product is crap then you can almost always get a refund.  So what is Google up to (if anything)?

I am inclined to think that the majority of sites that have been slapped are not adhering to Googles Webmaster Guidelines.  No one ever seems to admit that their sites breach these guidelines but my own experience shows that they are enforced quite rigorously and the usual reason for receiving a slap or worse the death sentence of deindexation.

Many will have seen that Webmaster Tools was updated not too long back and quality score became a touch more transparent.  Many of my remaining BANS stores were deindexed following that update as were some of my phpBay stores.  The reason?  Well, you can never be 100% certain but almost certainly for using the 3 Way Linking System devised by Jonathan Leger.

3 Way Links was a lifesaver for me  when I first got started with BANS helping my stores into profit through improved rankings at a time when I simply couldn’t afford to undertake manual link building.   However, within webmaster guidelines it falls under paid links so I can have no complaints about my treatment from Google.  I have promoted the 3 way linking system and I will continue to do so because traffic from Yahoo and more recently Bing (since Mircosoft updated the lousy MSN search engine) still generate a tidy profit .  So maybe paid links still have their place but with Google you’re walking a tightrope.

It is a fact that we all need Google whilst they are the search engine of choice for 85% of the worlds population.  I hope the monopoly is broken soon but it doesn’t look likely.  In the meantime if you want to play in Googles yard then we need to follow the webmaster rules.  And boy it is worth it.  One of the few sites I had with a top 10 Google ranking for it’s chosen keywords has subsequently suffered an 80% drop in earnings over the last 6 weeks and that’s a bitter pill to swallow.

In the last month or so I’ve been building a team in the Phillipines to help run my business.   I did this because I simply couldn’t manage the number of websites I’d created nor build new sites efficiently or quick enough any longer.  I have now trained these guys and suddenly find I have time on my hands to start learning once again.

Most of you will know the importance of getting backlinks to your sites but this can be a royal pain because our niche sites, whilst serving a valuable purpose, hardly have people queing to link to them.  Many swear by blog commenting but I can’t stand leaving my target keywords in my name field it looks horrible.

Imagine my delight when I came across a plugin called Keyword Luv which encourages you to leave your name and keywords in the comment.  Check it out for yourself and leave a comment on my blog to see how it works and then grab yourself a copy and we can all help one another without resorting to spam.

I hope you like it.