Recently, Kenshoo has also exapanded its European operations by establishing Kenshoo UK. Kenshoo’s London based subsidiary, managed by Mike Chowney, the former European CEO of NeoSearch @ Ogilvy would be in charge of Kenshoo’s European client base.

Last April, Arts Alliance, a European based VC has invested in Kenshoo. Arts Allliance has joined US VC Firm Sequoia who has previously invested in the company.

This previously happened around April 1st, April 15th and May 1st of this year.

I come to a conclusion that twice monthly algo changes (aka “Google Slaps” ) can be considered as the norm now.

Without actually touching my MSN campain, CTR and traffic volume has tripled during those dates (March 23rd being the best day), and overall traffic quality has doubled (measured in terms of clicks/conversions) – a compounding effect of 6x on conversions. I wish I could hold to this traffic forever!

However, the extra traffic stopped on March 24 and traffic is back to normal ever since. Again, without me actually touching the campaign at all. It seems that the extra traffic came from the MSN network membership zones rather than msn.com or live.com searches.

There are rumours that overall MSN traffic has been on an increase for some time now, however this does not explain such surges.

I think this might have to do with the MSN Adcenter team testing various components and ads over the entire MSN network. Kudos for the MSN team! Keep doing some more tests, and give us some more of this sweeeeeet traffic!

the real bottleneck is volume – and the question remaining is – can such result be linearly extrapolated 100X

Will keep you updated.

More on this – including a free eBook – on Caroline MiddleBrook’s Making niche sites with WordPress

Google Adwords – The Ultimate Guide

From a marketing perspective, there is plenty to take note of on Digital Point. The board covers all of the major topics that you’d be interested in, from search engine optimization to link development, from affiliate marketing to pay-per-click advertising. It’s all here.

The members that contribute to the discussions are extremely active, although as is always the case with a board of this size, it can take weeks or months before you begin to feel like part of the community. The older members are welcoming to new registrants and if you have a question or a concern, Digital Point is friendly enough to address it accordingly.

One of the centrepieces of the board is unquestionably the “Buy, Sell, Trade” forum. With up to half the members browsing this area of the site at any given time, it immediately becomes clear that Digital Point is much more than a simple advice-based forum.

Sure, if you have a technical issue, the knowledgeable members will more than likely have a solution. But it’s the ability to sell links, trade services and network with the developing community that makes Digital Point such a diverse home for webmasters around the world.

Indeed, browsing Digital Point will give you a fairly good idea of your own progress in an ongoing web project. A little research will uncover several members operating similar web businesses, and you can use their own experiences as a reference for your own.

Many people flock to the link exchange forum as a means to building their link popularity. It should be noted that all payments are handled off-site – PayPal will make life much easier for you – but Digital Point does employ a reputation and auction system.

Most of the control is left down to the members. This is perfectly fine if you’re outsourcing small projects, but think twice before accepting a forum bidder for several months’ worth of work! Digital Point is built on trust and while most members uphold the values honourably, there are always a few bad apples in the basket.

The board is laid out cleanly with what can only be described as a no-thrills layout. It isn’t the greatest design, but it doesn’t have to be. This is a website where functionality and content are the main selling points. And by that judgment, Digital Point excels as one of the best resources on the Internet.

Warrior Forum is run off Snit2 software, a rare breakaway from the usual vBulletin code which most webmasters choose to go with. The forum is laid out in a clean red and black skin. It’s by no means spectacular, and the theme seems to clash with the identity of the site.

Let’s face it though. If making money is at the top of your agenda, a slightly off-key forum layout isn’t going to deter you. The content comes first, and it’s here that Warrior delivers plenty.

In contrast to the more vibrant communities like Digital Point, Warrior.com encourages its users to contribute static content in the form of articles and reviews. You’ll find that the main entry pages are obtained from these archives of how-to guides and useful advice. So in one way you could argue that Warrior sits above its competitors, certainly in terms of readily available information.

The 50,000 members – of which around 50% are active – are mostly friendly and affable. You might have to wait longer to get a response in the Warrior community, but the percentage of users who have active experience in what they’re talking about is noticeably higher. There are people using the boards who genuinely do make a large slice of profit, and this is naturally a great selling point to have on any money making forum.

You will find a healthy level of discussion in the Adsense and SEO forum, as you’d probably expect when glancing over the e-marketing spectrum. There is plenty of advice for optimizing your web business, and as we’ve already said, the members are highly knowledgeable of their profession. You won’t find much bad advice, and when you do, the more experienced members will step in with informative re-evaluations.

Unfortunately the site isn’t as independent as it perhaps could be. The page is lined with what looks like forum links, but when clicking on them, you’ll be taken to third party websites under a barrage of affiliate talk. It’s clear that the owners of Warrior Forum are looking to make a fast buck by drawing from the traffic that their board brings, and you could argue that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But as a browsing experience for a new member, the affiliate links do somewhat detract from your first impression of the site. It makes it hard to determine whether there is genuine good advice on offer, of if you’re there as bait to the affiliates.

It would be unfair to write off The Warrior Forum as a collection of other people’s sites. You will find a lot of good advice on Internet marketing and there are some genuinely innovative concepts described. In short, there’s money to be made.

But for all of the rich content, this is a community which would rank much higher if it wasn’t convoluted with third party deals and blatant advertising.

Choosing to focus completely on the subject of marketing, EWealth doesn’t bother scratching around the edges. Many forums strive to cover a bit of everything, and in the process, they lose half of the appeal that they’re trying to reach out to their audience with in the first place

It’s refreshing to see a marketing board where you know that the members are there for the same reason. And what might that reason be, you ask?

Well, EWealth covers anything and everything you could possibly need to know about affiliate marketing. All the major commission networks are covered. We have forums for ClickBank, Commission Junction, Clickbooth, Linkshare, NetTraction and oneNetwordDirect to name just a few.

You’ll find plenty of communities housing the usual Clickbank and Commission Junction chat, but it’s rare to find a line-up as comprehensive as this. The downside is that many of the smaller affiliate forums have sparse few posts and the topics are fairly few and far between. It’s never a good idea to pack a board with lots of less active forums, and EWealth would undoubtedly benefit from a more compact category listing.

If you can get over this, you’ll find that the community members are friendly and eager to find an answer to your questions. Responses, as you’d expect, are not quite as quick as the larger boards, but they’re certainly more detailed and there is a core of regular experts who can be counted on.

Despite being keen to cover all areas of the affiliation market, EWealth – one way or another – has a community which is considerably lop-sided. Most of the discussion revolves around the Clickbank forum, with up to ten times as many posts in this area as there are in some of the other affiliate schemes. Now admittedly, Clickbank is a popular service and widely used around the world. But Commission Junction is arguably just as influential, while it languishes in almost obscurity below the buzzing Clickbank area on EWealth’s main page.

If you’re priding yourself on offering the most rounded meeting point for affiliate marketing experts, it’s probably not a good thing to have such a heavy weight on one part of the market. That said, EWealth does offer fantastic coverage of the Clickbank service. So if that’s your thing, you really should be marking this down as a site to visit.

The forum offers a fairly popular “Buy, Trade, Sell” area, in keeping with the tradition of webmaster boards these days. You’ll be able to bid on domains, sell your links and get in the thick of the action. The smaller scale of the site increases the likelihood of snapping up a bargain, but it also gives you less opportunity if you’re the one doing the selling or promoting.

All in all, EWealth hosts a tidy little community which will appeal to affiliate marketers who don’t want to get lost in the swarm of members on larger sites. There is a large precedence on Clickbank, which can be slightly misleading for those new to the affiliation game. But if you’re experienced in the field and simply want a friendly forum to share your ideas with, this could be the place to do so.