Someone pointed out to me that a book I recommend has now become out-of-date due to changes to Overture (or as it is now known, Yahoo Search Marketing).

When I was first introduced to keyword research in early 2005, the tool to use was the Overture Keyword Selector Tool.

You typed in a couple of keywords and clicked “search” and the tool would give you a list of searches made on Yahoo for the previous month along with a count of how many times each search was made.

It was pretty useful and most people seemed to think it was very accurate – accurate enough to base important marketing decisions on anyway…

As it turned out, the Overture Tool disappeared a while ago – not sure why but it was up and down for a bit and now it seems to have gone for good.

The other tool this vigilant reader told me about was Nichebot – which used to be free to use but is now a paid-for only resource.

Well, I saw the author of the book over the weekend and he said that he had realised that both the Overture Tool had disappeared and that Nichebot was now charging visitors.

He suggested that, until he can update the book and provide the update to customers, you should use Wordtracker’s free keyword suggestion tool at:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Just make sure to remember that results provided here are for DAILY searches, rather than monthly…

I got an email the other day from Wordtracker saying that my membership had expired. I’d forgotten I had access to it to be honest. Anyway, looking back I don’t think I ever really used it for anything useful but I paid £140 for a year’s access. What a waste of money when I rarely used it!

A good friend (John Sikora, the marketer behind the excellent http://www.GuruDAQ.com) told me that he uses Wordtracker occasionally but not enough to warrant signing up for a year’s access.

His tip?

When you need to use it, get a 1 Week Pass for Wordtracker and hammer it over a week. That way you only pay £15 and you can judge whether a full year would be worth the expenditure.

Sound advice if you ask me, especially after I’ve just checked the Wordtracker site – the annual subscription is now £165 a year…

I was recently looking for some good quality graphics for my site and had a hard time finding a decent pack for a reasonable price.

Basically I wanted some professional looking images to make my websites and sales pages look great – to “jazz them up“!

A lot of graphics are, admittedly, great but you just can’t be sure that you are buying royalty-free images.

Use them without knowing who owns the copyright and you could end up in some hot water.

The solution? Well, have a look for yourself…

[removed – site no longer online]

I love WordPress blogs because they are so simple to use.

You just login, write a short message, click ‘Publish’ and it is up on the web.

An added bonus is that people can add comments to your posts to discuss what you have written.

Of course, as with anything good on the web, spammers and scumbags have to try and take advantage of it.

WordPress blogs, unfortunately, attract idiot comment spammers. These people run automated programs which visit your blog and leave comments about all kinds of unwanted subjects – porn, drugs, get rich quick schemes etc.

If you don’t moderate comments, your blog could pretty quickly get filled up with crap.

After almost a year of running this particular blog, I think I have pretty much stopped the spammers now. I get the occassional junk comment but now it is just one, rather than the 50 or so I was getting daily.

What I did was ensure that every comment had to be moderated before it could appear on the blog, EXCEPT for comments by people who had been approved before.

So, if you’ve written a comment on here which has been approved in the past and you write a new one, it should appear immediately – no moderation required.

As I was deleting all of the spam, I kept track of all the stupid words that the spammers were using.

Every time I got a new comment about a certain drug I would add that drug’s name to the Blacklist.

This means that any comments written that mention “cialis” for example, are deleted immediately so I don’t even see them.

Soon I also noticed that the spammers were using similar domain names everytime so I would add part of the domain name into the Blacklist.

Almost all spammers on this blog were using dot info domain names.

I was tempted to add “.info” to the Blacklist but I decided not to just in case someone genuine was using this kind of web address.

So far there are about 250 terms that trigger deletion of comments on this particular blog and they seem to be keeping it clear of any crap.

And good thing too.

I’ve seen blogs that are left to rot and it isn’t pretty once the comment spammers take hold so if you value your own blog, please make sure to keep your Blacklist up to date!

Thanks for reading,

Ben

P.S. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out The How To Lay Off Your Boss Home Study Course – surprisingly good!

P.P.S. By all means leave a comment on this post but please don’t use any dodgy words…

As you may already be aware, I use SpamArrest to stop ALL unwanted commercial email from landing in my inbox.

What SpamArrest does is pick up the email from my server and place it in a folder called “Unverified”.

It then sends an email to the sender asking them to confirm that they actually exist by clicking on a link. If the sender does not do this, the email remains in the “Unverified” folder.

However, if the sender does confirm that they actually exist, they are then added to the safelist and any further mail from them will always be delivered to the inbox.

It works very, very well and spam is now no longer an annoyance for me.

Consider that a couple of days ago I got 15,000 spam emails in just one day across my email accounts and none got through to my inbox.

SpamArrest does not delete any mails, it holds them for however many days you specify so that you can browse through and double-check you haven’t missed any “real” emails.

It was while I was doing this today that I found this beauty:

“Date: Tue Jun 05 15:46:54 PDT 2007
Sender: “Olga” bfwcg@********.co.uk
Subject: Olga from Russia.

Hello!!!
How are you? My name is Olga. I am 27 years old. I live in Russia, city Yoshkar-Ola. I am cheerful woman, and like to do many things as camping, go to the cinema, dances etc. In a word I like to do all what like all people.

My dream this travel abroad. I know the english language well enough..

I began to study english language approximately one year ago. I want to tell you history which have pushed me write to you. 8 months ago I have got acquainted with the man from other country by name Hugo. During this time we had good relations. We have understood that our relations become serious and we have decided to meet in his country. I wrote the application for reception the visa.

I waited reception of the visa approximately half of year. All time I kept in touch with Hugo through the internet and often called to each other. I and Hugo waited reception of the visa to our meeting. I have received the invitation from the ambassador for reception of the visa.

My director has given me long-term holiday from work and I have gone to Moscow to receive the visa. I informed good news to Hugo, but he has answered, that does not want our meeting.

He played with me. He has informed that has the wife with two children and at all has no plans to meet me. I was not ready to such turn of events. I could not think what even after 8 months of acquaintance he can so unscrupulously act with me. Now I am in Moscow I don’t want that all was gone for nothing and will be glad if my visa will be useful to our meeting. I could arrive already through 6-7 days, but a problem in that that now I have no man which would like my arrival.

Probably it will silly sound but if you will be interested in a meeting with the good woman i will like to meet you sometime soon!

As Hugo was dishonest with me I have decided to find the man which is interested to meet the woman from Russia. I do not know your ideas about my letter, but it would be fine if we could meet and have some weeks or months together. On my trip I want to receive rest from my work and a life in Russia. Also the basic purpose for the future it is search good men for serious attitudes which go to a marriage. I have no children, and i haven’t been married before. I am the mature woman and ready to creation of family with good man. I don’t know what you really search in the future but if we could meet I will be happy to discuss with you more about our meeting. What are you going to do this time? It would be fine if we could meet, do friendship or more than simply friendship. I will be happy if you also have a free time and we could meet soon. I do not know your interests, but anyhow write to me back and I will tell to you more about myself. Write to me all that you want. Maybe we have similar plans and it will be interesting to us together.

You can write all that you want. Ask any questions which interest you.

I will tell more about myself and send my photos.

Please, write to me back on my regular e-mail: olyamalysh@**.ru

wish you a good day

Olga from Russia”

Sorry for the lousy formatting and spelling but I copied it exactly as it was sent to me, I only obscured the email addresses.

I can’t understand the scam here but it probably involves snaring guillible men and persuading them to pay, in advance, for ladies like “Olga” to visit the UK.

Once they send the money, Olga stops answering emails and never does turn up at the airport! I would hazard a guess that they want payment via Western Union too!

Two months ago this email would’ve arrived in my Blueyonder inbox unchallenged and would’ve really annoyed me.

Today, it just sits in the Unverified folder because “Olga” does not exist and has used a spoofed email address to send the email to me.

Therefore, she cannot verify that she exists and her email will never reach my inbox. Just like all those v1agra, c1al15 and R0l3x emails 🙂

Moral of the story?

Well, if you are getting bombarded by junk emails and want it to stop – dead – check out SpamArrest.

I highly recommend it to anyone who is suffering from overload of email spam.