Kyle Ritter

Remember the long-running e-mail hoax from the early days of the Web, the one that had Bill Gates testing an “e-mail tracing program” and offering to pay recipients big bucks if they passed his test e-mail along to all their friends?

Well, the offer is true, sort of. Microsoft Corp. wants you to use its MSN search engine, and it’s got $1 million worth of prizes up for grabs for those who nibble at the offer.

Full article here

Myself, I pretty much still use Google, and if that fails, Yahoo, then if that fails, MSN. Old habits are hard to break. Switching to Firefox as my main browser instead of IE was a trying task, I had to break myself of the habit of clicking on the IE icon.

Then again, you can surf all three at once.

I have been using Digital Point’s the co-op ad network for the past few monthes. I am readily impressed, it has helped exposure to my various websites in many different ways, and has greatly improved some of my search engine positioning.

So when I saw an ad appear on BarFly that simply said “McDonalds” I wondered who in the hell would be using such a generic brand name for an ad.

Maybe it’s time to digress for a moment and explain how Digital Point works. Basically, it creates static text links on member’s sites, and displays them at random across everypage through out the entire network of sites. The number of pages indexed by google factors into how much weight you are given. More weight=more displays= more chances for a search engine spider to find your link. And since search engine really really like anchor text, it makes it look like your site is really really about whatever phrase you are using in your anchor text.
One click told me all I needed to know. It took me to the Super Size Me website. So then I went to google and typed “McDonalds” which pulled up McDonalds corporate site in first place, and Super Size Me in second.
“Aha”, shouted inspector Kyle, “I am on to them. Following that old miserable failure technique.”