live.com/msn.com refferal spam

I keep getting some traffic from live/msn with referrals such as: cars, house, etc. on pages which have nothing to do with such keywords. This is very strange, I have no idea who started this and what are the benefits.

Calculate your website value

It's always hard to tell how much is your site worth, because there are so many factors involved. You can calculate now automatically using these tools:

# http://www.websitevaluecalculator.com/
# http://www.dnscoop.com/

Of course don't expect something very accurate, but at least you can have some fun or you can feel rich for some moments.

Suspended WidgetBucks Account - Click Fraud

Today I got this email from Widgetbucks. I was never involved in any click frauds, but I think the real reason why they suspended my account and many other accounts it seems, is because of the conversion. They were paying good, an average of 30 cents for a click. But how many of those clicks actually convert? I guess they had to pay the advertisers much much more than the money they earned from amazon and their other sponsors, so they decided to start suspending accounts.

I knew from the start they will be in trouble because Widgetbucks' fancy ads attract clicks but not conversions.

Another clue for their inevitable failure is their motto "Ads suck. Ours don't." Come on!! A serious company would not use this.

And one more, their official blog in on blogger.com. Who is so dumb to host their site in the servers of competitors? Because when you want to sell ads like they do, google becomes your competitor.

And more: At some point they sent some email claiming that they have a new ad code which is much faster. Bull $#!+ !!! The reason for the new code was a hidden link which they were spreading, and this made their site and maybe some sites of the honest publishers to get penalized by Google.

There is only one conclusion in this story, STAY AWAY FROM WIDGETBUCKS!

phplinkdirectory "top hits" cheating

After analyzing the apache logs of my phplinkdirectory, I found some weird requests. After digging more into the problem, it seems like people click their own links or use automated software to do so, so in case you sort your directory listings by the number of visits/clicks they will get top positions in their category and also a top permanent spot in the "top hits" section. Basically they play with cl.php and use their id. And they do this from different IP addresses using proxies.

Announce your directory

Do you have a new web directory? You want people to know about it as soon as possible?

You should list it in the following forums:

# Iwebtool - Your Directory
# Vilesilencer - Directory Promotion & List Suggestions
# PhpLinkDirectory - Advertising and Exchanges
# IndexScript - Web Directory Announcements
# Best General Directory Forum - Directory Annoucements
# Talk Directories - Solicitations & Announcements
# Directories Forum - Advertise
# WebMaster Talk - Submit to My Directory
# WebMaster Desk - Directory Announcements
# Kahuki Forums - Directory Announcements
# V 7 N - Directory Announcements & Promotions
# Directory Owners - Directory Review