Le pour de mise au point de Web

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When I installed Internet Explorer 8 the other day with high expectations, those expectations were immediately crushed when IE8 couldn’t even properly render my public blogs let alone my WordPress admin panel. Elements were skewed way out of proportion, and I don’t mean by pixel size, but by hundreds and thousands of percentage points.

I uninstalled IE8 almost immediately (which Microsoft makes inscrutable in Vista by hiding IE8 under updates on the Control Panel).

When Google launched its new Web browser called Chrome yesterday, I jumped on it as soon as the download became available at noon PDT.

I was impressed by Chrome’s blazing speed and accuracy in rendering Web sites, but since it didn’t automatically import RoboForm, I didn’t opt to use it for my default browser, though it does offer an option to save your logins (which are not automatically password encrypted).

So, even as my experiment with Chrome continues, I can say that speed alone will make this Googlian browser a winner.

Download Chrome at www.google.com/chrome.

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I jumped on getting a copy of Internet Explorer 8 (Beta) because I’d read that, tab-based like IE7, the entire browser won’t crash if one site on one tab has problems. With IE7, one site would crash your entire browser and every tab.

So far, I’ve been experimenting with IE for a total of about two minutes, and I’m ready to shuck it. It’s screwed up the Admin tool for my blogs. Instead of one line for a title, it now provides an area bigger than the post area itself.

If you want to try it, here’s where to go.

But I’m going back to IE7.

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If you’re subscribed to any of the multitudinous e-mail/newsletter lists by the ubiquitous Internet marketers and so-called get-rich-quick gurus out there, you’ve no doubt received many an enticing e-mail with a subject line similar to my title for this posting.

The only ones making any money, however, are these e-mail scammers, and I’m not sure how they sleep at night. Some of them have really big and prestigious names in the industry, who will–of course–reveal their secrets to you only if you join their members-only sites for $49, $149, $249, etc., a month.

Even a thousand fools (easy enough to find) at $49 a month will yield big bucks.

This practice is what Internet marketers call "selling shovels," using an analogy from the California Gold Rush, when the only ones making money were those selling shovels to the hordes of prospectors, 99.999999999999 percent of whom would remain forever penniless.

More likely, these marketers are selling you piles of bull shit created by their Web-based shovels.

Case in point: The FTC recently busted brothers Eric and Calvin Louie of California for their shoveling-the-shit sites, fastcashathome,com and realcashprograms.com. Their shovels earned Eric a 2004 Lamborghini Gallardo and Calvin a 2005 Ferrari F430.

The FTC now owns the automobiles and has put the Louies out of business.

The duo was nabbed under the FTC’s Project Fal$e Hope$ program. The FTC–and the Council of the Better Business Bureau–have their phone lines open for tips on other such shovelers of shit.

Dial away–you’ll be saving lots of fools lots of money.

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Google, of course, is the 900-pound gorilla of search engines, clearly dominating in the number of online searches performed daily. However, Google also equals Garbage, as the site attracts every unserious lookie-loo and teeny-bop with time to kill out there.

That being the case, is Google the best place to start your pay-per-click advertising campaign? Yes, if you do your research and prepare well, Google could well be the route to take. Making Google especially attractive are the offers of $25, even $50, in free PPC clicks offered by certain hosting companies when you sign up.

Still, you may want to get your feet wet elsewhere, as this is a costly proposition, and unless your PPC budget results in traffic conversions (sales) that double–at least–your PPC expenditures, you’re wasting your time and money.

Using a list developed by Michael Bloch, I’ve researched Bloch’s recommendations and narrowed his list of alternative PPC providers to three.

ABC Search offers both geotargeting and so-called click-fraud protection and will match you $100 for $100 when you sign up, but be careful–that generally means you have to agree for automatic renewal at $100 when your first "donation" runs out.

Bidvertiser also offers geotargeting and fraud protection and goes one step further–it allows you to choose the sites on which your ads will appear. You can also get $20 in free clicks as a new bidvertiser.

Search123, though it offers no geotargeting or stated fraud protection, maintains a huge network of partners and offers $20 in free clicks for your first $50 entry. What I liked about Search123 is the care and detail with which they explain their program. I eliminated many other services because they had no explanation, just a form to sign up. (Careful: 123Search is a virus-like copycat that will take over your browser.)

Now, any PPC campaign is only as good as the keyword phrases chosen for bidding. The traditional tools for keyword research are WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, but if you want to use both (a definite plus), join NicheBot, which is the service I use. If you want a good piece of automated software that will assemble your profitable keywords and phrases for you, then use Niche Inspector.

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Some people try to make a living, or extra bucks anyway, by creating so-called parked domains, which are static sites devoid of content but rife with links, and Google is more than happy to oblige them by allowing the placement of AdWords advertising thereon, gaining the owners access to AdSense bucks.

Not so fast, some advertisers are crying–while shouting "wolf" at the same time.

Recent lawsuits have targeted Google for a) placing the ads on parked domains to start with and b) placing the ads on sites with URLs that allegedly violate trademarks and copyrights (such as bedbathandbeyondcom.com).

The latest to join the legal fray is an Illinois firm named JIT Packaging, which accuses Google of placing its ads on "low-quality" sites that produce few if any conversions.

(My favorite parked domain is gamil.com, which I land upon everytime I misspell Google’s gmail.com. However, never I am ever tempted to hit a link or an ad on a parked domain, which I guess helps prove the "low-qualityk" portion of the legal argument.)

Google reportedly had no comment over the latest lawsuit.

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