Note: Please don't use any hotmail, yahoo, zwallet addresses nor autoresponders. These will not subscribe you. Also, by subscribing to our Pathway To Success Ezine you expressly request to receive our regular newsletter and agree to in-house and third party advertising contained therein.

Publishing dates:
'Pathway To Success' is published every other Sunday.
Next Issue is supposed on 25th Feb 2007.

Did you know that subscribers to Bob Osgoodby's Free Ezine "Tip of the Day" get a Free Ad for their Business on his Web Page? Great Business and Computer Tips - Monday thru Friday Instructions to place your ad are in the Newsletter. Subscribe at: http://adv-marketing.com/business/subscribe2.htm

Today's Feature Article

Top Dirty Linking Tricks
Lee Roberts

Part of achieving top search engine positions is through links from other Web pages. These links can come from people who like your site (natural links), reciprocal linking, directory submissions and a few other ways.

The goal of trading links is to get quality links for quality links. True quality links will carry benefits far beyond that of attaining a coveted position in the search engine results. The links will bring traffic from the Web page linking to your Web page. Therefore, you want to ensure you trade or barter links from quality partners.

Sometimes it's hard to determine who is a quality linking partner, even for the expert. So, how can you tell if your link is on a Web page where its value will not be very good?

The short list below highlights the ways of diminishing or nullifying the value of a link to your site from another Web page.

Meta Tag Masking - this old trick simply used CGI codes to hide the Meta tags from browsers while allowing search engines to actually see the Meta tags.

Robots Meta Instructions - using noindex and nofollow attributes let's the novice link partner see the visible page with their link while telling the search engines to ignore the page and the links found on the page. Nofollow can be used while allowing the page to be indexed which gives the impression that the search engines will eventually count the link.

Rel=nofollow Attributes - this is not a real attribute based upon HTML standards, but rather it is an attribute approved by the search engines to help identify which links should not be followed. This attribute is often used with blogs to prevent comment and link spam. The link will appear on the Web page and in the search engine's cache, but never be counted.

Dynamic Listing - dynamic listing is a result of having links appear randomly across a series of pages. Each time the link is found on a new page, the search engines count consider the freshness of the link. It is extremely possible that the link won't be on the same page upon the next search engine visitation. So, the link from a partner displaying rotating, dynamic link listings rarely helps.

Floating List - this can be easily missed when checking link partners. Essentially, your link could be number one today, but as new link partners are added your link is moved down the list. This is harmful because the values of the links near the bottom of the list are considered to be of lesser value than the links at the top. With the floating list, it is possible to have your link moved to a new page whose PR value is significantly less or non-existent and the new page may not be visited and indexed for months.

Old Cache - the caching date provided by Google indicates the last time the page was cached. Pages with lower PR values tend to be visited and cached less often than pages that have medium to high PR values. If the cache is more than six months old, it can be surmised that Google has little or no desire to revisit the page.

Denver Pages while Denver, CO is a nice place to visit, Denver Pages are not a place you want to find your link in a trade. Denver Pages typically have a large amount of links grouped into categories on the same page. Some people call this the mile high list. These types of pages do not have any true value in the search engines and are not topically matched to your site.

Muddy Water Pages - these are dangerous and easy to spot. Your link will be piled in with non-topically matched links with no sense of order. It's like someone took all the links and threw them in the air to see where they land. These are worse than the Denver Pages.

Cloaking - cloaking is the process of providing a page to people while providing a different page to search engines. You could be seeing your link on the Web page, but the search engines could possibly never see the link because they are provided with a different copy. Checking Google's cache is the only way to catch this ploy.

Dancing Robots - this can be easily performed with server-side scripting like PHP and is rarely easy to catch. In this situation people that attempt to view the robots.txt file receive a copy of the robots.txt file that does not include exclusion instructions for the search engines. However, when the search engines request the robots.txt file they receive the exclusion instructions. With this situation the links pages will never be linked and you'll never know why without expert assistance.

Meta Tags and Robots.txt Confusion - which instructions have the most weight? Don't know the answer? Shame. Search engines do. If they conflict, the page Meta tags are typically considered the rule to follow.

Link the Head - while these links do not count in the search engines and do not show up on the Web page, they do get counted by scripts or programs designed to verify the links exist. These programs only look for the URL within the source codes for the Web page.

Empty Anchors - this is a nasty trick, but can be an honest mistake. The links exist and are counted by the search engines, but unfortunately are neither visible nor clickable on the Web page. So, there are no traffic values from the link.

The goal of trading links is to trade them for equal value. Understanding the ways people will attempt to prevent passing a quality value from their Web page to your Web page can help you avoid these useless links. If your link partner pulls under- handed tricks the links they trade you are useless.

While you may never be an expert in knowing all the latest tricks, traps and tests, you can now become an expert in knowing the thirteen mentioned above. Ensuring your link partners are not following or using these tactics can help improve the quality of links you gain from other Web pages. By having quality links pointing to your Web page you will gain additional traffic through organic search engine results and visitors driven directly from your linking partners.

********************************
Lee Roberts, The Web Doctor®, is President/Founder of Rose Rock Design, Inc., a website design company and Founder of the Apple Pie Shopping Cart, an ecommerce shopping cart:
http://www.applepiecart.com
http://www.roserockdesign.com

Today's Motivational Reading

The Advantage of Goals
Irena Whitfield

I know quite a lot of people who consider to-do lists, goal-setting and similar activities a waste of time. It's no wonder that usually it is people who don't achieve much.

I'd say that there's a direct correlation between the two: if you really wish to achieve anything in your life, if you want to succeed in anything you do, you must know what it is you want.

As far as I can remember I always work for a vision. All my life I have a clear image of what I want. In fact, if you know what you want, your life is much easier and what more, even other people have much easier life with you. You don't change your opinions, you don't change your preferences AND

• You are able to recognize the thing you want at once.
• You have no problems with choices.
• You can lead a very lazy and comfortable life.

When I was about five, we were asked at school to draw a house of our dreams. I created a picture of a house I wished to have. The picture was completely forgotten as if it had never existed.

Then, about 30 years later I was looking for a house to buy. My assistant contacted agents and was searching for the house I wanted. One day we went to see a house one of the real-estate agents we contacted picked up for us. I didn't like it, and as we were leaving the town, we were passing a big garden with a house up in a hill, not properly seen among the trees. The second I knew it was the house I was looking for. My assistant promised to find out the owner and discuss the price. After some negotiations everything was agreed. I went to see it properly and finally bought it.

Yes, you guessed it: it was 'my house'. I realized it later and searched for the picture. After several weeks my Mum found it and it was exactly the house.

Now, tell me whether goals work or not... And, this is not the only story I can tell you.

********************************
If you feel you need help, hire me, I am here to help! The first thing I can do for you now, is to share my profits with you. Become one of my affiliates, start selling my products and earn 50% of my profits. And, if you wish to be different from the other affiliates, I can offer you a special, customized affiliate page PLUS a Bonus. Check it here and learn more by clicking here!

Today's Subscriber Article

5 Costly Mistakes That People Make In Starting A Home Based Business
Mal Keenan

Starting a home based business is an exhilarating period in one’s life. There are a lot of concepts that stirs in your mind and you will find yourself in a perpetual state of excitement to bring them to reality.

However, most people who are in the process of starting a home based business often find themselves rushing into things. This wouldn’t be a prudent recourse. Risks should first be evaluated and plans should be set. Otherwise, we’ll just end up marching blind towards the great divide, and that could be fatal.

Here are some of the common mistakes the people who are starting a home based business usually make:

* Overconfidence. Confidence is always good, as it would give you the proper mindset that you would need to succeed. However, too much of it becomes a plague, as it would make you fail to see the things that are needed to be considered in starting a home based business. This would play a big role in the other common mistakes.

* Believing that making money online doesn’t need any capital. If you’re one of the people who believe that starting a home based business can be done without any initial financial outlay, then perhaps it would be wise to reconsider your position. Depending on the area of your desired business, you would need some initial resources that you have to invest on. But regardless of the kind of home business you want to engage in, knowledge is a universal investment. Don’t be afraid to purchase things that are sure to help you out as this would help develop the resiliency of your endeavor.

* Failure to study the value of an area of investment. Some people just carelessly spend money on the first offer that comes their way. These offers promise them instant ROIs and underground tactics that would immediately catapult them to online prominence and fantastic wealth. Being lured by these claims without an appraisal of their real worth would just make you lose more than what you stand to earn. Ask seasoned Internet marketers, and most of them would say that they spent thousands of dollars when they were starting a home based business, because of their faith in some of these deceiving offers. So study their presentations first, and determine how exactly they would help your enterprise.

* Believing that a business plan is not needed. There are some people who laugh at the importance of a business plan in starting a home based business. This could be costly. We just can’t pursue a course of action hoping to be able to adjust along the way. There are bound to be certain situations that would be difficult to overcome without a solid program to rely on.

* Failure to study the market. The market is the single most important actor for the success of your venture. Studying the forces that shape your target market is critical in starting a home based business. You wouldn’t want to end up with a market that isn’t receptive to what you have to offer, right? You’ll just end up with a non-moving inventory and no sales to account for.

Starting a home based business require that you take careful steps. Remember, success can never be rushed. Nothing that good can come quite easily.

********************************
Mal Keenan can show you step-by step how to set up and run a successful online home business. Learn the 7 essential strategies to internet marketing success. To receive your free 7 day mini-course visit: http://www.malkeenan.com
For a home business you can believe in, check out:
http://www.malkeenan.com/pips.html

To listen to a new Top Show, click the picture.

To Get FREE Tips, Books, Software,
Subscribe below!

Read Our Weekly Column
http://www.thecassiopeia.com/Guide/DrEBiz.html

Subscribe to 'Pathway To Success' Published every other Sunday, our FREE Ezine helps Subscribers to succeed in their online home business providing them with hot marketing tips, top webmaster resources, articles, motivational reading, FREE Ads, Subscriber Corner, Web Lions Library, Bonuses and more. Check current visitor Issue. Click here!   Click for Free Sign Up! Don't forget to collect YOUR FREE Bonuses! Get Your Special Motivational and Big 2007 Contest Calendar, Insider Tips PLUS More Bonuses! Note: Please do NOT use any aol, hotmail, yahoo, zwallet addresses nor autoresponders. These will NOT subscribe you. Also, by subscribing to Pathway To Success Ezine you expressly request to receive our regular newsletter and agree to in-house and third party advertising contained therein. Privacy Guarantee: Your privacy is 100% guaranteed. We never share any personal data incl email addresses with any third party, we do not even store email addresses on third party servers. Privacy Policy HOT! Now you can get the full RSS Reader bringing you all the news from Pathway To Success Ezine Portal. Click the image on the right to download.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.
Warren Buffett

NEW! Install our new toolbar, get special business information fast and be informed the minute hot items are out, incl Articles in Subscriber Corner, new Pathway To Success Issues and much more. http://www.thecassiopeia.com/WebLions/theCassi1.html

Note: Download the above file, unzip and install. When you open a new browser window, the toolbar should be there. If not, please go to 'View', 'Toolbars' and you will see 'theCassiopeia's' - click on it and the toolbar will display.

Whenever there's a new item, an icon will blink. Click on it and it will take you straight to the information.

Important: you can have a toolbar of your own below. It's an amazing tool: easy to create, easy to use, easy to update, unobtrusive, bringing unbelievable results PLUS endless makreting and other possibilities limited only by your imagination. Definitely a tool of the future. I even created several for my own use containing the information I need and use regularly.
http://www.thecassiopeia.com/toolbar/

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

Get one of the Feature Ads in our Ezine:
http://www.thecassiopeia.com/WebmasterMall/EzineAdPrices.html

Administration

***************************************************** The articles published here may be reprinted or used freely as long as it is in its entirety incl the resource box of the author *****************************************************

If you want quality sticky content for your site, put the below piece of code to your page where you want the current Pathway To Success Issue to appear - copy and paste:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.thecassiopeia.com/content1.js"></script>

Note: check what it looks like Click here

Get my RSS feed to your site - copy and paste the code into your page where you want fresh content to appear:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=JavaScript SRC=http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/feed/rss2js.php?src=http://www.thecassiopeia.com/xml/thecassiopeiaweb.xml&chan=yes&
num=0&desc=yes&date=yes>
</script>

Note: check what it looks like Click here

For All Information For Free Syndicated Content for Your Site Click here

Testimonial Hi, Thanks for taking the time to answer my email. I've been reading your ezine for a long time. I've always thought of you as "Queen of the Net". Helping others whenever possible. Thanks for helping me with the information. Sincerely, Matt

Read what others say about Pathway To Success by clicking here!