SiteSell Blog

Google's Big Pap Attack, Part 1

Ken's Blog

Thirteen days ago, I posted How Google May Knock You Out This Year, And What To Do About It.

That was preceded by a 3-Part Series on "All That Pap".

Google is indeed off to the races to knock out content farms (BigCo or Little Guy, whoever has a business model that finds keywords that pay well with AdSense, and then creates regurgitated pap on those topics, plus-or-minus even-worse pap that links to the "money pap").

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Think of pap as "nuanced spam."

The worst spammers simply copy the content of others with
little change. Another form of spam is the following...

There is software that creates sliced-n-diced content from
several pages related to any given keyword you choose. It
then submits those keyword-optimized pages (with links to
the "money pap page") to article sites and anywhere else
that does not check quality.

What's the difference?

Pap goes to greater lengths to create low-value content,
most often paraphrasing the work of others and/or making it
up "the best you know how." There is no original thought in
the content, nor is it based on any true expertise.

Let's summarize the pap business model like this...

Content Pap + Link Pap = Fool Google = Undeserved Income

Obviously, the pap must be made as cheaply as possible.

But when it comes to content, you get what you pay for.
And that is the fatal flaw in the content farm model.
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Why Is Pap an Issue All of a Sudden?

For years, pap has had a free ride, intermingling with real, high-value content because engines can't actually read a page and say, "that lacked any useful, original material, and... gosh what boring writing!"

It started slowly with the highest-money keywords, keywords with the highest Commercial Intent, such as specific camera models. Clever marketers latched onto review sites as "easy money"...

Are You Missing the 8th "P" of Marketing?

Guest Blogs by SBIers

By Erwin Steneker from customerservicepoint.com

When I was a student of business economics, one of the first things I learned about marketing was the 4 P's of the marketing mix. Coined in 1953 by Neil Borden, the marketing mix talked about 4 instruments or ingredients (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) that a marketer could "mix 'n match."

While the 4 P's made a lot of sense to me, the concept still seemed incomplete, and not quite on the mark. Sure enough, at a later date, the marketing mix expanded to include 3 more P's... People, Process and Physical Evidence.

Many business owners I know focused on those 7 P's, building a marketing mix in ways that made sense to them. Some outcomes were wildly successful, while others were abysmal failures.

What happened to the latter group? Why did a particular marketing mix fly and not the next one? What essential ingredient was missing in the formula?

Beware of Article Spinning: Why Put Your Business At Risk?

Traffic Generation

Article spinning is an artificial way to obtain additional inbound links to your site. It does not reflect a "keep it real and add value" philosophy.

What Is Article Spinning?

Article spinning is basically creating several to dozens (some people create hundreds) of slightly different versions of one article. Those articles are then posted to several dozens (or hundreds) of article marketing sites, with the goal of receiving a link back to the author's site from each article, and the hope that the article will be published on several other sites... 

Nothing Happens By Accident

E-Business Tips

An e-business is all under your control, far more so than in the risky, offline business world. This reality can be summed up as follows...

Nothing happens by accident in the world of computers, the net, and customer response. There is always a reason for what happens, good or bad, and that reason is YOU.

Write this on a yellow stickie and post it near your computer monitor to keep this important e-business lesson front and center in your mind. You do not need Lady Luck or Sir Serendipity. Your online business success depends upon no one else, only you.

Make the needs of your target group your primary focus, the reason behind every action you take. Your desire to earn income always comes second.

Trick or Treat?

Traffic Generation

Many Webmasters, experienced and otherwise, fall into the trap of excessively adjusting or tweaking their Web pages in order to improve search engine (SE) rankings.

The term "Search Engine Optimization" ("SEO") includes both keyword tweaking on a Web page ("on-page criteria") and orchestrating certain off-page criteria, such as inbound links to a website, all with the goal of manipulating search engine rankings.

SEOers are kidding themselves if they think their tricks are anywhere near what search engines really want. SEs are getting better and better at recognizing reality.

So jump one big step ahead of SEOers. Don't fake it. Simply keep it real... 

How Google May Knock You Out This Year, And What To Do About It

Ken's Blog

I recently wrote a 3-part series on pap...

Summary: We are currently witnessing the culmination of a strategy that works...

C T P M

It's a strategy that SBIers have been employing for 10 years with unmatched rates of success.

Like all things that work, too many people (and now, seriously large companies) take the easy way out.

They are creating "pap," content that adds no value to the Web or for people who search for that information. Here are some key features of pap...

The Mobile Search - Facebook Page Connection for Local Businesses

Traffic Generation

What is the single most important thing you need to understand about mobile usage and search? And by mobile, we mean smart phones (iPhone, Android, others that build that type of capability into their phones).

It's all about how and why folks use their phones.

Mobile is about "short and sweet and now." Or as Seth Godin said, it's about "where to eat, who's near me, what's the weather, get me a cab right now -- is all about me and now and here."

Websites are still about traffic-building through search engines, because those folks are sitting down, searching for stuff, ready to invest more time in that type of research.

Meanwhile, social marketing is an adjunct to traffic-building and PREselling, not a replacement...

Creative Keyword Research: All It Takes Is a Little Stimulation

Keyword Research

Getting an idea is extremely hard... when you are trying to get an idea. As a matter of fact, it's amazing how your mind goes blank when you just sit there and try to get an idea.

Most people aren't used to getting ideas, at least not ideas at a life-changing level. When they do get one, they fall in love with the idea, sure that this baby is the only one they'll ever get.

It's not. Pros quickly develop techniques to generate tons and tons of ideas, and then sort them out.

Ask yourself... wherever you are... whatever you hear or see or do...

"How could I develop this idea into a theme-based content site?"

"The Buck Stops Here" for Content Duplication

Traffic Generation

As a general rule of thumb...

Do not reproduce third party articles on your site. Google may hold you responsible for duplicating material. Remember the lines of responsibility -- you are held directly responsible for what is on your site.

You are less liable to get in trouble if others ask to reprint one of your articles on their site and you allow it. But...

Sell What's Between Your Ears!

E-Business Tips

There's a book in everyone. Each of us lives a life of unique circumstances and experiences that results in building a body of knowledge... knowledge that has value and that can be packaged and sold to others as an e-book.

Make Your Knowledge Sell! ("MYKS!") shows you how to find "the infoproduct within," how to create and publish this e-book, and how to market and sell it.

Click here to start reading Make Your Knowledge Sell!.

What problems have you faced, or what mistakes have you made? How did you solve or fix them? What would you have paid to avoid them? What did you learn? Present and promote your knowledge properly, and others will pay to learn from your experience.