I read an interesting article over today at SEOmoz where randfish claims that footer links may be “devalued by search engines automatically” and furthermore that “Yahoo! says they may devalue footer links” and suggests that “Google might do this (or go further) as well.”

This is very alarming and can effect the rankings of many websites who rely on footer links to improve their rankings as well as webmasters who use footer links as a means of navigation (like we do in this site).  Footer text links serve an important role in web design and lots of times will give a website that rounded out feel.  Also, footer links are very helpful and beneficial for navigation with pda/phone/handheld devices that cannot render a full size page correctly, or pages that are specifically made for these devices.  Furthermore, people who are using text based browsers on terminals such as lynx or links also rely on such links for navigation purposes.

The ramifications of such a strategy is sure to shake up the SEO world and we here at Barlam Enterprises will definitely be evaluating our current link structure for our sites as well as our clients.

While Yahoo only claims a small share of the search engine market place, only time will tell if and when the big G will implement these ideas.  However, when or if they do, you can be assured many more will take notice than currently are.

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I like many other webmasters regularly check logs and statistics of my websites to see what type of traffic I am receiving, and where it is coming from.  It is a necessary part of search engine optimization and interactive marketing.  I personally use awstats (an open source project) for this task as it analyzes the key areas of my logs that I am interested in and outputs it in a very easy to read and use HTML layout.  However, awstats while very useful, doesn’t by itself allow you to deeply analyze the logs and see exactly who is visiting you which in turn determines to some extent whether your marketing campaigns have been successful.

Enter GeoLite City by Maxmind.  Another open source project (with licensed paid versions as well) that is easily added to awstats as a plugin.  GeoLite City is a database of ip address ranges showing the location they are registered to.  This allows awstats to check this database against every ip address that visits you, and prints this information into your awstat logs (screenshot)!   Pretty cool huh!  This information is extremely useful to determine how successful your marketing initiatives have been.

As an example, say you post an ad for investment properties in various local Dallas, Houston and Austin Texas newspapers.  In this ad you included your web site information.  With this plug-in you will be able to analyze exactly how effective your ads are pulling.  Not seeing the results you want and the hits from Houston?  Maybe pulling the ad, modifying it or changing the placement will yield better results and a positive return on your investment!  That is just a small example of you can utilize this software and the GeoIP database to your advantage.  The possibilities are endless!

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According to this NY Times article Presidential candidate Barack Obama is in fact campaigning on the Xbox 360 in the game Burnout Paradise.

The senator’s campaign committee confirmed the advertisements.

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, told me via email, noting that EA regularly allows ad placements in their online games. “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” she continued. “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

The constant online atmosphere of Xbox live and the Xbox 360 allows for in game live dynamic marketing opportunities for many companies and individuals.

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So I recently had a client request to pay me with Google checkout instead of Paypal.  I said ok and signed up for a Google checkout sellers account.  Seems like a standard procedure ala Paypal.  They do the bank deposit verification, add credit/debit card, ssn/ein etc very much like paypal.  This took 3 business days to complete.  Of which, 99% of that time encompassed waiting for the verification deposits to arrive in my account so I could be authenticated and ACTUALLY receive payments.  This finally happened and I thought I was ready to collect my payment until I learned they go slightly further than PayPal and also physically mailed me a document with a verification code to enter online.  On Google’s site it said this would take approximately 5 business days *sigh*.  Ok, looks like I wasn’t going to receive my money this week.  So I wait, and wait, and wait, finally after 9 business days my verification code arrives.  I quickly enter it online and it authenticates me!  Woohoo!  Money in the bank… or so I thought.

Five more business days go by and no deposit into my account.  Finally, today, I receive the following from Google via email:

———————
Google Checkout was unable to verify the account information you provided during the sign-up process. Although you may still accept and charge new orders at this