Caydel’s SEO Blog

A lot of webmasters talk about split-testing their ad layouts, trying to determine which layout or block position gives a higher CTR. Well, perhaps you should take it a step further.

I had a page on one of my older sites which targetted a fairly well-paying aspect of the site’s niche. I was making on average about $0.20 per click on this page, which wasn’t bad; most of the pages on the site have consistently been paying in the range of $0.05-$0.10 per click.

This week, I had a writer rewrite the page. The new version was slightly longer, but had a different feel and phrasing than the original. I updated the page with the new content late last night. This evening, roughly 24 hours after posting the new version, the page was delivering me an average $1.35 per click, nearly 7x the average I was previously getting.

It may be to early to completely rule out the possibility of today just being a fluke, but I suspect that the slightly different phrasing used when the page was re-written triggered different ads than the previous version. Perhaps a word was used in the new version that was not in the previous version. Perhaps a certain phrase came together which never appeared previously. I don’t know.

No matter what you pay per article, I would suggest that it is definately worth writing two versions of an article or page, and split test the content to determine which version gives you the best CPC. Even if you pay $25 per article, the difference will eventually be made up.

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Do blogs suffer from duplicate content penalties in major search engines? A few days ago, this thought struck me as I was beginning to rework the look and feel of this blog - with posts showing up in as many as four different locations on the blog, was there any reason to think Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and other search engines may actually be penalizing my blog? The thoughts were further brought to the front when Barry Schwartz made a post on Search Engine Roundtable pointing to a thread on

Let’s consider the Wordpress blogging platform for now, although this should hold true through any other blogging platforms, and indeed, a variety of Content Management Systems. Looking at one of my previous posts, a list of SEO resources, you will find it at a variety of locations:

1. It’s Permalink page: http://www.infohatter.com/blog/creating-a-list-of-seo-resources/
2. Second page of the “Front Page’: http://www.infohatter.com/blog/page/2/
3. Category for Advertising: http://www.infohatter.com/blog/category/advertising/
4. Category for Link Building: http://www.infohatter.com/blog/category/link-building/
5. Category for SEO: http://www.infohatter.com/blog/category/seo/
6. More categories…
7. Archives for August 2006: http://www.infohatter.com/blog/2006/08/

So as you can see, this text is replicated fully in as many as 10 different locations on my blog. What we are looking at here is a conflict between user-friendliness, and search-friendliness. This is an ideal setup by accessibility standards - the more ways you provide to access a piece of information, the more user friendly it is. But does this affect indexing and ranking in the search engines for this post?

When I perform a , I see that the single post page is the first result shown. So this is good - it means that when limited only to my site, Google is ranking the single-post page at the top, which is what I want to see. But are the rankings affected when the somebody searches the entire index of Google? Do the other copies of this post on this blog perhaps cause it to show lower than it would if it was only available in one place?

I think it does. In the past, Google has typically penalized dupe content hard, often sending sites to the supplemental index for such an offense. So, are all bloggers getting the same type of penalization?

What can be done about this? One of the first solutions to jump out at me would be to include on the category and archive pages; this would ensure that only the front page and the single post pages are indexed.

I would appreciate any thought or comments on this matter - this is something that should concern all bloggers. Perhaps this may be having a very noticeable impact on readership levels? Either way, it is something that could bear some serious thought.

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I just thought I would make a quick post on my latest site.

Recently, I have begun development on Free-Journal-Articles.com, a royalty-free content archive. It’s a great resource for article marketers, or anyone who is trying to drive traffic to their site. Since some of our articles get picked up by larger publications, authors can aquire more readers and exposure by including a homepage link in their articles.

Below is a copy of the press release announcing it’s launch. It explains alot of what we are about, and why we are better than most of the existing comopetition.
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Free-Journal-Articles.com Launches - Your Source for Quality Royalty-Free Articles

Ancaster, ON (PRWEB) August 1, 2007 — We would like to announce the official launch of http://www.free-journal-articles.com. We are your best source for quality royalty-free articles.

Free-Journal-Articles.com has much to offer over traditional article sites, both for publishers and for authors. We have studied the major article sites such as GoArticles and Ezinearticles, and decided on a feature set which addresses the shortcomings of these, and many other article directories.

Readability - A problem consistent to most article sites is a lack of readability. By placing heavy restrictions on formatting, and displaying articles in smaller font sizes, many article sites make their articles often difficult to read. This results in less read-throughs and pickups. In addition, this provides a less pleasurable experience for publishers who are choosing articles for their prospective sites.

Proper Seach Engine Optimization - Owners of many article directories do not practice proper SEO. This hurts the ranking of the articles submitted to them. This site is managed by a competent SEO. We have managed a variety of websites in the past, and know how to ensure that articles submitted to this site perform well in the SERPS.

Revenue Sharing - We practice revenue sharing. What this means is that users who have submitted 5 articles may submit their Adsense ID to Free-Journal-Articles to recieve 50% of the impressions their articles generate while on this site. This provides yet another income stream for our members!

Updated Technology - Free-Journal-Articles.com is running on a cutting-edge server, using advanced software to deliver the most positive user experience possible! Users who enjoy a site are more likely to return - and that’s what we all want, isn’t it?

Breaking the Mold - There are a few very popular software packages to run and manage article directories. While some of these packages are very good, because there are so many of them, they all start to look the same. Our site is different. We do not employ the traditional software packages. We want to make a lasting impression on visitors, so that they return, and continue to use articles from our database.

Free-Journal-Articles.com can offer you more than any other article site. We hope you will join us soon!

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At any rate, so far, so good. I have a group of talented writers submitting articles somewhat regularily. Some of the articles are quite well written:

• Barry Michaels - Radio is My Life!
• Children Don’t Outgrow Abuse
• Recipes for Dutch Oven Cooking
  

Others are not so good. I’ve even written some myself, either with my real name, or a pen name. Here’s some articles under my real name:

• Review of ‘The Zero’ by Jess Walter
• Promoting Yourself as a Content Writer

Anyways, that’s what I’ve been up to. Now to try to get more writers!

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