There's been a definite leap in sales in the last four days across my toy and gift sites, so I think it looks like Christmas is here. No real difference in overall traffic, but clickthroughs and conversion rates are both higher - probably between two and three times higher than the previous week.

I really got the sense that Christmas was here when I went to Bentalls last weekend. There was only a token nod to Halloween with a few scary displays, but there was no mistaking that their focus was all about Christmas.

Last year my Toy site lost its decent SERPs just before the Christmas rush, but this year I have a better site, a better domain and I'm hoping to have a very good festive period. I kind of tied my flag to the Toys R Us mast in terms of datafeed and don't want to make any drastic changes now, but it's a shame because their commission is kind of low compared to others - although it has to be said the conversion rate seems good, for me at least.

October generally was a bit flat compared to last couple of months. The changes to MSN's rankings gave me a bigger hit than I first thought and Adsense was down about $600. I also had a mini-disappointment when I saw my Amazon stats today. The overall number was ok, but I had exactly one order short of moving up am additional tier for the month, which is annoying. Actually the order numbers were in excess of the tier, but because not all of them had been despatched I lost out on an extra 0.5% for the month.

That said, October was decent enough and I'm now looking forward to an excellent Christmas period.

Labels: adsense, christmas, earnings, msn, toys, update

So I was checking a few SERPs earlier on MSN Search and noticed they seem to have made big changes, to the appearance of the site and also to the results.

Firstly, it looks different. The search results page seems to have been streamlined with more white and less fuss - I think (it's hard to recall the previous layout from memory).

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly for me, I seem to have been wiped out. Almost total carnage for my sites in the MSN search results. Apart from a few exceptions, many of my sites have lost their page one positions.

But I suppose the funny thing is, I'm not entirely sure when this change happened to MSN, although I check it fairly often so I think it must have been in the last day or two, but despite the whacking I've taken, the impact on my traffic and income has been negligible. That serves to remind me how irrelevant MSN Search is, and how unimportant the changes they make to their pathetic little search engine are (let me know if I'm sounding bitter here).

But seriously, I did test a few keywords to see how good MSN's results are. I searched for toys and was shocked to see a sex toys site at #3, above Toys R Us at #4. I guess there'll always be quirks and anomalies, but any search engine which allows itself to display a sex toys site so highly on a child centric search term like "toys" deserves not to be taken seriously.

Anyway - how the MSN shakeup effect your rankings, and did you notice anyway?

Labels: msn, search engines

MSN's search engine has always been a friend of mine. Whilst Google was a tough nut to crack, MSN was easier to optimise for I found. The traffic was lower than an equivalent position in Google, but it was enough to make it a worthwhile strategy.

So I loved MSN and accepted that Google wasn't being kind to me. But so far in 2007, things have changed around in dramatic fashion.

I noticed a few months ago that I had lost some good positions on MSN for sites I had about bikes and toys, which was particularly disappointing with Xmas approaching. I've looked into a bit further and found that at least 3 of my sites have now vanished from the MSN index altogether. I'll follow their advice for getting sites reincluded, but it seems my luck with MSN came to an abrupt halt.

But as one door closes, another one opens. I noticed the other day that one of my sites was now #1 for a generic technology search term I had been chasing for quite a while. I just noticed today that another site of mine has managed exactly the same thing and is now also enjoying top status in the UK results for an excellent search term. It actually feels great to have seen these sites gradually move up the rankings to where they are rather than have some overnight success which might have felt more precarious.

I always knew me and Google were destined for a beautiful friendship - it just took the big G a bit longer to realise than I had hoped!

I actually have a theory that once you get to the top spot, it's easier to stay there too, for this reason: Have you ever had to quickly compile a list of links related to a subject? It might be a subject you don't know much about so you may not have any knowledge of specific sites to recommend. And being in a hurry and maybe a tad lazy, you just search for that subject and figure that the top sites must be there for a reason and just use them for your links. So I'm thinking that you can expect new incoming links just by virtue of already being #1, and those new incoming links could help cement your position there.

Labels: affiliate marketing, google, msn, search engines, seo, serps