A handy guide to determine if Google is gunning for you.

Last week Google announced some changes to its algorithm that affect a whopping 12% of search results.

The target?

“low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful”

While some say this is aimed at so-called “content farms”, here are the warning signs that this change is aimed at your web site(s):

- You created your web site with the click of a button (or a few buttons)

- You didn’t create any original content for your web site

- Your web site asks questions but doesn’t provide answers — and is waiting for a “user” to generate the answer for you (ahem)

- When users do answer those questions, the answers suck (ahem)

- You developed a hundred sites in a weekend

- Although your web site presents existing information in a “unique” way, hundreds of other web sites have also tried to present that same information in a “unique” way

- Your web site is a splog

- Your content is similar to that found on other web sites; you just re-write it in a different way

- Your only plan for traffic generation is search traffic

Some Saturday afternoon cybersquatting humor for you.

It takes guts to sell a trademarked domain name on such a public venue as eBay.

So what do you call it if you try to sell an eBay trademark on eBay?

One of my readers just sent a link to me for just such an auction.

Yep, that’s right. Someone is trying to sell eBay.net.in on eBay. For only $192,500.

I’ve pasted some of the auction description below with my own commentary in italics.

************
Today is your Lucky Day! (If you want to set yourself up for a lawsuit in the near future!)

Ebay as you may know (because you’re currently on eBay.com) is a worldwide household name and happens to be one of the most searched words online clocking in a total of 185,000,000 searches EACH day. That’s right!

Ebay is the most typed in word all over the world in search engines.

This company is also one of the richest online and rakes in Billions of Dollars each year as customers from all around the world flock to ebay every single day buying and selling items from this website. (Yep, that’s right! They have billions of dollars to sue you with!)

This 4 letter domain name is perhaps one of the most difficult to acquire as it belongs to the registered company and is also part of its trademark. (Yes, the seller actually mentioned it is a trademark.)

However, having an Ebay domain is a Million Dollar Prized Possession.

It is worth Millions!!

As you know Ebay.com is just one of the many domains owned by the Company. They also own other domains such as Ebay.com.au, Ebay.de, Ebay.in, Ebay.it, Ebay.at, Ebay.com.hk, Ebay.pl and so on making it virtually impossible to have an Ebay domain for yourself.

You are however in great luck (or today is your unlucky day if you were to buy this domain). Your Opportunity to own an Ebay domain is finally here… Ebay.net.in.

This is your opportunity to cash in on those visiting the Ebay websites.

When those 185,000,000 visitors type in Ebay every day, chances are they will eventually end up visiting your site, Ebay.net.in since Ebay owns the domain Ebay.in.

You can use this domain to create a Million Dollar Business for yourself.

You can
1. Set up your own Auction Company using your own logos and create a
fortune. (for eBay’s trademark lawyers)
2. Create a Blog that is Ebay Related. (only to lose it to eBay)
3. Sell your own Products or affiliated products

The Possibilities are Endless.

Ebay is also extremely easy to remember. Who could possibly misspell or forget this word as opposed to say…yxkt or qlwz.

Here is your chance to rake in tons of cash with this prized domain. (Rake yourself over coals when you get sued.)

Please note that I accept only Money Orders for this item.

Kindly do not send any fraudulent monies as Ebay will report such persons to relevant authorities and have legal action be taken against them. (Remember: eBay will take legal action against people who do things fraudulent! Don’t say he didn’t warn you.)

**************

If its any consolation, the seller is throwing in 4 free business card designs with the purchase. Maybe you’ll get to keep them after you lose your domain.

Is $192,500 too rich for you? The seller also listed youtube.org.ag for only $37,000.

Non-profit reverses course and lowers price to sponsor meetings.

Currying favor with the ICANN crowd just got a lot cheaper.

Well, at least compared to last week.

In advance of its meeting in San Francisco next month, ICANN doubled the cost of many of its sponsorship packages. It also added a new level at $500,000.

But now it’s pulling a Wal-Mart and rolling back prices.

The non-profit announced tonight that it is reducing the costs on lower level packages and offering a 33% discount for non-profits.

It appears that it’s not just the entry level packages that took a haircut. The Diamond level, which cost VeriSign $500,000 for next month’s meeting, is now $250,000. The Platinum Elite package (which I think includes some frequent flyer miles or something) was reduced from $250,000 to $150,000.

The entry level Bronze package is now $7,500 instead of $10,000. But I believe that’s still more than it cost last year.

It’s not clear if these lower rates apply to the March meeting in San Francisco. If so, ICANN is giving some hefty refunds.

ICANN announces new location for June meeting.

The rumor mill was correct.

ICANN just announced that its June meeting will be moved to Singapore.

The meeting was supposed to be held in Jordan. But security concerns and unrest in the region prompted ICANN to change the location.

ICANN has a penchant for selecting meeting locations with security issues.

This culminated in a number of high profile participants sitting out last year’s meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

It held a previous meeting in Mexico City, which may have actually been a greater security concern than Kenya.

Despite holding meetings in questionable places, the worst I’ve ever heard of is a reporter getting mugged for $2.

Demand Media results shed light on revenue sharing, eNom results.

Earlier this week Demand Media reported fourth quarter results. The company eked out a small profit in the quarter, but expects to return to losses going forward.

You can read the complete details here, but here are some interesting numbers:

Revenue Sharing: In Q4 its network of customer web sites (which would include parked pages) generated 3.866 million billion page views with an RPM of $3.11. But the company reported that its RPM excluding traffic acquisition costs (ex-TAC) was $2.25.

The company says “Revenue ex-TAC is defined by the Company as GAAP revenue less traffic acquisition costs (TAC). TAC comprises the portion of Content & Media GAAP revenue shared with the Company’s network customers.”

So according to this definition, of the $3.11 generated per thousand page views, only $.86 was shared with publishers. This seems very low, but I’ve contacted Demand Media for an explanation and will update accordingly.

Changes in RPM: The gross RPM on customer web sites was down 22% compared to Q4 2009. The RPM on Demand Media’s owned and operated network was up 36%. Of course, a lot of Demand’s owned and operated revenue comes from actual web sites such as eHow.

eNom Growing: Registrar revenue for 2010 was $100M, up 10% compared to 2009. Including all of Demand Media’s registrars (eNom is the biggest), it had 11 million domains under management a the end of 2010. That’s up from 9.1 million at the end of 2009.