July 2009 Archives

Last night, I spoke on air at Webmaster Radio (dot) FM about the imminent Microsoft Bing and Yahoo! Search deal. As expected, this morning (about 30-minutes ago), Bing announced on Twitter, linking to the official news that Microsoft Bing will power Yahoo!, and that Yahoo! will leverage its considerable relationships with major search advertisers to exclusively handle the advertising side. The deal is reputedly worth guaranteeing advertising dollars for Yahoo!, as Microsoft can easily afford to sweeten the deal that way.

Microsoft will also compensate Yahoo! from traffic and revenue resulting from traffic that originates from Yahoo! sites and affiliated network at a share of 88% over the fist 5 years. Panama and Search seems to have been given over to favor Microsoft Bing Search and Advertising platforms. That appears to be an admission by Yahoo! that Panama just failed to compete.

Paid Inclusion could lose its value when the switch to Bing happens. Unless Yahoo! can insert the feed somewhere with Bing search volume, there's no telling what will happen with inclusion deals past and present. It would be insane to leave that rich content, even when paid, on the table. That's literally leaving money on the table. Either Microsoft or Yahoo! will likely figure out a way to benefit by Paid Inclusion advertisers.

The key to making Paid Inclusion work, is understanding how it might not fit into Bing at all. If not, then finding search volume somewhere down the chain. Popular affiliated sites could make sense as a destination for the feeds. It's just that without being part of Bing, the value of Paid Inclusion is practically lost. Will Yahoo! control the first listings in Yahoo! Search? Or is it wholly over to Bing? Only time will tell what they decide to do. It's looking pretty bad for Paid Inclusion.

In the mean time, there's plenty of time. There needs to be regulatory approval of the deal. I said last night that I expect this would pass with government regulators. After approval, Yahoo! would make the transition within two years. That buys a lot of time for current Paid Inclusion deals to ponder the next strategy. Paid Inclusion will at least be as valuable now as it was yesterday until the deal is approved by government regulators. Even after that, the technical transition could take some months but no longer than two years. If you're an advertiser, plan ahead for this.

The things that are exciting about this news, is a rejuvenated platform to compete for search with Google. Whether that comes from Yahoo! past, Microsoft Bing's future, there's never a good reason to have just one search provider. As is the case with Microsoft's browser division for Internet Explorer, the company relaxed after winning dominant market share leaving room for new upstarts like Firefox. Google's search quality has been in a steady decline since it's wide appeal began in earnest (back in 2002).

Google's search quality has had to endure being the top search provider, and what that means in terms of commercial noise (spam) targeted specifically at undermining their search quality. Big online ecommerce over the last decades have proven that website owners and big box merchants alike will do practically anything to gain top search engine rankings. For the past 7 years, that has meant Google alone, and not Yahoo!. Commercial sites now have to plan for a strong likelihood that Yahoo! Bing will become a contender again.

Yes, Yahoo! could have been a contender. It flippantly dismissed the search back in 2002 when it saved a small fee for Inktomi powered search, and offered Google instead. Google capitalized precisely as Inktomi had warned Yahoo! they would, by just growing their site into the behemoth that it is today. Google's world changed from being a small upstart search engine based on hypertext analysis to a major software provider that competes with Microsoft. Microsoft is now in real danger that Google will make them less and less relevant.

That's today's thriving competitive search marketplace making its way into all sorts of industries. In my opinion, that's the real story here. Google has Android, Chrome OS and cloud computing with applications that traditionally were Microsoft's bread and butter: Office. Google has the online worldwide audience captured by their free offerings including Maps. This is threatening the very core of Microsoft's business in all ways except gaming and their XBox. Microsoft has not done very well with Windows Mobile or Zune.

The XBox, however, is a popular gaming console. During the next 10 years, the period that will coincide with this search deal, search will find its way into every conceivable device and access point across the globe. Apple just rejected Google Voice for the iPhone App marketplace yesterday. Microsoft is already poised as a player, poised as the player that Google must take on directly without flinching. There is room for both which makes the competition even more fierce for dominance in these down stream marketplaces. Just imagine the whole competition.

Stay tuned.

One of the last coffees I had the chance to enjoy before hitting the road back in May, bound for Portland and Bend, was at Intelligentsia. I had the chance to meet at the cafe with SearchReturn link builder Sophie, who is working on two of the most important link building projects. Her rate is consistently over 10% acquisition. She has scored as high as 16% links from high quality webmasters. No reciprocals needed.

When I met with her, we had a coffee. Whenever I get the chance to have a great coffee where they style the top, like they do at Intelligentsia, I take a photo. I have one or two other pictures I took before heading to Portland, Bend and then Seattle, which I'll feature in more posts. Here is a picture of that coffee I had with Sophie back in May.



Sophie is the staff member with the most experience using the link building application. She has been working with the program since it was first developed. Her feedback has become part of the application. We've adopted one or two features based upon her direct suggestions. Sign up for link building, and chances are you'd have Sophie helping with strategy and potentially link building. Her success rate with clients is high.

Stay tuned.

It's been a while since I last optimized my Tweets. It was back in February when I needed some fast rankings for Disa Johnson. I recall looking at the current rankings for my name, noticed rankings appearing quickly for a negative blog posting about me, I immediately commenced my reputation management campaign using Twitter.

It only took hours for Twitter to rank above the blog post that attacked me. Not bad at all. I recorded everything from then on to document the entire process. The thing I didn't like was my Tweets weren't all that natural anymore. I wanted to stop tweaking them for my name. Above all, you have to be authentic in Twitter.

In an interview I gave last Friday, I stressed the authenticity factor for success with Twitter above all others as the most important thing. Sure, there are ways to get your message in. It falls on deaf ears though, unless your Tweets are natural and authentic. Then you can succeed, like I am succeeding.

After I got top rankings by changing my name at my company site Search Return LLC, and I got this 'Disa Johnson' blog started, (started unexpectedly for Reputation Management needs, can you believe it?), then I started another personal blog and a Disa Johnson Bio site. I populated every profile that was ranking in the top 30.

It all worked perfectly. I no longer had to juice my Twitter profile with Disa Johnson. I was ranking perfectly well and basically legally flooding Google, which was the only place the negative post appeared top 10. It's still in the top 10 results but is now slipping again with Twitter. The more the guy writes about me anymore using nasty headlines the more a fight will continue.

Luckily for me, it would now be a fight where the purpose has been successfully usurped by me. The more attention the matter gets from now on, the more my real story gets out in the face of his false facts and hate speech. As long as there is no fight, then I get to make it just a sidebar issue in my life, and simply refer to it for fun every now and again.

To me? That's perfect Reputation Management. I sustained the onslaught of personal attack by a blogger and his fans. I survived intact, lived to tell the tale and at my own pace. Is there a negative ranking? Yes. It's slipping away into the past. Maybe soon it will only surface top 10 using advanced search.

Who knows? Who really wants to promote falsehoods? I'll just point it out where people do, including the original post itself without promoting it in search engines. I think it's become a nasty little liability for the author, not me. That suits me fine. What was strange for me today, was noticing the Twitter ranking is number one again, just like before I changed my name at my company site. Twitter is beating us all on my name even after I started flooding.

I'm not the only one who noticed this new Twitter ranking power. I thought it was just me yesterday when I recorded the ranking change for my own purposes. Then I noticed this Tweet from @ogletree and realized that it isn't just me. That's an interesting development, but not one of great consequence (except a positive thing for my little campaign). It's great for me.

Stay tuned.

Lifestyle Lift (to employee): "Put your wig and skirt on and tell them about the great experience you had." This is taken from an email discovered by the New York State Attorney General's office during an investigation into 'Astroturfing.' You can read more about it here: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/july/july14b_09.html

How many times have you been paid to consult on Reputation Management? How many times have you heard some bad ideas coming from your client? Did you decide to do the right thing? Did you decide to advise them against acting poorly in response? When you have a gut instinct that what they're asking you to do is bad then always choose the right thing to do. It can come back on them. It may come back on you too.

For this one case, (there are many cases where companies have gotten away with Astroturfing), how many times have you heard your clients complain that their competitors are doing bad things in posting reviews? Have you heard clients say that they're considering doing bad things themselves as a response? Have you advised them against it? I hope so. They would be acting in a disingenuous way and you would be party to it.

What about those companies involved in competition who decide to post negative reviews about others? You wouldn't want misinformation written about you. Would you? It's happened to me. Misinformation is finally out there about me too, after more than a decade in business without it. It's hurt my search business. It's really not funny to have happen. It can mean the difference between staying in business or not.

The thing to remind people, is that while they can get away with it while they do it, there is a chance that down the road they could be looking at a hefty fine or something else. Who knows? It's just really never a good idea. I have not quit my own reputation business. Stay tuned on that. This is part of my message in response.

I found myself in a situation where I've had to defend myself for months. It hurts my ability to operate freely. It happens in my rankings where potential clients and partners look for me. A person with the means, decided to attack me in my rankings. He decided to attack me in response after I beat him in a relatively small, private legal matter regarding his use of images that belonged to me.

Can you imagine that I asked for a call to correct his mistakes? I demanded he take down images that belong to me. I have that right, don't I? He never called me. Instead, he posted additional misinformation that spun it to make himself look like the victim. As if! He promoted his posts with Twitter, Sphinn and Digg. At least it was deleted from Sphinn as (personal attacks) should be. It still ranks on search for my name. Damage done.

It's mean. It hurt. His audience could care less about what's real. They thought it was all pretty funny, funny that it was even happening at all. Never mind how I felt. Never mind the truth getting in the way of a funny, viral joke. Some of his friends thought it was fun to participate. It was actually very mean-spirited. One of the comments from the OP called me an 'it' (as if I didn't belong to the human family).

There was much worse from his audience. I had an actual privately delivered threat which hinted at physical attack. All of this (except the threat) is still online, ranking. His headline makes sure it sticks by clicks. The trick post has staying power that way. It's SEO gone bad. It's when reputation management goes wrong. He lost a small legal matter. He chose to attack me publicly in response.

It's never a good idea. He spun it around and attacked me as if I had a problem. I have a problem with him having used my images, posting misinformation, then continuing to publish additional misinformation, promoting it to the point it resulted in physical threats against me. Imagine asking someone to stop using images of you that were used without permission, then ultimately being physically threatened for it.

Imagine being told to never show your face in public again. It was pretty frightening, actually. I was called by some really hateful names. All I could do was gather evidence of what occurred, keep myself from responding anywhere but with my own websites. That way I can rank alongside it all with my message, just as I would suggest to for my clients.

I don't need to promote this article in Twitter, Sphinn or Digg. It wouldn't really matter if it was promoted. It would result in more people searching my name and clicking whatever result, including the bad one just to read the tabloid. Patience and discretion are virtues I have from acting professionally for decades.

A few clicks and a little attention to this isn't going to hurt me any more than I've hurt already. It'll rank just fine. I really don't need to promote my personal brand. Read about who I really am here: Disa Johnson. Time is on my side. As the Rolling Stones would say: "Yes, it is."



I recovered my composure. I quickly began ranking on words I originally had no use for, (including my own name). It's useful to me now. I'll make it so. One thing is true: I kept my cool as much as anyone could under the circumstances. I felt like I had ended up as my own client, (but without the pay).

I managed to effect some positive change so that the other postings at least stopped ranking well on my friend's name. It's still ranking on her name, but at least not on page one anymore. Once indexed, these things can last practically forever. That's why I have ample opportunity to pull anything up as examples, even if he chooses to delete all his stuff. He dabbled in hate, which is dangerous for him long-term.

It's still ranking in the middle of page one on my name. I am the one with the story to tell since the truth resides with me anyway. I did what I could to minimize it. I'll do what I can short of refraining from telling my story. I had always planned to write a book. I can afford to do way more than he can. It still hurts.

The thing that really had me decide to write about this again on a blog (at this point), was that Michael Arrington of TechCrunch decided to publish materials that were sent to him by a hacker who stole email from the founders of Twitter. I really think that was crass of Arrington, (crass like what happened to me), but to a far greater extent more damaging to Twitter than what happened to me.

The communications Arrington published were meant to remain private, just like my legal notice was sent privately. Arrington and the nuisance blogger both share that they decided to publish stuff they shouldn't, just because they can. They both claimed that the 'newsworthiness' of publishing the materials gave them the right to do so. That's the same instinct that attracted my harassment in the echoes of later commentary.

From a criminal legal standpoint, it may be true that they're safe from prosecution for this behavior. At least their attorneys seem to be reassuring them they can do what they want without worrying about criminal liability. They may be confident too, that the likes of Twitter wouldn't file a civil suit, one which they wouldn't be perfectly happy to defend.

That's just rich. The attorney's are going to make a mint off the case if a Twitter civil suit ensues. The whole thing has lost its integrity a long time ago. There is very low journalism here except that which would interest a tabloid 'newspaper.' Arrington has profited greatly at the personal expense of Twitter and its employees.

It all came at a cost, in my opinion at least, that TechCrunch has become a 'popular' online tabloid to me. Perhaps that was the hacker's aim? Arrington even claimed, wrongly, that he had been given a green light to publish it. This is much like what I experienced with false claims about what I had said and done in private.

People are gullible. There were no discussions with me whatsoever. I can only imagine what may have not transpired with Twitter ...which Arrington claims as fact. Citizen journalism at its best? My personal experience drove me to such sarcasm about blogs and using my newest blog for it. Love the irony in that.

I am not happy about these transgressions happening to us and the Web. It's further evidence to me that people will do anything to promote their personal brand at the expense of others. I don't think the personal email correspondence from Twitter should be in the hands of a hacker, much less a bad actor like Michael Arrington.

Arrington's personal brand increases at the expense of Twitter and its employees. The Web's gawking users lose too. This brings me to my latest musings on the industry. I hope given Google's good financial news that this moment ushers in more signs of economic recovery for us all. Maybe we'll all act better if there's ample business for everyone.

It's a wish. I think Internet marketing has its place. Even when I came into marketing during the mid-1990's without any sense for marketing, (but from technology), marketers were paying the bills. I had to overcome an automatic disdain for marketing. I learned it. Don't fall for the 'All Marketers are Liars' sense for marketing things. Don't trade integrity for cheap plastic thrills. I've done my best to avoid dressing anything up too much.

Take this stark contrast between images of fast food in advertisements, versus images of the real food. Makes me feel queasy, looking at that. It just shouldn't feel right to market things with lies. Intentional misspellings hurt me a lot during the assault on my personal being. Leave lying to the unscrupulous. Listen to your instincts and act with the better nature of your personal being.

Let the lying marketers lie. They lose in the end. I might have made more money in my life. I chose to avoid marketing anything that doesn't seem right to me. Some would say, leaving money on the table is not smart. I would challenge them to a game of marketing chess. I can whip them on that point. The fact is, wealthy living with money has its own costs. A tabloid life of plastic thrills doesn't appeal to me.

A greater experience from doing things smartly, a person ends up enjoying a higher sense of being a class act. That's my way of living richly with what I have, within adequate financial means (that affords me plenty of life's luxuries). I don't have actual needs that aren't satisfied. There's room for me to grow financially, too. It should be thought of as part of the whole that makes a life of intention.

I argue it's a far better pathway to improve one's personal abilities for life, than to work like the Dickens to afford an excessively large house, (especially with today's economic environment). Most of these things people do, especially to obtain cheap plastic thrills including the all out assault on my online personality, seem to require them to increase their own personal brands. All too often, this comes at someone else's expense.

You'll see people with a gullible audience talking about how it's 'all about your personal brand.' These tend to be the sort that attack others. Don't listen to it. Make sure that your own personal brand has nice qualities. It's about authenticity. Not all marketers have to be liars. Not all personalities have to be offensive.

I would think you want your brand to promote an amalgamation of the better parts of society. Promote life online where life online meets the reality out on the street (or in the countryside). Discover where you truly fit in the scheme of this modern life. Live a life of good intentions. It's your ultimate marketing message where all others originate.

If you've followed my story at all, (chances are that you haven't), but you might see some strong hints about how I really feel about what happened with my own little saga. So, let it play. If you have 30-minutes or so, I highly recommend taking a look at the following video: "The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube Culture, Politics of Authenticity."

Stay tuned!