you will be able to read more here.

Added: You can also go to the final destination which is right here.

Go check it out and leave some comments!

I sometimes wonder why so many people out there don’t really understand how Google works. There are questions about the next PR update, where to buy links, how to change your site and what else can be done to move up in the search engine.
I got ranked by Google before I even tried to figure out Google and mainly because I asked myself what I can do to increase affiliate sales with the traffic I’m already getting.
Back in 1999 I’ve registered 400 domain names and was led to an affiliate program which I redirected many of the domain names to.
I started making money and a friend of mine suggested he’d host one of the domain names and I started building a few pages redirecting my domain name traffic to them.
So let’s say I was getting traffic related to diamond rings.
I would add a cj text link, a little bit of text and from there build new pages about flowers and added another banner.
Soon Google would start sending me traffic, sales started coming in and eventually I started ranking for gift related terms.
Google loves to send traffic to sites that seem to have a lot on whatever people are looking for.

If there is one thing Google provides, it’s variety in search results.
Try typing in “cigarettes” in msn and you will see 10 pages of sites selling the same cigarettes.
Do the same in Google and you will also find a lot of results with government information, anti smoking related subjects and wikipedia.
A page from Fox News is popping up as well.
I’m looking at the top result below wiki and Cig Outlet pops up, a site with tons of content.
If Google sees you as a site with a lot to offer, it figures the likelihood of web searchers finding something they’re looking for is high and they are willing to get you listed for terms that strong. It enables them to give variety, because how many pages of the same thing do you really need?
Not only do you get authority sites, when the term is commercial, adwords will provide additional results.
For the life of me I cannot figure out why the other search engines haven’t tried harder to please their visitors and the only explanation I have is that msn and Yahoo! are just so lazy and complacent, they simply don’t have to work hard on providing good results.

Google aims to please.
Google has for years made a lot less money and focused on increasing quality. Now this has changed, but Google still is superior to the other search engines and will remain to be just that.

What should you do if you have a site and want to make money with it?

It sounds simple, but you need to forget about Google and just do what you believe will convert traffic into sales. Also give people a reason to come back again and again and provide information that not everyone has.

In this day and age, the directory link sales are in full swing and it’s created a big mess. I am often surprised by how much money some companies put into buying links not even understanding how much more effective it would be to find links that help you with direct traffic as well.

A couple of years ago me and “incredibill” rode in my car from the Las Vegas Hotel to the Webmaster Convention and one of the points made by him was how important it is to NOT depend on Google. His insight on how Google rewards you for “real links” was priceless and even though I haven’t spoken to him since, the conversation with him is one of those that will stay with me for the rest of my career.

Many of the newbies in the forum circuit are drawn in by the devil of lights, the “success stories” of web directories getting 100 submissions daily and they don’t seem to understand the effort that needs to be put into a project to really make it successful long term speaking.

BOTW, Go Guides, Yahoo!, Business.com, Joe Ant … all of those make huge bucks from submissions. So do some DMOZ editors.
Will those directories ever get canned?

No!

Why?
Because they have been around for ages. The other day I have come across this thread and made a comment here.

This comment I stand behind 100%.
You can make a web directory about anything and be financially successful.
But you need to have something to offer.
Starting a general directory is not recommended unless you really have a cool concept or something going for yourself that hasn’t been done better by 100 people before you.

The Digitalpoint Directories section is over and done with and posting your signature may do more harm than good if it’s just another web directory in there.
Take it from me, I know!

Mike

This just cracked me up

I hope you told him to move Blogspot blog
to his own domain name. I’ve tried to tell him on his blog once in a comment and he said “nah, I’m cool Mike”.

Added: Talking about Hammer, this cracked me up as well:

You have to be in Central America to understand what sort of a big deal CAFTA is. Here they call it TLC, Tratado de Libre Comercio.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement would enable private companies such as AT&T to move in and everything here would change drastically considering we only have a government owned division providing phonelines, internet lines and cellphone lines.
And guess what, right now they are out of GSM cell phone chips, so unless you buy a phone from someone who has already one registered, you have to wait.
I think it’s inevitable to have CAFTA come in place.
I don’t want too much of a change for Costa Rica, but believe that this country will benefit from it long term speaking. What do you think?

I am a part of a few networks down here and can tell you that doing business in Costa Rica is easy. You can get a Costa Rica Corporation for cheap and pay almost no taxes even when doing business internationally. The real estate market down here is great and there are many great resources out there to help you get started in Costa Rica.

If you consider doing business in Costa Rica and need help with phone lines and some info on where business people from all over the world meet on a regular basis, feel free to hit me up!

This is where I live, Santa Teresa. It is considered one of the top 5 spots for surfing in the whole world. One of the best surfers in the world made a derogatory remark about surfing in Costa Rica, but the fact is that the waves here are steady. Especially at the point by La Lora where you have the party of the week each Saturday night.

I cannot say it enough, Santa Teresa is THE place to be in Costa Rica. I don’t like Quepos or Jaco or Tamarindo. Those places suck because the Gringos there suck.

ST and Malpais are cool!

Here are some songs I still like

Ready or Not

Elton John - Nikita

Chris de Burgh - Lady in Red

Atlantic Starr - Always

My dream has always been to become a famous music producer one day and being a keyboard player, I love how songs like these blend.

Even though as I get older, I recognize how cheesy some of those tunes really are.

That is why I like Phil Collins so much, he has energy and passion at the same time, so here are more songs he made and songs he has been a part of:

Bad Love Eric Clapton, produced by Phil and of course he is also on the drums:

No one is to blame Howard Jones (Phil produced and drummed):

I believe him and Phil become friends during the Band Aid recording of Do they know it’s Christmas.

3 years after Howard did What is Love which is I believe one of the best keyboard based songs EVER:

Back in the early 80s music from Britain was on the bottom, even though Duran Duran and some other bands like that had style and something unique to them.

With or without you U2

Me and Bono have 2 mutual friends even though I never met him (yet)

Unchained Melody???

Sorry about posting so much about music, but internet marketing only inspires me so much.

This is my personal blog and whatever I like will be on here, so skip down to whatever you’re interested in and ignore this.

Just noticed on YouTube that it’s only an LLC and not a corporation. Seems strange to me. I know that its owned by Google, but something of that size not being it’s corporation is something that I didn’t expect.
Check it on the bottom of this:
Phil Collins on the drums

I never liked the song til I learned it on the keyboard. Got 4 chords thru the verse, but great change in keys within it. Phil sucks on the keyboard and plays simple, but he managed to make the most out of it.

Love this song. His lyrics are often so weird. He said in a 1996 interview that this song was inspired by people in mental institutions. He imagined being stuck in one and trying to find his way home.

Well, if that’s what it takes to write songs that the world knows, then so be it.

For the past few months netscape has been the hidden secret around spammers with some of the user profiles reaching PR7 and stories appearing page one Google for terms like viagra. Well, recently netscape has announced that they would move the section, close it or whatever and it seems like it’s happened. netscape.com redirects to aol now.
What once started as a newschannel with news provided by users has soon turned into a spam channel with people voting each others spam submissions and moderators/editors losing control
The quality of submissions or lack thereof deleted any value or interest to the end user and reader.

It’s a good choice for netscape to do this.

The old story urls seem to still be indexed and ranked, but it seems like nobody can access their accounts right now. Stay tuned …