Net neutrality is about allowing the telcos to dictate prices on a case-by-case basis instead of equal pricing for all consumers. What this means is that Google - a company I dislike - has a high stock price and without net neutrality AT&T (or whoever their local carrier is) can hike up the price of bandwidth just for Google. As much as I disagree with Google, they should not be hamstrung by their internet carrier and neither should any other online business.

While the Republicans are in favor of creating a business-safe environment their fear of government controls is clearly clouding their judgment on this issue.

“When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment.” -Sen John McCain

Mr. McCain, I agree 100%. You should absolutely get a profit for your work. You should not be able to screw companies over on a case-by-case basis when you are a utility.

While the telcos merge to become the all-new-all-different… AT&T… uh… wait… it’s not new, it’s not different and this company was already broken apart once for anticompetitive practices. Why would anyone expect them to behave differently?

Ok, people can change and businesses are made of people so maybe AT&T can change. Though my experience with them just a couple years ago says different. AT&T bought out Comcast, the local cable TV supplier and the customer service was horrible. Rates were increased. And soon AT&T sold the Sacramento area back to Comcast. There were investigations launched to determine what the hell went on there because the whole thing stunk and a lot of consumers got screwed.

So, maybe they’ve changed in the last couple of years and really have our best interests at heart.

Why would they be lobbying for anything other than net neutrality then?

Net neutrality means everyone who competes online gets the same pricing based on fair market conditions. These conditions and price ranges are set by the government which is unfortunate though I don’t see a better alternative.

Removing net neutrality creates a hostile business environment and severely damages smaller businesses ability to compete. Removing net neutrality also creates an opportunity to reduce the freedom of speech that is enjoyed online.

This is why the Republicans are Wrong and why Net Neutrality is the Most Important Issue in this Presidential Election

If a competitor to the local telco starts building traction all the telco has to do is increase their rates to limit the competitor or completely wipe them out. Telcos are into many different services including the familiar long-standing telephone service.

Telcos offer Internet Service Provider (ISP) services. The ISP market is competitive and eliminating net neutrality would destroy that increasing internet access costs for general consumers and businesses.

Consider other services (I found all of these on AT&T’s website): Email, DNS, Digital TV (think: SureWest), VoIP Phone (think: Vonage), Managed IT Services/Networking, Website Hosting, Hosting and Application Services, VPN Services, IP Blocks, Specialized Software Engineering, and Integrated Solutions.

As more jobs are being outsourced away from the United States, giving telcos dictator-like power over what companies survive online seems pretty stupid to me.

Now consider a website that speaks against telcos (like this one is doing right now). To eliminate this “threat” a telco can just increase costs of bandwidth for that one site.

Consider education and how it is flourishing online. Now consider politics. If a politician wants to eliminate websites dedicated to an issue he opposes, he can make a deal with the telcos to surge-price those websites.

This is giving away too much power to people that have a demonstrated lack of character or regard for anyone beyond themselves. Even in the current environment telcos charge outrageous prices for simple services - just ask anyone that works in a data center. Connecting one carrier to another comes with a price tag of $800 per month for 3 feet of cable. Local loop charges are even more extreme.

Like I said at the start, I agree telcos should be able to make a profit. That’s good business and good for the economy. Being able to control the flow of communication within the US with price-gouging should be beyond the power of telcos.

Republicans should remember why they hate taxes

Taxes increase costs and damage a business’ ability to compete effectively. Giving telcos the power to price-gouge is effectively letting an independent business with no controls the ability to “tax” at will.

Why the War is Not as Important as Net Neutrality

There are two reasons the war in Iraq is not as important as net neutrality:

1. The war is temporary. It may drag on longer than you like but eventually it will be complete, or as complete as we decide to make it and we’ll move on. Net neutrality is an issue that will directly affect every American and every generation of American from here on out.

2. None of the politicians really know what to do about Iraq but they can all do something about net neutrality.

I am a long-standing Republican and I will absolutely vote for the candidate that stands for net neutrality - even if they are a Democrat. I hope, pray and suggest that anyone who reads this does so also.

Posted in Business Owners, Website Designers, SEOs, Promotion, Industry News, Marketing, SEO, Web Design

4 Comments »

This story broke in August but it’s heating up again because MSN is still up to something.

MSN has been referral spamming websites. This means they “ping” a site with a bot acting like a human and leaving a link in the referral logs back to MSN’s website.

Spammers do this hoping you will check your logs and follow the links back to their site where you will make a purchase, click an ad, etc. MSN claims this is a “quality check” but what kind of QC wreaks havoc on your primary competitor’s ad program?

Microsoft’s bots are triggering some javascript including the one used for Google Adsense. You may recall that the click through rate determines the quality (value per click) of ads placed on your sites. With MSN’s referral spamming they are racking up impressions but not clicks damaging your CTR and ultimately, income. Continue Microsoft still referral spamming, jacking Adsense »

Posted in SEOs, Business Owners, PPC, Industry News, SEO

1 Comment »

Ron Paul has taken over social websites like Reddit. Conquered the poles of Fox News. And spammed thousands of other websites and email addresses.

The “Ron Paul Effect” has created mainstream media attention. And people are wondering if winning online will mean votes at the primary election.

Most politicians treat online promotion as part of their offline PR. Online calls to action are not like their offline counterparts. This means online political activities don’t turn into action – votes - by viewers.

Ron Paul’s campaign is for internet users. Paul’s tactics are producing results, online and off.

Through online efforts, his campaign has raised millions of dollars. The buzz has poured into the offline world and claimed attention from international news programs and political pundits.

Will Ron Paul take his online victory to the offline world? Continue Can the internet win the presidential election? »

Posted in Sales and Marketing, Promotion, Industry News

4 Comments »

Since the Adsense Tips from an Expert post, I’ve been paying attention to how much money Adsense is bringing in. Over the past couple of months, I’ve also been learning more about accounting. The combination of these two events is leading to new sources of profit for me and the inspiration behind many of the recent changes on this site.

I’ve been learning more about the Adsense program and how it works, experimenting with different methods of tracking and devising ways to project future earnings. Through this process I’ve stumbled quite a bit and discovered the numbers weren’t adding up… in other words the actual events didn’t match what my brain thought should be happening.

It looks like I’ve finally discovered a working system for tracking and projecting financial growth through Adsense. These are my tips from my limited experience, but I thought you may be interested in the things I look at and how I come to my conclusions.

Adsense is an earner but it is not a “get rich quick” scheme

I make a little money on Adsense each month. I have for years but it hasn’t been until recently that the income was worth looking at. I’m not ready to retire but steady growth and an understanding of what’s going on has encouraged me.

The growth is the key. By tracking everything at first and figuring out how all the bits of information relate to each other I have figured out how to encourage even more growth.

Unfortunately, the answer is to keep working at it! Continue How to set goals and make projections with Adsense earnings »

Posted in PPC

7 Comments »

I have been running Google referral ads on a few pages of my web site. Google Referral ads for those who don’t know are very similar to regular content ads except you pick the advertiser and it is NOT pay per click. To receive payment from a Google Referral ad the person clicking through must complete a predetermined action like filling out a form or actually completing a final purchase. As you may expect the pay-out is much higher than that of a content ad click through. As it states in the referral ad set up, “Choose up to 15 products or specific ads to rotate in the referral unit. You can also choose categories and keywords to ensure you get newer ads as they become available.” There are numerous categories to choose from and overall a large number of advertisers/products available.

My site was accepted to run referral ads a few months ago. I Have enjoyed 4 conversions so far, less than one a month, after numerous impressions and very few clicks - my site averages 40,000 unique visitors a month. Like any publisher I want to increase the click thru rate (CTR), I try to place ads that are relevant to the page but don’t think I’m doing a very good job, content ads are getting 100 times the click rate on the same pages - I have swapped ad locations with similar results. Could be a few reasons for the very low CTR, one being that “Referral ads by Google” is bigger and draws more attention than “Ads by Google”, my ad picking (this is most likely) and the heading tag used by the advertiser - referral advertisers are not taking the same time in referral ad creation as with content ads. I think Google should remove “referral” from the ad and have it display as the other types of ads do.

Good luck using the advanced reports to recall referral data - I think the old TI-99 4A I owned back in the early 80’s could process the information faster. It appears the problem is the impressions, has to be as the other data you could count on your fingers. The impressions are not from each time an ad unit is displayed but from each ad that is displayed within the unit (skewing the crap out of real results, well at least what we publishers are used to), have a 3 ad unit display once it counts as 3 impressions.

As I discussed the pay out for a conversion can be much higher than a content click through. From the advertisers prospective it is a great thing - basically 100% profit without any risk. Also, I looked and cannot find the answer to this question - if I have an affiliate ad on my site and a person clicks through I will get credit for a purchase even if a person makes that purchase much later, could be months later. Both the advertiser and the publisher are aware of how much time the referred shopper has to buy. Does the person clicking through a Google referral ad have to complete the action required for publisher pay out during the first visit? Until I hear different I will think this is the case.

Google Referral ads could be a win-win-win but I am afraid it is just a win for the advertiser and Google. It goes a long way in making the advertisers happy and is a little payback I guess for all the fraudulent click throughs in the past (I mean when it was really bad). Lose for the publisher - until an advertised time span is placed on the conversion beyond initial shopper visit and advertisers get serious about writing ads which will draw more clicks (my click through to conversion rate is actually pretty good) and most important we publishers get smarter about picking the ads, don’t let the payout be your only determining factor as tempting as that is.

Even after saying all this, I will continue to run referral ads on my site because of what can happen - it really is a beautiful thing when a conversion happens on a high paying referral ad, damn near better than sex…damn near.

Posted in PPC

6 Comments »