Marketing

There are a number of rumors circulating touting various methods and services available that will supposedly provide a boost your Alexa web ranking.

Having wondered if there was any validity to the claims, I thought I’d try a few basic tests of my own to see which methods outside of using a service could actually accomplish this task.

Alexa’s Site Info displays a web site’s traffic rankings, reach, pageviews, pageviews per user, bounce%, search%, click stream and audience profiles. The metric that most are concerned with is the overall traffic ranking; the lower the number, the higher your traffic is supposed to be.

Some webmasters have figured out that by loading the Alexa Toolbar and visiting a site daily, it can improve the ranking. Others refuse to install the toolbar as they consider it to be spyware.

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The Federal Trade Commission has revised the “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” and will now require bloggers to disclose any freebies or compensation they receive from companies for reviewing their products.

FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials
“The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that ‘material connections’ (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers–connections that consumers would not expect–must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other ‘word-of-mouth’ marketers.

The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”

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So there’s been a slight preview of the PageRank toolbar export on a few of the 216.239.51.* data centers today and unsurprisingly, it didn’t last very long.

The usual discussion forum buzz and jubilation was evident at DigitalPoint and included the usual comments regarding the brief glimpse of the updated values.

Pixel envy is still rampant, and there’s quite a bit of disappointment being expressed over the lack of a visual display in relation to the link development efforts of some.

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With the explosion of general directories lately (everyone’s an editor) it’s nice to find one that stands out in design and quality.

With one of the best new directory marketing techniques I’ve seen recently, Loren Baker is off to a running start with Umdum.

To celebrate the launch, we are running a free submittal promotion which will run until 5 pm PST on Thursday April 20th. You can have your site listed in Umdum for free by Umdum Web Directory these simple steps.

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There was quite the buzz with million pixel ad web sites a brief time ago, when a young entrepreneur came up with the idea of selling one million 1×1 pixel ad spaces for $1.00 each. The Million Dollar Home Page was born. It brought out so many copy-cat sites that they can’t give away those ads now.

We recently came across a new variation of the million dollar ad web sites called the Million Clicks Button. Advertisers are afforded the opportunity to “own” the button for a set dollar amount until the next advertiser purchases the button for a higher dollar amount. All of the traffic from visitors clicking the button are directed to your web site for the duration of your ownership.

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