The New Age of Advertising, Part 1 - What is Special About Your Site?
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Question: Please talk a little bit about some of the new features on you site such as the discussion forum. Also, are there any additional features that you plan on unveiling in the near future?
John: As you mentioned, we have started a forum so that members can trade buying and selling tips related to text link advertising. This type of advertising is in its infancy and people have a lot of questions. However, our latest addition to the site is the LinkAdage Monitor. It is a free service for text link ad buyers that helps them track their ad's renewal date, anchor text and key metrics. It will actually send out renewal reminders and notify the buyer if their link was taken down or if one of their advertising partner’s website’s key metrics moves up or down.
The LinkAdage "Brand" puts us in an excellent position to expand both vertically and horizontally into other areas related to search if not search itself. As of now, we have a few things on the slate for early this year that will begin to change the face of LinkAdage while continuing to increase our presence in the search industry.
I want to personally thank John for taking some time out of his busy schedule to speak with me. It was very gracious of him to do this. I would like to follow up on this interview by expanding upon some of the points that we touched on.
Regarding the question about paid inclusion text link ads that are offered by Yahoo and many other directories and their relation to non-directory text link ads, it is important to note that text link ads are, in essence, no different from a reciprocal link. The reciprocal link was initially intended to drive traffic from website to website (bypassing search engines altogether), but the secondary effect was to improve organic search positions for relevant search terms. Text link ads work in the same manner. The main difference is that instead of paying for the incoming link by reciprocating with a link from your site, you pay for the incoming link with money. Just as with reciprocal linking, this medium can be abused by unscrupulous webmasters who will acquire links from any and all sites in an effort to "artificially" influence search engine positions, but if used properly text link advertising can be utilized to drive targeted traffic and acquire relevant themed backlinks.
In part two of this article, I will discuss the newest trend in text link advertising. Linksmile.com is attempting to depart from the established models for text link ad commerce. Wesley Thomas, the creator of Linksmile, has built a portal that allows webmasters to create and manage their own text link ad inventory (eliminating the need for brokers) and offer set pricing for specific ad packages (a complete departure from the auction-based approach offered by LinkAdage). Linksmile.com also serves as a directory and search engine that webmasters can use to locate relevant ads that they can purchase to promote their own sites.
In my opinion, these two contrasting and unique forms of text link ad commerce (the auction approach championed Linkadage.com and the non-brokered directory approach championed by Linksmile.com) will emerge as the most viable vehicles for expanding the text link ad industry. Stay tuned!
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