Creative Dingo Media - Discussion of SEO and Web Development

Shoemoney received a email from a self proclaimed DMOZ editor, stating:

A while back I got a email from a guy claiming to be a DMOZ editor saying that I had to pay him $5,000.00 or he would have my site: shoemoney.com removed from the dmoz.

He recently checked and was delisted. What a crappy product DMOZ has turned into. I don’t submit any sites to DMOZ anymore, because of the hit or miss in getting your site listed. Like Shoemoney said “DUMP DMOZ”

According to the Shoemoney blog, Jeremy Schoemaker sells his half of AuctionAds to his partner Media Whiz for an undisclosed amount of money.

“We basically came to the realization that we had to make a choice: AucitonAds/ShoeMoney Media Group INC could bring in a staff of people, train them and all that (which we had ZERO experience in doing) OR we could sell the company to someone who already has tons of experience in that area and can take AuctionAds to the next level.”

AuctionAds is one of my favorite up and coming ad Ad Network. I just recently bought some UFC signed memorabilia through Auction Ads to use in an up and coming contest on my site CageToday.com.

Media Whiz is the parent company of Text Link Ads as well as a number of other advertising networks. I am hoping Media Whiz can improve on the product and make a great product that can complement Google AdSense.

I never thought I would get into blogging, but now that my site Cage Today is growing rapidly, I find myself wanting to post more an d more. Talking some advice from John Chow dot Com, my main focus now is to post more often. It has helped greatly in the growth of my sites. I am also trying to stop looking at My Stats so much and focus more on content creation. Like they always say “Content Is King”.

I have been working with a team on a big project. My main job right now has been getting my feet wet with the server. My previous experience includes shared and reseller hosting. Its kind of fun, but i’m still worried about messing something up. Oh well, I have a month to learn and test the server before anything important goes live.

I have been experimenting with Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network on some of my sites. Google is very good at contextually serving ads to the sites. The problem is the cost per click is getting lower and lower, especially with all this MFA arbitrage sites. They drive the CPC down to almost nothing. Another problem, Google is very secretive and will not even tell you the split on the advertising. Ideally, I would like to set a minimum CPC on all my sites. If Google can’t serve that minimum then a ad from another advertiser gets displayed. I don’t condone click fraud, but Google just bans people with no explanation, they have a serious god complex. It’s a problem when publishers are emailing Google every time they accidentally clicked on an ad.

Second is YPN, they have a very similar product to Google. As much as I want YPN to succeed and force Google to change their ways, they haven’t stepped up. They still only pay for American visitor clicks, their contextual system sucks, they display the same ads on the same page, and they have limited features for optimizing ads. The good part about YPN is their payouts tent to be way higher then Absences. YPN usually range from $.25-$.50 per click. I find that YPN works better on sites that bring in the unsophisticated users while Google AdSense works better for a niche site. That said I have been with YPN for a while know and not much has improved with their system.

I still keep most of my sites with AdSense, but we all need a good competitor to get Google to change their ways. Sorry for the semi-rant about the “The MaN”.

I listed Mohacks up for sale. I have had no time to dedicate to this site and the money will come in handy. I really had some good ideas for this site.

Saturday night my site eatabq.com was attack using a security venerability in the polling plug-in. Luckily i was up late and fixed the problem right away. The attacker didn’t get access to the site, they just inserted some javascript into a form. The plugin has been patched for a long time, I just haven’t got around to upgrading. In a way this was a blessing, the new script has been totally rewritten and has a bunch of cool new features. Wordpress Democracy Plugin. I was hoping the Bears would win the Patriots, but Grossman had three turnovers.

The past week has been hectic. I’ve been working hard trying to upgrade Cagetoday.com and take it to the next level. After a redesign about a month ago traffic has doubled. I have been trying to SEO it to increase the backlinks. The good thing about a site that you love the subject is the work is more interesting and you can get a lot done. I am always thinking of new features to add that will allow the readers to get involved in the site. My goal is not to turn into the next sherdog.com and become a news portal and super forum. But a place for MMA fans to come and participate in the community, just like you would do watching the fights and talking some shit with friends.

Hello,

My Name is Adrian Tapia and I am the Owner and Admin of Creative Dingo Media. The purpose of this blog is to showcase the variety of sites in our network. I will also try to discuss topics ranging from SEO to site development.

My Current Active sites are:

Cage Today
Mohacks
Remodel Forums
Eat! Albuquerque

My Secondary Sites are:

Dominoes Forums
Dingo Software
Tax Help Forums
Debit Discussion
Pit Forums

Thanks

Adrian Tapia