“Fraudsters know that clicking on a certain ad will create anomalies in the data that will trigger further investigation of their IP addresses, methods, or the targeting of a particular advertiser’s ads.

So they try to ‘even out’ the anomalies by creating more impressions to balance out the clicks, and other attempts to make the fraud seem more ‘real.’ But all this does is dig them in deeper, creating other anomalies.”  But from what I heard on the forums Google is still able to filter out these frauds.  It is very frustrating for those of us that don’t pad our adsense because I see smart-pricing come into effect sometimes and get dismal payouts per click.

Link building and driving traffic to a website are the life-blood of any successful web endeavor. Unfortunately it can be quite difficult but one proven method is by offering free online games.

Most folks, from your average computer user to your hard-core gamer are looking to whittle away a bit of time each day relaxing and having fun on the web. If you can get them to come to your site to play card games, racing games or something of the sort then they might just hang around and become a frequent visitor.

If you want to offer these type of games then there are three options available:

1. Just link up to an existing game. This is the cheapest, free and can be as easy as installing a few lines of code for a Google widget but the downside is you can’t brand it as your own.

2. The second option is to purchase a license to use an existing game. These can be custom branded to your website and don’t cost very much. But your game won’t be unique and can be found dozens or hundreds of other places on the web.

3. Have a custom game developed for you. This is the most expensive route but also offers the largest benefit, especially if you offer it for free to other sites (including your link back of course).

My advice is to start off with something free and see if it increases traffic. Once you build up a bit of a visitor base then move on to number 2 an eventually number 3.

Yahoo! Inc.announced the launch of Yahoo! Buzz, an extension to Yahoo.com, which would form the groundwork for an open ecosystem of publishers, advertisers and consumers.  Yahoo said that Yahoo! Buzz would open up the Internet’s starting point by uncovering the most interesting and relevant content from websites across the Internet and bringing more buzz-worthy stories to its homepage.

Yahoo stated, currently in beta, Yahoo! Buzz measures consumer votes and search patterns to identify interesting and timely stories and videos from large news sources as well as niche blogs around the Web. Top stories are then given primary editorial consideration for feature placement on Yahoo.com.

Yahoo noted that Yahoo! Buzz would enable publishers to share relevant content, connect to more advertisers and reach a broader audience. Yahoo added that it would allow users to submit Buzz stories to social news sites including delicious, Digg, Facebook, Propeller, Reddit and Stumbleupon.  Yahoo! Buzz can highlight anything, a major news event, an intriguing video or image, or an interesting blog post and help publishers deliver their best content to Yahoo!’s broad and diverse audience, Yahoo noted.  Looks interesting but we are going to have to see if this ever develops into something worthwhile.

Many folks over at DigitalPoint forums are discussing what effect the possible buyout of Yahoo by Microsoft will have on the SEO industry but most, including myself think it is a positive step to help combat Google’s complete dominance over the search industry.

Here are a few relevant posts on the topic:

swedal; A merger between msn and Yahoo could be a way to create a company which could better compete with Google.  That would probably be a ways down the road and a offer to buy is a long way from an actual merger.

SilkySmooth; Niether MSN nor Yahoo were able to compete against Google as individual entities, merging them together wont change anything. IMO.

popotalk; Lets put this in numbers. If both MSN and Yahoo competed and nothing happened then an outcome of 0 would be put in place. Therefore 0 + 0 = 0.  Silky is right there won’t be a change.

jg123; I don’t think that is accurate, MSN has 10% of searches, Yahoo has 20% and Google around 60%…so together they get closer to being a legitimate competitor for Google. I don’t think this merger will have any effect directly on the directory industry but it does put both those companies in a better position to challenge Google, which is a good thing IMO.

As you can see, lots of opposing views and a very interesting topic.

It looks like the first rumblings of a page rank update have started.  I just saw a post by Mike over at DP about some directories that appear to have their page ranks moving.  Page rank in general has become a bit of a farce since Google has been using it to bitch slap webmasters around that it thinks might be gaming the search results.  But many folks still give it quite a bit of weight so let’s keep an eye on this one and see what Google has in-store for us.

This is a directory based portal of directories.

OP - I love the fact that Google is penalizing paid link.
It means my small sites can compete with the big boys that have huge budgets….Now we are somewhat on the same playing field and we all have to earn our links the old fashion way.

Reply - Sorry to break the news to you seo ranter but the palying field will never be level. There are still 100’s of MFA sites ripping off the little guy of all his potential revenue and visitors.

OP - Can u tell me how can I cheat adsense?
dear friends can U help me how can I cheat adsense to earn money.

(Everyone was telling him that he should not be looking to cheat, then some genuis finally posts this, tongue-in-cheek)

Reply - Don’t listen to all the silly folks above me, just post the URL of your sites and I am sure there are lots of ‘nice’ people here that will click your ads and send you extra traffic.  (Hahaha, or report you!)

Hard-core nerds in Washington are looking to recruit more women, and perhaps date some sorority women, the largest computer club at Washington State University hopes to hold a “nerd auction.”

The idea is to trade their computer skills to sorority girls in exchange for a makeover and, possibly, a date.   “You can buy a nerd and he’ll fix your computer, help you with stats homework, or if you’re really adventurous, take you to dinner!” Ben Ford, president of the Linux Users Group, said on its website.

Ford acknowledged that some of the group’s 213 registered members may not be ready for the auction block.   “The problem is that we’re all still nerds. Let’s face it, guys. If anyone’s going to bid on us, we’ll need some spicing up,” he wrote. “And who better to help with that than sorority girls who like nothing better than a makeover?”

This all began as an effort to recruit more women into computer science programs and a public relations class decided to help.  “Our conclusion was that they need to promote themselves better, then specific ideas were presented to them,” said professor Moon Lee, who taught the public relations class. “They made suggestions to work with specific groups such as sororities. Sorority groups tend to have a very good social network.”

Ford, who has an undergraduate degree in computer science and is pursuing a master’s in business management, has spoken to several sororities, but so far none has committed to the project. A call to the Center for Fraternity and Sorority Life at WSU by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.  It may not be the most ego-stroking way to get dates but sex is sex, especially for socially challenged nerds.

Dear Webmaster:

This email will give you details of your recent penalization in Gooogle rankings for your website wwww.directory-link-farm.com.

It has come to our attention that you have been participating in multiple forum threads on DigitalPoint forums.  These thread topics have been deemed to contain large amounts of hot air, annoying ass-kissing, irrelevant posts, bragging and most of all 1000’s upon 1000’s of words of duplicate content (and ideas).

If you stop posting such drivel then we are willing to reinstate your search engine rank and even give you a page rank bonus to PR8.  We don’t care that you bought high PR links, nor that you sell links.  We just want you to stop clogging up our results with useless forum threads.

Yours Truly,
Mattt Cuttts

Now to brace myself for the amount of red rep and nasty comments I am sure to recieve!