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EGOL is quite correct regarding the profitability of Adwords campaigns particularly in highly competitive spaces. I think it's really important to have a clear idea of what the Lifetime value is for customers acquired through this channel, so you know when to hold and know when to gold int terms of ad and keyword bids.

There are many of us John Barth's running around. Back in college, the author John Barth stole my e-mail alias for a short stint!

Oh I see what you are asking, I'm sorry. Yeah he should beable to provide that for you, if you have access to the websites plugins.. look for "gold cart plugin" it mentions it has Google Base integration. That plugin may provide it for you. Took a look at your page source and figure that plugin handles your products! Hope that helps!

Hi Kynduvme, Definitely follow the link Bede Fahey has provided. This was a major policy change that I would recommend you take note of and comply with in signaling to Google the correct business model. By being accurate in your settings, you will hopefully avoid future penalties of your listing.

I don't understand how it works. from what I can tell it merely finds websites that MIGHT be good candidates for getting links? If that is the case I can't imagine it's worth even 50 cents, I can use Google now to find link prospects. what does the wordtracker tool actually DO?

I still see that stuff too in the more competitive markets. I get the feeling Google simply cannot keep up with all of it even with all of its resources.

Man, and you're writing about US websites... Here in Europe (non-UK) is practically impossible to get quality links just because of the content.

Roger is known to make appearances at MozCon for hugs too!

I would say myarticlenetwork.com should be another one that will be getting crapped on my Google soon.  It' main focus seems to be spun content so go figure!

I track a lot of websites, not carefully but from time to time check positions. Some of them are active clients, some of them I worked for before and I must say that this update seems as "ok done" with not many mistakes. In general, around 50% of sites are on the same positions. Around 40% had slight improvements and 10% lost positions. What I realized, and would like to know if you have same experiences is that this update was something like on "keyword based" level. On 5-6 websites which lost positions it looks strange because some #1 positions stayed at #1 and some dropped like from #1-#5 to #120-#200. One website lost 60% of visits and it was my test website. I have 31 pages on that website and all of them looks like "word1 word2 different word" so it if for sure spam looking website. All the 30-40 keywords were in top20 and arond 10 #1. So it is "strange" that a lot of high ranked keywords went to #120+ positions but something like 5-6 keywords still #1. Another thing, if I am not wrong, is that google focused also on the websites owned by same person who owns same niche websites. I have something like a partner with around 10 dental sites. 6-7 of them stayed pretty the same and 3-4 had slight drops, one had major drops. what is important is that all the content is unique, not spammy on all of them and links were pretty the same. I mean, he made links sometimes using the same source (rubbish) but a big number of links not in any connection so like 70% of links per site were "unique" sources. But again, in his case drops were like "per keyword", some keywords still on #1 and same website lost other keywords from top10 to #120+ Did you have same experiences maybe ?

I always recommend people to open your eye while buying links for your website because of the fact that sometimes it’s cool! But sometimes when you buy links with eyes closed you came under the spot light of search engine. Links from famous directories are fine BBB and Business.com are the great websites to get a link but if you want to get a link from a niche related website with a desired anchor text then do check that websites reparation in search engine and try to get natural links instead of side bar or footer links. #myopinion

Good to know... I was getting carpel tunnel checking 5 times a day over the past 4 weeks.

Hi! The current status about rank tracker is in this ZenDesk post at https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/22457872-keyword-difficulty-and-rank-tracker-issues

Bing controls Yahoo so make sure you are using Bing's Webmaster Tools and have XML sitemaps. But the truth is that they are both different so it's really hard to control them both.

HAHA Yeah... Thats the problem with the fiverr gigs, you cant actually tell their methods properly. One way to check is to have a look at the profiles who +1 your page and see if they are real. If you can notice that they are fake then you can bet your bottom dollar that big G can too. Nice test though, I like it!

I never request links. I spend 100% of my time on content and links appear as gifts from people who like what I create. So, I can tell you with great certainty about the anchor text that appears on natural links.  The links that I receive do not come from anyone who is thinking about SEO or has received any incentive to link to my site. Almost all of the links that point to my site have "mydomain.com"...... "here"...... "this"..... "video"..... "photos".... as anchor text. When the anchor text is a keyword it is usually a single word such as "Chicago" or "diamonds". So, when I hear google talking about cracking down on "overly SEOed websites"... I am thinking that they could easily do that be removing the credit given for anchor text links.  That's what would happen if I was the boss at Google.

Experiment: I did an experiment on a new domain with only a small amount of authority. At the time, I only had a few links pointing to my domain, and the site was 1.5 months old. I was ranking #3 for the term "redding SEO" (the city that I live in.) I used social media, friends, and family from across the country for this experiment. I asked them to search for "redding seo" and click on my site. The Results: Within 2 days, I jumped from position 3 to position 2, and I've stayed there ever since. I didn't do any other link building, or content creation on my site over the 48 hours, so the only factor that I can contribute to my rank change is CTR.

Hi kynduvme, You need to alter the GA code for multiple domain tracking.http://gaconfig.com/multiple-domains-with-subdomain/. Best to create a new profile to prevent any data skew. You would then as normal add the goal conversion tracking as normal. Hope this helps, Vahe

Hey Joe! It can be hard to tell without looking at the actual site.  Can you send your site URL to help@seomoz.org?  This will help us figure out what is the best setup option for you. Thanks!

Hi Kynduvme, I'll take a stab at this, and let others add their comment as well. Branded keywords are generally those of your brand, such as your company name or a product name. For example, my husband and I run a business called Strike Models where we sell model warships that shoot and sink each other. For us, "Strike Models" is a branded search. If I see that in my analytics, I know that someone is searching for me because they have heard of our company. If I see "model ship plans" or "rc battleships", that's not a branded search. I'm appearing for some of my keywords, and the people may not have heard of my particular brand before. It's usually easier to rank for your branded terms, and thus helps separate that out from your other keywords. Does that help? edit: here's the post we made when branded keywords were introduced: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/introducing-branded-keyword-rules-and-metrics