Found a nice little post this morning for those of you that have removed from Google search results or have been penalized in any way. You may remember awhile back P2L was severely penalized by Google for not using the nofollow tags on our paid partner links. We’ve since had our PR status returned to normal, but I did get a lot of comments and questions from other folks with the same issue. So I figured this would be a great article, please visit Search Engine Watch Blog for the article.

The best part of the article is the video featuring Moeva from Google’s Search Quality Team with a great how-to presentation on what to do when you’ve been nuked from Google. Check it out, it’s definitely worth a look and very helpful.

Enjoy!
Dan

Just published a new article I received from Sitepro that I thought was a pretty cool little introduction to Social Media driven traffic and wanted to share.

SMO, or Social Media Optimization, helps build website traffic by using social media based websites. The dawning of web 2.0 has seen many different social media websites crop up in an equally large number of different guises. Content sharing, social bookmarking, and collaborative websites form the basis of this initiative and it is these types of websites that you need to use in order to leverage the power of the social web. In today’s article written by Matt Jackson, we’ll show you how to take full advantage of social media to start driving traffic to your website.

Please read the rest of the article by clicking here and reading it on the P2L Publishing System.

Comments are welcome!
Dan

As requested by many folks, I have written a short tutorial on how to install the Corel Photopaint Nib packs!

The tutorial is written on the P2L Publishing System and you can read it by clicking here. I also went over some really annoying bugs that are in the Nib management area in Photopaint so that you have some warnings should you decide to try messing around with the Nib packs you install. Installing the packs is a breeze, but if you start deleting and installing Nibs within the pack, you’ll want to read this first.

So check it out and please leave me your comments!

Thanks,
Dan

Hey guys… I just accidentally found a nifty little trick when using IE 7 that I didn’t know about. There is a keyboard shortcut that quickly allows you to see a thumbnail view of all tabs you have open in your browser, and from there you can click on one you want or close down the ones you don’t need. If you have a ton of tabs open like I do, this is WAY easier than fumbling around with the little tabs at the top.

So, here is the browser open with several tabs on the go:

And this is how it looks when you hit Ctrl-Q:

It’s an addicting little trick… kind of like using Windows Key - E to open Windows Explorer instead of doing a right click on the start button or even worse, doing the All Programs > Explore bit…

I also checked FF, Safari and Opera for this little bit of trickery, but it appears only IE has this particular feature. So next time you get in a penii measuring contest over FF vs IE or whatever, remember, you’ve got the Ctrl-Q trick up your sleeve!

Dan

As promised, I would like to address the statement that Google PR is “a meaningless number”, “it’s a void and empty score” or “it’s just a number”… Sorry guys, but it’s not as much as we would love it to be, and Google knows it’s not. So with Tom Berringer’s help, I’ll try to explain my point of view on why PR is as important as ever and how the latest PR penalties are damaging even if they don’t affect traffic directly.

There’s a great saying in this badass action movie, and it comes towards the beginning of the movie when Jonathan Shale (played by Tom Berringer) is looking to establish authority over his ghetto classroom and he is guided by the words of Principal Claude Rolle (played by Ernie Hudson). He explains in order to gain instant respect with his students, at the beginning of the year they have a presentation where he basically smashes his fist through a piece of wood, hinting rather strongly at what will happen to anyone deciding to get a little too uppity in class. He then explains he uses the concept of “power perceived is power achieved”, and he’s absolutely right. Even though he didn’t physically break some punk in two, the students definitely knew that’s what would happen if they stepped out of line.

Well, Google has broken their boards a few times and have created a similar concept: “Value perceived is value achieved”.

There is no arguing that there is perceived value in achieving high page rank, and if you can increase your site’s page rank, you achieved in earning your site increased value. You can scream that page rank is meaningless all you like, but there is no question that PR is alive and well, even if it has nothing to do with your traffic any more or even your quality. In the hearts and minds of webmasters the world over, PR is just one of a few key indicators or a website’s value and is used to gauge all sorts of dollar related indicators. And examples are out in plain sight!

Along with Alexa ratings, Google PR is one of the biggest selling points for any site looking to sell ad space, services or even to sell itself. In fact, PR can even be used to gain customer trust… surely a website with a PR 5 can be trusted a lot more than some PR 2 site that sells the exact same thing right? Value perceived is value achieved.

If there’s one thing Google knows, it’s how to make money and how to influence the web, even if it’s to simply correct or improve their own internal functionality. Let’s face it, if Google has a policy change for internal controls that affects ranking or positioning, webmasters around the world jump on it like wildfire and look at how to optimize and adapt their sites to this new change. It’s only natural, there’s nothing to be ashamed of… many of us count on Google for TONS of traffic, revenue, sustainability and ultimately, e-survival. In this latest move to penalize key websites for selling links to influence their PR index, Google knows exactly what they are doing… by lowering visible PR ratings, they are reducing the perception of value in that site. You’ll have a lot harder time justifying your ad asking prices if you went from a PR7 to a PR4 despite your traffic levels staying exactly the same.

Same thing goes for those of you looking to sell your website or company. One of the first things an experienced buyer will do is check your PageRank… if your sales pitch is reporting massive inbound site traffic but your PR is in the toilet, it does nothing but raise red flags. Then if you try to explain that your PR has been penalized and you’re “really a PR 7″, you’ve just raised another flag and opened up a can of worms. Would YOU buy a site that had just been penalized for any reason by Google? That’s like buying a car that a mechanic just warned you about shooting flames out the exhaust pipe, but “it’s nothing to worry about”.

How about SEO companies? Would you take an SEO company trying to sell you an expensive consulting package seriously if their own website couldn’t muster up anything beyond a PR4? Sure, it’s just a number right? Somehow I don’t think so… again, value perceived is value achieved, and the door swings both ways.

So how does Google fix this? They can’t and they probably won’t… truth be told, PR should simply be removed in favor of a visitor related tracking system similar to the Alexa rating system tracked via the millions of people using the Google Toolbar. Visible PR is meaningless purely from a search point of view, I agree… but when it comes to perceived website value, having your Google Page Rank penalized is a crushing blow to anyone’s monetization efforts and I truly feel bad for any webmaster that was hit with this problem and innocently had no idea their linking methods would land them in trouble.

That’s my take on the PR number issue, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my rather stretched out analogy. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter so please feel free to click on the comment button below and use the form to share your feedback with me and the rest of my blog readers.

Dan