1)Standard banner placement above the fold
like in Adolescent Adulthood

or

2)Ad on a seperate frame like in Cindy Crawford's official website

Which is better? Personally, I find example 2 irritating but does it work and lead to a higher CTR? For example 1, My CTR is 0.25% - 0.35%

[This message has been edited by WinningWays (edited 05-15-2001).]

What am I missing?

There must be some sort of formula type list one could apply to develop traffic.

Does anyone hear have an approach they would like to share? For example, what are the top ten things YOU do to get traffic?
1.) Get listed with Yahoo
2.) Set up targeted key words searches at Goto
etc. etc.

Any help would be much appreciated!

I do not believe that deleting spam (UCE) emails is the simple solution to the problem. I believe the best way to dam a river is at its source.

so i have this "junk" email account , except i keep track of everywhere i post or submit this address. SO i know (or at least have a good idea how the spammer got my email address.)

but anyway, to the question:

a lot of the sites these spammers promote will appear to be IP numbers like, http://123.456.78.91/whatever.htm

but i lookup the IP with ARIN and other things and find nothing.

how is this done?

i would first think that it would be a domain (referencing the example above) 91,and the other numbers would be subdomains. but there is no .com, .net, .tw whatever suffix. So that is not the case.

So how can someone have a http:/(looks like an IP address) , and still have an active site?

Also, your URL should be in your profile, not your main message body.

Search engine's are obviously important, as is getting listed in as many of the major directories (like Yahoo) as possible. PPC engines like GoTo are good for some, maybe a waste of money for others. For GoTo, I recommend researching your keywords to see what it would cost to get X position. You may find that some keywords don't need to be paid for because the inktomi results start very high in the list--not every keyword combo is bid or has many bid sites in the list.

A couple of other things that are good:

Links from other sites are always a winner. Even if that site delivers little direct traffic, it helps build link popularity and branding. I know I get curious about sites when I keep seeing their name pop up on other sites I visit.

Don't neglect smaller specialized directories. They are becoming more and more popular and can deliver very targeted traffic. I sort of think of About.com as a specialized directory because each guide rules their little piece of the kingdom. I get great traffic from About.

[This message has been edited by baffled (edited 09-20-2000).]

**Design good pages with relevant content and a resonably attractive look. The "Review" thread is great for getting many suggestions and improvements.

**Have a directory strategy because directories are amongst the largest traffic generators [Yahoo and DMOZ in particular]. Search in each with your keywords to see what cats come up first. Thats where I want to be. And, an alphabetically advantaged domain name doesnt hurt.

**Optimize pages for the engines. Use secondary pages to optimize for secondary keywords.

**Hand submit to the majors, and use an auto submitter [like Jimtools] to get some mass submissions.

**Monitor and adjust. Keep up to date on where you place on the SEs, and figure out how to get in the top 10 on all. Then figure out how to get in the top 5 for all. Then...

**Re-optimize, tweak, refine, and curse. Do this over and over. Then do it again. Then start over.

**Build incoming links. I search each engine for my keywords, contact each site that comes up [if relevant], and ask for a reciprocal link. You will be suprised how many will do it--if they are on the first page, they probably know the value to their site. I also go to their links page and see who is linking to them--More sites to contact. Periodically, stat the process over to get more links--you cant have enough.

**Build a community. These forums are a prime example. To many of us, this is "home". We visit daily, and feel as if other members are our friends. Get that same feeling on your site. Consider a newsletter, contests, forums, additional pages and info, etc. I see a "bump" in traffic each time I mail a newsletter to the 140 signups.

**Find places where you are not listed and list there. Small SEs, directories, etc. Join clubs on Yahoo, Netscape, etc. where you can list your site [just added to two yesterday]. I also created my own channel on Netscape which is now linked on my page.

Most sites are not million hit sites. I have a site which hit an all time high yesterday--212 unique hits. I am thrilled, but I want to get the site to average 200/day as my next goal.

There are no magic tricks, or unspoken secrets in this. It is simply knowing what you are doing, and doing it--over and over. Thats why these forums are part of what I do. I learn what to try, and what changes are happening out there.

If a domain name has not been registered but the person has a dedicated IP address on a server, you can find the site by knowing the IP address. ARIN may not have the specific IP address on record as it seems another organization also hands out numbers too: [APNIC] http://www.apnic.net/search/index.html

Drawings are better because it doesn't require the reader to *do* anything.

Also, the link is like this - http:/IP number:860/cgi-bin/files

however, in the Message-ID , the mailserver is from an ISP in italy. they may have an account there they use, but i think the actual server for their site is in Texas.

can't find any connection with the italian mailserver and the IP number the site is on.

anyway, i found the network where the server is. looks like a mom and pop op going on here.

unfortunately, i think this person is his own ISP, so i doubt my complaints will prompt him to shut himself down.

as for the mailserver, it is likely that by now that account has been closed and he is using another.

why would he not use his own server to sendmail?

Building a Bulletin Board can be helpful, too. I put one on my site a month ago, and it does fairly well, maybe 1 or 2 posts a day.. but it has a link back to my site, so I submitted the board to the search engines, not only as a means of being found by more people, but also for the Link Relevancy back to my main site.

And definitely swap links with sites similar to yours. A little can go a long way!

Just to point out a few things...

1. Spammers usually utilizes different mail servers to deliver their spam emails and different host for their sites (that way, if their mail server get busted their site is still up and it's just a matter of looking for a new ISP for new email delivery.

2. If you are looking at the IP within the link inside the email body then that's very unreliable. There's many ways to fake an IP, it's a very old game. Normally, very talented people are behind this scheme unfortunately using their talent unethically.

3. If you are really serious going after the spammer then trace the server to server handshake. Such as this "Received: from dialup-65.56.73.37.dial1.miami1.level3.net ([65.56.73.37] helo=TheMachine) by hawk.prod.itd.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1)" this does not lie. However, be careful, because spammers usually bounce their email through several servers.

4. If the first server is untraceableusually that's the spammer itself and most likely running a mail server at his/her house. Do make it(your complain) Loud and Clear with Proof to the First Server that have received the email (normally this is their ISP).

For advance level...

you might have to get some serious tools, such as Trace Programs and Scanners aside from your standard whois look-up.

Just my 2 cents