Archive for November, 2007
Nov
30
Posted by admin
So. Another day another dollar. The time has come to look at increasing my portfolio of sites after a bit of a clear out over the last few weeks and Im looking round at what sites are worth buying.
Its not an easy search, thats certainly true - there seem to be a huge amount of sites that are up for sale but have no history, revenue, traffic or even a good angle, yet the owners seem to think that they are worth a fortune - life just isnt like that Im afraid you charlatans from shanghai or you conmen from columbia.
What must a site have to be a good candidate to be bought? Well, firstly traffic never hurts, but its not entirely necessary. PR isnt really a defining factor either. Pages indexed in google is probably my favourite one, and I suppose a half decent alexa rank doesnt hurt either, but as mentioned above its not in any way necessary. Monetization is normally a no-no, ie. if its already monitized generally the outgoing webmaster wants too much money for it. So whats the perfect profile of a site im looking for? Well, i’d say: PR2 or PR3, 5,000+ pages indexed in google, yet poor SEO. Basically what Im looking for is a forum built with an old phpBB or VBulletin without any seo mods, with thousands of users built up over years, but not many actives. Ideally I wouldnt mind buying 5 or 6 such sites, but for the kind of money that they go for on DP or webmasterworld, not SP….
If anyone knows of any then addresses on the bank of a postcard to the usual address please.
Another thing that I find myself musing over is the lack of creative websites in the poker industry these days. Its at least 3 years since Ive seen a truly creative idea. I do have one or two but more on them in a few months once Ive assembled a team together 
anyway, back off to trawl the forums. and have my calimocho.
buenas tardes muchachos
MM
Nov
26
Posted by admin
This ones definately for the soapbox section !
Dmoz - or the “open directory project” as its also known albeit less well known have this paragraph at the start of their about us section:
Since 1998, the Open Directory Project has been the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a passionate, global community of volunteer editors.
Any SEO’er worth his salt is aware that this is just tosh, of the highest order. A good case in point is an acquiantance of mine who has recently managed to get a new site a PR7 in record time (less than 10 weeks) for a client. Dmoz plays a part in this story (along with a few thousand dollars worth of links) - in that the site uses its Dmoz listing to assert a certain authority with google, and you might be wondering just how the site has got listed in such a short time (I certainly did, I’ve got about 10 sites that have been waiting from 3 months to three years for a listing).
The answer is simple, the SEO’er in question bought the link, through personal knowledge of the editor of the niche in question. How is this fair? Well it isnt… How can this be stopped? Well it cant.
Where does this lead us? Well surely DMOZ cant possibly claim any authority when things like this are going on. Furthermore, Google should stop regarding it with ANY advantage to any other reputable directory.
Anyway, rant over.
Im off for a calimocho.
Buenas Tardes Muchachos
MM.
Nov
23
Posted by admin
“The value of websites” - and I mean that literally. Since the .com bubble burst (or should that be “went broke”) some years ago, the venture capital money just hasnt been in selling dot coms the way it used to be.
We all read stories about online businesses that had never turned a profit going for ridiculous sums of money, or raising mammoth amounts from VC firms on the assumption that they would turn a profit one day. The best example that comes to mind would be govworks.com which was owned by Kaleil Tuzman and Tom Herman - this site was burgeoning at the very peak of the dot com bubble, and the aforementioned Kaleil was so revered by the finance industry as a whole that he accompanied Bill Clinton (then president) on several financial ecenomic missions. Eventually both founders ended up with nothing, after raising over 60,000,000 (thats Sixty Million!) dollars of other peoples money, and losing it in a tale of mismanagement, woe and strife.
If only it were that easy now to raise funds! A good example would be my current site thats up for sale. Five years ago it would be worth over a half million dollars based on the turnover its had in the first year, and what is it going for? Well, I cant say yet because the sale isn’t finalised but a realistic estimate would be 20, maybe 30% of what it would have been worth then.
Why is this important? Well - it proves that the internet market is at least maturing. We have moved past the days of the wild e-west, and into a more sustainable era of company valuation. Would I love to be in the old days? Ofcourse, but then Im the one selling the sites, not expecting to take a profit on them long term.
In short, the new internet savvy VC firms are a godsend to us, because of the now much more realistic values that they are attributing to online businesses - if the “good ‘ol days” had persisted much longer, nobody would trust the online business world, much less readily invest in it.
So it remains our task to create, manage, promote and eventually sell innovative web products - more of a challenge now perhaps, but again, a good thing in light of the fact that we now see the consumate professionals standing head and shoulders above the rest of the field.
Anyway, enough of my musings, Im off for my calimocho (and its the wife’s birthday tomorrow so I have to be up to make the breakfast.)
Buenas Tardes Muchachos!
MM.
Nov
21
Posted by admin
Ive had a busy day today, posting on forums, checking my inbox, eating etc. etc. but feel that I have basically achieved very little.
OK I confess, I havent actually had a busy day, it just looks that way to the outside world which I assume I will become part of again when I eventually leave the computer screen.
One thing that has amused me no end today however has been a few little searches that I have done on google, just to see the results. Namely, SEO Marbella (which I confess I did purely to prove a point to myself that whoever was at number one was blackhatting) and then SEO Spain. I hadn’t intended on checking the second one, had it not been for the clam that #1 on SEO marbella had made (the site was misterweb.co.uk) that he was number one in both.
What amused me is that on performing that search for #1 in the google index for SEO spain, the top search result is a birdwatchers website’s section on spain!! It seems that all the combined jumped up local SEO merchants havent even managed to knock this site of the number one spot for that search term, which I find hilarious!
Surely by now someone would have identified this as an attractive search term and actively gone for it (and misterweb almost surely has, but has somehow managed to get his page a “solid” third in the SERPs.).
This has given me an idea - I am going to attempt to get an arbitrary page #1 status for the search term SEO spain, and I will start tomorrow (its nearly supper time and little one needs a new nappy, so like it or not I simply dont have time right now), and Im setting myself a challenge to get #1 for SEO spain within a few weeks.
How do I intend on achieving this little miracle (ok, miracle is a bit strong, this aint feeding the 5000, its merely feeding my not insignificant ego)? Well, thats the secret of a good SEO I guess!
If I do manage to achieve this, I think I might just have to email it to the rest of the local SEO’ers and see just who manages to knock me off it first… first past the post gets a prize of some sort, perhaps cash, perhaps just a recommendation on this blog…. we’ll have to see just how good they are.
Anyway, off for my Calimocho,
Buenas Tardes Muchachos!
MM
Nov
20
Posted by admin
Hi there, and welcome to the first installation of my new personal blog, www.costawebsites.com!
Its hard to tell a webdesigner these days from a con artist, much less a purported SEO expert, and thats anywhere in the world. When you include the propensity for idiots and conmen on the CostaDelSol, well, its a recipe for disaster.
You can rest assured that Im not here to sell you anything, a website, search engine optimisation services or anything else like that. Im just here to impart advice, my personal musings and opinions, perhaps the odd recommendation, but nothing more, nothing less.
If you are wondering just why anyone should pay attention to my personal musings, well, my C.V. for computer work includes working with my old friend J.L.G. to build up Mercury Internet SL in Elviria, about 10 years ago, and since then I have written databases aplenty and designed a few websites. The more notable of which I have been lucky enough to sell for up to $100,000 a time, so - in my estimation (and luckily that of the people that have bought my sites) I probably know a thing or two about webdesign and online marketing.
My past success is why I am not really interested in the hard sell on this website. If you want the hard sell just look in the back pages of the SUR in English any given week, Im sure you will find a page and a half of people offering “world class SEO” or “unbeatable webdesign professionalism”. Some of these people are my friends so I shan’t be unkind, but in this life you get what you pay for. If I were taking on SEO customers I would expect to be charging >€3,000 a month for my services - that aint a) cheap or b) advertised in the back pages of the SUR!
Anyway, off for a Calimocho,
buenas tardes muchachos!
MM