GetAds, Blog

GetAds opened for business and blew the doors off the competition.

We discovered there is no such thing as two-seater snow sports car.

We now know the impact it on Lou’s body it takes to send him to the hospital.

Flight Suits – ROCK.

We figured out the in’s and out’s of AdTech.

George shared some insight to Colorado avalanche Goalie Peter Budaji.

We now know when people are poor, babies are not far behind.

We traveled all over the world.

We investigated the pro’s and con’s of being a movie star vs tech geek.

Daniel Dye was born.

We had a lot of fun taking pictures and writing witty comments of the DNC.

Well MSNBC, missed all these great events but this is what said about 2008.

updated 11:54 a.m. MT, Thurs., Jan. 1, 2009

At the start of 2008, George W. Bush was our President, Brett Favre was our quarterback, the Brewers hadn't seen the postseason in a generation and pit bulls had no major public connection to lipstick. Who would have thought of all the change that happened in 2008?

We knew it was a real possibility that a man of mixed race could end the year preparing to enter the White House.

But Brett Favre wearing green, without gold?

The 2007 AL Cy Young Award winner leading the Brewers to the playoffs?

The stock markets, and gas pumps, with lower totals on December 31st than they were on January 1st?

A self-proclaimed hockey mom being the most googled political figure in history?

The entire City of Milwaukee getting dumped with a foot of snow on both Ash Wednesday and Good Friday?

And America losing perhaps its most beloved political pundit?

Yes, all that happened this year.

A little Google Love…

Recently, a lot of people have been asking me for some tips on SEO and Google.  I am not quite sure why people assume I know the answers to these kinds of questions, but I sure can try to help out. Due to the lack of excitement, in the GetAds world and a shortage of injures, I decided to post some productive stuff.  I am sure any web savvy person could easily search all this info out; but isn’t nice to have it all in one convenient place.  Please remember anything on the internet is open the world, not only should we apply these tricks to better our sites but also to protect ourselves.

Few Basics

Crawler directives

The robots.txt file only contains the so called Crawler directives, telling search engines, identified by their User-agent:, where they are not allowed to go by using Disallow: and where they can (and should) go by using allow:, and by pointing them at a Sitemap:.

Indexer directives

Indexer directives are directives that are, even with the birth of the X-Robots-Tag, set on a per page or even per element basis. Up until July 2007, there were two: the microformat rel="nofollow", which means that that link should not pass authority / PageRank, and the Meta Robots tag.

With the Meta Robots tag, you can really prevent search engines from showing the pages you block in the search results. You can reach the same with the relatively new X-Robots-Tag HTTP header. If you don't know what an HTTP header is, I'd suggest reading the Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP>  page on it, but in short: look at it as the envelope around your content. This HTTP header is better than the meta robots tag for a couple of reasons, one of them is that you can send those headers for other documents too. So, let's get into some examples.

If you want to prevent search engines from showing files you've generated with PHP, add the following in the header file:

header(’X-Robots-Tag: noindex’, true);

This would not prevent search engines from following the links on those pages, if you want to do that, do the following:

header(’X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow’, true);

But doing it in PHP is probably not the easiest use for this kind of thing. I myself greatly prefer setting headers in Apache, when possible. Consider, for instance, preventing search engines from caching / showing a preview for all .doc files on your domain, you would only have to do the following:

<FilesMatch "\.doc$">

Header set X-Robots-Tag "index, noarchive, nosnippet"

</Files>

Or, if you'd want to do this for both .doc and .pdf files:

<FilesMatch "\.(doc|pdf)$">

Header set X-Robots-Tag "index, noarchive, nosnippet"

</Files>

Or another case, your robots.txt file itself is  <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=allinurl%3A%22%2Frobots.txt%22> showing up in the search results. Adding this to your Apache config or your .htaccess file would solve that:

<FilesMatch "robots\.txt">

Header set X-Robots-Tag "noindex"

</FilesMatch>

Why I was late to work…

 After I saw the movie, “Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift” I was determined to get a drifting car and have at it.  At this time I failed to remember I live in Colorado.  After a long debate between all the small 2 seaters on the market I found my dream car. This was awesome, until it snowed... So instead of driving my shiny sleek car with beautiful leather and the purr of a cat, I am taking cabs to work. Sports cars and bad weather should not be in the same sentence. What calms my frustrations is the dream of someday driving on the autobond. So if you watch a movie and see a Nos powered, speed demon machine remember they don’t call it the Rockies for nothing. Officially I changed the name of Colorado to Colderado and look forward to Spring. I did however find my new car (see picture above).

GetAds,  and a few friends decided to start on a tour of the east coast on our journey to AdTech NYC.  We found ourselves in New Canaan CT.  A quiet town in tucked away from mainstream society that will never be the same.  Dressed in traditional Top Gun flight suits. (It was Halloween). We sampled the local restaurants and did conclude, “Joe’s Pizza” wins for best Pizza on earth.  Lou’s mother was kind enough to have over for an amazing traditional Italian dinner, including Grappa. (You need to try it)  Unfortunately we had a really good time and our memories are a bit scarce so enjoy the pic,  and history of New Canaan.

 New Canaan –

In 1731, Connecticut's colonial legislature established Canaan Parish as a religious entity in northwestern Norwalk and northeastern Stamford. The right to form a Congregational church was granted to the few families scattered through the area. As inhabitants of Norwalk or Stamford, Canaan Parish settlers still had to vote, pay taxes, serve on juries, and file deeds in their home towns. Because Canaan Parish was not planned as a town, New Canaan, when incorporated in 1801, found itself without a central common, a main street or a town hall.

Until the Revolutionary War, New Canaan was primarily an agricultural community. After the war, New Canaan's major industry was shoe making. As New Canaan's shoe business gathered momentum early in the nineteenth century, instead of a central village, regional settlements of clustered houses, mill, and school developed into distinct district centers. Some of the districts were centered on Ponus Ridge, West Road, Oenoke Ridge, Smith Ridge, Talmadge Hill and Silvermine, a pattern which the village gradually outgrew.

With the 1868 advent of the railroad to New Canaan, many of New York City's wealthy residents discovered the quiet, peaceful area and built magnificent summer homes. Eventually, many of the summer visitors settled year-round, commuting to their jobs in New York City and creating the residential community that exists today.

NY AdTech is over, and as many of us are heading home and filing through the cards we collected and trying to remember each detail of every meeting I thought I would ask around about some of the lessons people learned from the show.  That wasn’t too much fun so I dug a little deeper and discovered there were some true life lessons to be found.  In true New York style, the top ten things not to do at New York AdTech…

10.    Don't try and show off with a lot of hot sauce, from the Gyro stand next to the Hilton

9.    $5.00 in one’s is not sufficient for a good time at a NYC Strip Club.

8.    Don’t avoid the smoking area (Top Networking Spot)

7.    Don't plan  meetings before 10am (Most likely will not happen)

6.    Don't try and win a drinking contest (Daniel will WIN)

5.  Don't  forget  to lock your bathroom door

4.    Don't lose your hotel key after 2am

3.    Don't forget to check the ID of the affiliate you promise to get into the 21+ Party

2.    If your order a 10 person limo, don't forget to specify 10 full size, regular adults

1.  Don't attempt to have fun without GetAds (Doesn't happen)

   If the Avs would only listen to George the first time. In last night’s match up against the flyers with Raycroft in goal the Avs pulled off a stunning 5-2 Victory.  Though the offer has been made no word yet if GetAds, will be able to buy Petr's contract and assign him the positions stated before.  We have not received word who will be the “Net Minder” in Saturday’s game against Dallas. While we expected George to be celebrating, he simply stated, “I told them so, they will call me when they need me.  Should be sooner than later.” It just goes to show there is no replacement for experience.   

I came across this article and just had to share, I guess there is always an upside.  As the savvy marketers we all our, we just need to roll with the punches and change with the times….

by Sandy Maple Oct 13th 2008 3:00PM

It is hard to find anything good to say about the economic crisis that has gripped not just the United States, but much of the world. People are losing their retirement savings, their jobs, their homes, their sense of security. Many of us have altered our normal spending habits and instead of going out to dinner or a movie, we stay home and find something else to do. Apparently in Britain, that 'something else' is sex. And according to some, this at-home recreation is having an impact on the sales maternity clothes, pregnancy tests, and sex toys (not necessarily in that order).

While many businesses are downsizing and wondering just how they will survive, those who specialize in sex-related merchandise are experiencing a boom. Pharmacies report a 20% increase in the sales of pregnancy tests and one chain selling maternity wear boasts of a 46% increase. As Miranda Levy, editor of Mother & Baby Magazine, points out: "What's cheaper and more fun than making babies?

Making babies with the help of sex toys, that's what! One online sex toy shop claims to have experienced a 27% increase in sales since the economy began melting down. "We are gobsmacked by the upturn in sales, while everyone else seems to be suffering. We've especially noticed the rise in sales of couples' toys, showing that people are buying for play with their partners," said Monique Carty, a spokesperson for the store.

I think it is great that couples are rekindling their romance in these times of trouble. But in about nine months, those who end up shopping in the maternity stores are going to find that staying home and having sex is a play now, pay later kind of fun. Ultimately, dinner and a movie would have been much cheaper.

Source

   If you haven’t been following the 2008 /2009 NHL you should, in the spirit of true dedication to the community George Avery, has called for Budaj to be released from the Av’s.  In George’s own words, “it is not that I don’t like the guy he just sucks at hockey.”  Budaj born in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia currently is signed to a one year contract for 700,000.  George is leading the effort for fundraising to buy out the Goalies contract from the Av’s and reassign Peter to dual positions here at GetAds.  His first responsibility will be to handle all Slovakiaian affiliates as he speaks the local dialect and secondary acting as the official, “Custodial Engineer” both positions unique in their own rights should truly embrace Peter’s talents and allow him an opportunity to grow with the company. 

On this week in history, so many memorable events, Paddington Bear was born.  Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier. Mata Hari is executed.  Al Capone is sentenced for Tax Evasion, Alaska Territory bought from Russia. Columbus Day, Canadian thanksgiving, and yes Caryn Stoll’s Birthday! All of us at GetAds, wanted to make sure it wasn’t a birthday she would forget any time soon.  We like to ask all our blog readers to personally contact Caryn and wish her a happy birthday as one of the fundamental members of the GetAds team, we couldn’t live with out her.

GetAds, had a little field trip the Home opener / Season opener for the Colorado Avalanche game last night.  It was a fun game and I am pretty sure everyone had a great time.  The Av’s were unable to pull out the victory in a 4-5 loss to the Boston Bruins.  As I am sure a few factors affected last night’s game like Budaj’s current record after one game of 20 shots on goal with 15 saves.  We will support him with the idea that is better to try and fail, then fail to try.  We would like also like to point out that Zdeno Chara of Boston standing at a mere 6 feet 9 inches tall (without skates) might of posed a problem.  We look forward to Av’s making quite the comeback in the upcoming games and you bet we will be there.

GetAds, will be at the Av's Home / Season opener tonight and we had a share a little picture of Vince with the world, he was so excited to go he went home to change,  though I expected a jacket I didn't expect this...

Chances are you have heard of the government bailouts and the stock market dropping faster than the hot offer of the week on all our respective email lists. As the resumes of top executives from major corporations get dusted off will online marketing start to feel the crunch and economic impact?  In most case’s online marketing can switch its direction rather quickly from “New House for Sale” to “Save Your House”, and there is no shortage of media collateral for any situation.  What can we learn from the best of the best?  I recently came across an interesting article in fortune called, “The Big Payback”.  I was amazed at first and then in disbelief at some of the business practices those now in trouble touted.  I wish I could ask a few questions to the CEO’s," 1. if it was a good idea to sell your most important divisions? 2. Why did you keep buying this and that and just rationalize the costs? 3. What were you thinking when you over-leveraged your credit so far?" As I read about AIG’s bailout of 85 Billion and the sections that referred to their 440k a year budget for an executive retreat and the five million dollar performance bonus for the CEO (performance EH!?!) which is to be covered by tax payers,  I could only snicker and be slightly jealous.  Well I might just be able to ask a few of my questions, as I am sure one or two pioneers of the worst economic crisis in US history might find their way to adTech or one of the upcoming shows.

I recently came across this web page, and it instantly got the wheels turning.  Often in our business we are in situations where we need to make decisions in a matter of minutes, while millions of people’s lives are not in question, millions of dollars could be.  A lot of times it can be to our benefit to leave emotions behind and think through situations…