Are FFAL pages really dead? I say no. Let me tell you a
short story. I put a site analysis tool on my FFAL page to
see what it was doing. I didn't expect to see much but was
surprised to find out that I was receiving hits on my page
that have nothing to do with my website.
Find free site analysis tools at:
http://www.webtrendslive.com/default.htm
http://get.hitbox.com/
http://www.extreme-dm.com racking/'reg
http://sm6.sitemeter.com/default.asp
http://www.websitetrafficreport.com/
I've read a couple of articles about how FFAL pages are
hurting search engine ranking on websites. I'm not convinced.
Find an FFAL page that is well traffic ed. Look at mine if
you don't know of one.
http://www.pagecrafters.net/links/links.htm
Pick a link and copy the title. I picked:
FreeLotteriesOnline - the guide to free online lotteries
Now do a search on Google for that title. Not all of the
titles will show up. You might have to look through several.
What your looking for are websites that end in link.htm, but
your going to find classified ad sites also. Look on the
first three pages of the search engine. Link pages do get
indexed.
If your not sure of a search engine, use a robot.txt page to
keep specific search engines out.
I'm picking up hits on embroidery, travel, casino, dating...
you name it. I started looking at the referrers to see what
the search engines were seeing, and I found out something.
My FFAL page is being indexed at least once a week. Because
of that, whatever happens to be on the page at the time is
what is being indexed.
Since having a site analysis tool on the page, I have a good
idea of what is getting placed on the page and how many
people are searching for it. About 300 people a month find
my page this way. Why, you ask, is my FFAL page getting
indexed? I read an article written by Mark Joyner over a
year ago, and it seems that others have read it also. In
case you missed it...
http://www.roibotlibrary.com/articles/99nov24.htm
What it says in short is, after placing your link on several
FFAL pages, index it to the search engines to give your
website a temporary popularity boost.
The next question is, what can I do with this information. I
know how many, and what they are searching for. If I'm
lucky, I'm already selling what they want. Chances are, I'm
not. I turned to affiliate programs to fill my visitors
needs. I set up affiliates with casinos, travel and dating.
I then placed them on the FFAL page.
Affiliate programs can be found at:
http://clickbank.com/
http://www.cj.com/
http://www.linkshare.com/
Find FFAL scripts at:
http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/
http://www.shavenferret.com/scripts/links/
http://castlecgi.castellum.net/scripts/CastleLinks/
If I'm getting random visitors to my site with the FFAL
page, why shouldn't I try to keep them on my page and sell
them something? I don't have any real stats just yet, but I
will let you know how it turns out.
About the Author
Dale Sexton owns & operates 'PageCrafters.net', &
publishes 'Small Business Tools magazine'. Both
focus on tools & tips for small business.
mailto:pagecrafters@pagecrafters.net
Sign up for 'SBT magazine' at:
http://pagecrafters.net/newsletter.html