Here’s a snapshot of changes in my world over the past 3 weeks:

1. I sold one of my sites recently, Healthacker.com

2. I will be providing specialized content for one or more private membership sites

3. I still write sales copy occasionally

4. I started a new marketing and online business blog over at Nakedebiz.com

5. I’ve put an end to relationships with several people who I trusted but who proved to be backstabbers.

6. I’m moving on in new directions with both my personal and business lives and writing a lot less about the details of both, because I don’t need the aggrevation. I’ve already found that I’m 10X more productive and at least 4X happier keeping my business to myself.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about how some high traffic affiliate sites have been kicked out of the programs they’re promoting, because they outrank the merchant site in the search engines and I think that stinks. Well, now it’s happened to me.

For the past 2 months, I’ve been getting phone calls from a New York based telephone number. Sometimes I’ve been getting these calls 4-5 times a day and when I pick up the phone, there’s no-one on the other end. Odd, and annoying. So finally, I blocked the number and the calls stopped.

Today, a letter showed up in my mailbox from a company I’m an affiliate of, stating that I’ve been kicked out of their affiliate program… because several pages of mine that link to their products are in the top 20 on Google for the same search terms used to find their products.

W. T. F. ???

A company ‘firing’ an affiliate because they do well in the search engines… for keywords and terms the company can’t even get into the top 100 for?

Ok, now I’m mad. I wasn’t trying to manipulate the search engines. In fact, I had forgotten about those pages… because the products weren’t selling anyway - probably because when someone clicked on the links on my pages the merchant site is so fucked up it’s not converting that traffic into buyers. The site is a nightmare since they changed it.

So today I downloaded the database (the site is run with wordpress), did a search and replace of any links leading to their affiliate program with another program and re-uploaded.

Problem solved, for me, but NOT for THEM.

On Monday, I’m scanning the letter I recieved from this company and sending it off to the Google gods along with a formal abuse report - stating that this company is strongarming affiliates and webmasters in an effort to manipulate the search results in their favor.

Over the weekend, I’m contacting some people I know who have been kicked out of this program and will try to get them on board as well.

This could be grounds for a lawsuit so I will not mention the name of the company or it’s site, but I’d love to be a fly on the wall at Google HQ when this fiasco comes to light.

Jesus: “Paul, You’ve been kicked out of XYZ affiliate program cuz after repeated demands to remove ABC.php page that ranks higher than ours for the same product name from google, you have not complied.”

Fuck you, XYZ.

Last week’s plea post looking for a new managing editor for Gawker.com, Gawker media’s flagship site says:

“The right candidate will oversee Gawker’s evolution.

A feel for the tone of the internet, and the particular obsessions of the internet audience, is necessary.”

And the New York Times reports yesterday that Gawker founder, Nick Denton himself will be taking over.

I’ve always liked Nick’s writing style and have been reading his material online since late 2003, wherever he happens to be writing, so I’ll be gawking Gawker.com more closely from now on.

It used to be that you went to Google.com, dropped in a keyword or two and you were quickly whisked away to the page out in cyberspace most relevant to what you were looking for.

That’s changing, dramatically.

Go to Google today and do a simple search. On your search results page, you’ll see links to YouTube videos. You’ll see product listings from Froogle (or whatever the heck they’re calling it now), you’ll see links to pages on Google-owned blogspot.com, etc.

What you’re seeing is a closed loop where the search results are no longer sending you off into the wilds of cyberspace, but to Google’s own content. And with the announcement of Knol, their newest foray into becoming a content provider rather than just a content discovery engine, that loop is getting tighter than ever.

From the Official Google Blog:

“A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.”

“We are quite experienced with ranking web pages, and we feel confident that we will be up to the challenge. We are very excited by the potential to substantially increase the dissemination of knowledge.”

Other bloggers are calling Knol a Wikipedia killer. Some think Google is going too far. Another blogger wonders how Knols will organize it’s info better than blogs do, or how attributing authors is better than what wikipedia is currently doing.

So at what point does Google’s closed loop become a noose? Time will tell.

knol, google, antitrust

1. Been working on the template here and still need to take care of a few things, like the sidebars, footer and commenting interface. I’ll get to those when I’m good and ready *grin*

2. Getting more copywriting work lately. That’s what’s bringing in nice amounts of cashola right now so making that top priority over other projects is what I’m doing. Pauly needs a new pair of shoes!

3. Will be ramping up my blogging here on this site and twitter, and winding everything else down by the end of 2007. Too many irons in the fire is not good for me.

4. Any extra projects I work on will be under the radar from now on. Prying eyes too soon means premature opinions. First impressions are not always correct.

For me, 2007 was a year of coming to terms with a lot of things in my online business and personal life. I won’t get into details because I’m considering it all water under the bridge.

2008 will be a new year, and a new chapter in my life. As the last few pages of this chapter are turned, it’s as if I can’t wait to get through it and move on to the next. Because even though 2007 was poorly written and devoid of plot, the author did a good job of building suspense for the rest of the book.

Now, like most of you, I’ve peeked at the first few pages of 2008 and guess what… they’re empty.

To most, that emptiness would be disturbing. No pre-written plot, a map with a hole in it and you’re headed right for it… like a 15th century sailor who’s been warned that the earth is flat but still sails for the edge anyway - and ends up discovering the new world.

Enough bad metaphor for now.

Those blank pages in 2008 will need to be filled, and how interesting they are depends on how passionate you are about filling them.