The first thing I'd like to mention about this is that this is a good technique to try to find websites you can buy cheaply that have some established incoming links. These sites also have an advantage of being up and running continuously which gives you a “longevity” boost in most search engines.

Finding a site that has been abandoned and purchasing it is not a guaranteed deal. You have to first locate one and then you must locate the owner and land a deal. It's somewhat like searching through flea markets to find a certain antique lamp you like. You might do quite a bit of searching to locate just the right lamp and then you still have to negotiate a deal on the purchase of the lamp.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there might be something inherently wrong with the abandoned site you've located. Maybe the old owner did some nasty search engine tricks and got caught. The tricks weren't bad enough to get the site banned altogether or you wouldn't have found it in the first place, but the tricks were bad enough that the search engine is making sure that site doesn't get a high ranking. The best way to determine that is to simply talk to the owner and get a feel for why they abandoned the site.

So how do you find the abandoned sites using the copyright notice method?

Almost all sites have copyright notices usually located at the bottom. If you search for a site that has an old copyright, it could mean two things. 1.)You found a possible abandoned site or 2.)the owner of the site has simply been lax in keeping up with the copyright notice. (I've been guilty of that myself)

To search for abandoned sites type in the search box at Google or whatever search engine you are using the following:

“copyright 2000” + [your keyword]

You can also copy the “©” symbol from the bottom of a website and try it this way:

“copyright © 2000” + [your keyword]

Don't forget to put quotation marks around the “copyright © 2000” phrase and to try different years.

Here's an example

I searched for

After sifting through many “2000-2008” copyrights I came across this site:

https://southbark.com/ The site looks updated to me, so it might be like number 2 above. The owner just never got around to changing the copyright. A simple call to the owner would tell me if that was true or not.

Here's a blog that the last posting was October of 2005 http://dogtrainingsite.blogspot.com/

https://www.silver-dog.com/ Dumb music playing

http://www.threedevilskennel.com/ Last updated 2000

http://www.friendlyfido.com/ Last updated 2005

For this article, I limited myself to the first 100 sites that came up on Google under the keyword phrase “dog training”. As I went through the later pages I found less and less professional looking sites many of which looked homemade. This can be a bonanza for you because homemade looking sites are more likely to have been started on a whim with no budget and then abandoned. So,I would keep looking as long as you can stand it.

After you locate your hot list, you could do a link popularity test at http://www.LinkPopularity.com to see if the site has any number of incoming links. Remember that's part of the reason to try to buy the site in the first place. . . When you buy the site you also buy the incoming links.

Start contacting the site owners either through contact information on the site or by doing a “who is” looking at some place like https://whois.domaintools.com/

Well, that's the method. Yes, I know it's time consuming and tedious, but you could uncover some real gems that you can pick up for a song.

Is Internet Marketing the right career choice for you?

Sending out permission based* emails has been the most profitable thing I have ever done in 30 years of business. One way to maximize the response from any emails you send is to personalize them. In email marketing this is known as “mail merge.”

Mail merges can get a much higher response from people because it appears personalized when it is received in the email box of the recipient. Although you can overdo this, in most cases you will get more people to open and respond to your email when using this technique.

A mail merged email message may look something like this before you send it out.

Subject: <$firstname$>, we have a special on Marketing CDs

Body of message:

Dear <$firstname$>,

Thanks so much for purchasing the <$product$>, on <$date$>,. By now you are certainly putting all the techniques you learned into action.

(Insert good copywriting paragraphs here . . . )

<$firstname$>, don't you think it's about time to make the next move and get the knowledge you need to increase your revenues on the Internet.

If so, order easily from our secure shopping cart . . . . .

In the above example <$firstname$>, <$product$>, and <$date$>, are placeholder fields.. When you send out a mail merge the person's name is inserted where the <$firstname$> field is. The product they purchased is inserted where the <$product$> field is and so on. You can make any number of custom fields and insert the actual data in each email that goes out.

You actually have two files that are “merged” as each email is delivered. One file is called the data file. This is where all the real information about your email recipients is housed.

The other file is the message file (like the sample above). This is the structure of the message you wish to send. It contains the placeholders <$fields$>that will be replaced by the real information from the data file.

The downside is that some people put in goofy or fake names or no name at all which makes their email look funny when they receive it because information will be missing from the data file. Some programs can correct for this.

Make it really personal Once in awhile I have a little trouble with someone who bought something and listed his/her name as R. Wilson or something like that. If you mail merge this person the message would read “Dear R.” which sounds and looks stupid. When we run across a record like this we do everything possible to find out the real first name.

One way to make an educated guess of their name is to look at their email address. It might say Rob@123.com . In that case we change the database to say Rob Wilson instead of R. Wilson.

In some cases we visit 123.com and see if they own the site. Their real name is usually listed.

Another thing we'll do is call the customer to make sure their order is OK and in the course of conversation make sure we get the first name.

One more tip. The database may say the customer's name is William Harrison because William used his legal name on the order form to make sure his credit card authorized properly. If we see a formal name like William we make every effort to determine if William is actually “Bill.” It doesn't sound very personal to get an email marked “Dear William” if William goes by Bill. Mail merging to Dear William could actually be counterproductive because Bill will know immediately that you are not very familiar with him and he may delete the email as soon as he sees the name William in the Subject Line of the email or the Dear William inside the email.

Mail merge can really increase the amount of money you make from your existing database.

* Permission based means that people have asked to receive my emails

IMTC teaches the latest techniques in proper and effective email marketing.