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Google Auto
Trina L.C. SchillerGoogles Autolink Is Live
By Trina L.C. Schiller
Googles Autolink is in the news again. No, it did not go away, it actually just got worse!
The Google toolbar is not new news to anyone who has been around for a spell. The Autolink feature has already caused much debate, and has webmasters in a tailspin as to how to protect themselves from it. Well folks, there is some thing you should know.
In The Beginning...
When Google made known its addition of the Autolink feature, they had defended themselves, after receiving a ton of mail about it from webmasters, by saying that the Autolink feature had to be activated by the user. It was the individual toolbar users choice as to whether or not to activate and use it. Autolink is an enhanced service offered by Google.
Yeah, Right!
According to a recent article by Jim Hedger, Google has reversed itself. They have made the default setting for the application active, not inactive, as they had previously claimed.
What Google Autolink does is to add outside links to your web pages, based on keyword relevancy. You, as a webmaster, have no control over what links are added to your site. (Sounds like copyright infringement to me.)
We online professionals, work our fingers to the bone, trying to achieve the highest Google ranking possible, in our desire to make it on the Internet. We work and re-work our copy, page layout, and anything else we think will grab the almighty Googles attention. All this, just to have Googles Autolink take that hard earned visitor to your competitors site. And... To add insult to injury, Google will probably make buckets of money doing it! They claim to stand no financial gain through this, but personally... I find that hard to believe.
Think about this:With millions of new Internet users coming online for the first time, almost daily, how many toolbars do you think will be downloaded from Google? Toolbars are candy to newbies. These newbies are your potential customers, and Google will be snatching them away from you, using your own web site as bait!
The reality is that anyone with a Live Google toolbar in their browser, will have to reset their preference to make Google Autolink inactive, and most users will not know this.
So what can be done about this? Well, for starters, you can protect your site pages with an Google Autolink Killer script. Try to educate those you know. Let people know that if theyre going to use the toolbar, (which I dont recommend anyway...) to turn the Autolink feature off. You can write to Google to complain, but there is too much money in it for them to abandon it. Itll probably have to take a court action to get the thing banned. (Anybody know a good class action lawyer?)
One thing to note about the toolbar itself; it is said to only work in IE (Internet Explorer), so all the more reason to switch to using Firefox, and get everyone else you know to switch too.
About the author:
Copyright 2005
The Trii-Zine Ezine
www.ezines1.com
Trina L.C. Schiller : About the Author
http://www.trinaschiller.ws
Keywords: Google Autolink, google toolbar, google ranking, firefox
Reap More Profits by Opening Your Kimono Chris Ellington"Play your cards close to the vest." "Knowledge is Power."
In the industrial age, knowledge was indeed power. Your manufacturing processes gave you a competitive edge. Knowing how (and where!) to find the oil reserves put you ahead of your competition. It was the Cold War era, there was a lot of spy vs. spy stuff going on. Everyone was paranoid, desperately clinging to each morsel of data like it was the last clean bathroom stall at Woodstock.
But those days are over.
Now were in the information age, and the new mantra is "Content is King". These days, sharing knowledge is power. That power can mean hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in revenue.
Are you sharing your knowledge with your prospective customers? Do you "open the kimono" and allow them to peek behind the scenes into your business, or are you still playing things "close to the vest"?
Certainly there are some things youll want to keep confidential. Im not suggesting that you over-disclose, but the more you share with your target audience, the more likely they are to buy from you and the more quickly you will grow your business.
For instance, I have a business that does article submission for authors ( http://www.ArticleMarketer.com ) and I have taken advantage of many opportunities to openly share what my chief competitors www.submityourarticle.com and www.thephantomwriters.com seem to feel is "confidential" information. They dont seem be interested in sharing information with their prospective customers.
Article submission services are certainly not a new concept on the web, and Im not here to talk about the reasons you should submit articles. I simply want to demonstrate how different business owners approach the concept of sharing information with their prospects, and the difference it makes in results.
Actual results:
At the time of writing this article, my article submission site has been accepting articles for only a few weeks and already hundreds of authors, each representing one or more business interests, have signed up and are submitting their articles through our service.
In contrast, one of my competitors proudly states that he has been in business for almost 5 years and has served "100+ online businesses". Why so few? How come his business is growing so slowly while Article Marketer has grown so fast? Its because we share the information necessary for authors to make a decision.
Another example: http://www.ezinearticles.com is an article repository. Christopher Knight has put together a terrific site that meets the needs of his constituency and he does a great job of sharing information. Hes light years ahead of his competitors www.goarticles.com and www.articlecity.com because he communicates with his customers. Just the other day I received a note from him about a new feature hes added to his system that makes it easier for authors. His competitors dont seem to do the same thing. Ive never heard from them. I hear from Chris regularly.
What Information Should Be Shared?
This is a very easy question for you to answer for your own business. Share whatever information your prospective customers need in order to make a purchasing decision. Share whatever information your existing customers need in order to decide to come back for more.
For my prospective customers (people who want to promote their businesses) this is pretty simple, but my competitors dont seem to do it.
The information we share is one of the main reason weve grown so big, so fast. For instance, right on the home page of my site you can find a long list of some of the places we distribute articles. There is no such list available at my competitors sites.
Of course, publishing this list on my site could potentially give my competitors enough information to steal business away from me - but Im really not worried. Our complete distribution list is so long and diverse that if my competition steals this partial list from me, Im still way ahead of them.
And thats the key to knowing what information should be shared. My prospective customers arent interested in knowing every publisher, editor, content site, article repository, newsletter, forum and distribution list we have on our list, they merely want to see and judge for themselves that our list is comprehensive. Once they see this partial list (about 100 of the sites we submit to), they are satisfied. And thats the goal of your information sharing campaign: to satisfy your prospect.
Another bit of information you can share is a demonstration of other customers (in my case authors) using your services. Thats the reason so many businesses use testimonials. At Article Marketer, weve taken the concept to a whole new level with a "ticker" that scrolls across the screen identifying new authors submitting articles, the titles of recent articles that were submitted, places they were distributed to, articles being distributed in a certain category and its all done in real time. (Go see it for yourself - its pretty cool!)
Its better than any testimonial because it expresses action and demonstrates current activity on the site. Psychologists call it "social proof" Its the reason that crowded booths at trade shows are more popular than deserted booths at trade shows. Its why "seat fillers" are hired to sit in at the Oscars when someone leaves their seat. Its why savvy club owners make sure theres a line outside the door, even if they have to pay line-standers. Crowds draw crowds.
The information you share doesnt have to be confidential. Im not suggesting that you give out your financial data or expose your proprietary methodology, but you do have to give your prospective customers a good sense of what theyre buying.
When youre trying to determine what information to give your prospects, answer these questions: What do I get? If you can show them what they get in such a way that its clearly better than what theyll get anywhere else, theyll be satisfied. Are other people doing it? Using testimonials and other "social proof", allow your prospective customers to peek behind the scenes and get a sense that other people are using your products and services.
Does sharing your information work? Yes. Content is truly king and its going to stay that way for quite awhile.
About the author:
Share your knowledge with the world. Get your expertise out to millions of prospective customers by submitting articles to 1000s of editors and publishers eager to publish them. Visit www.articlemarketer.comand distribute your articles all over the web. www.articlemarketer.com
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