Did you ever wonder how Google decides what sites are "spam" and should be removed from their index?

Google is now more of a human assisted algorithm than it ever has been before.

Google's "secret sauce" have always been known to be their integration of humans into the ranking process.

They continue to recruit reviewers both in the US as well as offshore, with some reports indicating Google now employing more than 10,000 active reviewers.

When you have 10,000 reviewers, it's only a matter of time until one of them starts talking...

So, without further ado, I present to you: Google's Spam Guide

Study it carefully and understand what guidelines you have to keep to avoid your site from getting labeled as spam.

Day 3 of Affiliate Summit Vegas was devoted to meeting with prospects and discussing several Joint Venture projects.

I had to leave around noon to San Diego, but we had 2 additional members of SoftwareProjects fly-in from Florida for a technology show later this week.

Tip: If you're going to have any meetings at Affiliate Summit, better plan those for day 1 or day 2. By day 3, most folks are exhausted and some fly back in the morning.

To be effective, the SoftwareProjects entourage split to groups and dedicated the day for one-on-one meetings with prospects and potential new partners.

Meetings Galore

Before you head out to any convention like Affiliate Summit, it is very important to have clear goals. Define exactly what it is that you are looking to accomplish.

Good goals are quantifiable ones that you can track as you go along.

For example:
* Meet and introduce myself to affiliate managers from the top 5 affiliate networks.

Our goals were -

(1) Meet with all recognized super affiliates (we prepared a list beforehand) and discuss more ways to work together.

(2) Meet with new potential partners (again we had a list of companies and prescheduled meetings).

(3) "Spy" on what our competition is up to.

Having clear goals helps you maintain focus.

Why did we pick these goals?

It's simple really.

As of this writing, 3 out of 5 attendees to Affiliate Summit use tools and services designed by SoftwareProjects. By this time next year, we'd like to be able to say 100% of Affiliate Summit attendees use our tools. To get there, we're targeting the super affiliates. The idea is to provide an excellent service and help these influencers generate a lot of money so that they communicate the benefits of using SoftwareProjects to their circle of influence.



While it was definitely great getting together with existing clients and meeting new people, the entire SoftwareProjects team was focused on our predefined goals.

By the end of day 3, more than 70% of the checklist was covered.

It was great to meet with super affiliates Amit Mehta, Felix Leshno, Vinny Lingham, Liron Rose, Miles Baker and several others who will remain nameless at this point.

We are excited and look forward to working together with this phenomenal group of professionals.

Also met with several companies that are likely going to form a strategic partnership with SoftwareProjects in the very near future.

Didn't get a chance to have a one-on-one with Zac Johnson, Jeremy Palmer, Paul Bourque, Joel Comm and Anik Singal - we'll hook up in Boston.

Affiliate Summit Sessions

The highlight of the day was undoubtly the "Super Affiliate Strategies that Work" Q&A session by Amit Mehta, Kris Jones, John Chow and Zac Johnson.



Amit Mehta fielded most questions from the audience and recommended a few great tools he uses every day -

* EfficientPPC, brain child of super affiliate Felix Leshno, is the best way to quickly generate tightly focused AdWords campaigns with a single keyword per adgroup.

* WinnerAlert, lets you automate the art of continually improving your ad creatives CTR and conversion rate.

* KeyCompete, lets you spy on your competition and find out what keywords they use.

Each panel member shared their personal story of how they found success online. Zac Johnson created MySpaceNow - a MySpace resources site with free content (that went viral), John Chow created The Tech Zone - a hardware comparison shopping site and Amit Mehta focused on a few profitable affiliate offers and built extensive content sites around those niches.

The one thing they all had in common was focusing on building sites that deliver true value to the visitor, then arbitraging the traffic using PPC, AdSense and direct ad placements.

Other good sessions this day included -

"Getting Editorial Coverage: The Inside Scoop"

Start small, get covered in your local newspaper and move up from there.
Introduce yourself to journalists, establish yourself as an expert in your field and offer free help.

"Social Media Strategies in Affiliate Marketing"

While Google is struggling to monetize on their social media inventory, others like Zac Johnson are making a fortune ($800k in 4 months). Provide true value and the viral effect will take care of the rest.

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My personal favorite session of the day was "Ask the Expert" where experts in various fields held open discussions in an informal environment. This was a wonderful opportunity for us to network.

Highlights from this session:

WordPress: Always upgrade to the latest version right away, to avoid your blog getting hacked.

PPC: MSN AdCenter traffic (and spend) fluctuates heavily, about 30% on a daily basis.

Global Affiliate Marketing: Think global. Less competition

Widget Marketing: You better be hiring a software development company to create a monetized FaceBook application. The window of opportunity is wide open.

In Summary

If you're into Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Social Media marketing, whether you're just starting out or trying to learn how super affiliates design systems and processes to break the $100,000/month barrier, you simply cannot afford not to attend Affiliate Summit.

Have clear goals, be sociable and brand yourself with a unique selling point (USP). It can be something as simple as "the evil blogger" (John Chow), "the social media expert" (Neil Patel), "the one-stop-shop" (Software Projects) or "the guy with the yellow shoes" (Rand Fishkin). As long as it helps you stand out above the noise.

The networking and contacts you'll make during Affiliate Summit are absolutely priceless.

Kudos to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward on putting together the best affiliate summit ever!

Yesterday, at the conclusion of Day 1, the SoftwareProjects team had a chance to attend the ShareASale party at the 34 floor of the Palms hotel.

Brian Littleton secured an amazing $20k/night suite for the event, complete with two heated pools, three Jacuzzis, open bar and an amazing view. The suite next door to us had a "Hugh Hefner" plaque on the door, so we were in good company.

The view from the pool that extended outside as a porch:



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Day 2 began with a keynote by Jason Calacanis (founder of Mahalo) where Jason used his old controversial linkbait tricks that put him on the map two years ago. Back then, Jason said "SEO is BullShit" in front of an audience of SEO professionals. Today, Jason started his keynote saying "Affiliate Marketing is BullShit". Jason then proceeded to explain how for the most part, Affiliate Marketing is about spamming the web and how his brainchild - Mahalo offers a clean spam-free web search engine.

Love him or hate him, you can't ignore him. Jason proves the controversial linkbait technique still works as his speech is now the most blogged about session of Affiliate Summit West.

Day 2 was the first day of the exhibitor hall and we had a chance to meet and interact with dozens of new vendors -

Marin Software and MediaBoost, both offer an entry level PPC bid management system, similar to SoftwareProjects own PPC Console. Marin Software launched a couple of months ago after developing their product for two years. MediaBoost is an Israeli company that promises a hands free one-click AdWords optimizer. We'll definitely be monitoring these two companies.

Clicks2Customers, brain child of super affiliate Vinny Lingham, did not present their PPC bid management system (it's not for sale), but spending some quality time with Ariel from C2C and learning more about their approach, Clicks2Customers definitely offers the most robust solution of the three. That's probably why C2C is the only affiliate approved to do direct-linking by Zappos.

Tracking202 offers a free PPC ROI tracker that allows you to track ROI across your affiliate campaigns. At this point, Tracking202 requires a manual upload of data to work. Then again, you can't beat free.

AffSpy, endorsed by Paul from UberAffiliate, will help you find the network that offers the highest commission payout for any offer you are currently promoting. This tool is also 100% free and they make their money from network referrals.

Virtumundo and Options Media offer an Email Marketing solution, similar to SoftwareProjects own Email Marketing system. Unlike SoftwareProjects, the two companies offer a bare bones Email Delivery platform, where you have to design creatives, manage campaigns and optimize ROI on your own with no hands-on management. On the front-end, each system offered some nice eye candies but no built-in ROI and CPA tracking.

DirectTrack is the most popular Affiliate Tracking system, widely deployed by hundreds of merchants worldwide. While DirectTrack is not cheap, its large install base is a testament to how robust DirectTrack really is. SoftwareProjects Affiliate Management system offers comparable features at a lower price tag and a greater level of customization.

What did I learn?

A lot of agencies brand themselves as "full service Internet Marketing", but very few (if any) can offer holistic in house PPC, Email Marketing, Call centers, Software development, Copy writing, Analytics, Affiliate Management systems and Payment centers like SoftwareProjects does.

3 out of 5 attendees to Affiliate Summit use tools and services by SoftwareProjects. This being my first Affiliate Summit, it was exciting to meet with clients and understand the integral role our one-stop-shop plays in their businesses.

Everyone wants to be an Affiliate Network

Our friends from PepperJam, featured a double sized booth, promoting both the new PepperJam Network as well as SEM services. In true PepperJam style, an army of 8 PepperJammers attended the show, manning the booth, interacting with partners like SoftwareProjects and live-blogging sessions.

The exhibitor hall was flooded with new Affiliate Marketing networks. It seems like just about any company wants to be a network these days.

Many full service Internet Marketing agencies are realizing the financial potential of becoming a network (using other people's money & time to increase bottom line profits). I was surprised to see some of our competitors take the plunge, shifting their business focus from Search Engine Marketing to an affiliate network. All in all there must have been at least 50 new affiliate networks in attendance.

While SoftwareProjects is not an Affiliate Marketing network and we don't plan on ever becoming one, we do feature a pay-by-performance Lead Generation service. Emphasys, Microsoft, ReMAX, HerbaLife and Visa, are some of the companies who have been utilizing our lead generation service for the past two years.

Surprisingly, the big networks - LinkShare & ClickBank did not attend and Commission Junction had a small booth.

Affiliate Summit Sessions

To be perfectly honest, I personally found most sessions filled with too much self-promotion and too little quality information you can take to the bank.

That being said, here are some tips and takeouts from my favorite sessions -

"Video Innovation in Affiliate Marketing":

Video is here to stay. Use it to boost your SEO rankings, increase readership and enhance your brand recognition.

(Video) quality is not important. Produce engaging content your target audience cares about. No one cares about bad lighting, poor audio or grammar mistakes.

"Email is Media":

Done right, Email Marketing is still the most cost effective way to generate an instant flow of quality leads to your website or offer page.

Done wrong, Email Marketing can take your site down.

"Managing your Affiliate Manager":

Affiliate Marketing is all about relationships. Build and maintain a strong relationship with your affiliate manager.

If you're speaking to (or chatting with) your affiliate manager twice a week, you're well on your way to becoming a super affiliate.

Moniker - Domain Auction

Our Florida friends from Moniker hosted a live domain auction open to everyone. Monte Cahn, founder and CEO of Moniker shared with us that Moniker hosts 50 domain auctions every year, attending most (if not all) technology related shows.

Affiliate Marketers must be frugal as total gross sales barely hit $500,000, compared to 7 figure earnings at InterNext (a.k.a "the porn show") where single domains were selling at high 6 digits like cup cakes.

Affiliate Bash - "the" party of Affiliate Summit West

Affiliate Bash, a public open-to-all party at the Venetian Tao exclusive restaurant was definitely the most extravagant party of Affiliate Summit West.

Sponsored by our partners from PepperJam, RocketProfit, Forge and AMWSO, AffiliateBash featured a 15 minute show by the Blue Man group, free food and an open bar.

The atmosphere was quiet enough to network and it was fun granting some of our clients with VIP tickets to watch the entire show from the second floor.

Affiliate Summit Vegas is in full-swing!

Day 1 has been action-packed so far, with lots of familiar faces like Joel Comm, Kris Jones & the PJ team, Felix Leshno, Amit Mehta, Zac Johnson as well as many newcomers.



We enjoyed the Meet-and-Greet event, where about 50 vendors presented their latest & greatest.

Our favorites -

Joel Comm unveiled his new venture - TextCastLive, "the SMS-world AWeber" according to Joel. The company offers a platform to deliver double opt-in mass SMS text messages to your users. Although the technology is currently at version 1.0, it does seem very promising and definitely a tool we will experiment with for our client campaigns.

Kris Jones along with a small PepperJam army, presented the new PepperjamNetwork. Everyone are talking about how great the PepperjamNetwork is. A sexy interface, exclusive deals, transparency and unparalleled support only a full service agency of super affiliates can offer.

MagazineDiscountCenter, an up and coming magazine subscription company, aggressively continued building their army of affiliates. SoftwareProjects has a lot of experience in the magazine subscription industry and what we love about MagazineDiscountCenter is their honest approach and focus on fulfillment.

AffSpy armed with 4 booth babes, did a great job showcasing their system that lets you monitor offer payout across all affiliate networks. AffSpy is 100% free -- definitely a must have weapon to add to your arsenal. Paul couldn't make it today and should be joining us tomorrow.

Felix Leshno presented EfficientPPC, the new "better than SpeedPPC" tool everyone are raving about. EfficientPPC lets you create PPC campaigns with hundreds of thousands of keywords in minutes, not days. EfficientPPC was featured on SuperAffiliateMindset, ShoeMoney and a few other popular blogs. Felix was happy to report several thousands of registered users in only a few weeks since the launch.

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We didn't get a chance to meet with MediaWhiz, Anik Singal, Zac Johnson, Paul Bourque, Vinny Lingham and MediaBoost. That'll have to wait for tomorrow.

Later tonight is the ShareASale party. Should be a great one

Update: See coverage of Affiliate Summit Vegas day 2 and day 3

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