Avoiding the Pitfalls of Link Building and Sinister Link Exchanges

I wrote an article about linking and the way sinister link exchanges profit from those who do not understand link building correctly.

The article is available at:
http://www.sydsautoparts.com/Linking-Evils.php

I think it is a pretty good article, myself. I really haven't seen another article like it. Though it is pretty much based on common sense, some may not be as well educated on the subject of Link Building, so that they can't make the connections concerning sinister linking techniques. Hopefully, this article lays everything out so that it is more easily understood.

A slight warning... this isn't a mini article that can be devoured in a few minutes, this is intended as a serious article that is written to help any webmaster, including beginners. If it misses that mark, tell me. I am anxious to hear how I might improve it.

http://www.sydsautoparts.com/Linking-Evils.php

Although this article is not directly automotive related, I know of many small business automotive shops starting or struggling to get their business online. This is intended to assist businesses (from any industry) with some great pointers along those lines.

-Doug (at work)

Februari 2007: TAM Dominasi Segmen Sedan

Meski Jakarta dilanda banjir yang sempat melumpuhkan perekonomian nasional, namun Toyota Astra Motor (TAM) masih tetap memimpin pasar otomotif nasional di berbagai produk, khususnya segmen sedan.

Di bandingkan dengan bulan sebelumnya, di segmen Camry tetap menjadi market leader di bulan Februari 2007 dengan penguasaan market share jauh di atas pesaing-pesaingnya, yaitu 73,7% (terjual 255 unit), yang meningkat 4 kali dibandingkan penjualan bulan Januari. Demikian juga, Vios (terjual 249 unit, 25,3 market share) dan Corolla Altis (terjual 122 unit, 23,3% market share) yang terjual hampir 4 kali jumlah penjualan sebelumnya.

Sedang Toyota Yaris mengalami penjualan yang mengesankan dengan kenaikan hampir 7 kali lipat dibandingkan bulan yang lalu, dengan total penjualan 679 unit atau 29,3% pangsa pasar.

Secara total, penjualan TAM Februari lalu sebesar 8.507 unit dan mendominasi pasar sebesar 33.8% (Suzuki (14,7%), Honda (14,1%)), sementara pasar otomotif nasional sebesar 23.812 unit, turun 11% dari bulan sebelumnya.

Pada pasar kendaraan 4x2, jumlah penjualan nasional mencapai 16.282 unit, segmen terbesar dalam komposisi market nasional. Bulan Februari Toyota mendominasi penjualan di segmen ini dengan 43,1% pangsa pasar (7.014 unit). Penjualan tersebut didukung oleh Avanza (3.941 unit, 52,4% market share) dan Kijang Innova (1.478 unit, 69,5% market share) yang selalu menjadi pemimpin di kelasnya. Sementara Toyota RUSH, bulan lalu mencetak angka penjualan sebesar 848 unit.

New Featured Parts & Products Showcase

Welcome Back to the Autos and Automotive Blog!

We have been testing and are now putting the final touches on a new Featured Parts & Products Showcase section at Syd's Eastside Auto Parts. We are happy to announce that it is now available and working. All online transactions are secured with 128 bit encryption and are safe (as usual for e-commerce at Syd's Eastside Auto Parts).

We will be adding many automotive parts and products to this new section over the next coming weeks. Here, we will be able to feature new auto parts and products, as well as showcase old auto parts.

Currently, the showcase is featuring a steering wheel from a 1949 Pontiac, and another from a 1952 Mercury.

1949 Pontiac Steering Wheel

1952 Mercury Steering Wheel

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts will use this section to showcase such older products as well as to expand our reach and offer new auto parts and automotive products.

The Syd's Eastside Auto Parts Search remains an important and functional focus for the website, where our customers can search virtually our entire inventory. But the Featured Parts & Products Showcase allows us to offer parts and products that you might not expect to find at an auto parts and salvage yard.

We hope our customers will enjoy the new service and that it may attract new customers.

Links:
Syd's Eastside Auto Parts
Featured Parts & Products Showcase

New Automotive Groups at Google Groups

Syd's Eastside Auto is proud to announce that it has started two new groups at Google Groups:

Autos & Automotive
An automotive and motorsports group for discussing all things automotive related. Topics may include autos, automotive mechanics, auto shows, automobile racing, automotive parts, salvage, classic cars, collector cars & more. Pickup trucks, tractor trailer trucks and motorcycling are also allowed. New members must be invited, although non-members may request membership. Each membership request must include a personal response so that we know that they aren't a spam bot collecting email addresses from such group mailing lists.

AutomotiveParts
Hunt for or offer automotive parts. Anyone may join to find or sell auto parts. All posts offering auto parts must include whether it is a used, rebuilt or new auto part. New parts should further indicate whether they are OEM, aftermarket or high performance parts. This group offers a unique opportunity for entreprenuers, salvage yards, parts shops, auto parts search pools and other automotive industry products. We welcome new aftermarket automotive and high performance auto parts sellers from drop shippers and wholesalers. Discuss the business or advertise your goods. Anyone may view the posts, but membership is required to post. New members must be invited, although non-members may request membership. Each membership request must include a personal response so that we know that they aren't a spam bot collecting email addresses from such group mailing lists.

Whether you are an automotive industry professional or just an automobile enthusiast, you will probably want to join the first group, which is more of a general subject group for anything automotive or motorsports related.

The second group is intended to offer a format for parts searches and querries, as well as offer a format from which automotive professionals can offer automotive parts, products and supplies.

We certainly encourage those of you who wish to join to do so. We are asking for a personal response from all new members in order to keep spam bots and spammers out of the group. We get enough spam as it is, I imagine you do to, as spam has alarmingly become a significant problem for anyone who conducts business on the internet.

-Syd's Eastside Auto Parts, Used Cars, Used Trucks & Rebuilders

New WebRing: "Automotive" - Seeking New Automotive and Motorsports Membership Sites

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts is happy to announce a new WebRing.

Automotive WebRing

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts, Used Cars & Rebuilders sponsors the Automotive SEARCH Network, which will also serve as the initial starting site for the new Automotive WebRing. The Automotive WebRing Hub is an official WebRing.com webring.

As we have previously announced, Automotive SEARCH is a selective search engine for automotive and motorsports related resources. More information about this new search facility is available in a couple of our previous posts, Automotive Search and Automotove Search Homepage.

Syd's Eastside Auto Parts is also a member of the webring, of course. Funny thing is, another member joined before actually getting the webring code implemented on that site and so the sponsor's site is the third on the list in their own webring. LOL!

But we are happy to have any and all family friendly automotive and/or motorsports related websites join our webring. The more membership we have, the better of a webring community it will be. The better the webring will be, the better the Automotive SEARCH Network will be, as well.

Automotive WebRing

Google PageRank Updates: January 2007

For those who don't know, Google maintains a numeral rank for each website it indexes. This rank is called the Google PageRank, and is often refered to as the PR of a site. According to Google's toolbar, PageRank is Google's measure of the importance of a page. In fact, a PageRank was one of the very first measures of trust for a website. More often than not, web surfers armed with a PageRank enabled Google toolbar in their browser would not trust a site which reported that the website they were visiting had a Pagerank any lower than 3. Some sites won't even link to another website with a PR of less than 4. It's all pretty paranoid, really.

When we started hearing that Google had updated its PageRank values for websites on about January 7th, 2007, we were getting excited that ours should update soon, as well. As time marched on our PR did not update, and this was making me and my boss more and more nervous (and frustrated). Our main website at Syd's Eastside Auto Parts has been trapped in the Google Sandbox with a lowly PageRank of 1 (on a scale of 0 to 10) for over 6 months, now. I was starting to think of the Google Sandbox as a sandpit filled with only quicksand.

Apparently, we are pretty far down on the list of websites for Google to update. Then, on January 25th, 2007, Google finally showed us a new PageRank of 4 for our website. I was so releived, as we had been fighting for a decent PR value for well over 6 months, and the strain on our business seemed intolerable. I was actually quite happy, having thought we would have to struggle another 3 months, until the next update, without any recognition of our hard work and effort in building the website, our brand, and for our considerable online marketing efforts.

But, Google wasn't done, yet. On Monday I came to work to find that our local shopping, tourism & business listings directory for Southeastern South Dakota, Yankton Shopping, had also been updated to a PR of 3 (from 0). To top this off, today I found that our Automotive Search Network and this blog (which you are reading now), were both among the websites further updated with Google PageRanks of 3 (each, they had both previously been rated 0).

Now, we hope that Google will take into account our last few pages that we put up recently durring the next Google PR Update... Our SydsEastside homepage at Google Pages, and our new Autos & Automotive group at Google Groups. ;)

If you are interested in joining our automotive and motorsports related group, Autos & Automotive, please be sure to check out our Group Welcome Page. We are very interested in signing-up automotive industry professionals, auto enthusiasts, car clubs and motorsports related members!

Look for further announcements concerning our group in the near future!

One thing I should mention, before I close this entry, is that Google's PageRank has not yet updated on all of Google's web servers. In fact, in the course of a day, I will notice that the Google toolbar will report a PR1 and later a PR4 and then flip-flop between the two throughout the day. Once Google updates all of it's servers that serve the Google Toolbar's PageRank, the PR should remain steady throughout the day. Let's hope that it won't take another Google update for the PR to be distributed to all such web servers. Hopefully, Google will address this in the future.

We hope you have a great day/night ahead of you! ;)
- Syd's Eastside Auto Parts

New Automotive Articles Online

Syd's Eastside Auto is proud to announce that over the past month we have been adding articles to the website, in the new Articles section.

We have started this section with 3 articles about vehicle maintenance and preparation:

• Winterization discusses how to prepare your vehicle for the winter, as well as preparing yourself for cold weather roadside emergencies.
• Coolant Change illustrates the mechanics and positive affects of changing and maintaining your coolant levels.
• Spark Plugs explains the basic knowledge required behind changing your spark plugs and wires. This is actually quite a good article since spark plugs usually are a tell-tale sign of exactly how your engine is performing. We plan to expand on this article in the future.

We hope that you will find these articles helpful. We are planning on adding even more automotive articles and mechanical tutorials in the near future.

Syd's Eastside Auto has also added more online contact web forms to make it easier for our customers to contact us and to direct specific comments or requests to the correct department or person. This should help expedite email based assistance for our customers. Our physical address and telephone contact information will also be found at the bottom of each of these web forms incase you would like to contact us more directly.

We will continue improving the website and invite everyone to offer thier own suggestions and feedback concerning our website, as well. In fact, the Site Feedback web form is also online to facilitate any such comments criticsm about the website.

We hope that you enjoyed a HAPPY HOLIDAYS and will have a GREAT NEW YEAR!