SEO Dave wrote:

> On 7 Mar 2005 23:34:54 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
> wrote:
>
>>SEO Dave wrote:
>>
>>> On 6 Mar 2005 07:14:16 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
>>> wrote:
>>
>>[ SEO ]
>>
>>>>"focus on content", the true basics, fits on a post it note.
>>>
>>> That's not really SEO since the above will not alone get a site
>>> traffic.
>>
>>Works for me.
>
> You keep forgetting to take into account you have a PR7 home page.

You keep forgetting that getting the PR7 took time :-D.

> That alone gives you a boost most here can only dream about.

To me PR mostly gives one faster googlebot visits. Also, PR6 is easy to
get, I was able to make a new site (some time ago) PR6 with just a few
links.

> To put it into context you might have more link power with your
> relatively small number of pages (I'm assuming you have far less than
> 1000 pages)

Yup, currently, yes.

> compared to the 100,000+ I have (soon to be increased
> significantly).

Oh, if I want I can do that too. It's quite easy to create 1,000,000
pages or more. Problem is, everybody can do that.

> I haven't looked at your sites in detail, so only
> going on the very rough PR as a guide to SEO 'power'. As you know PR
> is log based,

Of course I know :-D.

> probably around base 6 to 8,

I think 8, (which is 2^3)

> so your PR7 could be 6+
> times more 'powerful' (very close to a PR8) than mine (if mine are
> very low PR7s). Or it could be the other way around with mine more
> powerful than yours.

Yup.

> I know what links from a PR7 page can do with regards SERPs, so part
> of any traffic you get has a lot to do with the PR not just content.

Untrue.

> If you took your content, how ever good and put it on a brand new
> domain with enough links to get it indexed (say a few PR4 links) and
> did nothing other than basic on site SEO things, you'd be lucky to get
> above 50 visitors a day.

If I copy the content, maybe. If I rewrite it so it basically tells the
same story, I think I will get 1000 visitors a day (because a lot of
hits I get are via direct links) and it will grow in 1-2 months to the
3000+ I today got.

So you are wrong, which is understandable since "I haven't looked at
your sites in detail"

> With your PR I'd guess without any SEO at all you'd probably get
> around 4 to 500 visitors a day, with basic on site SEO maybe 2000,
> with very good on site SEO 4000+ visitors a day.

I think 3000+ is the max at the moment, and even you can't improve that
without adding extra content ;-)

> I've had a quick look at your site now and I'd put it at above basic
> SEO level.

Of course, I mean, since hey, it can't be close to SEODave, the SEO king
:-D.

> Biggest problem though (and I'm digressing a lot from this
> thread) is the diverse content.

Yup, it's a personal page, and I like a lot of diverse stuff :-D.

> The traffic your site is likely to
> bring in isn't really targeted at SERPs you are likely to make money
> from!

Probably you should have a second look at my site ;-)

> For example this page http://johnbokma.com/pet/scorpion/ and
> similar, are you really wanting traffic from visitors looking for a
> site about Pet Scorpions, Scorpions and similar SERPs.

Yes, since it's my personal site, never intended to make money (although
at the moment it almost pays my rent ;-) ).

> I'd guess way
> over half your traffic is like this,

Your guess is wrong :-D

> which seems a waste of link power
> IMO.

Because you are guessing ;-)

> Take my advice, keep those pages, but remove the home page links to
> them so your important pages (ones you make money from) get a lot more
> PR/link benefit).

The site is for visitors, not for guessing SEO wannabees.

> So you mean focus on body text rather than links and other SEO
> factors? If you have a PR7 home page it will work to a degree.

If you want to sell something what counts more do you think? The SEO
trick of the week (which can drop your business of the chart tomorrow),
or content that's attractive to the visitor and nudges him/her into
buying? Do you go for the 1,000,000 visitors a day, with 10 buyers (and
a possibility to drop to 10,000,000 visitors over night, and zero
buyers), or 1,000 visitors a day with 20 buyers?

>>Yup, also SEO of the above kind relies on tricks that might stop
>>working after a few months, and then those people complain how bad
>>Google works nowadays etc.
>
> It relies on links,

I get plenty of links because I have good content. What do you not
understand about that? Also, since people make those links the anchor
text is most often on topic so to say :-D

> not tricks. There is no trick in adding a pages
> keywords to the anchor text of it's inbound links.

Depends on how it's done ;-)

>>> Focus on content and an invoice for $100 :-))
>>
>>If it works for that site, I doubt the client will complain ;-)
>
> LOL

Yup, that's business Dave. If a customer pays me 100 USD, and he is able
to get that investment back in, say one month, it means next month he
makes an extra 100 USD. It isn't that hard to understand sound business.

>>Moreover, rather a good advice on how to improve the content than some
>>tricks that work today, and drop the customer's site out of Google
>>tomorrow. Focussing on short term tricks was fun in the previous
>>century, now I am a bit more serious ;-)
>
> But it's been shown content alone doesn't do much with Google.

By whom?

> Make a
> new site and keep it's PR low for 6 months, add as much quality
> content (optimized or not) and see if you still think "improve the
> content" is the most important SEO advice you can give?

Good content gives me every day new back links. Every day more. And some
are on important sites. For example, I never added myself to DMOZ,
blogs, or wikis.

I agree that with a virgin site it takes some work to get noticed. But
once you are noticed it's just adding good content to get people back,
make links. And thanks to all those links I get a nice PR, meaning
Googlebot visits me very often, meaning I can kick new pages within 12
hours in Google. Since I focus on the content, I get visitors, who link,
etc. So my site is now self sustained and it will grow.

>>No. If a user can't use a tool, you can't blame the tool, period.
>
> Err, yes. You don't purchase a piece of software like Dreamweaver to
> use it as a text editor.

Weird, since most people purchase for example Office without using 90%
of it's features.

>>It's the same as you require 10 real shops, 100+ real shops. Or if you
>>want 10 computers with DW or 100+.
>>
>>Most software sellers give you discounts, especially with 100+
>
> Not this one.

Then live with it. What's an investment of 500 USD in the first world?

>>If you can't get the 500 USD investment back in a month, don't start a
>>shop on the Internet.
>
> How many online shops have you run then? Do you generally spend money
> when you don't necessarily have to?

Since you need a shopping cart it's necessary.

>>Since you clearly can't pay for a good design,
>>good content, etc.
>
> Sorry!! How does what I've posted equate to the above??

A good design for each shop will cost you more than a measily 500 USD.
Unless you consider a free template downloaded, tweaked, etc. a good
design.

>>You mean the free ride? That's rarely a sound base for a business
>>anyway. Most business grow because they invest money, and moreover,
>>because they don't waste time complaining over something insignificant
>>as 500 USD, a major part of their business.
>
> ROFLOL and this is from someone who couldn't afford to buy a new
> workstation when they started up http://johnbokma.com/sgi/

You clearly have no idea how much an SGI workstation costs?

> How many
> days did you waste hunting for second hand PCs then?

The funny thing: none :-D. My partner had good contacts with a guy who
was able to sell us a second hand workstation at less than 10% of the
value of the same (!) workstation new. Oh, and believe me less than 10%
is still about twice as much as people are willing (or were willing) to
pay for a peecee.

> I bought a new computer system when I started a business :-)

Good for you. We could have bought 2 for the price we payed for the SGI
Indigo. And since I was a student at that time I was able to get the
development software at a Varsity license. Software that would have cost
us the price of about 2 new peecees.

>>Did you suggest this to them? Sometimes you have to give someone an
>>idea
>>:-D. Or make them an offer, something like: we want a 100 license,
>>:but,
>>we pay USD 30,000
>
> Isn't this a contradiction to your other advice about making so much
> money why care about initial costs and not wasting time?

Nop. I don't see writing one email with an offer (or maybe better a
phone call) not as wasting time.

> What has the turnover got to do with NOT wasting money? I don't care
> if the sites are going to make a million a year,

They probably never will.

> I'll go with the best
> solution at the best price. Lowering overheads without compromising on
> quality is very good business sense.

Whining about a few bucks and putting a lot of time in the whining, is
not. Most businesses don't work because people are wasting all their
time in saving money. Doing everything themselves, instead of hiring
people who can do it better in a quarter of the time.

>>And each of them is not able to make the 500 USD in a few weeks?
>>Amazing.
>
> I hope you don't deal with the finances in your house!! I bet double
> glazing sales men like you as well :-)))

If you had read a bit better, you would have been able to grasp the
message a bit better: invest when you need it. But probably you prefer
to read that as: throw your money away like a silly ass. I mean,
admitting that your complaints are not business like is probably way
harder.

>>It's peanuts Dave, I have no idea how you do business, but if you hire
>>me (which you can't or so it sounds) there is very little I can do for
>>$1500 :-D.
>
> LOL
>
> That wasn't what you said when you sent me a quote a few months back
> for a project. If I recall correctly your quote was the lowest at
> around $500. That was building a database driven website which tends
> to be expensive (most quotes over $2000).

Since you have no problem with making private info public, I quote:

<quote>
"Basically I supply a CSV file (or other format, easy to convert) with
a list of over 2000 'products' and an indication of what each of the
11 variables represent (might be a few other variables) and where I
roughly want them on a page etc..."

Done this for several people. Basically my own sites are generated from
file(s), and published statically.

Rough quote depends a bit on what you exacly want. Using PHP to create
pages on the fly from a CSV file is a bit overhead. If the CSV file is
quite static, I would recommend using Perl to create the files on your
machine, and upload them. I canmake that only files with a change are
uploaded.

Rough quote would be like 500 USD
</quote>

As you read carefully you can see that it's not a "database driven
website" I offer for 500 USD but a script that turns CVS into HTML.

And yes, a Perl programmer with 11 years of experience can do that in 5
hours (100 USD/hour)

> $500 would have been a bargain for what I wanted, but we went with an
> alternative solution.

Then I guess you didn't want CVS to HTML conversion. Or otherwise: you
complain about 500 USD as being a lot, while on the other hand you
ignore a bargain.

>>> The problem arises when we start incorporating this into SEO
>>> packages (a fully optimized ecommerce site), that's a profit loss of
>>> $150 a client and start to roll out a lot of sites.
>>
>>So your business model is not sound.
>
> We have a mind reader on the NG.

No, someone who is able to read between the lines.

> No one knows our business model, yet
> John knows it's not sound, I'm impressed. Was it a crystal ball or tea
> leaves that gave it away?

Normally I have to sacrifice a goat, but with you it was not needed :-D.

>>You thought you could make a quick
>>by buying nice sounding domains, throwing a template at it (generate
>>content based on a catalogue for example), and put a shopping cart in
>>it, and presto, your own optimised shop for 350 USD?
>
> Not even close. But lets imagine you were right.
>
> If we use Oscommerce (free)

You can't since it doesn't do what you want. Also you make a very common
mistake: it's free as in speech, not as in beer.

> if it cost $100 to create a shop etc...
> we'd realise a profit of $250 per shop. With X cart that drops to $100
> profit a shop and possibly less with add-ons.
>
> Would going with Oscommerce or X cart be the best solution
> financially, should we go for $250 profit or $100 profit per shop?

You wrote before that OScommerce didn't fit the profile.

>>Well, maybe I can write one for 15,000 USD. Depends a lot on the
>>requirements though :-D.
>
> I'm sure you could do it for a lot, lot less in Perl.

Again, depends on the requirements.

>>OScommerce can be extended with modules, so find a programmer who can
>>do that for say 5000 USD. You save 10,000 USD. Don't go to cheap there
>>though. I know people who really believe that 5 USD / hour programmers
>>are cheaper than 100 USD/hour programmers because 5 < 100.
>
> I do know you generally get what you pay for.

I am impressed now :-D.

> That's not always true when a decision today has financial
> implications in the future. To throw some random numbers around. If X
> cart cost on average $150 a shop and in the next 10 years we create
> 1000 shops, that's $150,000 spent that with more research could be
> saved.

How much did that "more research" cost?

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Get a SEO report of your site for just 100 USD:
http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

On 8 Mar 2005 20:11:46 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
wrote:

[snip]
>The site is for visitors, not for guessing SEO wannabees.

*puts saucepan on head as a makeshift helmit* *sets off the smoke
alarm - just to make the warning sound* *dives under the kitchen
table* *turns off the lights for extra measure* I think the John &
Dave Show is trying to make a pilot episode ...

Carol

Carol W wrote:

> On 8 Mar 2005 20:11:46 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>>The site is for visitors, not for guessing SEO wannabees.
>
> *puts saucepan on head as a makeshift helmit* *sets off the smoke
> alarm - just to make the warning sound* *dives under the kitchen
> table* *turns off the lights for extra measure* I think the John &
> Dave Show is trying to make a pilot episode ...

You think we get better ratings than that other show? (Forgot it's name
already)

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Get a SEO report of your site for just 100 USD:
http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

On 8 Mar 2005 21:29:53 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
wrote:

>Carol W wrote:
>
>> On 8 Mar 2005 20:11:46 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>>The site is for visitors, not for guessing SEO wannabees.
>>
>> *puts saucepan on head as a makeshift helmit* *sets off the smoke
>> alarm - just to make the warning sound* *dives under the kitchen
>> table* *turns off the lights for extra measure* I think the John &
>> Dave Show is trying to make a pilot episode ...
>
>You think we get better ratings than that other show? (Forgot it's name
>already)

*peeks out from underneath tablecloth* I have a choice of two
responses for that question:
1. the ever popular, yet legal, "I plead the 5th"
2. or I can borrow my son's favorite line: *puts fingers in ears* nyah
nyah nyah I can't hear you blah blah blah still can't hear you.



Carol

Carol W wrote:

> *peeks out from underneath tablecloth* I have a choice of two
> responses for that question:
> 1. the ever popular, yet legal, "I plead the 5th"
> 2. or I can borrow my son's favorite line: *puts fingers in ears* nyah
> nyah nyah I can't hear you blah blah blah still can't hear you.

Nah, it was on here last week :-D

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Get a SEO report of your site for just 100 USD:
http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 20:25:35 GMT, Carol W <from_you@nomail.com> wrote:

>On 8 Mar 2005 20:11:46 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
>wrote:
>
>[snip]
>>The site is for visitors, not for guessing SEO wannabees.
>
>*puts saucepan on head as a makeshift helmit* *sets off the smoke
>alarm - just to make the warning sound* *dives under the kitchen
>table* *turns off the lights for extra measure* I think the John &
>Dave Show is trying to make a pilot episode ...
>
>Carol

First toy leaves the pram, I'm gone.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ SEO@kruse.demon.co.uk
Affordable SEO!
--

On 8 Mar 2005 20:11:46 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
wrote:

>SEO Dave wrote:
>> You keep forgetting to take into account you have a PR7 home page.
>
>You keep forgetting that getting the PR7 took time :-D.

Apparently you don't know where your PR comes from then. About 400
links to the home page, this one
http://www.gnu.org/graphics/bokma-gnu.html PR7 is the link that
supplies the majority of the PR to your site.

That was a bit of luck getting that link for the art work.

>> That alone gives you a boost most here can only dream about.
>
>To me PR mostly gives one faster googlebot visits. Also, PR6 is easy to
>get, I was able to make a new site (some time ago) PR6 with just a few
>links.

PR6 is easy to get with links from your own PR7 pages (I have loads of
PR6 pages).

>> To put it into context you might have more link power with your
>> relatively small number of pages (I'm assuming you have far less than
>> 1000 pages)
>
>Yup, currently, yes.
>
>> compared to the 100,000+ I have (soon to be increased
>> significantly).
>
>Oh, if I want I can do that too. It's quite easy to create 1,000,000
>pages or more. Problem is, everybody can do that.

And it would spread your PR thin. If you don't know this yet, every
time you add a page to a site it takes PR away from the existing pages
(this assumes you link to the page from other pages of the site). More
of your current pages that link to a new page, more of an impact it is
likely to have on the rest of the pages PR. This can affect current
SERPs for the worse.

>> I haven't looked at your sites in detail, so only
>> going on the very rough PR as a guide to SEO 'power'. As you know PR
>> is log based,
>
>Of course I know :-D.

Which is why I said "as you know".

>> probably around base 6 to 8,
>
>I think 8, (which is 2^3)

I assume 7 for rough calculations.

>> so your PR7 could be 6+
>> times more 'powerful' (very close to a PR8) than mine (if mine are
>> very low PR7s). Or it could be the other way around with mine more
>> powerful than yours.
>
>Yup.
>
>> I know what links from a PR7 page can do with regards SERPs, so part
>> of any traffic you get has a lot to do with the PR not just content.
>
>Untrue.

So you think the PR7 links from your home page to your internal pages
are no better than say a PR4 link?

>
>> If you took your content, how ever good and put it on a brand new
>> domain with enough links to get it indexed (say a few PR4 links) and
>> did nothing other than basic on site SEO things, you'd be lucky to get
>> above 50 visitors a day.
>
>If I copy the content, maybe. If I rewrite it so it basically tells the
>same story, I think I will get 1000 visitors a day (because a lot of
>hits I get are via direct links) and it will grow in 1-2 months to the
>3000+ I today got.

How long do you think it will take to make this new site to 1000
visitors a day? Don't suppose you'd be prepared to put your money
where your mouth is and run the experiment?

Am I reading this right. You think a new site with your current
content rewrote (to prevent mirror problems I assume) with only a few
PR4 links to the site will quickly result in 1000 visitors a day and
within 1-2 months jump to 3000+ a day?

ROFLOL. If that's what you believe you have less of a clue about SEO
than I first thought.

Tell you what set this up and I'll supply the links (five PR4 links
from pages with a reasonable number of links, any anchor text you
like) and we will see what happens after 3 months. You have to make
your stats available though as I'd love to see this real time. And you
can't link to it from pages with high PR (only PR4 or less pages)
since that will remove most of the PR/link benefit and reduce benefit
to mostly content based.

>So you are wrong, which is understandable since "I haven't looked at
>your sites in detail"
>
>> With your PR I'd guess without any SEO at all you'd probably get
>> around 4 to 500 visitors a day, with basic on site SEO maybe 2000,
>> with very good on site SEO 4000+ visitors a day.
>
>I think 3000+ is the max at the moment, and even you can't improve that
>without adding extra content ;-)

I could easily significantly increase the traffic of your site with no
new content or links.

>> I've had a quick look at your site now and I'd put it at above basic
>> SEO level.
>
>Of course, I mean, since hey, it can't be close to SEODave, the SEO king
>:-D.

I prefer SEO Prince or "Dave the Prince of SEO" , King makes me sound
old :-)

>> Biggest problem though (and I'm digressing a lot from this
>> thread) is the diverse content.
>
>Yup, it's a personal page, and I like a lot of diverse stuff :-D.
>
>> The traffic your site is likely to
>> bring in isn't really targeted at SERPs you are likely to make money
>> from!
>
>Probably you should have a second look at my site ;-)

I have and stumbled upon your webstats and they clearly shows a lot of
your traffic is not relevant to money SERPs. 6 of the top 20 search
phrases used to find your site are related to your pets and a drug
(oxazepam) with the top search being "scorpion".

>> For example this page http://johnbokma.com/pet/scorpion/ and
>> similar, are you really wanting traffic from visitors looking for a
>> site about Pet Scorpions, Scorpions and similar SERPs.
>
>Yes, since it's my personal site, never intended to make money (although
>at the moment it almost pays my rent ;-) ).
>
>> I'd guess way
>> over half your traffic is like this,
>
>Your guess is wrong :-D

Maybe not half, but a lot based on your stats. And some of the ones
I'd consider relevant are probably not going to get you any
programming jobs.

You've already taken this as an attack, so I suppose I'm wasting my
time trying to help you :-( A smart person would take an objective
view of what I've said and see if any of it makes sense.

>> which seems a waste of link power
>> IMO.
>
>Because you are guessing ;-)

I'm not guessing on the Scorpion SERP/traffic. That's your top traffic
SERP. The first mention of Perl is the 18th search phrase (Perl Help)
with 120 hits this month compared to 805 hits from scorpion. I assume
you'd rather have that the other way around (I would). I appreciate
it's a personal site, but you say it almost pays the rent, why not
have it support you better financially by concentrating more on money
SERPs.

>> Take my advice, keep those pages, but remove the home page links to
>> them so your important pages (ones you make money from) get a lot more
>> PR/link benefit).
>
>The site is for visitors, not for guessing SEO wannabees.
>

LOL, that's very funny coming from you. A programmer with very little
idea about SEO offering SEO services. Now that's a SEO wannabe.

>> So you mean focus on body text rather than links and other SEO
>> factors? If you have a PR7 home page it will work to a degree.
>
>If you want to sell something what counts more do you think? The SEO
>trick of the week (which can drop your business of the chart tomorrow),
>or content that's attractive to the visitor and nudges him/her into
>buying?

If you'd dealt with ecommerce sites you'd know the vast majority are
low on content, so you have to use what little resources they have to
full effect. Now with the stuff I own I go with as much content as
possible with SEO techniques that work.

>Do you go for the 1,000,000 visitors a day, with 10 buyers (and
>a possibility to drop to 10,000,000 visitors over night, and zero
>buyers), or 1,000 visitors a day with 20 buyers?

I think you got your numbers flipped a bit there, but I get your
drift. Obviously with the only options above it would be 1,000
visitors a day with 20 buyers. My goal would be 10,000,000 visitors a
day with the same or better conversion ratio as the 1,000 visitors
without causing any search engine problems.

>>>Yup, also SEO of the above kind relies on tricks that might stop
>>>working after a few months, and then those people complain how bad
>>>Google works nowadays etc.
>>
>> It relies on links,
>
>I get plenty of links because I have good content. What do you not
>understand about that? Also, since people make those links the anchor
>text is most often on topic so to say :-D

As you suggested I took a better look at your site and the above just
isn't true. You have one very, very important link from a PR7 page
with your name as the anchor text. The other few hundred links to the
home page include a fair amount of mirror copies of the PR7 page
(which understandably have no PR) and mostly forum posts with low PR
(things you've posted your link to not others). There was the usual
splattering of those really naff search engine type sites with ads on
that have no PR as well. So for your home page at least there doesn't
appear to be a "I get plenty of links because I have good content"
situation.

I checked your main Perl page (just PR3!) for backlinks and it's a bit
better, but still mostly forum posts. So it looks like most of the
links are due to you adding them to forums rather than someone
thinking your content is great and the PR7 comes from that one very
good link.

Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what you say above and doesn't
really fit in with the concentrate on quality content argument to SEO.
You are actively gaining links (mostly from forums (again nothing
wrong with that)) not waiting for others to link to your site because
it's so great.

>> not tricks. There is no trick in adding a pages
>> keywords to the anchor text of it's inbound links.
>
>Depends on how it's done ;-)
>
Yep, same can be said for content.

<snip>
>> But it's been shown content alone doesn't do much with Google.
>
>By whom?

By many people including myself. Feel free to show examples of sites
with great content and very few links (low PR) that are receiving
thousands of visitors a day from search engines.

>> Make a
>> new site and keep it's PR low for 6 months, add as much quality
>> content (optimized or not) and see if you still think "improve the
>> content" is the most important SEO advice you can give?
>
>Good content gives me every day new back links. Every day more. And some
>are on important sites. For example, I never added myself to DMOZ,
>blogs, or wikis.

Most of your links are from forums (at least to the home and Perl
page). The natural links to your site is low, fortunately you have
that one very good link. If you lost it, PR4 home page most likely.

>I agree that with a virgin site it takes some work to get noticed. But
>once you are noticed it's just adding good content to get people back,
>make links. And thanks to all those links I get a nice PR, meaning
>Googlebot visits me very often, meaning I can kick new pages within 12
>hours in Google. Since I focus on the content, I get visitors, who link,
>etc. So my site is now self sustained and it will grow.

If only that were true. The reality is to get noticed you need the
links in the first place, so visitors will see your great content and
link to you or some other way for people to find your site so they
will link to you.

If you have very, very good content or a service people want badly
(like an important support forum for example) then natural links can
develop over time (it's not fast though, unless you are lucky to get a
high PR link or two). But, lets not kid ourselves, commerce sites
generally don't attract many natural links, so creating content and
hoping people will link to it is wasting valuable time if your aim is
to make money.

Even with information based sites it's not that easy. Some of my
literature sites contain more books from the author than any other
site available, they are not receiving dozens of new natural links a
week (other than those naff search engine ones that are worthless).
You get the odd link every now and again and as time (years) pass by
that adds up to significant PR. You might be lucky (like with your PR7
link) and get one or two really good links, but most will do very
little for a site and so for natural links to work (by themselves)
it's a very long waiting game.

To be sure of success relying on natural links is a big gamble and can
only be done by those who can afford to fail (and/or have a lot of
time).

<snip>
>> How many online shops have you run then? Do you generally spend money
>> when you don't necessarily have to?
>
>Since you need a shopping cart it's necessary.

No. We need a shopping cart, not necessarily that one. After more
research Oscommerce could be the cart and in some respects (some mods)
is better than X cart.

>>>Since you clearly can't pay for a good design,
>>>good content, etc.
>>
>> Sorry!! How does what I've posted equate to the above??
>
>A good design for each shop will cost you more than a measily 500 USD.
>Unless you consider a free template downloaded, tweaked, etc. a good
>design.

I purchase templates as I need them, though if I come across a good
free one I'll use it.

>>>You mean the free ride? That's rarely a sound base for a business
>>>anyway. Most business grow because they invest money, and moreover,
>>>because they don't waste time complaining over something insignificant
>>>as 500 USD, a major part of their business.
>>
>> ROFLOL and this is from someone who couldn't afford to buy a new
>> workstation when they started up http://johnbokma.com/sgi/
>
>You clearly have no idea how much an SGI workstation costs?

You are right I don't have a clue how much they cost, I was having
some fun at your expense (cheap shot would cover it). Though if they
are really expensive it would seem the joke backfired :-))

>> How many
>> days did you waste hunting for second hand PCs then?
>
>The funny thing: none :-D. My partner had good contacts with a guy who
>was able to sell us a second hand workstation at less than 10% of the
>value of the same (!) workstation new. Oh, and believe me less than 10%
>is still about twice as much as people are willing (or were willing) to
>pay for a peecee.

Good for you, and here's me thinking you always purchased the first
solution, no matter what the cost that jumped out in front of you
since time is money (another cheap shot :-))

<snip>
>>>Did you suggest this to them? Sometimes you have to give someone an
>>>idea
>>>:-D. Or make them an offer, something like: we want a 100 license,
>>>:but,
>>>we pay USD 30,000
>>
>> Isn't this a contradiction to your other advice about making so much
>> money why care about initial costs and not wasting time?
>
>Nop. I don't see writing one email with an offer (or maybe better a
>phone call) not as wasting time.

But putting time into researching other solutions is a waste of our
time (money). That's a strange way of looking at things.

> > What has the turnover got to do with NOT wasting money? I don't care
>> if the sites are going to make a million a year,
>
>They probably never will.

Don't need or expect them to.

>> I'll go with the best
>> solution at the best price. Lowering overheads without compromising on
>> quality is very good business sense.
>
>Whining about a few bucks and putting a lot of time in the whining, is
>not. Most businesses don't work because people are wasting all their
>time in saving money.
>

LOL, Whose whining? You are the one that won't let this go. I've
already moved on and found a possible solution that will be fully
researched. If this one works it will save a lot of money long term
relative to X Cart.

>Doing everything themselves, instead of hiring
>people who can do it better in a quarter of the time.

Yep, overall it's better to get the right people in than struggling
with something you don't understand/can't do yourself. Like with SEO,
don't DIY it hire "Dave the Prince of SEO" :-)

>>>And each of them is not able to make the 500 USD in a few weeks?
>>>Amazing.
>>
>> I hope you don't deal with the finances in your house!! I bet double
>> glazing sales men like you as well :-)))
>
>If you had read a bit better, you would have been able to grasp the
>message a bit better: invest when you need it. But probably you prefer
>to read that as: throw your money away like a silly ass. I mean,
>admitting that your complaints are not business like is probably way
>harder.

Hey? I don't recall actually making any complaints? I mentioned as a
side note really that it is a shame they have that particular licence
condition and you feel this gives you an insight into how I do
business. I'm continuing this thread as I'm fascinated as to what
you'll come up with next with your strange view of me.

>>>It's peanuts Dave, I have no idea how you do business, but if you hire
>>>me (which you can't or so it sounds) there is very little I can do for
>>>$1500 :-D.
>>
>> LOL
>>
>> That wasn't what you said when you sent me a quote a few months back
>> for a project. If I recall correctly your quote was the lowest at
>> around $500. That was building a database driven website which tends
>> to be expensive (most quotes over $2000).
>
>Since you have no problem with making private info public, I quote:

Not exactly the same, but I don't care.

><quote>
>"Basically I supply a CSV file (or other format, easy to convert) with
>a list of over 2000 'products' and an indication of what each of the
>11 variables represent (might be a few other variables) and where I
>roughly want them on a page etc..."
>
>Done this for several people. Basically my own sites are generated from
>file(s), and published statically.
>
>Rough quote depends a bit on what you exacly want. Using PHP to create
>pages on the fly from a CSV file is a bit overhead. If the CSV file is
>quite static, I would recommend using Perl to create the files on your
>machine, and upload them. I canmake that only files with a change are
>uploaded.
>
>Rough quote would be like 500 USD
></quote>

You missed this bit from the end-

--
If you want to go the PHP + MySQL way, I can do that too, probably a
bit more work, but same rough quote.
--

>
>As you read carefully you can see that it's not a "database driven
>website" I offer for 500 USD but a script that turns CVS into HTML.

Now had I hired you to do the job it would have been PHP/MySQL (that
was what I asked for quotes for) and not the option you suggested
above. I'm not a programmer like yourself, but my understanding is the
PHP + MySQL solution is a database (MySQL is a database) driven
website.

>And yes, a Perl programmer with 11 years of experience can do that in 5
>hours (100 USD/hour)

Apparently you can do a database driven website using PHP/MySQL for
roughly the same cost as well.

>> $500 would have been a bargain for what I wanted, but we went with an
>> alternative solution.
>
>Then I guess you didn't want CVS to HTML conversion.

That's right I didn't.

>
>>>You thought you could make a quick
>>>by buying nice sounding domains, throwing a template at it (generate
>>>content based on a catalogue for example), and put a shopping cart in
>>>it, and presto, your own optimised shop for 350 USD?
>>
>> Not even close. But lets imagine you were right.
>>
>> If we use Oscommerce (free)
>
>You can't since it doesn't do what you want.

Actually it does after doing a little more research I found a mod for
Oscommerce that does better than X cart. So the main SEO feature X
cart has that I believed Oscommerce was lacking is no longer an issue.

>Also you make a very common
>mistake: it's free as in speech, not as in beer.

No I don't, I fully understand it, the licence is free (no monetary
payment) with terms that are acceptable.

>> if it cost $100 to create a shop etc...
>> we'd realise a profit of $250 per shop. With X cart that drops to $100
>> profit a shop and possibly less with add-ons.
>>
>> Would going with Oscommerce or X cart be the best solution
>> financially, should we go for $250 profit or $100 profit per shop?
>
>You wrote before that OScommerce didn't fit the profile.

It was a hypothetical example, though now Oscommerce would work with
your guess as to what we are planning.

<snip>
>> That's not always true when a decision today has financial
>> implications in the future. To throw some random numbers around. If X
>> cart cost on average $150 a shop and in the next 10 years we create
>> 1000 shops, that's $150,000 spent that with more research could be
>> saved.
>
>How much did that "more research" cost?

So far a few hours of research and a few hours of testing (call it one
days work) and from it I might have a working solution at no direct
financial cost. And it's not lost time either, since there have been a
few potential clients contact us for quotes who use Oscommerce. I've
had a look at the product now, so in a better position to do SEO work
on Oscommerce driven sites.

Still have to decide if it will be the best decision long term. More
to a decision like this than just money.

David
--
Free Search Engine Optimization Tutorial
http://www.seo-gold.com/tutorial/

SEO Dave wrote:

> On 8 Mar 2005 20:11:46 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
> wrote:
>
>>You keep forgetting that getting the PR7 took time :-D.
>
> Apparently you don't know where your PR comes from then.

*s******s*, there comes another wrong analyses:

> About 400
> links to the home page, this one
> http://www.gnu.org/graphics/bokma-gnu.html PR7 is the link that
> supplies the majority of the PR to your site.
>
> That was a bit of luck getting that link for the art work.

Sure Dave. The link was even changed on my request. I *submitted* that
art work quite some time ago. Can you guess why?

> PR6 is easy to get with links from your own PR7 pages (I have loads of
> PR6 pages).

Good for you.

>>Oh, if I want I can do that too. It's quite easy to create 1,000,000
>>pages or more. Problem is, everybody can do that.
>
> And it would spread your PR thin. If you don't know this yet,

Of course I don't Dave, I mean, you are the SEO here, it's so obvious
since it's in front of your name!

>>same story, I think I will get 1000 visitors a day (because a lot of
>>hits I get are via direct links) and it will grow in 1-2 months to the
>>3000+ I today got.
>
> How long do you think it will take to make this new site to 1000
> visitors a day?

1 month.

> Don't suppose you'd be prepared to put your money
> where your mouth is and run the experiment?

Who knows.

> Am I reading this right. You think a new site with your current
> content rewrote (to prevent mirror problems I assume) with only a few
> PR4 links to the site will quickly result in 1000 visitors a day and
> within 1-2 months jump to 3000+ a day?

Yup.

> ROFLOL. If that's what you believe you have less of a clue about SEO
> than I first thought.

Of course poor poor Dave, since that's what it's all about. In almost
every reply you post you keep telling people that they know little about
SEO. Well Dave, I think you are compensating. The fact that you call
youself SEODave is a dead giveaway.

>>I think 3000+ is the max at the moment, and even you can't improve
>>that without adding extra content ;-)
>
> I could easily significantly increase the traffic of your site with no
> new content or links.

Yeah, yeah, you are the SEO king.

> I prefer SEO Prince or "Dave the Prince of SEO" , King makes me sound
> old :-)

And we don't want that Dave, do we :-D.

>>Probably you should have a second look at my site ;-)
>
> I have and stumbled upon your webstats and they clearly shows a lot of
> your traffic is not relevant to money SERPs.

Who said that?

> 6 of the top 20 search
> phrases used to find your site are related to your pets and a drug
> (oxazepam) with the top search being "scorpion".

Ah, I thought it was something else :-D. Nice.

> Maybe not half, but a lot based on your stats. And some of the ones
> I'd consider relevant are probably not going to get you any
> programming jobs.

Weird, since jobs I get via www come from that site :-D.

> You've already taken this as an attack, so I suppose I'm wasting my
> time trying to help you :-( A smart person

Like SEODave :-D LOL. Why do you dumb down people in every other
sentence Dave? Does it make you feel better?

> I'm not guessing on the Scorpion SERP/traffic. That's your top traffic
> SERP. The first mention of Perl is the 18th search phrase (Perl Help)
> with 120 hits this month compared to 805 hits from scorpion. I assume
> you'd rather have that the other way around (I would). I appreciate
> it's a personal site, but you say it almost pays the rent, why not
> have it support you better financially by concentrating more on money
> SERPs.

Nah, I like it as a personal site. Moreoever, you make a mistake, you
count hits as equal to work. I get little hits on perl programmer *but*
they give me work. I can decide to sell scorpions, but hey, that would
make way less money :-D.

> LOL, that's very funny coming from you. A programmer with very little
> idea about SEO offering SEO services. Now that's a SEO wannabe.

Of couse Dave, since that's what you want, since that makes you the...
SEOPrince lol.

> I think you got your numbers flipped a bit there, but I get your
> drift. Obviously with the only options above it would be 1,000
> visitors a day with 20 buyers. My goal would be 10,000,000 visitors a
> day with the same or better conversion ratio as the 1,000 visitors
> without causing any search engine problems.

And 10,000 times more traffic...

>>I get plenty of links because I have good content. What do you not
>>understand about that? Also, since people make those links the anchor
>>text is most often on topic so to say :-D
>
> As you suggested I took a better look at your site and the above just
> isn't true. You have one very, very important link from a PR7 page
> with your name as the anchor text. The other few hundred links to the
> home page include a fair amount of mirror copies of the PR7 page
> (which understandably have no PR) and mostly forum posts with low PR
> (things you've posted your link to not others).

I don't post my links on forums. If you mean people copying my Usenet
posts, yeah. Also note that you just can't see every backlink, nor the
actual PR of each backlink.

But, cool eh? One PR7 link, a few pages, 3000+ visitors a day, and it
pays almost the rent. And that for a blog and some articles.

> There was the usual
> splattering of those really naff search engine type sites with ads on
> that have no PR as well. So for your home page at least there doesn't
> appear to be a "I get plenty of links because I have good content"
> situation.

Most people don't link to my home page :-D.

> I checked your main Perl page (just PR3!

http://johnbokma.com/perl/ is PR6 here, no idea what page you talk
about.

http://johnbokma.com/perl/perlprogrammer.html ditto,
http://johnbokma.com/perl/perlprogrammeur.html has 5 (Dutch)

>) for backlinks and it's a bit
> better, but still mostly forum posts. So it looks like most of the
> links are due to you adding them to forums rather

Again, I don't add them to forums, unless you call Usenet a forum, and
me posting "adding links".

> than someone
> thinking your content is great and the PR7 comes from that one very
> good link.

My referer dumps show different :-D. Did you spot that DMOZ link?

> Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what you say above and doesn't
> really fit in with the concentrate on quality content argument to SEO.

Because you research is flawed and your conclusion wrong maybe?

> You are actively gaining links (mostly from forums (again nothing
> wrong with that)) not waiting for others to link to your site because
> it's so great.

DMOZ thinks different about that, as do some blogs :-D.

>>By whom?
>
> By many people including myself.

Ah, yeah, the SEO authority HIMSELF :-D.

> Feel free to show examples of sites
> with great content and very few links (low PR)

few links is not the same as low PR.

> that are receiving
> thousands of visitors a day from search engines.

It's the number of visitors that count, not how they come.

> Most of your links are from forums (at least to the home and Perl
> page). The natural links to your site is low,

Sure Dave.

> fortunately you have
> that one very good link. If you lost it, PR4 home page most likely.

Nop, PR6 (I tried ;-)

>>etc. So my site is now self sustained and it will grow.
>
> If only that were true.

It is.

> The reality is to get noticed you need the
> links in the first place,

That's normal with a SE, how can it else find you :-D.

> so visitors will see your great content and
> link to you or some other way for people to find your site so they
> will link to you.

Yup.

> If you have very, very good content or a service people want badly
> (like an important support forum for example) then natural links can
> develop over time

It does, as I stated, my site grows with 300/day+ every month, even
more, since I am now at 3000+/day, which I expected to have by the end
of this month. The funny thing is, every time I have to correct my
prognosis :-D. And no, the grow rate of my site doesn't justify for
this.

> (it's not fast though,

To me it's already too fast :-D. I prefer to write the content myself
:-D

> unless you are lucky to get a
> high PR link or two). But, lets not kid ourselves, commerce sites
> generally don't attract many natural links, so creating content and
> hoping people will link to it is wasting valuable time if your aim is
> to make money.

Weird, I see people here advise to add a blog to commercial sites.
Probably all very stupid people. Thanks for explaining SEO(!)Dave.

> To be sure of success relying on natural links is a big gamble and can
> only be done by those who can afford to fail (and/or have a lot of
> time).

Both in my case :-D.

> No. We need a shopping cart, not necessarily that one. After more
> research Oscommerce could be the cart and in some respects (some mods)
> is better than X cart.

Weird, you wrote a few days the opposite.

>>You clearly have no idea how much an SGI workstation costs?
>
> You are right I don't have a clue how much they cost, I was having
> some fun at your expense (cheap shot would cover it). Though if they
> are really expensive it would seem the joke backfired :-))

It did ;-). The machine was second hand USD 3000. Which even in those
days is more than most people were willing to pay for a brand new PC.

The selling value (new) was about 25,000 USD (yup, 25 thousand) IIRC.
Excluding the development software, which I could get for free (only the
C compiler was like 1,500 USD, and I was able to get a complete
development environment, I think it was 5,000 USD+, maybe more).

> Good for you, and here's me thinking you always purchased the first
> solution,

I did :-D.

> no matter what the cost that jumped out in front of you

Ah, but that's not what I wrote: I wrote it's not smart to think so long
that it costs more than buying it.

>>Nop. I don't see writing one email with an offer (or maybe better a
>>phone call) not as wasting time.
>
> But putting time into researching other solutions is a waste of our
> time (money). That's a strange way of looking at things.

Again: if the research takes up a lot of time, and especially if what
you already found does what you wants.

>>> That wasn't what you said when you sent me a quote a few months back
>>> for a project. If I recall correctly your quote was the lowest at
>>> around $500. That was building a database driven website which tends
>>> to be expensive (most quotes over $2000).
>>
>>Since you have no problem with making private info public, I quote:
>
> Not exactly the same, but I don't care.

Well, I consider my quotes private.

> --
> If you want to go the PHP + MySQL way, I can do that too, probably a
> bit more work, but same rough quote.
> --

Yup, and still true. Nobody would call a table (= CSV file) in a MySQL
database and publishing it using MySQL an advanced database solution.

How much work do you think fetching a row from a database is and showing
that as a page? I mean a table with a whopping 2000 (!) products, with
11 columns?

I still think 500 USD is a right price.

>>As you read carefully you can see that it's not a "database driven
>>website" I offer for 500 USD but a script that turns CVS into HTML.
>
> Now had I hired you to do the job it would have been PHP/MySQL (that
> was what I asked for quotes for) and not the option you suggested
> above.

"
Of the quotes you were the only person to suggest using the CSV file
direct and from the sounds of it, it would of worked well and less
hassle for the client as well.
"

Funny, Dave :-D.

> I'm not a programmer like yourself, but my understanding is the
> PHP + MySQL solution is a database (MySQL is a database) driven
> website.

Yup, but getting a row out of one table and showing it as HTML can be
done for 500 USD Dave, really :-D. I program for 22 years and do a lot
of stuff like that.

>>And yes, a Perl programmer with 11 years of experience can do that in
>>5 hours (100 USD/hour)
>
> Apparently you can do a database driven website using PHP/MySQL for
> roughly the same cost as well.

Based on your specs, yeah: import the CVS in the database (MySQL can do
that), write a PHP script that fetches the right rows, and render it as
an HTML page.

>>Then I guess you didn't want CVS to HTML conversion.
>
> That's right I didn't.

Weird:

"
Of the quotes you were the only person to suggest using the CSV file
direct and from the sounds of it, it would of worked well and less
hassle for the client as well.
"

You like to give your clients hassle :-D.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Get a SEO report of your site for just 100 USD:
http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

On 10 Mar 2005 22:54:02 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
wrote:

>SEO Dave wrote:
>
>> On 8 Mar 2005 20:11:46 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster@castleamber.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>You keep forgetting that getting the PR7 took time :-D.
>>
>> Apparently you don't know where your PR comes from then.
>
>*s******s*, there comes another wrong analyses:
>
>> About 400
>> links to the home page, this one
>> http://www.gnu.org/graphics/bokma-gnu.html PR7 is the link that
>> supplies the majority of the PR to your site.
>>
>> That was a bit of luck getting that link for the art work.
>
>Sure Dave. The link was even changed on my request. I *submitted* that
>art work quite some time ago. Can you guess why?
>
>> PR6 is easy to get with links from your own PR7 pages (I have loads of
>> PR6 pages).
>
>Good for you.
>
>>>Oh, if I want I can do that too. It's quite easy to create 1,000,000
>>>pages or more. Problem is, everybody can do that.
>>
>> And it would spread your PR thin. If you don't know this yet,
>
>Of course I don't Dave, I mean, you are the SEO here, it's so obvious
>since it's in front of your name!
>
>>>same story, I think I will get 1000 visitors a day (because a lot of
>>>hits I get are via direct links) and it will grow in 1-2 months to the
>>>3000+ I today got.
>>
>> How long do you think it will take to make this new site to 1000
>> visitors a day?
>
>1 month.
>
>> Don't suppose you'd be prepared to put your money
>> where your mouth is and run the experiment?
>
>Who knows.
>
>> Am I reading this right. You think a new site with your current
>> content rewrote (to prevent mirror problems I assume) with only a few
>> PR4 links to the site will quickly result in 1000 visitors a day and
>> within 1-2 months jump to 3000+ a day?
>
>Yup.
>
>> ROFLOL. If that's what you believe you have less of a clue about SEO
>> than I first thought.
>
>Of course poor poor Dave, since that's what it's all about. In almost
>every reply you post you keep telling people that they know little about
>SEO. Well Dave, I think you are compensating. The fact that you call
>youself SEODave is a dead giveaway.

How come then that I, er, call myself Big Bill?

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ SEO@kruse.demon.co.uk
Affordable SEO!
--

Big Bill wrote:

> How come then that I, er, call myself Big Bill?

:-D

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
Get a SEO report of your site for just 100 USD:
http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html