Source: StateOfSearch

PPC Keywords – the big boys is a post from: Insiders View

Top Tier finance terms, those that drive the most per click, are still being targeted by blackhats and spammers. sometimes these attacks (mainly against Google) last only a few days and sometimes only a few hours.They are, however, worthwhile. In a similar situation a whitehat internet market made $14K per month for appearing on the first page of a highly trafficked keyphrase. Payday loans and Car Insurance Comparison are still very expensive terms that drive significant volumes.

Pay Day Loan Fishing

PayDay Loans are big business, but they can also be shady. Lead Generation is the name of the game in this niche.

Booming payday lenders are prepared to pay big money for personal details of people looking for a loan, so-called “leads”.
There’s a gold rush in lead ­generation, the murky world where marketers compete to find and sell these details

Source: Mirror

Car Insurance SERP Hack

This short lived hack attempt lasted only a few hours but being on the first page of Gooogle for Car Insurance bring in significant traffic. It’s then about monetizing that traffic, normally through spammy lead gen or ads.
The content on the site is very small, there’s nothing I could find that indicates hidden text or mass on-page spamming. Looking at the categories on the site it’s obvious this site is used to spam multiple categories/verticals as it’s all related
Source: SEO Unique

Update:
Payday loan firms warned by OFT

Top Tier Finance Terms Still Targeted By Blackhats is a post from: Insiders View

Lewis’s editorial code is not the official Editor’s Code being picked over at the Leveson Inquiry. This code is administered by the Press Complaints Commission. The printed media and their websites (with the exception of Northern & Shell) pay a voluntary levy to the PCC  which hears complaints from the public against the press about inaccurate or misleading articles, invasions of privacy and other matters.

Rather than sign up to the PCC for a relatively small fee Lewis has instead spent a vast sum drawing up a private code of his own. It seems an extraordinary amount for a man who refuses to pay over the odds for a can of cola.

Lewis, whose appears on Wikipedia as a financial journalist, has always considered himself as such and his business an editorial one, with the freedom of the press. Asked by the chair of the Treasury Select Committee in 2010 who regulated him, Lewis said it was nobody. ‘ I am a financial journalist and regulation of the media is an interesting one,’ he said. In 2009, he corrected the Committee which seemed to think his business was a price comparison website: ‘We are not actually a price comparison site, we are an editorial site,’ he told MPs.In 2008, appearing on Channel 4 News, he corrected Jon Snow’s misunderstanding about his business: ‘No Jon I think you are misunderstanding I have an editorial website’.

Now that his editorial business with its access to press information and the public through national broadcasters (*) is owned by a price comparison website, is it time the public had an independent regulator to complain to, even a feeble one like the PCC?

Lewis told the BBC his code has the power to fine Moneysupermarket.com a seven figure penalty for breach. The PCC lacks even the ability to fine. But is all this talk about paying lawyers a million pounds and seven figure fines preparatory work aimed at impressing the OFT, which has to approve the merger, when what such an influential media business needs is independent regulation?

*ITV Daybreak,  ITV Lorraine, BBC 1 Watchdog, BBC 2 How To Beat Tough Times, BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Radio 5 Live Shelagh Fogarty, BBC Radio 1 Jo Wiley, Channel 5 It Pays To Watch

Should OFT approval require moneysavingexpert.com to be regulated by the Press Complaints Commission? is a post from: Insiders View

Moneysavingexpert, set up in 2003, generating revenues of £16m per annum is sold for almost ninety million pounds to MoneySupermarket.

“MoneySavingExpert.com has become part of people’s daily lives, far bigger than the man who founded it, and now is the right time for it to stand on its own two feet.”

Martin Lewis who owns 100% of the company is set to receive £35m plus shares worth £25m.

Martin Lewis Sells MoneySavingExpert and Makes £87 Million is a post from: Insiders View

This is a big deal for Skimlinks, a UK company that invisibly rewrites links to ecommerce sites into links that retailers pay for, usually on a sales/lead generation cost per action basis. According to Hitwise, moneysavingexpert’s forum is the ninth biggest social network in the UK. Pinterest was the 46th most popular social site in the UK at the start of this year.

Klein who is an investor and board observer at Skimlinks will be hoping that being upfront about a technology designed so it can’t be seen will avoid a backlash from users. In February, Skimlinks was dropped by Pinterest after users complained about surreptitious advertising and worries about copyright and making money.

MSE is being selective about how it is using Skimlinks and says it is implementing a custom version. The technology will alter links for anyone using the forum without registering or logging in but it can be switched off by registering. The default setting for existing logged in forum users  is off with the option to turn it on. MSE has decided not to allow users to see which links are Skimlinked by adding an asterisk to disclose as it has with affiliate links until now. It is also making a distinction between Skimlinks and Skimwords, both link services from Skimlinks, saying: 

Important: Skimlinks also has a separate Skimwords software, which is intrusive and adds links to keywords. We’re not using that software, so please don’t confuse the two.

Skimwords 'intrusive'

The consumer website has kept Skimlinks off all its financial product or ‘money’ boards. MSE site editor is Dan Plant who is a member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel. The panel was established by the FSA under FSMA to represent the interests of consumers. Plant brings to the panel ‘a strong passion for consumer protecti0n and responsibility’. That may not sit well if he works for a company that monetises links to financial products posted anonymously in a forum which welcomes users with the message ‘anyone can post please exercise caution’.

MSE has also kept Skimlinks off boards for gamblers and compers after users complained last year that any additional tracking could make them easier to spot and disqualify. From what Skimlinks CEO Alicia Navarro says about the benefits of her technology, users may be right to be wary:

‘The data and analytics that we can provide about how community members are interacting with merchant and product information can be invaluable to publishers. The insights that can be gleaned by running Skimlinks have helped thousands of our publishers understand their customer base more, understand their shopping preferences, purchase behaviours, all without infringing on their privacy or interrupting their browsing experience. Publishers can then make decisions to focus more on certain users or products or merchants, with knowledge that their community respond well to these people and products. This is how merchants benefit, aside from the fact that by helping these sites fund themselves, they are creating future sources of new customers.’

Boards where Skimlinks is being used include Discount Codes ‘n Vouchers where users share codes. It is fairly common for retailers to manage how codes issued to consumers can be redeemed through affiliate links. ASDA requires affiliates to only use voucher codes specifically issued for affiliates. Debenhams has closed its program to voucher code affiliates saying it is unable to recruit anymore. MSE has tried to address potential conflicts between it and its users’ competing commissions. The custom version it is running allows users to copy and paste links unaltered instead of clicking on them which automatically adds Skimlinks’ tracking.

If retailers do start to treat forum users any differently for having clicked through on unseen affiliate links and used codes for consumers, MSE may face a backlash. In its Q&A, it says it reserves the right to add Skimlinks to more boards. It may need to take it off boards if users who post content, unpaid, and moderators who run boards, unpaid, decide they don’t want it.

MSE is not the huge site it is today without listening to its users. Provided it continues to do so, this could be a partnership that strengthens UK companies competing in a sector dominated by the US.

#moneysavingexpert shows @Pinterest how it is done is a post from: Insiders View

Martin Lewis’ (financial journalist) Wikipedia page which has been revised several hundred times has recent edits by an IP address associated with Lewis.

IP address  93.152.127.10 has edited Lewis’ page, and the Wiki entry for moneysavingexpert.com, a site owned by Lewis, 13 times.

Smtp.tunechecker.com and mail3.moneysavingexpert.com point to 93.152.127.10. Tunechecker.com and moneysavingexpert.com use 93.152.127.10 as a mail server, according to domain search site Robtex.com.

Something odd about an IP address is a post from: Insiders View

Google revenues are still benefiting from insurance and finance – The Top Dog for online advertising.

Source: Wordstream

Finance and Insurance #1 Annual Google Spending is a post from: Insiders View

sometimes it is unclear exactly who is responsible for pointing a customer towards a certain insurance product. By extension, it is therefore unclear to whom a customer should complain if things go wrong.
FSA spokesman

Whitelabeled Comparison Sites At Risk is a post from: Insiders View

Google made 6.8 Billion Dollars on Insurance Last Year is a post from: Insiders View

Content and Infographics still SEO Royalty is a post from: Insiders View