Dear Jill,

You are the best.

Regarding tip one of your Ten Tips to the Top, "Do not purchase a new domain." Does this mean that I should not purchase an existing site from a competitor and change the Whois to me? In the offline world companies buy out competitors all the time.

I have read that Google may monitor Whois databases for changes. If they do, would they throw a site into the sandbox for a Whois change?

Best regards,

Art

Jill's Response

Hi Art,

You were one of many who emailed to ask about that statement in last week's new and improved "10 Tips to the Top" article. Unfortunately, the way I wrote that first tip, it sounded like I was telling people to go out and buy old sites and domains. But in reality, that's not at all what I meant. All I was trying to say was that if you have an existing site/domain, you should use that one when you're set to optimize or redesign, and not go out and purchase a new one for that purpose.

I was not at all saying anything about buying expired domains, or old sites, or anything like that. It is my understanding that Google starts the clock ticking again on any domains that are purchased from someone else. I can't say for sure that they actually do this, but that's at least what they tell people that they do.

I've since slightly changed the wording on that sentence so that my meaning is a little bit clearer.

Sorry for any confusion it may have caused.

Jill

Overture Data and KEI

Hi Jill,

I have just launched a new site and am really confused about search engine optimization. I was given the suggestion during a seminar to use the Overture (Yahoo now, right?) PPC site and try to find keywords to "float" at between $.10 to $.20. My understanding is that it is to see which keywords have the most potential. What I am coming up with a lot of the time (using Wordtracker/Overture) are phrases with KEIs of 1 or more with no previous bids.

I don't know if that's good or bad!

Any advice for a novice who really can't afford to hire someone to help her at the moment?

Thanks so much.

Lynne

Jill's Response

Hi Lynne,

Yes, the best advice I can give you is to not look at or worry about KEI (as shown in Wordtracker), as it's not a measurement that is helpful to anything. You need to optimize your pages for the phrases that people are searching on which are relevant to it. Your Overture data should be very helpful in providing you with many of those phrases.

Hope this helps!

Jill

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